A Story In Which Your Intrepid Author Attends A Cattle Branding And Is Called a Pussy By A 60something Year-Old Cowboy 08
by Sam Schnabel Art by Sara Wong
Act 1: I’m Not From Around Here, Clearly The Scene: Summer of 2015. A fresh-faced rising junior, I’m spending my second consecutive season working on a Very Large cattle ranch in Montana. This entailed very little interaction with the cattle themselves, as we spent most our time mowing the lawn(s) and doing odd jobs. And there was nothing wrong with that. Cattle freak me out. The way they just stare at you. The way they all look up, every single one, and just stare right into your soul when you get anywhere remotely near. That stare that just screams, “Look what you’ve done to my once-proud species, you human scum. I hope you’re happy with yourself.” And then they sort of pathetically flick their tail around and go back to staring at the ground. It’s kind of funny, in a sad way. But for looking so brain-dead all the time, cattle are a labor-intensive species, one that requires a fair amount of neighborly cooperation. One particularly hot afternoon, we received word that the ranch a few miles away needed a couple hands. So off we went, bouncing around on the dirt roads before arriving at a crowded scene on a nearby pasture. “You boys from down the road? Well, let’s get busy!” spat out a bearded human in a “Kazakhstan!” t-shirt. Like all residents of this area, his skin had the reddish consistency of an aged leather sedan chair. He could be anywhere from 25 to 80 years old. He motioned toward the corral, where a group of burly young men (all of whom looked A Whole Lot Stronger than yours truly) stood around panting, some nursing ugly bruises (or worse). As we walked over, several grizzled cowboy types were preparing to open the gates to let the next group of terrified calves into the arena. On the tried and true pretext of “Well I’ve never done this before, might as well sit back and see what it’s all about before diving in and making a fool of myself,” I sat back so as to not make a fool of myself.