This is a true short story about my brother, Randell, myself, our wives and kids purchasing and hauling a new Brangus bull for our herd of cows!
By Laveral Rogers
Copyright
"Randell, we don't need that bull!" his wife, Irene, said as we watched the Black Brangus bull bellow and try to jump over the side of the borrowed open topped cattle trailer.
Folks, it was in the fall of 1977, that my brother Randell and I, decided to go partners on the purchase of a herd bull. We both had a small herd of cows, but no bull.
Randell had been shopping around for a good looking bull that would drop a good solid calf.
Well, being as how, we were at each other's house nearly every weekend, this weekend was no different.
"Hey, you'll get out and come in," was the welcome that we heard as we were getting out of the new 1976 Ford pickup. Well, it wasn't exactly a new pickup, but it was less than a year old and that was close enough for me. We had just bought the truck the week before our weekly visit to my brother and his family. After he walked around and kicked the tires, he approved the new purchase. That is customary in the Rogers family tree network.
As we walked up the steps onto their back porch, having to walk around a big stack of kindling wood, which is another story, in itself, that I don't have time or space to tell you about in this short story, we entered through the back door into the kitchen. Now, Randell and Irene had spent a good sum of money remodeling their front room and entryway, but for some unknown reason, to me anyway, everybody came and went through their back door.
As we settled down in the front room to talk and swap lies, Randell said with a big smile. "Well, I've found us a bull. He's a Black Brangus!" He started describing the bull down to every little detail. The picture he painted, in describing the bull, made me want to go look at him right then.
Randell had to work the next day, which was Saturday but he had borrowed a stock trailer from a friend and told us to come back over Sunday morning and we all would go to Pocahontas and pick up our new bull. The 'we all' being Randell, his wife Irene and their two boys, Loren and Noel. Also, including my wife, Lavern, our two kids, Terry and Tammy and, of course, myself. That's eight bodies to fit into a single cab pickup. There's no way!
Now, mind you, the stock trailer that Randell had borrowed was an open topped, bumper hitch type and was not new, by any means, in fact, it had seen most of it's better days.
The next day, we met them at their house, Randell had the trailer hitched to his pickup, so we all loaded up, the four grown-ups in the pickup cab and the four kids sitting in the back of the truck bed. They were having a ball, excited as we were, about getting a new bull.
We arrived at the corral, Randell backed the trailer up to the loading chute, ready to load our new purchase. We all got out of the pickup, started walking around the seven foot high board corral, just trying to get a glimpse of the new Black Brangus bull. Someone asked, "Why do they need a fence that high?" At that time no one had an answer.
Now, for those of you who don't know much about cattle, a Black Brangus is a cross between a Black Angus and a Brahman. The Brahman is a breed of domestic cattle developed from the Zebu of India and having a large hump around their front shoulders. The Brahman cross plays a big part in the rodeo bucking bulls that, after they have bucked off the cowboy, they try to convince him to never ride or enter a rodeo arena again. In other words, some are just plain mean! On the other hand, some Brahmans are as gentle as a kitten. Randell and I had evidently bought the kind, first mentioned!
We could only get a glimpse, every now and then. It was more like a fleeting black shadow that we glimpsed. Irene commented, "He looks awfully wild to me!"
"Now Irene, he'll tame down, he'll be okay, you'll see!" Randell said in the bull's defense.
In time we got the bull loaded and we jumped into the cab while the kids climbed into the back of the pickup, where they had their chairs set up to watch the new bull on our way home. That is, all except Tammy, our daughter. She said, "I ain't riding back there with that thing!" That 'thing' being the new Black Brangus bull that kept trying with all of it's might to jump over the sides of the stock trailer. The trailer was rocking wildly, back and forth and the pickup was bouncing with every move the bull made, which was constantly!
"Randell, we don't need that bull, he's too wild!" Irene shrieked.
"Now Irene, he's just scared! He probably has never been loaded before, he'll be alright when we get him home." Randell tried to reassure her.
It was Sunday morning and fortunately, the traffic was light. Every time that we would stop at a traffic light or stop sign, the 'new purchase' would try to climb over the side of the trailer. Our wives would chorus together, "He's going over the side, he's jumping out." Randell would shoot the gas to his pickup and the bull would fall back down into the stock trailer.
After the second or third stop, we noticed that as long as the trailer was moving, the bull would be rather calm, so, Randell decided to just keep moving.
We ran every red light and stop sign between Pocahontas and home. Fortunately for us, either all of the county mounties and smokies were either still asleep or sitting at the local donut shop. As if that wasn't enough, our prize bull had tromped around so much, that he had knocked a hole into the bottom of the trailer. Sure enough, the kids riding in the bed of the pickup, started pounding on the back glass, saying, "Daddy! Hey Daddy! The bull's leg is dragging on the blacktop!"
Randell shook his head and said, "I'll be damn, what else is going to happen before we get that s.o.b. home?"
Randell would stop the trailer, knowing the bull would pull his leg back into the trailer to try and jump out again, but before the bull could start his jump, we would take off again. This action, at least, kept his leg in the trailer and kept him from trying to jump out.
We finally got to their barn, which was located behind the chicken yard. The house, chicken yard and barn was in close proximity with each other. We were all ready to put that animal in the barn and let him settle down. That's my brother Randell's words, "just let him settle down a little, he'll be okay."
Randell, backed the trailer close enough to the stable door that the riled up bull would have to go into the stable. Now, the stable that he had chosen, according to Randell's years of experience dealing with beeves, 'would hold an elephant!' But we weren't hauling an elephant, we were hauling an enraged Black Brangus bull!
Before unloading the bull, my brother, the Cattleman, gave us all instructions as to what our job would be in this 'operation'. The assignments was, Irene would pull the truck and trailer up out of the way, just as soon as the bull went inside the barn door. My wife, Lavern, would operate the barnyard gate and fasten it securely, as soon as Irene pulled the truck and trailer through it.
Now, Randell's two boys, Loren and Noel and our son Terry, would help me on the left side of the trailer. All three boys were preteen and anxious to have a part in securing the rambunctious bull. Randell's job was to shut the barn door, latch it and for good measure, nail a two-by-four across the door. Everyone had an assignment! No, wait, where is our daughter, Tammy? Lavern informed us that Tammy didn't want any part of corralling our wild bull, so she had gone around to the front of the house to stand by our pickup.
Randell asked, "Alright, is everybody ready to let him out of the trailer?" We all chorused that we were all ready, everyone was at their station. The trailer gate was opened and out came the bull right into the 'elephant proof stable'. Yessiree, that's the way it is supposed to work!
Irene quickly pulled the trailer through the lot gate, Lavern did her assigned job by shutting and latching the gate, smooth as silk! Randell slammed the door shut, fastening the latch on the door and quickly grabbed the two-by-four and started driving the nails in that would finish the job.
Slam! Bam! The door slammed open, knocking Randell aside and almost down! The enraged bull had crashed through the fastened door. Before the boys and I could say 'Jackie Robinson,' the bull kicked his heels out toward us and came very near kicking Loren in the head. There was another stable right next to where we were standing, I whirled and ran into the empty stable! My brain yelled at me, 'Hey Stupid, now you've done it, you're trapped in this stable with no way out, except by the bull!' Either by instinct to survive or just plain cowardice, I climbed a wall that, under other circumstances, there would be no way that I could possibly have climbed it, up into a hayloft.
Someone outside yelled, that he has jumped a six foot fence into the chicken yard. Bravely, I came out of the stable and sure enough, he had cleared the six foot fence. Standing momentarily, looking back at us, the beast casually walked to the other end of the chicken yard and flat-footed jumped the fence out into open territory. Never touching the fence! Realizing that he was free, he trotted down through the bean field bellowing about every other step.
"Where's Tammy?" someone asked. "I haven't seen her, we need to look for her. I'll bet she's scared to death," someone else answered. Everybody started calling out, "Tam, where are you at?" Finally, her mother found her inside our pickup. She was lying down on the seat, staying as low as she possibly could. She told her mother, "I heard all of the yelling that the bull was loose, so I jumped into the truck and laid down so the bull wouldn't see me and know where I was hiding."
Randell and I jumped into my 'nearly' new truck, well, the truck wasn't brand new but to me it was new. We followed the bull driving through weeds and cockle-burs as tall as the hood of the truck. Every once in a while, we would see him standing at the edge of a field, he would look at us, shake his head and paw the ground, throwing dirt several feet above his head, as if daring us to leave the safety of our truck. Before long, he disappeared from sight into areas that we couldn't follow him, so we returned home without our bull. We knew just as sure as God made little green apples, that we were going to catch it from our wives. And we were right, as we usually are, the first thing that we heard when we returned home was, "I told you that we didn't need that bull!"
Randell and I made plans to get together the next morning and try again to find our bull.
The next morning we drove around through the area fields until we found him once again. Randell had reassured me, while we looked for him, that the bull had probably settled down over night and he thought that we could probably drive him home. WRONGGG!!! Every time that we would get close to him, he would again, paw the ground, throwing dirt all over him and every thing else that was near him.
This fiasco went on for another two or three hours, so we decided to call the rancher that we had bought him from to see if he would or could come over and catch him for us.
The Rancher sent two of his cowboy employees and their horses over to try and catch the bull. The cowboys succeeded in containing the bull inside a neighbor's pasture and finally got two ropes on the bull and was attempting to put him into a trailer they had brought for that purpose but doing so, they choked the bull to death, he just wouldn't give up fighting them.
The Rancher was gracious enough that he took the bull straight to the meat processor for himself and cheerfully returned the full purchase price to us. So, all was not lost and we came out of that situation smelling like a rose. Both of our wives will quickly tell you that on most of our dealings, Randell and I come out of the deal 'smelling alright' but nothing close to a rose!
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