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When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw....-Stan Jones, Ghost Riders in the Sky
By Patrick O'Grady
Where are the rattlesnakes when you need them?
Despite a human population explosion of 80 percent over the past decade, cattle still outnumber cyclists and everyone else here in rural Custer County, where being "wired" means having a four-strand fence so tight that it plays the bass runs from "I Walk The Line" when the wind blows.
And while newly built trophy homes sport padlocked ranch gates festooned with "NO TRESPASSING" signs, this means zip to perambulating ruminants. This is open range, which means "free lunch" for Elsie. The law says that livestock must be fenced out, not in.
People, of course, you can simply shoot.
Yippee-Yi-Yay; Yippee-Yi-Yo.
I knew this, in a purely academic sense. Cattle in the arid West require more acreage than the Tour de France -- 25 to 50 acres per cow, if you believe the late Edward Abbey, who once proposed a hunting season on beef cattle.So the savvy cattleperson lets his critters ramble in search of some takeout. But no one's been running cows along Brush Hollow Road lately. Tracks around these parts tend toward the horse, deer, and Vredestein Campo 700x32 foldable. The only cloven-hooved beast seen regularly is the tax assessor.
So imagine my surprise one fine October morning when I skittered down the hill on my Steelman Eurocross to find a herd of burgers-to-be roving my training circuit, trampling hurdles, trailing clouds of flies and depositing steaming land mines.
Not a cowbell in the bunch, either.
They're Riding Hard to Catch That Herd...
The door was unlocked when a spring gully-washer took out about 25 yards of our fence across Brush Hollow Creek. It was flung wide open when a county road crew filled in a strategic cattle guard and another grader pilot carved an ungated driveway into a pasture down the road. Cows, like aging hippies, enjoy spring water and grass, and we have plenty of both. Party on, Garth. Don't bogart that cud, bud.Happily, my friend Hal has spent years taming his burros' wanderlust with posts and wire, and he volunteered his tools and expertise if I would supply the materials: a roll of barbed wire, five T-posts, 10 stays, a bag of wire clips.
He also enlisted Billy Sundae, a largish jackass of New Mexican extraction with more experience herding cattle than either of us. So, with Hal riding Billy, and me riding my mountain bike, we cowboyed them dogies right back through the gap in the fence. (Niche fanciers and venture capitalists take note: We can be showing my CowBikeTM at Interbike 2000, if Trek doesn't beat us to it.)
... But They Ain't Caught 'Em Yet.
We had the fence rebuilt just past sundown. But come sunrise, the cows were back, this time stepping over a stretch of wire paralleling the creek bed that had been half-buried by road graders. I drove them out solo this time, bounding back and forth like a collie dog to keep them bunched up, encouraging forward progress with an occasional bark from my .22-caliber snake remover.More wire. More clips and stays. More T-posts, many more. The new Steelman I'd been craving was looking more like a six-pack of Tire Biter Ale by the time I'd finished buying fencing materials. Especially once these bum steers had found yet another entry, where the original fence-builder had thoughtfully left a pair of passages just big enough for pedestrians, or horsemen unwilling to dismount to open the gate. Or cows.
I threw up my blistered hands. Enough. Up the hill there is a refrigerator full of beer. I will ride my bikes elsewhere. I chased the cows out a third time for luck, wired the walk-throughs shut and called it a day.
The next morning, the herd had vanished, not unlike my disposable income. Ghost riders in the sky? Space aliens? Who cares. With a little more work, this time with a rake, I'll be back in the saddle again.
Until the cows come home, that is.
