A
Anonymous
Years back, dad and I bought a small pen of feeders. They were Herefords off open range. There experience with man was brutal from a peaceful existence to being pushed through a sale with a hot shot. So when the door open on our property they came out like a bullet and didn't stop at the first fence. The property line fence turned all but one. We put out flyers and received lots of calls, but could never catch up with that one. One night months later a man called, said our steer was in a canyon and tracks indicated he had been there awhile. My friend at farm kill agreed to be on stand by. The next morning my brother with his cell phone (back when they looked like a small back pack) and I with my varmint rifle headed out. We made the kill and called farm kill, He would meet us on the hwy in 30 minutes. It was all we could do to drag this guy down a steep canyon to the creek in the bottom. The hwy was 200 feet up the other side. We got a cable to him and winched him up with a block attached to a giant oak limb, on the side of the hwy. This guy must have gained 600 lb throughout the summer on creek grass. The kill truck was out in the hwy some and we had this 1100 lb Hereford steer hanging by one leg when the Sheriff pulled up. It was Sunday morning and he was out to set a trap to catch speeders as church emptied out. By the time I got my little truck backed under this steer we had a traffic problem, church had emptied. Church people spread rumors like wild fire. Even faster! I know because I go their. To some it may have appeared as if we had gotten caught rustling. Someone, a friend, hollered out, "RUSTLERS!" Next week in church the sermon was, how children of God can stray and become Rustlers. That was years ago and just last spring I was getting some barbed wire. I got to talking about cattle with the guy helping me, and he asked where my ranch was located. "Then to my surprise, he told me when he was a kid coming back from church with his family they had witnessed these two brothers caught rustling cattle. The last name he used was mine! (Rumors die hard") I might become famous some day! "Go-figure"
Rod
Rod
