Free The Pastures of Beyond by Dayton O. Hyde Page B

valley before Yamsi Ranch was snowed in until spring.
    The cows were hungry and stopped at each snow-covered bitterbrush bush to nose the snow from the branches and strip the leaves. I was riding Whingding at the rear of the herd, and he shied and snorted at each unfamiliar snow-covered shape. All I need now, I thought, is to get bucked off and have the drag take off back to the ranch.
    All I had for help in the drag was a couple of red-nosed, well-intentioned neighbor kids and Margaret Biddle. Somewhere up along the flank was seventy-five-year-old Jim O’Connor, who would be doing his best because that was Jim’s way. But he was known as a better hand with sheep than with cows. Jim wasn’t very well mounted, and besides, there was only so much any man could do in a storm like this.
    I screamed and cursed at the cattle, but the wind tore my words away. The kids seemed to be trying hard. I grinned at them whenever I passed, but already their horses were leaden with fatigue. Even with daylight, there was not much visibility. Each of us rode in a small world limited by how far we could see around us in that storm. We would ride up to a cow, scream, and pop the animal with the ends of our reins, only to find we were trying to drive a snow-covered bush. Whingding moved angrily back and forth, ears laid back, biting at the backs of cattle to drive them on. There was a gleam in his eye; he was tough as iron, and this was what he had been bred to do. He had two passions in life, bucking off cowboys and driving cattle.
    We rode with one hand under our chaps for warmth, but one hand had to be out in the weather to rein the horse. Our fingers ached horribly, and our cheeks burned even as we snuggled our faces in our scarves and rode with heads bowed against the onslaught.
    Now and then I would see the old sheepman ahead of me, hunched up and cold but doing his level best. He would glance back at me, reading my misery.
    â€œBe the Jaisus, lad,” he’d shout with a grin. “Ain’t this fun, though? ’Tis a great day I be havin’!”
    Trailing the herd at a distance was the chuck wagon, pulled by the gray Percheron draft team, Rock and Steel. Shep was in his eighties but a good chore man. He had been instructed to follow the herd to Eldon Springs, where we planned to take shelter for the night. The wagon carried a tent and our bedrolls, plus beefsteaks, eggs, coffee, biscuits, and candy bars to help us survive the ordeal of sleeping out in a blizzard.
    Margaret Biddle and the kids in the drag were pounding on the cattle, moving them up twenty feet at a time, but as soon as the pressure was off and the riders rode after another laggard cow, the first cows would stop to eat. I trotted back and forth behind the herd, making sure I kept on the outside of all the tracks. Now and then I would find a bunch of cows trying to sneak off through the pines and head back down the hill. I would scream at them like a banshee and run them back into the herd.
    It was noon when we finally made it to the top of the ridge, but here the wind came charging down off Fuego Mountain, ready to freeze us to our saddles, and blinding us with icy pellets. I hadn’t seen Morgan in two hours and hoped he could still locate the road through the trees. The old lady was a frozen lump on her horse, and I begged her to go back to the ranch. A few teardrops froze to my face, for I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again alive.
    One of the kids in the drag was too cold to get off his horse and tried to pee from the saddle, but all he managed to do was wet his chaps. The laugh we had at his expense made us feel a little better, but we all had our own battle to fight, and the storm seemed determined to defeat us.
    We hit the Sycan River at Teddy Power Meadow. Morgan somehow kept the cattle in the timber, for the open flats were a whiteout of blown snow, and the cattle would have bunched up, tails against the wind, refusing to move.