It was mid-November, and although the fall weather had treated us with a generous helping of mercy up to that point, there was a skiff of snow on the ground and a menacing chill in the air – a sure hint that winter had a shoulder in autumn’s back, encouraging the meeker of Mother Nature’s sons to head south with the impending changing of the guard.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at the trailer as I climbed up through the pass, chunks of ice and powdery snow replacing the rocks and dust of the lower elevations and flying up from beneath the tires, glistening in the reflection of the late afternoon sun. This would hopefully be my last trip of the season. If I had to go again, I’d have to stay on the paved roads and go the long way around the mountain.
I was on my way to Almo, literally on the other side of the mountain from my home place near Oakley to retrieve one of my cows who’d strayed off to the east and down into the Almo Valley instead of heading west to home, as she should have done during the fall gather. In addition to my wayward cow and her calf, I’d be hauling a couple of heifers back with me to my neighbors at the Three Bar outfit along with a certified crazy dry cow that belonged to the Wrigley clan at the north end of the valley on the Oakley side of the mountain.
It’s one of the reasons why we brand in our country, and it’s all part of the frequent prisoner exchanges that take place every fall. When I get a call from Cordell at the Sheridan Ranch, I know just what pen my critters will temporarily occupy behind the chute at his place. Likewise, he’s quite adept at maneuvering his 24-foot Featherlight back through the narrow corral alley to load up at my stray pens. It’s not really a big deal, it’s just what we do.
My heifer calving pasture is separated from the field where my neighbors of the Puckerbrush Ranch keep a herd of their leased cows by a road that can be loosely defined as a rough gravel road. In springtime, it’s more accurately labeled a mud road. Unless I leave a gate open, the cattle are pretty much content to remain at their respective homes, but it’s not uncommon for a calf to occasionally slip through or under the fence. Every day during calving season, my neighbor, on his way to feed or check his own cows, takes a look at my heifers and faithfully reports to me if he sees anything that looks remotely like trouble. And, of course, regardless of his own chores, offers to help me if anything is amiss.
One day he called me to let me know that I had an untagged newborn huddled in the dry grass on the road just outside my fence. He’d pushed it back through the fence, but he didn’t see the mother. I spent the better part of an hour riding through my heifers trying to find which reluctant new mother produced the lonely little red bull calf. I thought I had it figured out, so after a trip or two chasing the obstinate beast around the field, I finally got her up to the corral and into a jug pen. As is typical of my luck, especially during calving season, neither the mother nor the calf showed any interest, whatsoever, in each other. I puzzled and cussed and cussed and puzzled over the situation until I finally settled down and decided to make a more thorough examination, upon which I discovered that the heifer in question had not yet calved.
Following some more cussing, puzzling and searching, I came to the obvious conclusion that the calf belonged in my neighbor’s herd across the road. I loaded up the calf in the pickup and took a trip around the field, and within 15 minutes had located the rightful mother. The frustrations of the afternoon faded as I basked in my Solomonesque moment. I was just as thrilled to find a happy resolution to the conundrum as my good neighbor was to gain a calf he didn’t know he’d lost – a calf he’d tried to give away.
The frequent autumn bovine prisoner exchanges and the rescues of lost babies only underscores the goodness that frequently shelters the heartland like a warm, divine blanket. My cows wear the big MR on the right rib or the more subtle Rafter 17 on the hip as a legal identification and a message to anyone who may otherwise be tempted to claim them as their own. And of course it makes sense to properly identify one’s personal property. But I feel blessed with an assurance that could easily be mistaken for naivete – that the folks in my home country will always do the right thing – not because they’re somehow compelled, but simply because it’s the right thing. I believe they do it, not because it’s written in some invisible dogmatic code of the West, but because it’s written on their hearts by a benevolent power whose wisdom transcends our ability to fully comprehend. And for that, my corner of a sometimes gloomy world is a much brighter place.
