2012 Trail Drive

2012 Trail Drive (Non-fiction)

My Dad always told me NOT to ask to help a neighbor, but to wait until asked and then do what I was asked to do. I broke that rule, but I told Dallas at the time I was breaking the rule, so maybe Dad wouldn’t have been too hard on me this once.

Dallas had joined a grazing association after he lost part of his summer grazing to the 2012 Ash Creek fire that devastated most of the Custer National Forest and adjoining land. The association leased grazing land on the Crow Reservation southwest of Lodge Grass. The lease included a pasture that ran for 22 miles along the top of the Big Horn Mountains near the Montana-Wyoming border.

Hearing of a pasture that large made me want to see and ride it –unfenced country of that size is rare in our area. In addition, a grazing association means multiple cattle owners and sorting the cattle at the end of the grazing season. New country, a trail drive and sorting cattle…that’s the stuff my dreams are made of!

So I was thrilled when Dallas and Karen asked if I was serious about wanting to go and I cooked up some grub for the guys I’d leave behind for a couple days. I also unpacked and set up my little tent so I’d be able to do it in the dark if necessary. Good thing I practiced too as I put the poles in the wrong straps the first time. I loaded the tent, sleeping bag, emergency bag and a backpack of clothes the night before we were to leave.

I barely slept as I didn’t want to oversleep and I charged out of bed at 4AM, grabbed a light breakfast I could eat on the go, caught and saddled Rebel, loaded him and was ready to pull out about 4:30. But I hadn’t driven the old black pickup at night so couldn’t find the light switch. Part of the problem was that the knob had fallen off and was laying on the dash. I fumbled around and finally got the parking lights on and decided I could make 10 miles on the county road that way but a little more twisting and pulling and the head lights came on. I was off and running until the lights went off at the cattle guard going down to Pumpkin Creek and I was rolling blind. Pulling had done the trick before so I pulled the knobless shaft repeatedly and the lights came on again.

The trip took a little longer than I expected as we had shipped the day before so some of the cows were claiming the road. I had expected that and was on the lookout for them.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that a neighbor had also shipped as there were two more miles of cows locked on the lane. I arrived safely and just a little late. Dallas and his hired man Chance had their pickups running and were getting ready to load their horses.

We transferred my gear to Chance’s pickup but I left the tent as Dallas and Chance thought I’d sleep more comfortably on a pickup seat. We loaded the small square bales of second cutting alfalfa for the horses on top of Chance’s trailer. Rebel tends to be a bit nervous and was excited by the goings on and seeing new horses. Chance’s horse loaded well but the trailer was smaller than Rebel was used to and we had a little trouble with him but got him in. Dallas’s horse went in the back. That left Dallas’s trailer free for picking up horses for the Amish riders Dallas was picking up near Ashland.

The two hour drive across the Custer Forest, through Ashland and Lame Deer, past Busby and the Little Big Horn Memorial passed quickly as Chance and I talked horses, cattle and families. We turned south at the Crow Agency interchange toward Lodge Grass. We met Dallas with Dave, Harley and Perry there then headed up to the CCC camp where two more Amish riders, Levi and Joe, were camped out already.

The road soon turned from asphalt to gravel and deteriorated from there, but always it went up, and up and up. We drove on rock studded, wash board and deeply rutted roads. As we went further the road became more of a trail than a road, like the topsoil had just been scraped off to one side. We climbed the whole way even through the road went up hills and down small valleys. We went through pockets of pine trees interspersed with treeless areas. Even where there were no trees we couldn’t see very far because there were always more hills in sight.

We arrived at the base camp which was a small log cabin and barn built by the CCC during the depression.  The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) was a public work project – a way for unemployed, unmarried men to earn a wage while contributing to the public welfare. A typical wage was $30 per month, of which $25 had to be sent home to the laborer’s family. The CCC was one of the more popular of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.

The buildings were in fair condition but had holes in the floor overlaid with plywood and gaps in the walls where the chinking was missing. It was a shelter though and was adequate if not exactly homey. We loaded 2 more horses in Dallas’s trailer and got the vehicles turned around through the brush and pine trees.

We hauled to the pasture we were to gather and unloaded the five Amish riders just inside the northeastern gate. It was here that we got our first good look at this rugged country. There was no north fence. There was no need for a north fence. The pasture ran to the edge of Black Canyon and the only way a cow could get to the bottom was by falling over the edge. It is 900-1000 feet deep and the edges are sheer drops with occasional rock ledges, a few of which hold a few pine trees and even more occasional scree slopes near the bottom.

While we were getting our bearings and discussing the logistics of the gather, Dallas spotted 3 head of cattle almost at the bottom of the canyon. We all agreed there was no way a cow could get there from the top, and we were right. They were Fulton cows that he had left behind when he gathered.

Fulton had told Levi that when they gathered the canyon bottom he’d had trouble with one cow trying to get back. After he’d turned her several times he said, “All right, Bitch, just stay up here if you want!” and he’d ridden away and left her.

There was a brisk breeze blowing but there was also a band of pine trees west of us that provided some shelter from the brunt of the wind. Levi had spent the summer riding the lease land so we relied on him to draw us a rough map in the dust on the fender of the horse trailer. Our pasture was cut by a canyon we couldn’t cross so we had to take the cattle west around the canyon before we could turn back to the south and east. In addition, there were numerous fingers of land that cut into the canyon that had to be ridden out.  They were heavily brush and tree covered and provided great cover for cattle.

Chance, Dallas and I hauled our horses another mile to the west and followed a track toward the canyon edge off the main road. We got our first real look at Black Canyon and what comes to mind now is “Holy Shit!” We were on a barren, rocky point and hit full force by a hard wind. It didn’t take 30 seconds for me to trade my hat for a visor and knit cap with insulated ear flaps, which I tied it on tight.

We could see the opposite side of the canyon about a quarter mile away. I never did get close enough to the edge to see the canyon bottom there. We could see it a long, long way down where the canyon forked. I had seen the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and this canyon was just as impressive. And even more impressive because I had no idea there was land like this in my own state. It looked like sections of The Great Wall of China were hanging part way down on the canyon wall then stopped abruptly at a span of sheer wall. Both the immensity of the wall and the force of the wind were staggering.

It seems like the earth has just been ripped apart. And what’s even more impressive is that these huge canyons are frequent interruptions to the high sloped plateaus of the Big Horns. They seem to run off in all directions, too, but there must be some system to them and to the direction the water flows. I am sure that from where we rode, the waters flowed northwest toward Yellowtail Dam and the Big Horn River and east or southeast toward the Little Big Horn.

This was the first of many times Dallas said to me, “What do you think Crow would think of this?”

“He doesn’t like heights so I think he’d get back in his pickup and head for Pumpkin Creek as fast as he could go!” I hollered against the wind.

We left the barren point and rode southerly, winding through scattered pines and deadfall and over a hill. We were at the top of a broad basin that slopes to the west end of the rugged nameless canyon in our pasture. The upper reaches of the basin were barren and wind swept or covered with pine trees. While it appeared to be a smooth sided bowl from a distance, we found that it was cut by numerous dry drainages lined with brush.

We were still not sure just where we were expected to ride but we headed over the first hill and looked the land over then spread out and covered the country as well as we could. The pasture was just a few sections but the land is so rough it seems bigger. Much of it is covered with pine, scrub pine and brush. And all of it is covered with rocks! Big, small, round and sharp – every step was a challenge with the horses sliding on the round rocks and stumbling on the sharp ones.

In hind sight, we might have ridden the country better by starting high and following the drainages down. Instead we spread out and circumscribed the west end of the bowl. I finally blundered into the west fence and saw a cow on the outside. I had a little trouble with the gate because the stick was about 8 feet tall, but at least it wasn’t tight so I got through it. She was carrying Dallas’s brand so I brought her through the gate where she found her calf waiting. Dallas and Perry arrived from different sections of the timber. From this south western gate an eight post section of fence terminated at another canyon edge, this one forming the south western boundary of the holding pasture. This canyon ran to the south west while Black Canyon had run to the north east.

Pleased to have finally found some cattle, Dallas and I started 10 pair toward the south on a winding, haired over two track. We split up on the highest reach of the southern end of our bowl where Dallas dropped off the top of the hill to gather on a level nearer the bottom of the basin and I continued to move our little bunch of cows south. Chance had disappeared and we later learned that he’d run into some cows that headed down instead of around so he followed them out of the timber and into the valley Dallas dropped into.

From my hill the land sloped sharply east into a long plateau. I’ve searched for the correct geographical term for a sharply sloping level landmass and haven’t found it Sloping plateau is an oxymoron but is exactly what most of this section of the Big Horns consists of.

I continued trying to push the cattle south, trying being the operative word. High on the hillside I encountered the first of several springs in the pasture. Brush and deciduous trees abounded and made travel circuitous or impossible. Cattle were bedded down and reluctant to move but I yelled, walked, crouched, threw rocks and made such a nuisance of myself they wandered slowly off.

There was minimal water for the cattle to drink as it trickled out of the ground, filled cattle tracks then disappeared. I thought it was just a little spring but later realized it was typical. The ground is predominantly limestone and the water disappears underground after a short surface exposure. The cattle were hard to move away from the brushy springs because it took them a long time to get their fill of water.

This is also where I found out the cattle didn’t want to go down. They preferred going along a hillside or across a sloping plateau. While I was getting the last of the cattle out of the brush and away from the spring, the early leavers had started circling to the south then west, just where I’d come from, but on the south side of the hill instead of the north.

Getting to the lead and turning them sounds easy but this land is rockier than anything I had ever encountered or could imagine. Many of the rocks were weathered and rounded, baseball to basketball sized. And between them were smaller, less eroded and sharp edged stones. It was like walking on a bed of marbles with razor blades between. Rebel would slide off a round rock with one foot and try to regain balance with another foot only to step on a sharp rock and hurriedly take his weight off that foot and then repeat the process again. Loping was nearly impossible and trotting was more of a higgledy-piggledy stumble.

More than wanting to go around or across, mostly the cattle did not want to go at all. When I left one to move another, the first one stopped. There was no sense of wanting to stay together like herd animals – it was each cow for herself and standing was preferable to moving.

With the odds stacked against me, the cows either made it to the south west edge of the pasture, or there had been cattle there and I finally made my way to them. They couldn’t go any further as we came up to the edge of the canyon we’d first encountered near the gate. The canyon cut off the back side of the hill I’d been gathering and circling. Though smaller than Black Canyon it was still an immense slice across the landscape and startlingly rugged. The cattle were more used to it than I was and grazed right to the precipitous edge.

By the time I higgle-piggled, jiggle-joggled the cows back to the east and had them all in sight, I had about 100 head gathered. I was still high and looking down on the rest of the crew as they brought most of the cattle around the went end of the rugged canyon and across the bottom of the basin then up to the south side of the pasture. The bottom of the basin was rough too and cut by shallow, dry drainages connected by pine covered ridges.

At that time, I couldn’t see the terrain they were crossing. It was just a blur from my viewpoint but I could see the cattle and an occasional rider. I just kept trying to push my cattle down to meet the ones that were making their way toward me. After a couple hours, I was way on the south side near the fence when Perry gave me the high sign that we had pushed the cattle far enough.

We headed north toward the pickups so crossed the country I’d been looking down on. It was like leaving the high plains and going down to the rugged red shale arroyos of New Mexico with stunted pine and coarse brush then back to the timber and high plains – all within a couple miles. When we were most of the way across we saw one cow headed back but let her go as we hoped she’d pick up a calf we had missed.

When we left the timber on the north side of the pasture we were hit full force by the cold northwest wind again and were glad to load our horses and head to the cabin. While we waited for some of the riders at the eastern gate where we’d entered the pasture, we ate dry sandwiches and hunkered against the horse trailer to get out of the wind. With cookies eaten we gave up our watch for the others and went to the cabin. They had ridden in and eaten hot chili – the rats!

We built a corral for our horses then Chance and I took them to water. There was an improved spring nearby that fed into a rubber tire water tank. However, the tire leaked in the center so the water was only a few inches deep. Additionally, planks were placed across the edges of the tire to keep cattle from getting in. Unfortunately the planks were only a few inches from the edge of the tire so the horses had to turn their heads sideways to get down to the water. Chances’s and my horse wouldn’t. It was just a muddy mess below the tire so they couldn’t drink there either. Dallas’s horse had a couple sips. We figured they wouldn’t be so picky tomorrow and gave up.

We unsaddled and fed the horses then unhooked Dallas’s pickup from his trailer. We planned to drive the long pasture to see if we could see any cattle that had been missed in the previous gather. Dallas, Perry, David, Levi, Chance and I took off but it was nearly 5pm. As we drove out, Joe and Harvey were headed back out to ride some more and see if they could find the cow we had seen or others we might have missed.  They got back to the cabin well after dark and after I was already bedded down for the night. Riding around on a pitch black night with those canyons and the rough ground seemed damned risky to me. Besides we’d ridden five and a half hours already!

While we drove I was able to take a few photos and we did get to see the immensity of the pasture. We looked down on the Pryor Mountains, saw where Chance and the Amish had horses quit them when they tried to push the cows up from one bench to another, saw the fence that is the Montana/Wyoming border, and on the way back saw the lights of Lovell, WY. We didn’t see cattle but we did see more huge canyons and some snow.

We got to the cabin about 7:30 and checked the horses then I headed to the pickup and made up my bed on the back seat. I just got snuggled into the sleeping bag when I heard it start to rain. I had left my chaps, bridle and spurs in the back of Chance’s pickup…so I got fully dressed again and went and put them out of the rain. Back in the “bedroom” I didn’t undress quite as far as the first time.  And of course it didn’t rain any more – it had been just a little more than a mist. I slept well until just after midnight then was wide awake the rest of the night. My feet were getting cold so I put my coat over them but every time I moved my coat fell off and my feet got cold again. About 4AM I started getting cold all over so put all of my clothes on, which included another pair of socks and several layers of shirts and sweatshirts. With my vest over my head I fell asleep right away and woke up at 4:30 from an agonizing pain in one knee. I finally got up about 6 and fed the horses. Chance and Dallas were right behind me and I suspect they had slept about as soundly as I had!

Levi cooked pancakes and eggs made by the light of a headband flashlight. They were damned good! I was particularly impressed by his fried eggs. He broke all the eggs into a big bowl then dumped them from the bowl onto the griddle and he didn’t break a single yolk! We nonAmish saddled up while breakfast was being cooked. I helped reorganize the “kitchen” a little after we ate while the Amish saddled up. Then we rode from the cabin and basically Dallas, Chance and I rode the part the Amish had ridden the day before. We found cows right away so almost rerode the whole pasture. True, we skimmed rather than rode it thoroughly, and I’m not sure how much of it on the northeast side that we didn’t ride at all – I never made it over there. We also skipped the timbered fingers that reached out into the big canyon.

The cattle still didn’t want to move down hill but we got them gathered and pushed to the gate by 10 a.m. The foreman from the Holden place (where the cattle would load out the next day) led us from the gate to his place. I thought it was close to eight miles but Chance thought it was closer to four. Anyway, it took another four and a half hours to move the cattle five and a half miles (according to Google Earth). There were a few frustrations on the way – like no stops for mothering or resting the cattle, no water, fighting the cows along a rocky hillside for no reason, squeezing them off a rocky drop rather than letting them go down a gradual slope and forcing them to go too fast. However, I kept telling myself there is more than one way of doing things…when in Rome do as the Romans do…if they want to move them fast then hurry up and push the drag faster. But my compassion for the cattle wouldn’t stand it so I stayed in the drag and moved faster than I liked but not too fast.

But with that said, it was tremendous to see 750 head of cattle on the move and see 7 riders spread out on the flanks and 2 in the drag. Everyone rode hard, worked hard and worked well together. The cattle were a rainbow herd with everything from longhorns to milk cows and Charolais to Shorthorns to red and black Angus. And the batteries on my camera as well as the backups I’d taken were all dead so the only pictures I have are in my head and heart.

When we finally got into the lot leading to the corrals the Holden foreman started pushing about one third of the cattle fast. I fell in with that plan and went into the corral near the lead and kept circling and pushing the cows through the gate and further into the corral. As soon as they were in we went after another bunch and got all the cattle corralled in three bunches. The 2 big corrals held all the cattle and would have held another 100 or more. There were 6 pens off the big corrals that had gates onto the alley with a few pens on the other side of the alley.  I’ve never seen such a tremendous set of corrals! They were all pipe and the big posts and overheads were BIG pipe. It must have been made to work Elk or Buffalo!

There was a short break for discussions on how to work the cattle and a few Amish went back 3 times to gather the pasture we’d moved across and into which some of the Association cattle had strayed. I’ve never seen anyone as willing to ride hard and far as those guys are.

I stayed horseback for the first set of cattle we sorted in the alley and used Rebel to bring a couple out at a time. After that I stayed in the big corrals in back and just kept the alley filled. About 4pm Dallas, Chance and I took Holden’s Gator and drove back to the cabin. We took the corral down and loaded the panels, got Karen’s dishes and food and took both pickups & trailers and the Gator back to the corrals.

Levi’s pancakes had worn off long before and a drink of water made me a little queasy. But my first concern was for Rebel – it had been 30 hours since he’d had any water so I looked up the Holden foreman and he pointed me to a water tank. Rebel filled up and within a couple minutes he started quivering all over. That scared the shit out of me, but the shaking didn’t last too long. The water seemed to make him hyper too and he got real nervous if he wasn’t close to Dallas and Chance’s horses.

By that time all the cattle had been sorted and the brand inspector was going through other pens of cattle. Dallas, Chance and I put Dallas’s cows back into a big corral as they counted cows and calves. They were 16 calves and 6 cows short, but knew that 2 or 3 calves had died during the summer. We worked the cattle back into the smaller corral for the brand inspector and they verified the count. We finished at full dusk. There was some confusion over who Dallas was hauling where. Chance left his bedroll for David who planned on sleeping at the corrals to be on hand to start loading first thing the next morning. I’m pretty sure that sleeping on a haystack under a shed was going to be as warm and comfortable as sleeping on the floor of the CCC cabin.

Chance and I loaded the horses and headed home. We got to Dallas and Karen’s about 9:30 and reloaded my gear. Rebel was really nervous again and didn’t want to leave the other horses. I got most of my gear, forgetting only a couple things, got Rebel and headed home. Rebel ran straight to the water tank when we got home then I’m sure he told Gumbo stories all night, just as I talked nonstop telling my stories to Sonny until after midnight.

The following day Sonny and I went to Broadus for supplies. I had a real case of culture shock in the grocery store. I stood at the shelves and looked at the selections available and felt ashamed to pick up anything. I had just spent 2 days with the barest of necessities and wondered why we need any more than those basics. I thought of the Amish who had spent the summer riding that immense country, cooking by headlight and camping in CCC cabins. Levi made sure to hang the griddle and skillet up on the wall because of mice. That seemed much more important than which type of chips to buy.

I had wanted to have one more cowboying experience in my life and I will be eternally grateful to Dallas that I got to do that. I also wanted to find out if I could still make a hand in a horseback crew. I found out that the Amish can ride much harder and longer than my body can stand, but I think I held my own handling cattle.  For Rebel, I hoped that a hard ride would give him the confidence I think he lacks. It’s too soon to tell on that, and for now, I’m trying to get some weight back on him. He dropped 5 holes in the flank cinch those 2 days.

I think it’s important to experience a few hardships throughout life so we realize how easy we have it most of the time. I believe my life is too easy. I know that missing meals and sleep was not a significant part of this experience. The camaraderie, being part of a crew doing a hard job, seeing incredible country, riding a good horse others admired; these are the things that are important and will stay with me in the months to come. Maybe this was such a great experience because I needed to feed my soul. I want to talk about it, to relive the satisfaction, the frustrations, the sights, the sounds, the hunger, the concern for the cattle and horses. I don’t want it to end. And I guess it won’t as long as I keep the memories alive.