‘Ole’, y’all!
Al owned rodeo bulls, 3 white and black, 3 red, and 6 black with their horns trimmed. They weren’t continuously mad, chase you up a tree or over a fence type, but well fed performers who knew, or seemed to know, that when ridden they bucked. That is all there is to it. Buck off the rider, find him on the ground, stomp him, and mince him, nudge him with your face, and then stand back and admire the applause. Time for a drink and some apples. Behave bad for the crowd, apples please.
I worked for a stock and station agent, several in fact, and my job this day was to load those friendly bulls into the rigid truck and take them off up north and inland for a show. I was only finding and loading then moving onto the next job, estimating fencing products.
Ordinarily I would not do livestock, they had stockies, two, who inspected and drafted/sorted off a required number and type, loaded, signed off and went to the pub, it was nearly 11.00 am after all.
This particular day I went with Al to his agistment on a rocky paddock with a stock catching wing, a chute into a yard, two more yards for draughting, then a crush race leading to a loading ramp with good visibility for the truck driver, and cattle friendly. Cattle like open spaces, cattle like other cattle, especially in the yards. A single cow, or whatever, cries its heart out mostly.
Al whistled, whistled, and those rodeo bulls plodded up, single file until it was the two of us in a circle of prospective steak. Al pointed, pointed, and the leader, just appointed, walked off in the direction of the point and into the wing yard, and onwards to the holding yard. It’s not hard, this mustering, but close the gate is a requirement in rural Australia, which is where we were right then, and our action of that could have been expedient, or more.
In a sudden movement, a white and black beast trotted out the gate and up the chute, then seeing the open range ahead, galloped out and onwards with me gesticulating and facing it as it did so. It backed down, turned and returned to the yard. Guess what we hadn’t done, yet? Instead we chatted about the weather and where is the truck.
Next, and quickly, three beasts charged out of the open yard and no amount of gesticulating, shouting, asking them about their religion and challenging their sexuality, sometimes called swearing locally, did not stop them in their tracks.
We rounded them up and as we got them and us close to the yard, all of the cattle joined us back in the paddock by walking through the open gate. They were angry now, almost like rodeo bulls, which they were.
Al said to leave them, they will quieten when they stop panting and we will move them back into the yards. They did, in some minutes, two smokes for some, they walked in the direction of the point after assembling in response to the whistle, again.
Almost there, nearly, then the truck arrived in all its V8 diesel rowdiness and a blast on its horn and the cattle ran in all directions and one of that was straight through the closed gate (we got that closing part right) and out onto the paddock again.
Al said let them quieten, the trucking company said we have other jobs to go to you know, and I suggested I move the cattle from the paddock to the yard, others can help, but the cattle are being shipped from here as agreed.
So I did, walked amongst the cattle and was routinely hunted, cattle-style, by angry beasts, charged at, stalked, ran at from the side, from the back – but they went into the yard and onto the truck. It had been suggested to get one or more running in the required direction by slapping them on the side and making a lot of noise. That was a wind up, a good one to be remembered. But I did that slapping as suggested, and it didn’t work, I slapped and yelled and nothing happened too much except a beast turning in my direction and baulking, and challenging for a fight.
I was a front row forward in a rugby union team. Swerving, a shimmy, dodge and dart are foreign to me. You get inside and outside centres, most of the backline actually, who do that, not forwards. You need a perm and purse to qualify really, right?
Anyway, this day I did dodge and swerve, shimmy up to a point. Baffle those cattle.
Somebody said ‘Ole”.
The cattle went on and one of the drovers, a truck man, spoke in an American accent. He was from Hay NSW, he had cowboy boots as well, those dead alligator skin types and a belt buckle so wide and high he might have eviscerated himself, either top or bottom, because of his belly. Why?
So, the job was done, Al went with his cow friends, and I went on to work elsewhere and later in the evening went to football training.
I was telling the coach about those angry bulls and me in the big scheme of things and he was laughing, laughing at me demonstrating my dodge and weave, push off, swerve and shimmy. Training stopped and they all came to listen, so I told them about it again, with demonstrations of my moves. They laughed at me. Then I mentioned about wanting to transition to the back line, as a prospective centre, inside or outside, and there was pandemonium. Harsh, very, monstrous. I’ve had better days.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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They say ‘bad days/bad decisions’ make for the best stories.
You seem to have validated that adage superbly.