Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

The golden light of winter evenings is most memorable
December 11, 2011

I always welcome the wonderful golden light of winter evenings. My granddad ran West Texas cattle in Oklahoma on Seminole Indian land, fattening up beeves for Bull Shannon and Ira Yates and other West Texans, before they were sold the next year in Kansas City. Then he was young and had a red-haired wife he loved dearly, who often joined him out in the pastures (before she started having babies). Her daddy ran the store at Wewoka and had been granted honorary membership in the tribe. Her grandfather had been the first missionary to work with the Seminoles and the Seminole blacks when they first arrived in Indian Territory from their homeland in Florida.

My father told me a story the day that he died, just before he died. He and I were sitting in his work room, near sundown on that sunny (but cold) winter day, waiting for my wife to bring my mom back from the doctor. We had been talking about my granddad's memoirs, which were in a special box that my dad had made, and was always present on his bookshelves that held his beloved "trip tapes" and family camping journals. He always made a tape of every trip he took after he retired, telling about the geology, the birds that my mom saw, and any admirable "cattle operations" he saw as he drove.

"My dad told me a story about the evening light," my father said. My father closed his eyes and when he spoke, it was in first person. " I used to sing a great deal. I'd sing to while away the time. I adapted songs to match the gait of my horse. Some songs fit a trot, other songs fit a gallop, some songs even fit a high lope, but few fit a fast run, because it is hard to sing while the horse is running at full speed. If you had to hold a herd at night, the cowboys took turns all night long, circling the cows and singing. It calmed them, so they wouldn't jump at the first abrupt noise and start running. The real ringy ones would run at the sound of a sneeze. " My father started singing:

"I am a roving cowboy
Off from the western plains
My trade is cinching saddles
And pulling bridle reins
I can throw a lasso
With the most graceful of ease,
And I can rope a bronco
And ride him where I please."

"When I was a youngster up on the Kaw River in Kansas I worked for a while on a overwintering operation. I worked for a banker who helped other ranchers from further west, arranging for fattening herds on good bottomland hay. He had five parcels of land along the river there, but only one house in good enough shape to live in. He had three guys working for him, plus me. One was an old waddy who had been on a dozen long drives back in the 1860's and 1870's, and who had seen places from Mexico to Canada, and he was full of great stories and knew lots of songs. Another was a fellow that was a drunk when he could get something to drink, but behaved himself most of the time, and the third fellow was a bit slow, whose parents went to the same church as the banker. My daddy owed the banker, so I was working for free, helping pay off the debt."

"I guess what happened is memorable because it was the last thing that happened when I worked there, and were leaving the next day to the place near Wewoka where I met your mother Maynie."

"That night, I was riding back to the house in the late evening light, all tuckered out. I was excited about the adventure ahead, and extremely happy that the debt was finally paid off. I rode down the lane, singing at the top of my lungs, through the swirling golden cottonwood leaves and wind dancing golden grasses. I remember the song I was singing as the lights of the house came into view:"

"And the music started winding and wailing like some ghosts
that had come to cast their hoodoo on the Cowboy New Years Dance."

My father closed his eyes. After making sure he was asleep I left the room as my wife and mother returned. When my wife and I came back by his room,we found that he had passed on.