Tribulations for Me and Ol Weary

It was summertime in the Sand Country, a land of sagebrush, juniper trees, scrub oak and deep sand. Elephant Butte reared upwards 500 or 600 feet to make an island in the sky of several hundred acres, accessible only to the red-tailed hawk and golden eagle. Day time temperatures ranged in the 90's with water holes few and far between. It was here with 2100 head of yearling sheep, more or less, an old black horse and a lazy dog or two that I passed the summer of my 16th birthday. Several tribulations occurred that summer which tested my calm and gave practice to my range land vocabulary.

Cain Spring was a water leak out of the ground that kept a long water-trough full, if not over used, its location being just west of Elephant Butte a short distance. My camp was south and a little west 2 or 3 miles. LeGrand and Syle Brink took turns coming out to move camp and bring supplies. This occurred about every 2 or 3 weeks and they weren't very careful to locate it in the best places. When he pulled it out from Cain Springs he parked it in the middle of a level flat covered by a robust growth of thick sage brush. One or two spindly scrub oaks stood near the wagon for shade purposes. The horse feed was loose hay, piled on the south side of the wagon that faced east. My horse was over-worked and under-fed, leg weary with hips poking up high enough to hang my hat on. I asked for a change of mounts but he said the black was good enough.

Sheep naturally like to bed down on a ridge or knoll, and the brushy flats are the worst place you can find for a bed ground, but then the comfort and convenience of a lowly sheepherder is of no consequence. Not long after I was located there, a terrific thunder storm took place. The lightening flashed almost continuously, with the roar and crack of thunder that startled the strongest of nerves. The black of the night was total darkness with the lightening flashes on, off, on, off, on, off The sheep became frightened and began to mill in a circle there in front of the wagon, knocking over the sage brush. I stood in the doorway wondering what to do. As the storm continued, the herds panic increased until it was swirling about as if a dog was chewing on each of their tails. I had never seen nor heard of sheep running like this. When the lightening flashed again the herd had split and a big bunch was running wildly out to the northeast. The heavy brush split off little stringers as they went along. I hurried out, trying to bunch them up and bring them back to the ones still on the bed ground, but they were unmanageable. They would dart this way and that as the lightening flashed and I could tell they were totally terrified. The main part of the cut-off bunch ran north about 300 yards before the brush split them up into a lot of little bunches. The part that stayed on the bed ground lost some of the herd panic and slowed down to a walking mill. The group that freaked out must be like people become when a fire breaks out and fear electrifies them into tromping each other to death. I've never talked to any other sheepherder who had sheep stampede like that, but cattle will run crazy and they say buffalo did, and so will horses.

After awhile the storm moved on eastward without dropping any rain. Presently I heard coyotes singing up toward Cain Spring in the direction some of the sheep had run so I got out the old 30-30 to make a couple of bangs up that way. Later on in the night I got out of bed several times to repeat the procedure hoping those killers would not get into the scattered herd. Next morning after gathering them in one bunch I counted the markers (which are the bell-ewes and blacks) and none were missing. A couple weeks later Syle and I counted them again and they were all there.

After the stampede a few nights I heard a noise outside the wagon where the hay was stacked, so I went out to investigate and there, gobbling up my horse feed, was a yellow Jersey cow. It's late in the night but the moon is bright so I drive her up the country a ways, blessing her all the time with words that should have impressed her with the fact that she was not welcome around my camp, but she almost beat me back to the wagon. I tried to fix my brush barricade protecting the haystack, but as soon as I went in the wagon she burrowed right through it. So most of that night was spent running her off and standing guard duty. Next morning I saddled up old Weary Horse and drove her up beyond Cain Spring a mile or two, then went back to check on the sheep.

Ol' Weary

When I rode back into camp at noon, there she was eating hay. In fact she had eaten half of it and tromped and rooted the rest. GRRRR was I mad! I double roped her for many miles, till my horse was all tuckered out. That night after the moon came up, there she was, trying to get the stems she hadn't eaten the day before. "Maybe I can shoot her tail off and make her stay away, " I reasoned to myself. So in the bright moonlight I maneuvered around to where I got a close shot at her tail and blew it away. There were no flies bothering her at that time of night so she hardly noticed the loss if it. I says to myself, "I'll shoot off a horn. That will give her a headache and take her mind off my horse hay." So after taking careful aim, I squeezed the trigger. It knocked her down, but she got back up and I'm afraid my aim was a wee bit low, I drive her up through the brush so she'll die away from my camp. By this time I'm mighty tired, the hour is late and that old cow has used up a good portion of my sleeping time for the last two nights, I crawled wearily into bed.

Early next morning I look out the door to check on the sheep and there, right in front of the wagon, lays that detestable cow, plumb dead. She is a jinx and a curse to my life, put there by the devil himself. What can I do? My weak old horse can't drag her away, so I'll have to dig a hole to bury here where she lays. I used up my breakfast time digging but pretty soon the herd leaves and I have to saddle up and follow.

Those sheep are travelers as the feed is not good, and I must stay right with them or they might go clear over to Moccasin or maybe down to Cane Beds for a visit. When next I get time to dig, she has doubled in size so I must make the hole twice as big. All noontime I dig, no time for dinner. The ground is hard and those sheep don't stay shaded up for long, so once again the burial services must be postponed.

When the sheep come into the bed ground that night, the cow has grown considerable more with legs protruding out stiffly, requiring a humungus hole. Considering her growth capabilities I'm actually loosing ground in my grave digging efforts. That night I stay up late, laboring diligently to overcome this trying tribulation. Didn't dare to pray for help 'cause I deserved this punishment for cussin at this old cow out so bad and then shooting her in the head so she died. Beside, if some cowboys came by and saw what I had done to their cow they might hang me from one of those scrub oak trees. Cowboys did that sort of thing to hated sheepherders. It said so right there in some of the wild west magazines I had. Finally I thought the hole was about big enough for her to fit in so got old Weary up from his rest, saddled him and put my rope on the cow's lower front leg with the idea that Weary could roll her over into the hole. In his weakened condition the strain was almost more that he could muster, but finally she rolls over, down into the hole, landing skiwampus with her stiff legs stuck into the bottom of the grave, holding her better than halfway above ground level. Then I dig post holes around those feet, still she is a long way from decent burial. What I should have done, but didn't think of at this time of total frustration, was shoot her in the belly to let her balloon go down. I just never thought of it till much later. Only thing left to do was mound dirt over the top and hope no cowboys came by till the Brink boys moved my camp.

So I shoveled on into the night and sometime in the wee hours of the next morning I staggered into bed for a couple hours rest before having to follow those traveling boragos again. Seven or eight days later Syle showed up to move my camp. Old Weary had eaten his last stems of hay several days before and was even short on his feed of oats. His eyes were sunk back in his head and I could tell he was not long for this world. The cow mound had flattened out pretty good and I don't think I told Syle about that tribulation. I did ask him for a better horse but he thought Weary would last the rest of the summer, besides it was a lot of bother to bring a fresh horse out there from town.

He moved my camp over along the road north of the Elephant Gap out in the open flat with no shade for the wagon and only one barrel of water for me and the horse. I still had to water the sheep every day at Cain Springs, but they are in better shape to make the trip than my horse, Weary. After all, they didn't have to pack a sheepherder back and forth cutting for tracks to see that no little bunch of contrary wooleys has sneaked away through the trees to end up as coyote meat.

The weather was dry and hot, no weeds had grown since springtime moisture, so now all there was to eat are oak leaves, some bitter brush and sage, or old-man brush, which the sheep don't like. They covered a lot of country in a day looking for feed, making it difficult for Weary to keep up. Sometimes I'd leave him at camp to rest and I'd walk. But in that sand it seems like a feller slides back 6 inches every step he takes forward. By the end of the day my compassion for Weary has dulled and my dark thoughts toward Syle and LeGrand have sharpened. I think I just ought to go to town and let them take over. I'll bet they'd bring out a different horse for themselves to ride.

Because the herd ranged so far in search of feed, I'd sometimes bed them on a good knoll where they would likely stay all night and tie flags and build fires to keep out the coyotes. One time after bedding them down like that I rode by a deep wash that had a little water pocket at the bottom of a 6 foot clay bank. The barrel at camp was about empty and I didn't want to ride Weary over to Cain Spring to give him a drink so I rode him up that bottom, thinking there was enough to quench his thirst this one time.

That old buzzard-bait thought he would bog in the mud so wouldn't get close enough to reach the water. I urged him forward and in spite of being thirsty he refused to go any nearer. The wash was narrow, just enough room to ride along without scrubbing my legs. "You dumb old critter, you are going to get a drink!" I started spurring. In desperation he tried to jump over the water and up on top of the wall in front of him, but he managed to go only high enough to put his chin above the edge a little ways then fell back on his butt in the water puddle.

There he sat, with his nose and knees against the vertical bank, a dirt wall on each side and if I tipped him on over backwards I was afraid he couldn't turn onto his belly to get up. It'd be dark in a few minutes but the only solution I could think of was to walk about a mile to camp, get the shovel and come back and dig that wall down in front of him so that's what I proceeded to do. How in tarnation can a guy get himself into all these trying situations? The Lord sure is chastising me. I'd better stop cussin those blasted woolies. It's midnight by the time that vertical bank is made into a 45 degree angle trail and it takes all old Weary's got to scramble to the top. I say to him: "You contrary old bag of bones, you've been sitting there resting while I've been working hard, now you can carry me to camp."

Well, that's all right with him so long as we travel at a walk. He plods up the trail with me sitting on top with that blister stick over my shoulder. The star lit night is beautiful, but all I can see is a vision of that old sheep wagon bed.

Sheepherder grub consisted of canned corn, canned peas, canned tomatoes, beans, rice and macaroni, sometimes taters and onions with white flour for biscuits, but no meat in hot summertime. Usually you could find coffee, canned milk, and maybe a jar of jam or dozen eggs (if the grub list didn't get lost). My hankering for green vegetables made me lose my appetite for canned stuff so I didn't put on weight that summer. The herd was ranging far to the north up along the canyon where the east fork of the Virgin River cuts through the country from east to west or maybe it's the Long Valley Creek, whatever it's proper name it lays just south of Zion, running to the west. I located a side canyon that the sheep could negotiate, where I pushed them down to drink of that good clear water. Me and old Weary went down to tank up and he munched on some green grass along the bank of the creek, something he hadn't enjoyed for many a month.

The creek flowed along a sandy bottom but sand rock ledges pretty well boxed it in. Upstream a little way from where the trail came into the creek was a cave on the south wall of the canyon, its bottom being about level there-to. From inside the cave flowed a nice stream of water in which grew the most luscious growth of watercress. Gee whillikers, was I happy! I untied that old baking powder biscuit from my saddle and really ate sumptuous. The sheep were held in the bottom a couple hours while both Weary and I filled up on chlorophyll. As we climbed out of the canyon that afternoon a big bunch of that good stuff was tied to my saddle. It got somewhat wilted by the time camp was reached, but it tasted mighty good just the same.

The Lord did bless me occasionally.