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Badass Chronicles  #2 story for Substack. Read more here~ https://sandraallensworth.substack.com/

The names have been changed.

For many years I had a boyfriend named Walt. He was a rancher. His father was an old time cow and horse trader. One day Walt said that his dad, Mason, had gotten word of two longhorns which had been jumping the fence and getting out on the highway about 80 miles  away near a National Park. They were 12 year old steers. Some other cowboys had tried to catch them and had given up. Because they kept getting on the highway, orders had been given for the steers to be shot, as a public safety measure. Mason convinced the powers-that-be to let him have a try at catching the steers before they were put down. Walt, his sister and her two kids, Mason, Johnny (a local ranch hand) and I headed south to try to do what others had failed to accomplish. Walt had a good horse but Johnny’s horse was green.

They chased those steers into and out of gullies, through cactus and across flatland. The steers would lie down to hide and then come up fighting. At one point one of the steers hid in a deep gully and when Walt chased him out, the steer bolted up and over the lip of the gully, with his six foot wide horns, straight into the path of Johnny and his green broke horse. His horse’s eyes got very wide, so that the whites showed. He jumped sideways and when Johnny tried to control him, he broke in two. He started bucking hard and was rendered useless for the chase. Walt finally wore the steer down and he Johnny got him roped and loaded into one trailer with Mason’s help. Sister and her kids and I were at the second pickup.

Walt and Johnny searched for a long time until the only place left to look was a grove of trees. Walt tied his horse and Johnny stayed horseback while Walt went into the trees, afoot, searching. The steer bolted from the trees and Johnny cut him off. Walt jumped on his horse and took off after him. It was beauty to behold to see Walt riding hard, build a huge loop, and then see it settle over the head and one horn. He later said that he would have had to tie two ropes together to rope both horns. LOL.

As Walt leaned far off the saddle to the left, trying to gain leverage and keep from getting pulled over by the steer, the animal headed towards the bed of the truck that Sister, the kids and I were standing in. When it looked like he was going to join us, Sister and the kids bailed off the right side. I stood firm, but moved to the center of the bed, near the cab. The steer headed for the truck, pulling Walt and the horse behind him. Walt reined his horse to a different angle as he and his horse strained to gain control.

I wasn’t about to lose my bird’s eye view of the action. The steer and I were nearly eyeball to eyeball, a few feet apart. I still remember those eyes. They did not look like cow eyes to me. They reminded me of the shark eyes in Jaws. I jumped and spread my arms wide to get his attention. I thought if he saw me in the truck he would not climb in. It would have been a wreck if he had. Not that I was stupid. I would have jumped off the other side, if necessary. 

The steer turned away and Walt finally jerked him down. He was standing in the saddle and it was twisted sideways pulling on that steer. He yelled for his dad to bring the trailer. Mason brought it alongside the steer and opened the gate. I jumped down to help. Walt ran the rope through the trailer and put a loop around one of the side rails. He then handed me the rope to use as a pulley and we inched that huge steer into the trailer. He had to turn his head sideways to get inside. 

A few days later Walt and I branded them. They never even flinched when those hot irons burned their hides. Mason sold them to an attorney in another town for a tourist attraction. I was so glad that I got to witness some very real cowboying that day. I still have some pictures of those steers and a great memory.

See more to this story in “Short Stories” page.