Difference Between Accident
And Wreck Related To Cause

By Curt Brummett

Here just a few weeks ago, I had a flashback of thoughts concerning a certain situation.

Yep, I can’t remember which one said it, but I do remember just what was said. It was either Jake or Wilbur (of Ace Reid fame), and he was sincere.

The picture showed a cowboy on a horse that had just blowed up, a cow that had just been roped and was jumping through a fence. The horse was a way-yonder high with a half hitch around a hind leg, the loop around the cow’s neck and of course across the cowboy’s leg and tied solid to the saddlehorn. There was fixin’ to be a wreck.

The cowboy said, "Anybody dumb enough to rope a cow like that off a horse like this deserves what I’m fixin’ to get."

Well, stuff happens.

I know. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been there when it happened. And, I might add, I’ve been part of the happening.

It is amazing to me how closely two words can describe the cause of a wreck. Some folks might call a wreck an accident. And accidents are caused by carelessness and ignorance. Wrecks are caused by idiot animals that are both careless and ignorant. Not to mention just plain non-caring.

Back a few weeks ago, I had started roping off of this four year-old horse. He seemed to be coming along pretty good and I was satisfied with his progress. Then one afternoon, he ups and decides he doesn’t care anything at all about stopping the right way. Then he decides that running behind a calf was just a little too boring, so he figured he would run over the calf. For the first couple of hours, I thought I was riding a mare.

You know, the woman thing. They’re gonna do it their way come hell or high water. Well, what junior didn’t realize was, I had as much time as he did and plenty of cattle.

After ricocheting off a couple of fences, mowing down three or four innocent calves and getting me plum miffed, I figured something a little bigger just might get his attention (seems like the way I’ve figured in the past I would’ve learned to quit figuring).

I took junior out to the pasture to get him acquainted with a cow or two. Most of these cows were pretty gentle (the key word here is most).

I get one cut out that weighed about 900 pounds and she was a muley. I drive her about 200 yards out into the pasture, making the colt stay behind her and hoping he would start watching her instead of just enjoying the scenery. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

I stepped off, cinched up and commenced the proceedings.

I started that old cow back towards the little bunch at the water hole. She gets in a hurry, I get in a hurry, and junior pulls a one-horse stampeding idiot fit.

No problem. I have in my possession a set of nylon brakes.

Junior ran up on the cow, then tried to run over the cow, then decided to pass the cow. I roped the cow. Nothing got jerked down, but everything damn sure came to a halt.

Kinda spooked old junior. Didn’t help that cow’s attitude all that much, either.

Well, I let her jerk us around a few times and old junior started getting serious about getting in the ground with his rear end instead of his nose. He started tracking her like he was supposed to, and things were looking up.

I got my rope off and went after another cow.

Bad Move ...

The next cow had a pretty nice set of horns and weighed considerable more than the first. And after we got started, I discovered she was a way-yonder faster.

After I got her cut out, she quit the country and headed for what these people up here call a thicket. I call ‘em miniature forests.

Now old junior is pretty fast and in pretty good shape. I had to encourage ‘im to catch up, but we did it without much trouble. And after we caught up, things kinda went to hell in a hand basket.

The cow is running full out, junior is running full out, and that miniature forest is getting closer. I get to noticing old junior is wanting to pass the cow.

No problem. I have a set of nylon brakes tied to the saddlehorn.

I let junior go. As we start to pass the cow, I rope her. That miniature forest is getting a way-yonder closer.

As we start to go by, the cow gets to thinking we’re racing to the safety of the trees, and she is keeping up. I try to turn junior off; didn’t work. I resort to the old rip his damn head off trick. He figured he might ought to stop.

Now my pasture rope is about 30 feet long. Junior started stopping about 50 feet from the trees. He didn’t really stop, he just kinda slowed down. Kinda like a car that just run out of gas and had a flat all at the same time.

When that cow hit them trees, it didn’t slow her down at all. But when she jerked us into them trees it did.

Just before I became rather well acquainted with enough trees to build a sale barn, I had that flashback.

Actually, the wreck wasn’t all that bad. All I got out of it was two cracked ribs, broke the two new teeth that the dentist had installed just four weeks earlier, and bruised my hip a bunch. Junior got skint up a little, but nothing major. The cow survived without a scratch, and enjoyed running around showing off her new rope for a couple of days.

Now if you’ll notice, I’ve called this situation a wreck. Simply because it was caused by two uncaring animals. If it had been an accident, it would have been caused by CARELESSNESS AND/OR IGNORANCE.