A Cow Chasing Tale.......

Picture this....weary travelers, cold weary travelers, road foundered cold weary travelers, pulling in to their small ranch house...cold small ranch house around 10:30 PM. Tired from the 7 hour drive..part of which was down a muddy road to unload a trailer full of furniture...numerous stops at the gas station for gas...10 miles to the gallon.....can we say we are the" going green family"...I don't think so. But oh well. We cannot pull a trailer with a Ugo. Enough said. Some fair pizza in Lubbock, one sniveling kid cause we passed the Krispy Kreme and didn't try to fight the traffic to pull in. One tired little Tadpole, one cranky weiner dog. And too very sleepy old people.....Pappy and I.

We unload what needed to be unloaded. Fed very hungry happy dogs. Used all the hot water taking baths..and fell into the bed ready for blissful slumber...little of which we had had in the last several days.

And then it happened. I awoke to the ringing of the phone. DH has pushed it under the bed before we laid down because the message light was going on and off and we were just to tired to come back down and see what the message was. He dug it out and answered...I sat with my heart beating out of my chest wondering what bad news was being relayed. Phones ringing in the middle of the night never bring good news. Dh is saying uh-huh- yea- how many? Bad wreck? Oh no!

He hung up and started to pull on his clothes. I asked what had happened, he mumbled..cows, highway, hit, gotta go pull dead cow off road, state police....that is pretty much how he said it. I think he was still half asleep. I got up and started getting dressed, he looked at me and said there was no point in me having to go..but ya know that feeling that every ranchwife gets that you just know down deep in your heart that you need to go help your man. Well it hit me pretty strong so I ignored him and went on my merry cold way.

DH loaded up a chain and all the essentials needed to pull a dead carcass off the road, all the time mumbling about stupid people leaving gates open. Attention! Now I know that none of you would do such a thing..but it happens. A lot. Last month some hunters poached a huge deer. I guess they were to lazy to shut the gate and 2 cows and a calf got out on the highway where they were hit by a truck in the middle of the night and all three killed and the truck damaged very badly. Since the gate was left open the ranch was liable for the damages to the truck, and lost 3 head of cattle. All this because of someones stupidity. One of the codes of the west is...leave a gate the way you found it...always..if it is open leave it open...if it is shut leave it shut..With the exception of seeing a gate on a highway open with cattle grazing near by, then assume some dummy came out and didn't shut the gate. Be a neighbor and go shut it. This was drilled into both my DH's head and mine, and we drilled it into our kids heads. Remember....shut the gate!

We drove down the road and were met by a very frazzled state policeman. He climbed out of his car and met DH in the middle of the road and told him his woes. As far as we could gather there were supposed to be three cows out. One was hit and he chased 2 more up and down the road for 2 hours. Hum...where was the cow that was hit? He didn't know, guessed she ran off...Hum...Hit by a speeding truck and then ran off? Yes that was how it was according to the people that hit her. They drove on into town where they called the state police. They hit a cow and then drove to town? Well it happens, must not have hit her square on. Oh yes the front of the truck was all torn up. And the cow they hit had a tag in her ear. Hum....I can see the wheels turning in DH's mind. They were zooming through the night. Hit a cow, torn up their truck and noticed that the cow had an ear tag..wow were they ever observant! No skid marks, just a small plastic lenses laying in the road. We wondered if the case of empty Coors cans about a mile back had something to do with this whole fiasco.

Mr. State policeman then decided that it was time for him to exit the scene..apparently he had all the nighttime cowboying he could stand. DH asked him where the others cows were that he chased for 2 hours? He just shrugged and said I don't know. I guess if they aren't in the road then don't worry about it.

That just didn't go over well with DH and as we watched Mr. State-police man's taillights zoom out of sight in the darkness of night, he mumbled something about a "goober". And then we proceeded to start looking.

We started by pulling into every gate and cattle-guard at which DH would check to make sure the gates were closed and he would check for tracks around the cattle guards. It was 3 in the morning and about 20 degrees. DH was determined he was not going to just "not worry" about it. We were going to find the elusive bovines.

Finally we were pulling away from the last gate to check. He was bumfuzzled. Where could they be? He was pretty sure he knew where they got out...tracks and cow patties told the story...and they could be laying down in the brush on the side of the road and we would never see them..especially after being chased by a man in a patrol car up and down the road for 2 hours, they were probably exhausted.

All at once DH said there she is! I said "where" all I could see was a black blob. "there", and he did his whopping thing that he does banged on the door of the pickup and sure enough she stood up. She turned and looked at us...like "what now", and took off at a high lope down the middle of the road. The chase was on!

DH was hot on her trail. She veered, he veered. She stopped, he stopped. She ran off into the ditch...he ran off into the ditch...until I hollered at him to stay out of the ditch, and he was not on a horse, he was in a pick-up and we didn't need flats. I tell you it was like "Dukes of Hazzard".

Finally she stopped. He jumped out and hollered for me to go and open the gates that were on either side of the road about a quarter of a mile up. He was going to ease up on her afoot and I was to guard the road up from the gates. It was a fine idea. We just knew that she would walk right into the open gate and we could go home. We had already decided that her sister in crime had crawled back into the pasture, because they would most likely be together if she was still out. My DH is a cow whisper and he knows these things. :)

I sat and waited with my lights turned off so she could see better. I could see DH sneaking down the road following her, urging her on to the goal of the open gate....there is was..wide open...more cows on the other side. They mooed...she mooed. I wanted to moo....in cow lauguage..go, go sister, be free to roam the range..I am cold and tired..go in the gate. She stopped, she looked. I held my breath. She took a step..she was thinking. Then the hussy threw up her tail whirled and ran for the hills! Right down the middle of the road again. DH hit a sprint. I tried to whirl the pick-up around...you can't whirl a full size pickup around in a narrow road. I finally got her turned and headed out for her. And we did it all over again. I got ahead of her and slid to a stop and proceeded to jump out of the pick-up. I proceeded to jump out. I grabbed the door handle...OH HECK! I forgot. There was no door handle..such a small thing really..but a complete aggravation when you need to move fast. I could not get the darn thing open try as I might from the inside...so I had to either go out the window or slide over the seat and go out the other door. I nixed the crawl out the window plan, and slide out the other side and proceeded to run in front of her and try to cut her off. She stopped. I stopped. She blew snot my direction, and I wondered how bad it was going to hurt should she decide that she hated all mankind and attack me. And then she turned and started back the direction she came.

This went on for 2 hours. We worked about a mile of that road up and down. Down and up. She would get to the gate, look and at the last minute turn and run. DH was winded. I was winded. We were almost out of gas. We were tired, cold, and getting really really mad. I think DH was on the verge of just shooting her and calling it a night. I was going to load the gun.

Finally DH said if she gets to going east just let her go, maybe she will go back to the place she got out. He was going to stay and walk behind her and I was to go ahead and open the gate and then position myself in the road and wait..and not let her get by. Yes I would do that. Even if it meant placing my self between her and the eastern sky, possibly risking great bodily harm. I would do this for my man. And because I was severely hacked off at this cow and felt great hate toward not only her but all cows in the universe.

We didn't realize at the time that it was close to half a mile where we were to where we needed to be...DH took off at a slow lope and I zoomed down the road to the gate.

Then I waited, lights off, door open, for quick exit..hoping that no milk trucks would be making nighttime milk runs down our highway.

In the distance I saw her. A big hateful stupid blob, coming out of the shadows. Poor DH in hot pursuit. She stops dead in the road. She looks at the gate..we are holding our breath..will she......DANG IT...she runs...she runs east! DH is hollering stop her, turn her! And a few more things that I can't repeat. I leap out fast as a jaguar...well maybe not quite that fast, and it was more of a stumble, and when I almost fell I guess it startled her and she whirled and ran back toward DH. DH and I had had our feel of this cow, and it was no more Mr. and Mrs. Nice people. Both of us ran at her flapping our arms and saying not very nice things, like "swine" and "hussy", things of that nature. I think if we could have caught her we would have choked her. She ran up to the gate, by passed it and then as quick as you please ran right through a part of the fence that was snagging a little bit.

DH and I just stood there gasping for breath and watched her stand there watching us. Then we went home. Driving into the rising sun. Discussing our hate for all the cows of the universe.

We went back after we had breakfast and a small nap. We never did find the cow that was supposed to be hit. And we never did find a gate open.So I guess it will be forever a mystery on what really happened on that cold wintry January night.

God Bless and Happy Trails

RanchWife