Bulls and Mr. 45

    Bulls and Mr. 45

                                                                         by

                                                                  Mike Capron

I was very proud of my gentle herd that I had put together and had been riding and checking them regularly. Mr. 45 and several other gentle respectable bulls were staying with this herd of very good productive cows that I had put together in the middle pasture. The north pasture was just about clean and I was wanting to move 45 and his herd to the north pasture. There was just a small bunch of cattle that were on the far north east side of the north pasture and I hadn’t tried to gather this small bunch of maybe fifteen head of mixed dry cows maverick bulls, maybe three or four, a couple maverick heifers and I had not been very close to them. I had been watching them from a distance and they were keeping an eye on me when I got in seeing range.  I had been busy and had not made a move on them yet, but was making a plan as they were a long ways from trap or pens that would hold them.  

Maybe it would be a good time to hire a little help. If we could get this little bunch held up and settled down in some easy country, maybe we could drive them to the shipping pens, which was a couple miles away. I made the decision to hire some help. I hired 4 young men, one of them was Wilson and we made our move early one morning from the rock house. We tired to hit them at a good angle hoping to get ahold of them before they got to moving too fast.  But our plan A went to hell in a hurry. We were barely in sight of them and they were in a high trot leaving and going the opposite direction of the shipping trap and shipping pens. All we could do was to hit a lope and try to get ahead of them. The faster we went and the closer we got the more they scattered.  I should have called off the troops right then, but that was hopeless, the crew all had blood in their eyes by then. They all had their ropes down and were building a loop.  I decided to try to keep track of everyone and help who ever needed the help. Getting around the herd was out of the question as they had scatter on their mind now.  I could see the crew had singled them each out one of the big bulls and were fixing to put the habbasious-grabbiousaus on them.  This crew was young, no fear, and fresh as a charging Grizzly.  The country got choppy and hard to keep everyone in sight. So I decided to follow Wilson as he was closest. Not necessarily the least experienced but he was the closest. I hadn’t seen any other big bulls that needed catching , so I thought best to get Wilson’s tied to a tree somewhere and then go check on the others. Wilson got his roped smooth, and I don’t remember if he tripped him or if I heeled him.  But their were no trees close by to tie him to, so we decided to just hobble him in the back feet as close as possible.  We left him standing on four feet and went to look for every one else. I was tickled to find everyone with a bull and in good shape. We helped out until we got them all tied to a tree and I was tickled that we had at least got four bulls tied or tethered to a tree. We called it a day and went to the Rock House.   On the way to the Rock House not far from where we left the bulls tied to the trees we came up on a big bull laying flat on his belly in the middle of a big cedar bush close to the ground. I had never seen anything like this and we all stopped to stare at this bull laying flat on the ground. I was amazed at his size. He was a muley black baldy and the biggest bull I had seen on the ranch. We were all stopped and were staring at the bull, I was fixing to tell them to leave him for next time when he jumped up and charged the closest man who was Wilson on his horse Alpo. Wilson and Alpo were trying to get out of the bulls way but they ran over the man just ahead of them. That bull was making a mess of things and I decided it was best to just ride off and leave him.  We went to the Rock House and left the Giant Muley to himself.  This was a new project that I wasn’t aware of. I was amazed how the details of this ranch could add up so quickly.  I guess we had done some good and put a small dent in the overall gather.  The days events made my past endeavors with Mr. 45 and his herd seem very meager.