I was remembering the whole story about the time I met Joe but praying Joe wouldn’t even recognize me again after a couple years. Let alone tell Monte the story of how we had met.
But as we got out of the truck and started walking, well I was more like hobbling from pain, up to Joe’s wagon Monte and Joe barely even acknowledged each other before Joe was blurting out,“Hola, Ringo, mi amigo. ¿Cómo estás?”
To which I answered ?Bien, ¿cómo está? Señor Aerea.”?
“It’s just Joe to you. And I am doing a lot better than you it looks like.”
Which left Monte just trading looks at each of us finally asking, “You two know each other”?
To which Joe said I was like Ringo the drummer in the Beatles band. And we had met once when he was trying to give me a sheep herding lesson one day.
And then glancing at my bloody legs said it didn’t look like I had learned much since then and not to come in his wagon and get blood all over. Adding “Let me guess. You got in front of a wool blind ram.”
Which is where Monte decided to jump in busting out laughing. “No, not just in front of him. He got in front of him after I told him not to, got hung up in his horns and then took a ride on him backwards down the mountain side.”
Joe was busy pouring three cups of hot coffee. I actually checked my watch so Joe could see I had one. But even though it was already 3 pm it wasn’t like I was going to say it was too late to be drinking coffee. Because when you are in a sheepherder’s camp you shut up and drink or eat what they offer.
I sat down on the tongue of Joe’s wagon and had to sit there while Monte gave the blow by blow story of finding the wool blind ram. How he told me exactly how to get him out of its hiding place but I didn’t listen. How the ram charged and I tried to jump over him but didn’t make it. And didn’t even spare the part about me losing a boot and my hat and having to go barefoot to retrieve them
Joe was just highly amused by all that with him and Monte laughing while Joe added more wood to the stove and put a tea kettle on it.
Monte finally got around to telling Joe the ram was in the corral and somebody besides him would be up to get him the next day. Because Monte said he had other things to do or at least would claim he did.
And Joe related how the owner of the P-Bench had told Ted multiple times they had found his ram. But Ted didn’t do anything about it. And it became a moral imperative to make Ted come and get his ram instead of just hoping it would die up there.
Joe was also busy rummaging through a drawer in his wagon and came up with a roll of gauze bandaging , a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, Bag Balm, and roll of black electrical tape. And then told me to drop my pants.
Now I was not about to drop my pants in front of Joe and Monte but Monte said, “You heard him. Do it.” Which was more like a direct order so I did. Making me wonder if Monte hadn't taken me down to Joe's wagon just so he could patch me up.
It was the first time I had worked up enough nerve to actually look at my legs. And they were worse than I thought. The ram had peeled off skin on both legs from a little below my knees to just above my ankles. Basically the length of both my shins.
Then Joe told me to sit down again and came out of the wagon with the tea kettle and a rag and washed off both my legs. They had stopped bleeding by then but were still bright red.
He then asked Monte to hand him the hydrogen peroxide, Bag Balm, and roll of gauze. Joe used the hydrogen peroxide to wash the cuts again which made them kind of boil up with foam.
Then Joe started smearing Bag Balm on both legs which actually felt kind of good. And finished it up by wrapping both legs with gauze and using the electrical tape to hold the gauze in place.
Then as I was pulling my pants up again Joe was telling me, “Now listen. Make sure you leave that gauze in place for at least 24 hours. And maybe put more Bag Balm on them for the next few days. And change your pants or at least wash those because the dried blood will act like sandpaper. If you don’t those wounds could get infected and you will have I to go to town to see a doctor or lose both legs”
I had to admit that would end my cowboy days and said, “Ok Dr. Aerea,” which made us all laugh because we needed one. But I had to admit it all helped and the pain was not as bad.
After the doctoring Monte, Joe, and I caught up on a little gossip until finally Monte said we needed to be going because we still had some things to do. And then asked if anyone was at the P-Bench?
Joe said the P-Bench owner and his kids were supposed to be on the way up to summer camp but his wife should be there.
With that we jumped back in the truck and started down the road and Joe was right. We hadn’t gone far before we met the P-Bench owner and his kids. And of course we stopped to exchange pleasantries and so Monte could tell him the ram was in his corral and Ted or somebody would be up to get him. But thankfully left out my ram ride down the mountain side.
Now I was still wondering what “other things” we had to do because I couldn’t think of any and it should be the end of the day. But then instead of driving past the P-Bench ranch Monte turned into it.
Once he stopped the truck he told me I could just stay in it which was fine with me so I didn’t have to walk. And the rancher’s wife came to the door to see who was there. They greeted each other and Monte went inside for a few minutes.
Then both of them came out and walked to the truck with Monte carrying a rubber toilet plunger in one hand and a bottle of Elmer’s Glue in the other. And I don’t think the rancher’s wife wanted to be a witness to what was going to happen next she just wanted to see who Monte had with him.
And I admit to being surprised that she actually recognized me and knew who I was because I went to school with their kids. But I thought it was very fortunate because by then I had thought of something else. Joe had used almost his whole roll of gauze on my legs and I wanted to replace it. I only had two dollars to my name and tried to give them to her saying I needed to replace Joe’s roll of gauze. Explaining or more like claiming I only had some scratches on my legs that Joe had wrapped.
But she refused and said replacing Joe’s would be no problem because with her bunch she bought rolls of gauze in bulk and would take him some the next day or so.
Then the rancher’s wife headed back up to the house and Monte told me we had to try and fix the dents in the roof of the truck when his Palomino jumped out of the truck.
To be honest I had forgotten all about them even though the ceiling cover in the inside of the truck was still touching the top of my cowboy hat now and then as we bounced down the road. And it also seemed like that little incident was a week ago instead of just that morning.
As usual Monte laid a study on the situation telling me exactly what we would have to do. I needed to lay down with my back on the seat and my feet up on the roof. Monte would tap on the roof with the toilet plunger so I would know exactly where to put my feet. Then I would push for all I was worth and Monte would use the plunger to try and suck the dents out. And to my surprise it seemed to work and I could hear the dents pop out. Or at least most of them.
Then we had to try and glue the ceiling cover back in place. Which was almost the same procedure. Monte would squirt glue through some of the tiny holes in the cover and I would hold it in place with my feet. Then Monte squirted some glue where the cover was loose on the driver’s side. And all but ran back to the house to return the plunger and glue. Then once back in the truck Monte said we need to hold the ceiling cover in place so the glue could set.
And that’s how we drove the rest of the way back to the Battle Ax with Monte holding up his side with one arm and me still on my back on the seat holding up my side with my feet. And I don’t need to tell you that made it a long and uncomfortable ride back to the ranch.
It was going on dark by the time we got the truck backed up to the loading ramp. And I thought that was also part of Monte’s plan so he didn’t have to deal with Ted.
But when I gingerly got in the back of the stock truck to take Friday out there was still light enough to see our roof repair job had worked pretty well. You could hardly tell the dent was there on my side. Although the smaller dent on the driver’s side was still visible but not as bad.
Once we got the horse out Monte told me to stall long enough for him and the Palomino to get loaded and leave before going up to the house.
“Then you tell Ted about the ram in the corral and that I told Joe someone would be up there to get him tomorrow. But I can’t do it because I have some things I need to do before Mickie and I move up to the summer camp. But tell Ted it can’t wait”
And with that Monte loaded up his Palomino and left. I stalled a little bit unsaddling Friday and even gave him a little grain to buy more time. And then hobbled up to the ranch house.
And of course there was hell to pay. Ted demanded to know where Monte was and I told him it was late and he had to get going.
Then I told Ted exactly what Monte had told me to say and there was more yelling and cussing. With Ted even demanding to know why we didn’t bring the ram down with us? As if I had to tell someone who had been a cowboy and rancher his whole life there wasn’t room in the truck for a ram with horns with two horses in it.
Dinner was worse than just cold. Ted had cooked hamburgers with the ground beef from an old Brahma cow he had butchered. It was the worst and toughest meat you ever tried to eat and the hamburger tasted like mutton. But by then I was hungry enough to eat anything.
After I chocked down a hamburger I of course had to do the dishes. One of my nightly chores if it was just me and Ted there before I could go to bed.
And Ted was already headed to bed before he finally noticed the blood on my pants legs and asked what happened? And I just said I slipped on a rock ledge trying to get the wool blind ram down. But I was alright. And Ted said that would teach me to be more careful.
Then after I finished the dishes I headed down to the bunkhouse but I still wasn’t done. I only had one other pair of Levis and I changed into them. Then took my bloody pair down to the horse trough, grabbed a bucket out of the barn and washed them out as best I could with just water out of the horse trough. It didn’t work all that well and that pair of pants were kind of blood stained from then on. But I was at least doing what Joe told me to do.
It must have been past 10 pm before I finally crawled into my roll-up bed. And of course Ted was yelling at me to wrangle by 4 am, which was still pitch black because we were on daylight savings time and by the sun it was actually 3 am. But that was the way Ted tried to make everyone pay for the government trying to tell him what to do.
And as I was riding through the dark trying to spot at least one of the white horses so I could find the rest of the saddle horses there were a lot of things I had no way of knowing.
One was the only horse Ted had in the corral to wrangle with was a clumsy buckskin he named Splinters from when he broke him with a two by four. I also didn’t know where the irrigation ditch was when the horses tried to make a break on me and made Splinters run until he stepped in the ditch and spilled us both at full speed with me mostly under him.
And did I mention Splinters was clumsy. So clumsy he couldn’t get up on the side I was laying under and rolled over the top of me to get on his good side to get back up again. I thought that was going to send me to the hospital.
But on the brighter side I also didn’t know I wouldn’t be going with Ted to get the wool blind ram. Instead I would be driving about 14 cows up to the Berger Place to spend more than a week living in a sheep wagon with another cowboy named Robbie.
Before we moved to the Bow and Arrow with Monte and Mickie and spend the rest of the summer there. And that would turn out to be the best summer of cowboying I ever had.
