C. C. Phillips
C. C. Phillips
The tires of the pickup seemed particularly adept at finding the gopher and badger holes as Sven Larson navigated the winding, two wheel track of the prairie trail leading west from Milto headquarters to a set of holding corrals seven miles distant. Milt hooked the heels of her riding boots under the passenger side of the bench seat and wrapped her left arm around Chase to keep herself from bouncing and the dog from jostling the driver. A second truck, driven by Robert Milto, followed at a quarter mile distant. Constance Milto sat next to her husband in that vehicle.
The Miltos and their hired hand had made an early start this morning. It was the last day of June and they would need all the light of the long summer day to round up their beef herd for tomorrow's branding.
Robert Milto ran close to twelve hundred cow-calf pairs, the numbers being split equally between a purebred herd and another bunch of commercial beef animals on his vast acres of prairie wool. Branding of the new calf crop required considerable labour with round-up itself consuming an entire day for half a dozen riders. The Miltos branded the calves of their purebred stock before they went to pasture but the commercial beef, which calved later in the spring, were left for an early summer chore.
Ben and Lou Collins, along with Leonard Yeast, would join the three Miltos at the holding corrals where all had ridden their horses the day before. Sven didn't ride but he had plenty of odd jobs to occupy his time while the cattle were being rounded up. He devoted his time to tending gates, corral repairs or windmill maintenance and, using the pickup for a chuck wagon, delivering Mrs. Milto's prepared meals to the riders at various waterholes on the big lease.
The first light of day faintly illuminated the top of the steel-framed windmill as Sven and Milt approached the corrals.
“I hope Whiskey had a good night in that pen,” Milt said. “Sometimes he doesn't get along real good with that bay of Lou Collins.”
“More's the vorry for Lou's horess if Viskery don' like him.”
Robert Milto quipped that Sven Larson had been here before Confederation but the Scandinavian, whose age actually favoured the early part of sixty, still held his strong Norwegian accent. When the Miltos bought the ranch, which had less deeded land at the time, Sven came with the package. An excellent operator of machinery and equipment and adept at handling livestock, he fit the bill perfectly, except he flatly refused to ride a 'horess'. Robert Milto's well equipped machine shop was more to Sven's liking as he claimed to have come from generations of blacksmiths in the old country. “If you vant shoes for your horess, okay, but Old Sven von't never ride him.”
Milt straightened up from pouring the last ration of oats into a small pile for her mother's horse when Ben Collins' old Chevy pickup bounced to a stop near the waterhole that served as overflow from the windmill's stock trough. Ben's father and Leonard Yeast were with him. A pair of sharp-tailed grouse, 'prairie chicken,' who had arrived with the sun, drummed away from the water, chuckling vexedly as the men climbed out of the truck.
Ben ambled over to the inner corral where Milt tended the horses. Stretching and yawning the tow-headed lad groaned, “Too early for me to be up.”
Milt kept her voice low so Mr. Yeast wouldn't hear. “Maybe you didn't go to bed early enough.”
Ben laughed off the innuendo, “No, no, I was workin'… you know sun up 'til sun down.”
“Well, it's sun up now.”
“Yeah,” Ben conceded. “And a fine day it is too!”
The adults exchanged greetings then Mrs. Milto brought out a Thermos of coffee and poured steaming cups for all, warning, “It's black enough for Sven so brace yourselves.”
“Anything different this year?” Leonard Yeast asked of Robert Milto in regards to the round-up.
“No. We'll handle things the same as last year. It seemed to go all right, unless you fellows have any suggestions?”
The six riders had worked together on the round-up for the past two seasons and the work had become somewhat routine. The pasture was divided into thirds with the horsemen covering their area in pairs. The holding corrals were situated near the centre of the lease and all cattle would be driven to this point. A long arm of barbwire fence extended out from a 60 acre holding field where the herd would spend the night; as the round-up teams hazed their bunches up to this fence line it served to divert the cattle into the smaller pasture. Tomorrow, the riders would move the bunch into the sturdily built rough-cut lumber corrals for sorting. Once the calves were separated, branding could begin.
Sven busied himself closing and opening the appropriate gates while the riders caught and saddled their mounts. The hired hand was there to open the corral gate as the cowboys filed out.
“Not riding today, Sven?” Ben Collins goaded as he rode past.
“You just make sure you don' fall off your horess and don' be vorrying about Sven.”
“I heard you used to work for a sheep rancher across the river… You like sheep better than horses?”
“You get down off that horess and I be showen' you how Sven handles young billy goats.”
Connie Milto came to the hired hand's aid. “Sven couldn't have worked across the river, Ben, there's no bridge…”
Everyone laughed and Ben pulled his straw hat low to hide a reddening face.
Milt eased Whiskey closer to Ben's horse, “I told you everyone knew who blew up the bridge.”
Sven called after the young girl, “Don' be vorking that Viskery horess too hard today.”
“I'll be easy on him, Sven, Chase can roust 'em out of the rough stuff.”
The collie, as if on cue, trotted into position behind Milt's buckskin.
Robert Milto reined up his horse before leaving the corral and passed along some last minute instructions to his hired man. The group then loped across the holding pen and paired off in three separate directions.
Cattle trails radiated out from the windmill hub like spokes on a wagon wheel. The relatively flat area encompassing the holding field soon gave way to sharp ridges with deep draws chopped in at their base. Generally, the dips ran east-to-westerly, but in the rugged landscape that now absorbed the riders, no pattern existed. Huge sand dunes swallowed up the prairie grass and inched their way up and over patches of saskatoon and chokecherry. The sand advanced with the prevailing winds. Here and there plains prickly pear cactus clung tenaciously to an arid existence on the siliceous slopes.
The majority of the bovine contingent were found near the windmills and salt licks. These were relatively easy to round up and head in the right direction. However, as the heat of the day asserted itself, the cows sought refuge in the shadow of dense thickets forcing the chap-clad cowpokes to go in after them. Milt put Chase to work in these situations and angry cows bellowed with fear for their calves as the collie dove in and out, nipping heels relentlessly.
Milt topped a ridge and paused to give Whiskey a breather in the light breeze which skimmed over the hills. The big buckskin's flanks heaved and sweat glistened on his shoulders. Chase stretched out on the grass, panting, tongue lolling and grinning happily. Ben, who worked as Milt's partner, trotted up to the trio. His horse, Scoundrel, was wringing wet and flecks of white foam clung to his chest. Ben lifted his hat and brushed perspiration from his face with a sleeved forearm. Streaks of blood formed on his left cheek where an errant branch had slapped his face.
“Whew! She's gonna be a cooker today,” he said. “The beggars keep wanting to head back into that brush. There's one Charolais-cross giving me plenty of grief.”
“I'll put Chase on her tail for awhile,” Milt offered. “They usually come around to his way of thinking. We've moved them out of the worst of it now.”
“Good thing,” Ben said. “cause my ol' horse won't last the day at this pace.”
“You've had the worst going so far so I'll take your side with Chase. We'll move that Charolais and pick up the rest of this corner. How does that suit you?”
Ben agreed, saying, “I suppose we will catch up with Sven at that mill over that way?”
Milt nodded her response, adding, “It's easy going from there to the holding field.”
The tables turned when Chase tried to tune up the stubborn Charolais and she put the run on him. The fleet-footed cow dog let the cow believe she had the upper hand and led her, bellowing, back to the bunch where he quickly dodged behind and nipped viciously at a hock just to reassert his authority.
By the time the blistering sun reached noon the young riders had their herd built and drifting eastward across a large flat. A windmill stood idle at the far edge and the cowboys shifted the herd toward it. Cinches were loosened and the mounts were allowed a short drink at the mill. Milt and Benny then stretched out on the prairie for a brief rest; the ground hitched horses cropped the short grass nearby. Soon, the hired hand, driving Robert Milto's four wheel drive, came idling along the prairie trail leading to the mill.
Chase's tail thumped the ground as the canine cowboy was too tuckered to offer his usual effervescent greeting. Sven lowered the tailgate of the pickup which would serve as a table then poured out a small measure of oats to each horse as Ben and Milt helped themselves to lunch. Mrs. Milto had provided some special treats for the collie which the riders took turns doling out. The young dog's energy soon returned and he trotted ahead of the horses as Ben and Milt rode out again to bunch their now slightly scattered herd.
Milt was able to see the mill at the holding corrals when she and Ben met up with Leonard Yeast and Lou Collins as they brought their herd along towards a fork in the trail. Both older men looked warm from the heat but their horses had not been overworked. By the time the riders reached the holding field, Robert and Constance Milto's bunch could be seen approaching from the far side of the flat. Ben Collins swapped horses with his dad and, with Milt, Whiskey and Chase, rode out to help the Miltos bring their cattle up to the drift fence and into the holding field.
The rancher and his wife had had a larger portion of pasture to cover but the terrain was more forgiving. Their herd comprised about half of the total.
The afternoon had slipped away when at last the three herds were within the confines of the holding field. The riders saw to their horses before congregating around Sven's four-by-four cum 'chuck wagon' to compare notes on the day.
“Bob, when did you put the bulls out?” Lou Collins asked.
“They've been in here just over two weeks now.”
“There's one crippled up pretty dang bad over there by the hidden mill. He must have got hurt fighting,”
Robert Milto digested this bit of news. “A young Charolais?” he asked.
“Yeah, yellow tag, number 6-12.”
The rancher nodded. “He's one that I bought last fall at the Exhibition bull sale. Is he bologna bound?”
Lou Collins considered. “Well, his hip is either dislocated or broke and he don't get around too good.”
“I can't get in there with a stock trailer— it's too rough, and we probably couldn't load him in a truck…”
“Too danged hot to butcher,” Leonard Yeast said, “the carcass would come back to life before a feller could get it to a cooler to hang.”
Milto said, “I guess… the coyotes have got to eat too. Ben, do you have your rifle with you?”
Lou Collins snorted. “Ever since he bought that old smoke-pole of Pete's, he ain't left the yard without it.”
Ben nodded, “Yeah, it's in the truck, Mr. Milto,” then, turning to his father reminded him, “It's only half mine, Milt owns the other half.”
“Milt be'n doing much shooten' with it?' Lou asked.
The group decided that Ben and Milt would make the journey to the 'Hidden Mill', so called because the water hole was secluded in a low spot among tall dunes and heavy aspen poplar bluffs. They would use Robert Milto's four-wheel drive to ensure passage through several rather long, dry sand blow outs occurring along that part of the trail. Sven and Connie, with Chase in back, returned to the ranch in the other Milto truck while the three ranchers squeezed into the small cab of Ben's pickup.
With the elder Collins driving, the men made a swing through some of Robert Milto's lease where he kept his purebred stock. Lou Collins and Leonard Yeast were anxious to see the progress of the Miltos' calf crop. These calves were a product of a continuing artificial insemination program the big rancher had begun several years previously in conjunction with a university research project and the two neighbours hoped to profit in the future using young bulls kept from this herd.
The terrain in the lease where the purebred animals grazed was considerably more forgiving than the pasture where the round-up had taken place and consequently easier on both the suspension of the 16 year old truck and its three occupants. The rancher found the bulk of the bunch lingering near the mill for a cool drink as the slowly sinking sun relented its assault on man and beast for this day.
There was enough light for Robert Milto's neighbours to study the big Charolais calves closely.
“Lord, God!” Leonard Yeast said. “Them danged calves is half-growed already! They're most as big as mine when I wean in October!”
“You wouldn't want to be using that French bull on first calf heifers,” Lou Collins said.
The 'French bull' he referred to was a famous Charolais champion from Europe named 'Artiste' and, unbeknown to him, his progeny were springing up on continents all over the world.
Referring to the artificial insemination program, Robert Milto pointed out, “It's labour intensive during the breeding season but a fellow doesn't have to feed bulls all winter either.”
“No, I suppose them bulls keep right cool in that liquid nitrogen,” Lou agreed. “I prefer the natural method, but a feller can't afford to buy them danged exotic bulls; the bugger might die or go lame on you anyway. So, we grow some danged good bulls now and a man can do his own cullin' down the road.”
Robert Milto said, “That's true, if we put the best breeding into our herds today, it will ensure a top placement in the market for our beef in the future.”
“You are a man with an eye on the future, Bob. Me, I just look across the fence and take my direction from there,” Leonard Yeast said.
“You both ought to envision the future because your kids are going to be part of it.”
Lou glanced at Leonard. “Yeah, I suspect Benny and Brenda may be thinkin' bout building a nest afore too long.”
The Collins father and son had often shared Myrna Yeast's cooking including turkey feasts at Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving ever since the passing of Lou's wife thirteen years previous so there was no misunderstanding when Leonard said, “You and Ben have been part of the family so dang long now, it might be considered incest.”
“So… when are you going to pop the question?” Milt asked as Ben manoeuvred the four wheel drive through a sequence of soft sand stretches.
The young lad turned his head so fast to look at his passenger that he jerked the steering wheel forcing the truck to climb up and straddle the 'wagon rut'.
He glared at her as she smiled back innocently. “I swear, Milt, sometimes you can read my mind.”
“It's not psychic; it's just that when you're thinking of Brenda you have this little half grin on your face. I only guessed proposing might be on your mind.”
“Well, it's none of your affair but since you poked your nose in anyway, I'll admit we have talked about it some… I just can't get up my nerve… What if she says 'No'?
“She won't say 'No',”
The trail the pair navigated took an abrupt dip with a sharp bend at the bottom where it cut through a thick stand of black birch. They threaded their way through the trees across a flat area then rose up a sharp incline on the far side. Branches slapped at the West Coast mirrors and clawed at the paint of the truck as the lug tires chewed a foothold.
“Sven won't be pleased if I bring back your dad's truck with no paint on it.”
“Sometimes, he has to come this way to check the mill and drop off salt. Not all that often though; I guess that's why the birch is closing in.”
“Too much traffic in this dry sand will get the whole pasture blowed into a desert,” Ben said.
The incline was so precipitous that evening sky filled the windshield briefly and then the pickup crested and began a slow descent into an open area where a wooden framed Eclipse windmill, a shorter version of the one in the ranch yard, stood silent in the cooling calm of early twilight.
The crippled bull, standing akilter near the water trough, stared balefully at the approaching vehicle. There were no other cattle in the vicinity, Ben noted appreciatively; his Dad and Leonard Yeast were efficient cowpokes: they had missed no animals on the round up.
“Jeez, he's a fine looking critter,” Ben said as he parked the truck about 50 yards back from the young Charolais bull.
“Polled, too,” he added, noting the rounded forehead typical of cattle that grow no horns.
“It's a shame to shoot such a prime piece of breeding stock,” Ben said to the stillness, broken only by the creaking of the vehicle's cooling engine.
He looked over at Milt who stared fixedly at the snow white bovine, its right rear leg lifted up, forward and outward strangely with a ghastly bulge protruding above the hip bone. “The leg isn't broken,” she said, “it's dislocated.”
Ben reached behind the truck seat to retrieve the scabbard encased rifle.
“If we could have hauled him out of this hole in the wilderness, maybe Doc Rigby could have fixed him up. As it is, he'll just go downhill cause he can't get around to graze and the pickin's is pretty short near this mill. Sooner or later, the coyotes will get him.”
Milt said nothing.
“He's better off if we end it now,” Ben said.
Milt made no response, though her lips were moving silently.
Ben said, “We'll have to move him back a good distance from the water so he don't pollute the well.”
He stared at Milt, who continued to stare at the animal.
“Where's that box of bullets, Milt?”
“I planned to be a veterinarian,” Milt said. “It's what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“You're hardly grown up now, Milt,” Ben said. “You got plenty of time and all kinds of brains to do that someday… but today isn't that day. And besides, this day is almost over.”
Paying no heed to Ben's common sense appeal, Milt went on, “I watched an operation to fix a cow's hip joint on a video one time…”
“You watched a what?”
“I mean a TV show,” she amended.
“Really, Milt. Were they caught in the middle of nowhere, with no equipment, no know-how and in the dark, too?”
“We have ropes and there's headlights on the truck. We can try at least, what can it hurt to try?”
“Well, it's going to hurt that bull a-plenty, cause we don't know what the heck we're doing, Milt. He'd be better off with the coyotes eaten' him alive.”
But Ben looked again at the stricken animal and shared a spark of his young friend's hope. “You can kind of see where that hip joint is popped out, can't you? I mean, just by looking at his structure?”
Ben stepped out of the vehicle and walked nearer the injured beast. The bull did not move away as Ben assessed the situation. Milt came up and stood beside her friend. As though figuring out a puzzle as he spoke, Ben said, “Let's get a rope halter on him and tie his head low on that big black post anchoring the trough… We'll dab a loop on his good hind foot and stretch him out… with the truck. Once he's pinned down with that good leg on the bottom side we can have a look at that joint. But I don't know how you figure to slide that sprung hip back in place - there's fifteen hundred pounds of critter there and he ain't agoin' to believe we're trying to help.”
“He hasn't been injured for long,” Milt persisted. “He doesn't show signs of emaciation, so I'd guess this accident happened quite recently. If we can put the hip back, it might stay…”
Ben Collins demonstrated his prowess with a lariat and soon had the young bull snubbed tight and low on the stout post he had mentioned earlier. Prolonged grief of pain restrained the animal and it cooperated quite well.
“I'll bet this critter was halter broke,” Ben said.
The two young people had to set a loop in the damp earth beside the Charolais' good leg and then push the beast sideways to make him step in the noose. This done, Ben anchored the free end of the second lariat to a tow hook on the front of the truck. Milt backed the vehicle, tightening the rope slowly, while Ben grasped the thick white tail and sharply pulled the off-balance bull over on his side. The animal grunted with pain as the fall knocked the wind out of him and the free leg flopped uselessly.
Milt set the parking brake and, leaving the truck idling to preserve the battery while the pair worked in the headlights, trotted up to assist Ben, who stood panting from exertion.
“Now what?”
“We pull that leg down and away so it can pop back into place.”
“We're fresh out of lariats, Milt.”
“Give me your knife, I'll cut the slack off the one holding his head.”
“That's a twenty dollar lariat!” Ben protested.
“It's a two thousand dollar bull.”
“What! That bull there is worth as much as this truck?”
“He's a champion, Benny, that's why he was halter broke.”
“Well, why ain't this guy back home with all them pretty purebreds, then?”
“Dad figures we need good bloodlines in the beef herd, too; besides, they are mostly part of the AI program. Now, help me tie off this leg.”
Luck was with the young medical team: they found a fence stretcher in the back of the truck. The tool utilized a combination of ropes and pulleys —a block and tackle system? to tighten long strands of barbed wire. With this unit attached to the severed lariat, in its turn looped round the foot of the bull's damaged limb and the opposite end of the tackle anchored to the near leg of the windmill tower, Ben and Milt were able to apply steady and increasing tension on the bull's leg. With the huge appendage stretched out, Milt applied gentle but forceful pressure on the joint, trying to ease the hip back into its socket. Sweat glistened on her face as she pushed desperately on the dislocated joint. Long shadows speared away from the lights of the vehicle and a faint mist of steam rose from the nostrils of the distressed bull. The surrounding darkness hemmed the three beings into a tiny capsule where, for the moment, nothing else existed.
Ben strained on the fence stretcher. “It's no go,” he panted. “I'm pulling so hard the bull is skidding my way. We're apt to dislocate his good leg.”
“Set the lock and help me here, Ben…It's so close. I know it is.”
With both of them pushing on the bulging muscle, there came a sudden, sodden “clunk” and the bulge disappeared. A long, deep groan of relief escaped from the bull.
Milt collapsed face first in the warm white hide.
Ben stood up. Staring in amazement at the greatly reduced mound of muscle and bone, he said, “We did it.”
Milt looked up at Ben, sweat and tears mingled on her cheeks. Damp strands of auburn hair hid her face but the smile beamed through.
“We'll have to get him up right away or he'll stiffen up and be useless,” Ben said.
After Milt retrieved her straw hat, lost in the struggle, she went to the animal's head while Ben let off the tension of the fence stretcher. He then hopped in the truck and eased it ahead to create just enough slack in the lariat holding the bull's good limb.
The creature made no attempt to rise as Ben removed the loosened rope from the back leg and Milt doled out more tether on the make-shift halter. At Ben's suggestion, they kept the halter on and used it to urge the stricken beast to get up. With both young people pulling on the halter shank, the bull soon made an effort. Sore muscles failed to lift his hind end on the first two attempts but, with gentle encouragement from his captors, the invalid finally managed a three-legged, wobbly stance.
Ben held the rope while Milt circled around to the injured side. The leg dangled off the ground a couple of inches but she could see that the Charolais had control of it. Ben urged the animal forward and, as it stepped gingerly on the damaged quarter, a painful groan escaped.. Ben continued to coax the bovine to follow and it gradually but daintily placed more weight on the repaired joint. To the surprise and delight of the medical team, the bull took a long drink from the water trough when Ben led him near.
“He's gonna be alright!” Ben said. “He'll have to be moved home before he tries to impress the cows and re-injures himself. But, he'll be a herd sire next year… which is a whole lot better than being coyote fodder tomorrow.”
The pair left the bull near the windmill and Ben navigated the treacherous trail back to the holding corrals where they paused briefly to check on their saddle horses. The big herd of cattle were quiet on this sultry night, now illuminated by a gibbous moon.
While Milt was fastening the first gate east of the corrals on the trail back to the ranch headquarters, a set of headlights appeared jouncing towards them. Milt climbed back in the passenger's seat and Ben manoeuvred the 4X4 off the trail and parked to await the arrival of the oncoming vehicle.
Sven, driving Robert Milto's second pickup, rolled to a stop beside them, window down on this warm evening.
“Are you lost?” he asked as Chase, who shared the bench seat, crowded the driver for window space.
Milt broke the news before Ben could reply. The dog barked happily when he heard her voice and Sven pushed the nuisance over to the far side of the truck.
“Vot you say?” Sven asked, while rubbing his ear to mitigate the reverberation from Chase's yelp.
“We didn't have to shoot the Charolais,” Ben took over the conversation. “Milt, the vet here, put that dislocated hip back in place and the bull got up and ran a few laps around the windmill. He'll be all right in a few days.”
“Vell, you can tell everybody the story at vonce, but you best be heading home now, coss your folks be'n gettin' vorried.”
Lamps on the large open veranda welcomed invitingly and several rooms were lit up inside as Ben parked in front of the big house. Sven, who stopped to close the last gate, pulled up behind them and climbed out of the truck with Chase, in his excitement, bolting over the hired man. Milt made a fuss over her dog as the group walked to the house.
Robert Milto laughed and his wife beamed with pride as the young people recounted their adventure. Ben made Milt out to be a heroine and downplayed his part in the rescue but there was no denying that the pair had both contributed substantial effort.
“We'd all best get some rest. It's been a long, long day,” the rancher said at length. “Ben, you can take the truck home for the night. Your dad took yours when he and Leonard left a couple hours ago.”
“Although my Dad and father-in-law had been running cattle for twenty five years before Bob Milto showed up in the district, it was his foresight that got us around to thinking seriously about real herd improvement. Descendants of Miltos' purebred stock are among the herd Brenda and I are running today.”
Submitted by Ben Collins
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