When A Wild Cow Is Determined
To Kill Or Leave, Let Her Go

By Curt Brummett

I was in Kingsville, Texas, this past weekend enjoying the company of several cowboys from the South Texas area and visiting as well as remembering a few wild cow hunts, and a few roundups that didn't go all that smooth.

I've never cowboyed in brush like they have in South Texas. In fact, I had never seen as much brush as there is in South Texas. I've been in some rough country and a lot of brush, but nothing like they have down here. You can't tell if the country is rough or not, simply because you can't see it for the trees.

There is a gift to the cowboys, though. Yep, it's wild cattle. Getting these cattle in a pen is a whole different story. Like other places, some are trapped, some are roped, and all resent being in captivity.

South Texas proves that God has a sense of humor.

One of the best examples I can give you is when I was working for a stock contractor in Oakville.

I was doctoring his calves, processing his new cattle and trying to figure out why the blazes I was in this hot, humid, multi-treed country.

This set of pens was the same ones that Julius Caesar used when he started his preconditioning lot just east of Rome. After the cattle market fell all to pieces and old Brutus killed him because of a hot paycheck, the heirs had a clearance sale and some Spaniards bought it. They in turn brought it to South Texas, put it all back together and nothing has been done to improve it since.

Only one gate (out of roughly 63) had hinges on it. I feel like it would swing freely if a mesquite tree hadn’t grown up through it. The rest of the gates were held up by hay strings, pieces of chain, wire, rope, old Levis, and a prayer. To think you could open a gate in a hurry would be wasting your time. An average day for this outfit was eleven hours, nine of which was spent opening and closing gates.

This isn't all that bad when you don't have to get in any hurry. But when self-survival is important, it can be a little frustrating.

Like the time my fearless leader bought a bunch of Watusi cows and steers.

He was gonna use the cows for the wild cow milking and the steers for pure-dee entertainment. If he could get 'em gentle enough to stay in a pen.

Now I'm six foot one inch tall, and I couldn't see over the backs of any of these cattle. They had the biggest, longest horns I have ever seen, not to mention a really bad attitude toward the men that were taking care of them.

The only pen on the whole place that would hold these cattle was the bronc pen. It was eight feet high, 50 feet across and made of pipe. The big gate on this pen didn't swing all that freely, either.

Well, my fearless leader said we could just water and feed ‘em in the bronc pen ‘til they got gentle or the rodeo come up, whichever was first. I figured there would be several rodeos come up before these monsters got gentle.

My fearless leader had hired two foreign exchange students to help with the feeding and processing of the normal cattle, and they immediately refused to get near the bronc pen.

I couldn't remember how to pronounce their names, so I just called them Fred and Ethel. Fred and Ethel could understand English when they wanted to. That wasn’t all that often, I might add.

I had managed to get a water tub in the bronc pen, found enough water hose to reach the pen and proceeded to fill the tub.

One of the bigger cows just flat out didn't like people. If you got too close to the fence, she would run at you and hit the fence. I mean hit it.

Now I'm a quick study. I figured out right quick I didn't want her loose. Simply because if she got loose she was gonna stay loose.

This set of pens is in downtown Oakville. A blacktop road goes all the way around it. At the far end across the road is a graveyard, and on both sides are houses with real people living in 'em. At the front end of the pens is more houses and a major interstate highway. Not a good location for aggressive cattle to be wandering around.

Well, it happened.

Somehow or other, the cows managed to turn the water tub over.

I told Fred to turn the tub back upright and fill it with water. Fred (who was in his first semester at Dan's College of Exchange Student knowledge) looked me straight in the eye and said, "I queet."

Ethel (even though he didn't have as high a grade point average as Fred) had studied the situation, too. He said, "I'm weeth heem."

I don't blame 'em. If I’d 'ave been told to do it I would’ve queet, too. But the fact remained that those cows needed water.

I got Fred and Ethel talked into going down to the end of the alley and when I let the cattle out, I would hurry and get the water tub turned over and they could drive 'em back into the round pen.

Made sense to me.

Fred said I could take Ethel and he would open the gate and turn the water tub over. Fred was thinking like me. I figured I would have a gate to get behind if things went to hell.

Ethel and me headed to the end of the alley. Things went pretty good for about the first 10 to 15 seconds, then Fred opened the gate just a tad early.

When those goofy cattle saw a way out, they took it in a hurry.

Ethel and I turned around just in time to semi-stop a stampede. We went to hollering and screaming, kicking dirt and anything else we could do to turn those cattle around.

Fred saw the cattle hit reverse and he got to screaming and hollering.

The cattle, being somewhat confused, decided that the pen was the safest place to be. Fred was trying to climb the back side of the bronc pen and I got to the gate just as the first of the cattle was starting to make the circle to come back out.

The first one to the gate was the one that didn't mind killing herself while trying to kill a cowboy.

She hit that gate. Knocked me down, knocked her down and opened the gate. Now, just because I've cowboyed don't mean I'm a complete idiot. I realized right quick that I was fixing to get my oil checked.

I got up running. She got up running. (Fluffy people can flat out move when properly motivated).

She was so close, I couldn't slow down enough to jump over the alley fence. As I passed the hospital shed I had gained about three steps on her and took my shot. I cleared the fence and felt like I was safe in that little narrow hospital pen. I guess she wanted to be safe, too, because she came inside with me.

I immediately started trying to squirt myself through the cables on the pen. Fluffy people can get through some pretty close places.

The rest of the cattle had assisted Ethel in opening the gate going out to the feed pen. In all the commotion, I saw Ethel heading for a feeder with a cow hot on his trail.

Fred was running to the end of the alley when it happened.

I don't think he knew that the aggressive one was just getting on her feet. He's running towards me, the cow jumps out into the alley and I crawled back into the pen. Fred and the cow met up at the same time.

I was worried about those stupid cows getting out, but I figured I had better check on old Fred. Fred appeared to be doing okay.

The last I saw of 'im for a while was his legs sticking up over that cow’s horns as she headed back to the bronc pen. Yep, looked like she had four horns. I could hear him screaming, "I QUEEEEEEEEEEEET".

I saw Ethel on top of one of the feeders with two or three cows circling him like they were coon dogs with a prize in the tree. I think I heard 'im screaming, "I'm weeth heeeem," but I'm not sure.

It was at this time I was hoping for a really big tree to climb. I got mowed down by the aggressive one. I don't know what she did with Fred, but after she freight-trained me, she started jumping fences, headed towards the river.

I left Ethel orders to get them cows back in the pen and I headed for the pickup. I was hoping I could get around to the other side and at least keep her on the place.

I was a little too late.

She decided to take a shortcut to the river, via neighbor Juan Morales's driveway and prize-winning flower garden. Poor Juan and his wife of 64 years were working in the garden at the time.

As I pulled into the driveway, Juan came stampeding around the corner of his house. He appeared to be upset. As I started to get out of the pickup, he shook one of them things that you dig up one flower at a time with at me.

He said, "Joo know joo gotta cow out?"

I could tell Juan was okay other than needin’ a sudden change of clothes and maybe a little hair combin’, so I asked how his wife was. Seemed like the thing to do.

"She’s one mad woman," he said, kind of excited-like. "When she’s got her dress from the feence, she’s gonna told you just how eet ees."

I assured them the damages would be covered, but I don't think he believed me. There is just something about a man laughing himself to death that doesn't convey sincerity.

For some reason or other, the rest of the cattle stayed home and I managed to get them back in the bronc pen.

Fred and Ethel queet. They informed me they could get a scholarship on one of them chicken farms where the livestock might run over you but they wouldn't kill you.

My fearless leader didn't find out for sure what happened ‘til the next afternoon, simply because I couldn't tell 'im for laughing.