Training The Untrainable Part
Of Job For Ambitious Cowboy

By Curt Brummett

You know, working at a feedyard can be highly entertaining and at times pretty aggravating.

I hired out the other day to a yard in the Panhandle of Texas. They feed out (when they are full of cattle) about 25,000 head. And this time of year, they are loading up with cattle and down on cowboys.

It has been a long time since I've worked in a feedyard and things have changed considerable.

Several years ago, I became aware of the fact that women (yep, women) had started getting into the cattle feeding industry as part of the workforce.

I was in favor of that.

I felt that we needed someone around to clean up the hospital areas, wash saddle blankets and possibly fix lunch for the cowboys.

I was informed (big-time) that wasn't what they were hired for.

I first worked with a female type cowboy — or cowpersonette, whichever is politically correct — several years ago on a ranch just outside of Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

Now, my girls and I had worked together since they were all small and growing up. They were good hands and could keep up with any cowboy doing any job. But I never considered them women. I considered them as help.

I had never worked with a woman that I wasn't related to. If you will remember, I told you about trying to work with the little woman, but that didn't work out all that well, simply because I wasn't really related to her, I was just married to her (major difference).

Well, I took this job at Santa Rosa to help straighten out a bunch of cattle that a couple of clowns from Albuquerque had managed to mess up in a very big way.

The man I talked to had gone to work for the owners to get the cattle straightened out, but he had only agreed to work for a certain amount of time. When I hired out, most of the cattle were on their way to becoming beef and the head man was going to work somewhere else.

He had his daughter and son working there with him, and his daughter would be staying on to help me. I wasn't all that crazy about the idea, but help is help.

This girl was a hand. Her name is Jean and she could ride and work cattle as good as any man I ever worked with. She knew sick cattle and could rope pretty decent. She was a lot of fun to be around, and at times (like most women) could get pretty ornery. Her dad had taught her and her brother really well.

In fact, as a reward for her abilities, I introduced her to her husband.

I had known her future husband since he was about 10 or 11 years old and figured as good a hand as he was, the two should get along pretty good.

I mean both of 'em was goofy as runaway javelinas and both were sure-nuff good hands.

When I introduced them, I was working at a feedyard in Eastern New Mexico and had gotten Jean hired to ride pens. She made them one damn good hand. And that was the first time I had ever worked with a woman in a feedyard.

Well, time has passed (a lot) and now there are several women in the cowboy business.

Anyhow, back to the basics.

This yard I had hired out to had this female pen rider. She had a couple of decent horses and seemed to be fairly easy to get along with. That is, until I handed her boyfriend my business card. The one that says "WOMAN TRAINING".

I was informed she couldn't be trained, wouldn't be trained, and if someone was dumb enough to try she could and would hurt that said someone.

Folks, I had been challenged.

After about a week of working together, she had fallen into the training mode. She didn't know it, but she had.

The other cowboys had warned her that she was being trained by a pro and she wouldn't know it till she was officially trained.

One afternoon, we were getting ready to doctor our new sick cattle and needed some more medicine. I told her if she would go get the medicine, I would bring the cattle up and get 'em in the chute.

She agreed.

As she was getting in the pickup to go to the office, I hollered at her to bring back a couple of Cokes for her and me and the other cowboy that was helping us. I gave her the money and told her to hurry back.

The poor old dumb thing didn't even suspect that she had been set up.

When she got to the office, a couple of other pen riders were in there getting some medicine for their hospitals. They asked what she was up to and she told 'em. She loaded the medicine and went back into the office to get the Cokes.

One of the guys asked how the woman training was coming along. She said it would never happen and not to bring up the subject again. She couldn't be trained and would never even come close to it.

She got the Cokes and came on down to the hospital.

The other hands drove down to our hospital and was helping when one of 'em asked how my woman training was going.

I very proudly explained how well my trainee was doing, and in mentioning that, caused her to get pretty vocal.

She informed me and the rest that she had all of the woman training talk she was gonna put up with and I had damn well better knock it off, or things was gonna get a little tough. She also informed us that she wouldn't ever be trained to wait on a man.

I informed her that she was a trained woman.

She was getting madder than hell and asked just what I meant by that.

I told her that the first thing I train a woman to do is mouth off on cue. She had just done that. This upset her just a tad.

She said, "Oh yeah, at least I don't serve you idiots like some little old housewife." I asked her, "Who went to get the medicine?"

"That's part of my job."

The other cowboys was laughing a little.

"That may be part of your job, but who brought the Cokes back?"

We left the hospital in a run, dodging medicine bottles, rocks and anything else she could throw. Yep, things kinda went downhill for the rest of the day.

I changed jobs just a few days after that.

Women are so entertaining.

(Brummett may have been "trained" just a little himself, it occurs to us. Who paid for the Cokes? — Ed.)