Cowboy
by
Mike Capron
Hard work, long hours and plenty of tuff working conditions make cowboying attractive to a select few.
My good friend Sling Shot said, “Make sure you want to ride, if you get on.”
Plenty of extreme sport going on at a cow outfit. You don’t have to go looking for excitement .
Sling said, “One of my pet peeves is driving cattle. Oldtimer told me to keep these momma’s taking every step in the direction we are headed. And don’t let them loose their babies. Learn to work with the man across the herd from you. And for gosh sakes don’t ever turn your horses butt to the cows.”
Working with cows never gets boring if you are watching the cows. A horse learns what the man knows. You won’t find Sling Shot and his cowboy friends in town very often and if you do, it won’t be for long and they won’t have much to say. It is hard to speak their language.
James Kenney told me that he hated school. All he ever wanted to do was cowboy. He said his Grandad’s farm in Glasscock County taught him real quick that he wasn’t a farmer, all I ever wanted to do was cowboy.
James said, “ One time we were moving some heifers for Clarence Scharbauer. It was just me and John Dublin, the boss. We were taking them to the fence line which was about three miles. Clarence told us to get saddled up and he would open the gate and turn the calves out for us.
John looked and me and said, “ You bring up the back and I will work on the point. I want you to make leaders out of everyone of those drags.” I knew what he was talking about. He wanted those Son-of-a-guns to all leave on the run, so we could keep them together. Sure enough, they did. They were just cut of their mammies the day before. When they came out of that gate, they came out a really running. After about a mile they slowed down and you could get ahold of them and drive them where you wanted to go. If we hadn’t , they would have scattered and run in every direction.
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