Ranch Families Gather To Hear
Stories From Some Of Their Own

MIDLAND – The Haley Memorial Library and History Center recently hosted its annual Fall Gathering Ranch Storytelling event. It is one of the library’s annual fundraisers, but beyond that, the event is about documenting and preserving history.

The late J. Evetts Haley saw the need and had the desire to develop some kind of collection of old range stories for posterity. When he died, his library contained about 600 interviews he had conducted over a 60-year period. Today the library houses more than 25,000 volumes of books, manuscripts and other printed material documenting western history. The collections and programs of the library and the history center concentrate on the common threads between the cowboy and the range cattle industry.

The fall gathering is one such program. Two panels of speakers are assembled for the event. One panel is usually made up of historians, researchers and writers of western history, fiction and folklore. A second panel is the ranch storytelling panel. These panelists share some of their own personal stories or pass on stories that were told to them over the years.

Museum director Pat McDaniel says the fall gathering started in the museum’s backyard with eight-foot tables and about 40 people sitting on rocks and railroad ties. It has grown considerably since.

Western author Elmer Kelton has been on the panel numerous times. Kelton worked for 40-plus years as an ag reporter. Most of the stories he shared with the panel came from actual experiences he had during his reporting days.

"One thing I learned about ranching," Kelton told the crowd, "was that it’s not enough to raise them. You have to sell them, too, and there are some pretty good salesmen in the cattle and sheep business."

He shared a story he heard from the late Ray Willoughby, a well-known sheepman in the San Angelo area.

"There was an elderly rancher up in the San Angelo country whose health was failing and he was a little bit afraid that his son wasn’t quite ready to take over.

"He decided to give his son some advice. He told his son, ‘I want you to watch Nub Pulliam. When Nub Pulliam sells cattle, you sell cattle. When Nub Pulliam buys cattle, you buy cattle, but whatever you do, don’t you ever buy from or sell to Nub Pulliam.’"

O.H. McAllister, a registered Hereford breeder from Big Spring, was a good salesman, Kelton said. Every year McAllister would take a truckload of bulls to the Fort Worth stockshow. He sold part of them at auction and part of them private treaty.

One particular year McAllister still had three bulls left on the last day of the show. He sure didn’t want to take those bulls home, but it looked like he might have to, when along comes a farmer showing a little interest.

"Mr. Mac gives the pitch, describes the bulls and their bloodlines and everything. The farmer asked what he wanted for the bulls. Mr. Mac told him $1000. The farmer told him that was way over his head and he turned around and started to walk off.

"Mr. Mac caught up with him and asked how much he would be willing to pay. The farmer said he never paid more than $300 a head. Mr. Mac said, ‘Nobody can tell within $700 what a bull is worth. You can have them.’"

Walton Kothmann of Menard, Kelton told listeners, was one of the best salesmen he ever knew. Kothmann handled mostly sheep.

"Walton thrived on the trade. It didn’t make that much difference to him whether he made money or not, he just lived for the trade.

"I walked into his office one day and he was on the phone to a Midwestern lamb feeder. He said, ‘I sure hope you can use some lambs because I have two loads of blackface crosses that weigh about 70 pounds. They’re as good as you’ll ever see. I sure hope you can use them, because they’re on the way to you. I shipped them this morning.’"

Kelton said his father never really had any hobbies. The closest he came to a hobby was his love for trading horses.

"My dad’s idea of a good horse trade was to buy a young horse at the auction for $200, take him home, feed him up, gentle him some, doctor him if he needed doctoring, keep him maybe three months and take him back to the sale and sell him for maybe $225. He figured he had $25 clear profit. A horse trader couldn’t afford to figure his real expenses or he couldn’t stay in business," Kelton said.

He told another story about a great horse trader who lived in Midland.

"If you could hang with Big Boy Whatley, you were in the big leagues," Kelton commented. "Dad always loved to trade with him, and he kept hoping that someday he might even beat him. Never did.

"One time Big Boy brought a young horse out to try to sell to my dad. He had a big story about the horse. He told my dad that the horse was as gentle as a dog. He said he would rein with one finger, watches the cow, even women folk could ride him. Dad asked, ‘Does he pitch?’ Big Boy says, ‘Never pitched a day in his life.’

"Well, Happy Smith from Odessa happened to be there, so he decided to try this horse out. We’ve had space shuttles that didn’t go that high.

"Dad says, ‘Big Boy, you told me that horse wouldn’t pitch and you knew he would.’

"Big boy says, ‘That’s how I sell horses.’"

Kelton told a story about one of the many commission men he got to know during his reporting days.

"Homer Hobarty was a big, tall, lanky kind of fella, sometimes kind of excitable.

"One day he was out at Mid-West Feedyards trying to sell a load of ewes over the telephone. He really had a story on those ewes.

"He described them as straight four year-olds, the best ivory in their mouth that you ever saw, the best sheep that ever walked. Homer got so excited describing those sheep that he laid the phone down and motioned with his hands, saying, ‘They’ve got wool on them that long.’"

Al DuMain, a trader from Las Vegas, Nevada, spent about six months a year in Angelo buying sheep.

Kelton described a trade that took place with a rancher out West. DuMain was to take delivery on those lambs at Fort Stockton.

"Somehow, on delivery day things got real sour. The trade went bad and they had a bad falling out.

"DuMain said, ‘I wish that old Springhurst Hotel at Fort Stockton had 1000 rooms and John Smith was dead in every one of them.’"

O.K. Harkey and Otho Drake were two commission men who officed just off the lobby in San Angelo’s old Cactus Hotel. Kelton spent a lot of time there gathering information to put in the paper.

"O.K. loved to see his name in the paper," Kelton told listeners. "He figured it was good publicity, so if he wasn’t sworn to secrecy he would tell me about his trades and I would publish them in the Windmill column.

"One day I walked in there and he introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. So and So. I had a nice visit with the rancher. We talked about the conditions, his grass, etc. I walked out with this guy and he said, ‘Son, everything I told you was right and you’re welcome to print any of it, but would you please leave out the Mrs.?’"

Rich Anderson has been on the Muleshoe Ranch in Borden County since 1952. His son, John, is the fourth generation manager of that ranch. Rich’s wife, Barbara Clayton Anderson, and her sister bought the ranch from Barbara’s father Jerry Clayton, who bought the Muleshoe in 1913 from other family members.

Anderson was born in Midland in 1929.

"I’ve been depressed about it ever since," he joked.

Anderson’s mother was teaching school at Sierra Blanca when she met the young man who later became her husband. Unfortunately, Rich never knew his father. He died when Rich was only two years old.

Rich and his mother moved to Lovington, New Mexico, to live with his mother’s parents.

"I had a lot of bosses when I was young," Rich commented. "I was the low man on the totem pole, but I had ways of getting even."
One of those other bosses was his uncle, Giles Lee. Giles was only five or six years older than Anderson, who didn’t much like being bossed by him.

"Giles was really supposed to be about an inch taller than he is," Anderson said. "One time we were out playing ball and the ball fell down in a hole and Giles climbed in after it. I figured it would be a good time to get even with him, so I picked up a rock that just about fit on top of the hole. I dropped the rock on top of him and ran like hell.’

"I was always in trouble," he continued. "One time I locked myself in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out, so Giles decided he’d come in after me through the window. I figured I’d just stop this, so I picked up a bottle and let him have it. So Giles is really lucky to be here today."

Giles had a Model A and one day he was fiddling with the battery.

"He told me not to pull that lever. Well, I watched, and as soon as I saw that Giles was well connected I pulled that lever. That’s the reason he’s got white hair today."

Anderson told a story on his father-in-law.

"Jerry was raised on a horse, and one time he rode his stick horse to school. He came home crying and his mother asked him what was wrong. He told his mother that someone had stolen his stick horse and he had to walk all the way home."

Anderson married Barbara Clayton in 1951. He said he had every intention of going to law school but he never made it there. Instead, he and his bride moved to the ranch. Anderson just assumed that his new bride knew how to cook, but he quickly learned otherwise.

"She knew how to cook fudge, but that fudge gets a little rich after awhile," Anderson told listeners.

Her mother taught her how to cook spaghetti and beans.

"I never got so tired of spaghetti in all my life."

One morning his bride was doing her best to cook breakfast. Anderson got impatient and told her to get out, that he would fix breakfast.

"She stomped out and really hasn’t been back since."

"One time we had been working cattle really hard and I decided that I was tired of cooking breakfast, so I told Barbara to cook. She shot out of bed, and I thought then that was strange because she never shoots out of bed. Then it dawned on me that it was Mother’s Day. So I gathered all four children up and put them in front of me to protect me. That really was the last time she cooked breakfast."

The couple moved from Lovington to Muleshoe just as a drouth was starting to take hold of the country.

"I thought I’d moved to hell," Anderson said. "At Lovington it would at least cool off at night. It never cools off in Borden County. We were fighting screwworms day and night, riding all the time. We had about 45 head of geldings, but we kept them ridden down. We had some awfully good horses."

George Clayton, Jerry’s nephew, was running the Muleshoe Ranch at the time.

"One morning we were saddling up at the barn. I asked George how he sleeps at night when it’s so hot. George told me it wasn’t so hard after a pint of gin."

Curtis Fort is a lifelong cowpuncher and accomplished western artist from Lea County, New Mexico.

"All I ever wanted to do was punch cows for every outfit in the West," Fort told listeners. "I really do love the life."

He credited his father for schooling him on the ways of cowboying. His 87 year-old father passed up the invitation to come to the storytelling event because he had too much work to do.

"He told me he had to milk his cow and just had too many other things he needed to get done.

"I think my dad could see already when I was eight or 10 years old that cowboying was all I lived and breathed. He knew I wanted to be like him, so he went to schooling on me," Fort said. "If I could be just half the man, half the cowman he is…He tried to teach me things that sometimes took 20 years to sink in."
Often, though, it only took one lesson. He recalled the time he got chastised for not counting the cows as his dad pushed them through the gate.

As with most cowboys, one of Fort’s favorite parts of the job is making a drive.

"Trotting when the moon is still shining and the spurs are jingling. Someone lights a smoke and the horses are blowing. It’s the way it should be."

He recalled some of his early days of gathering cattle in the flat country where he was raised.

"In that flat country in a four-section pasture, you should get fired if you don’t come in where they drop you. I also learned that every now and then you need to look behind you."

Like every good cowboy, Fort shared a couple of good horse stories.

"When the boss cuts you a string, they’re yours. That’s the boss’s respect for what you can do.

When I went to the Bells, the boss led out 11 horses. There were nine sorrel horses, one grulla and one bay. I had the grulla and the bay whipped, but I wondered how I would identify the nine sorrels.

"I did get accused once of abusing a horse," Fort told the crowd. "On my first morning of the job I called for a horse named Rocket. I should have known better. He was a lineback grulla. They led him out to me. I stuck my bridle on and saddled him. I was only 18, and I really wanted to make a hand on this new outfit. I knew that a few of those steady hands were cutting their eyes over toward me, but I thought I’d read enough Will James books that I’d be okay.

"I led him out into the corral, and everyone is uncocking their horses and so I’m doing the same. I trotted him around the corral and then the boss says, ‘Well, let’s go, boys,’ and everyone took off in a trot.

"Well, when I started to lope, that ol’ pony swelled up. I think it was the only time that I reached up and stabbed one in the shoulders. I thought that I’d show this horse who was boss and that I was not some pumpkin roller.

"Well, on the third jump, I went to the end of those eight-foot bridle reins, turned over in the air and came down on my back. I was so embarrassed. The bunkhouse was right there, and I thought about just going in there and rolling my bed. He stepped right on my belly, but I was young and it didn’t hurt me. But they all had to stop and someone caught my horse and brought him back to me.

"I got back on him and didn’t have any more trouble. The boss had a good humor about him, and he trotted up and said, ‘Now Curtis, I think you’re going to be alright here, but don’t be abusing them horses, beating them over the head with your butt like that.’"

Dr. Charles Edwards, a retired veterinarian from Marfa, shared some of his experiences. Edwards, born in 1925, was raised on a ranch near Sanderson, Texas. He started to school in Del Rio and finished at El Paso. When he got his veterinary degree he set up a practice in Marfa.

"I never lived far from the Rio Grande except in the Service and in college," Edwards said. "I started college in 1942 and graduated from Texas A&M in June 1949. I crammed a five-year course into seven years, but I did enjoy a Pacific Island cruise thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps."

Edwards spent 46 years in a full-time practice and another seven years part-time in the area from the Pecos River to the Rio Grande, spilling over into adjacent country from time to time. He would work on all animals, but the area was primarily cow country so he was primarily a cow doctor.

"One of my very first cases was a young heifer that was 16 or 17 months old that had been accidentally bred. She was having trouble calving, so we had to do a C-section.

"The heifer was snubbed to a post and laid over on her back. I stretched her out, used scissors to snip the hair, and I scrubbed her belly.

"I was making every effort to perform clean surgery according to our standards at that time, but sterility is out of the question in a cow pen," Edwards commented.

"I infiltrated and made a generous incision and delivered a brand spanking new baby Hereford calf. Not many newborns are pretty, but a baby Hereford calf with its red body and white face with its big black eyes and red nose is a sight to behold.

"Just as I was getting ready to suture the heifer back up, a big whirlwind hit, carrying dust, hair and powdered dry manure into the incision. I had been taught that the proper exclamation in the face of adversity was to say, ‘A-haw’ instead of ‘Uh-oh.’ I don’t recall my comment, but I have a suspicion that it was somewhat stronger.

"When I got home that night, I was so worried about that heifer that I called my boss and he consoled me and told me not to worry about it, that she would be all right because there were so many bacteria in there already that they would fight and kill each other off. Sure enough, she lived."

Another time, Edwards was called to the 101 Ranch to post-mortem a bull.

"I opened him up and had pieces scattered over half the hill. When the rancher became impatient, he took out his pocketknife and cut the liver open and said, ‘Cirrhosis of the liver — that darned ol’ senecio again.’ I gathered up my instruments."

He shared the story about the time he was called out to help treat some cancer eye for Jim White at Marfa.

"We were working the cattle in an antique set of pens. Now, a cow with a sore eye has a short fuse," he reminded, "and we really weren’t doing much to placate them. We spent more time patching these pens than we did working on those cows. The lumber was too old and cracked to hold nails, so there was a generous amount of baling wire used.

"A lot of modern-day practices have their drawbacks. One of the worst is the use of twine on bales of hay instead of baling wire, and the next is putting feed in paper sacks instead of tote sacks," Edwards said. "I thought for awhile there that I’d have to quit practicing because I didn’t think I could do without those two items.

"Anyway, on that particular day one of the more aggressive cows came through the fence. We all piled into the cab of my pickup and the cow came with us. This was not where I wanted to be, as I was on the bottom. None of us got hurt, and I doubt the cow was hurt either by our comments about her ancestry, morals, appearance and disposition.

"Big Jim just sat quietly on his horse and said, ‘Now, you boys don’t chouse my cows.’

"I think he was confused on who was the chousor and who was the chousee."