For ranchers in west Texas, mad cow disease isn't anything to worry much about. The drought, now that's another story.
By WES ALLISON
Published January 13, 2004
[Times photo: Chris Zuppa]
Rancher Sonny Collins, 52, with his horse Yellowjacket, has about 200 black Angus this year, half the usual number. If it doesn't rain soon, he'll have to sell half.
BAIRD, Texas - The cattle ranchers who tamed this rocky, foreboding land braved dust storms, drought and flash floods. They survived stampedes, rattlesnakes and bucking broncos. They fought outlaws, rustlers and aggrieved and angry Indians.
Their descendants still fight most of them today.
So when news broke that mad cow disease had been found in the United States, on a ranch in Washington state, it heaped just one more helping of hurt on the cattlemen in west Texas, a region that helped create the archetype of the Old West, with all its grit and spirit.
Baird is 20 miles east of Abilene, on a parched, rolling plain choked by thorny mesquite trees, prickly pear cactus and wiry, wheat-colored grasses.
This is the land of cowpokes singing softly as the herd beds down for the night, of tough, leathery men who once settled their scores with six-guns. The land of tumbleweeds and coyotes howling and lonely campfires of fragrant mesquite.
Last Thursday, on ranch land as dry as cinder and just as rough, Sonny Collins pointed south past his grazing herd of black Angus cattle. The Chisolm Trail and the Goodnight-Loving Trail, the legendary paths for the big drives north to Kansas, started just over there, down in Brown County.
Ranching is the mainstay here, along with oil, and it has been since just after the Civil War. Collins, 52, was born ranching, and he aims to die ranching, unless it kills him first. Last month, when he first heard about the mad cow in Washington, he did what he has always done: braced for the worst, then went back to work.
Collins is a big man, with a florid face and a dark, dusty cowboy hat and leather gloves. He wears Wrangler jeans and spurs that jangle from his worn tan cowboy boots. His mount is a tan, mild-mannered quarter horse named Rio Sand King, but he just calls him Yellowjacket.
"It hadn't boogered us too bad," Collins said. "If we could do something about the drought - that bothers us much more than mad cow disease.
"We've been in and out of drought for five years. It'll break for a little bit and you'll think that you're out of it, then it'll get dry again."
It hasn't rained here since Nov. 6. The winter wheat that ranchers sow for forage should be boot-top high by now, but instead it looks like green peach fuzz on the rocky soil. With little hope of making a harvest, Collins decided just to turn the cattle loose on it. "We had to get something out of it," he said.
He has seen this before. Collins swears he didn't see rain until he was in the first grade. "Scared the kids so bad they had to turn the school out," he said.
The West has always attracted people with its promise of fortune. But where there are fortunes, there are risks, and for many ranchers the risk and the fortune too often seem to cancel each other out.
Collins and his partner, Bill Cannon, have only about 200 head of black Angus this year, about half what they normally run. Without rain to nourish the range, soon they'll have to sell half of what they have left. They can't afford to buy feed for any more than that.
One might wonder why they keep at it.
"Damned if I know," Collins said. "That's what I keep asking myself."
Cannon offered an answer: "That 10th year."
Collins nodded, and chuckled. "That one in every 10 years when you finally make some money. That's what we're after."
Prices, in fact, were sky-high before this mad cow business, and the men were selling their cows for $1 per pound. Then dozens of countries banned American beef, and the price quickly dropped to 85 cents. Significant, but not as bad as they had feared.
Collins looked to the sky. Thin, high clouds were forming to the east. A cooler of cold Lone Star beer waited in the truck. For now the cows were fed and content, not a mad one among them, and Collins led Yellowjacket across the dusty corral to his trailer. Time to head for home.
"The politicians will take care of mad cow disease," Collins said. "The good Lord will have to take care of the drought."
-- Wes Allison can be reached at 727 893-8430 or by e-mail to allison@sptimes.com
