The Bright Side

Cap and Ely had seen it all. They had even seen snow in South Texas a few years back. Not just a little ice here and there, but real, full fledged snow. It was unheard of until then. They had seen flooding, although that seemed like ages ago, but it had happened. Now they were seeing something else they thought they never would. Wild cows.

The old ranch truck and cube trailer squeaked to a stop right next to the windmill by the Salt Well pens. Cap had been blowing the horn some, but it didn't matter. The cattle weren't far away from water, and since he had been feeding them everyday they just stood around that set of pens waiting on him to show up. They had grown accustomed to not looking for anything to eat since there was nothing.

Cap blew the horn and the cows abandoned their shade tree positions, striking a pretty good trot across the opening in front of the pens. They were sure hungry. Cap and Ely started their feeding process and while doing so had been surveying the herd to see if any of them needed attention in some way or another.

"Might bring that spray trailer back in a few days and try to get them flies off'em," offered Cap. "That's all we need next is the flies tryin' to carry'em off."

"Some of them older cows are so thin the flies might could," said Ely.

They sat a few more minutes and watched them eat the cubes that they had dumped from their trailer. Cap had said more than once that was the best thing ever bought on the whole ranch. Ely tended to agree since in the past he had done most of the feeding while Cap drove the truck.

About that time, in the distant brush line something moved. It caught Ely and Cap's eye at the same time and they looked in the same direction. A big bald faced brindle cow, with a VERY large bull calf came walking very slowly across the opening toward them. Actually, toward the cubes they had fed.

"Well....I'll be." whispered Cap. "We ain't seen her in a pretty good while. I was almost sure she was on the neighbors and she's definitely been too wild for us to catch."

"She looks pretty good considerin'. That old big calf....bad drought, guess she's too crazy to notice either one," offered Ely in the same hushed tone.

They both sat in the pickup still as could be. You'd have thought they were watching a TV show quality buck. They just sat in awe as she sashayed across the opening with her head up looking like she might want to run off at any second. She didn't though, as the smell of those cubes was more than she could stand. She walked up and started eating.

Cap started the truck, and eased out the gate of the pens and drove on down the road toward the headquarters. They both let what they had just seen soak in for a few minutes on the drive.

"You know it's dry when cows you haven't seen in over 2 years are comin' to feed." said Cap as they eased home to fill the trailer up with more cubes and make another feeding round.

"I guess if you want to find the bright side of a bad drought, gettin' your cattle gentler would be one," admitted Cap as he looked out the window at nothing.


Pray for rain boys,
Walker