Working Ranch Magazine - Index

Working Ranch Magazine - magazine - Index

riding
BY DREW LAWLER
point
Ican still vividly recall the first time I attended a cattle auction.
It was in Jerome, Idaho, just outside of the one-boulevard town.
By the time I arrived around 9:30, the sale had already begun.
I walked past the diner located off the lobby – which turns out
simple, but surprisingly good meals – through the double doors
and took a seat in the stands.
The auctioneer was well into his
“hey now I got 73, 73, 73, 73 do I hear
73 five, 73 five, 73 five – yes, thank
you sir, now make it 74, 74, 74, 74.” I
remember sitting there thinking two
things: how in the world can anyone
be absolutely sure of what the auctioneer
was actually saying and second,
who was making these raises? I have
always considered myself to be a keen
observer but for the life of me, I didn’t
see anybody raising their hand or
nodding their head to the auctioneer.
Yet bidders were jumping the price.
The auctioneer kept his focus on
one buyer in particular and so I did
the same. Then I saw it. The buyer
merely lifted his index finger off his
armrest about a 1/2 of an inch. It was
nothing more than a twitch, if that.
The auctioneer wasted not a nanosecond
in acknowledging the new bid
and turned his attention slightly across
the room to another buyer who had
his hands folded in front of his chest.
This buyer acknowledged his approval
of the proposed bid by momentarily
lifting his thumb.
From there out, I sat completely
immobile, thinking that even if I blinked
my eyes, it might be construed that
I was making a bid. Minutes later, I
absent-mindedly was about to raise
my hand to take care of an itch on the
back of my shoulder: never mind – I
lived with the itch for about four minutes
until it went away. It was a world
unto itself. Except for the brief twitching
of thumbs and fingers, you might
think the audience was comprised of
mannequins for the lack of a measurable
movement or facial expressions.
That is, until I returned about two
summers later with a lot that sent the
place into hysterics.
That summer, I got talked into buying
two lambs for my daughter: one
14 |WORKING RANCH | JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008
Well worth the ten bucks
black and one white which she
promptly named Smokey and Snowball.
I knew we were going to have our
hands full after the first 10 minutes of
their arrival. In an attempt to get them
used to their surroundings, I sequestered
them in the barn. I had them fairly
gentled until my wife came along from
the outside and opened the barn doors
about 8” to peak her head in to see
how things were coming along. That
was all the opening our dog needed to
dash into the barn to see what alien
creatures had escaped from Area 51. In
less than two seconds, he chased the
lambs once around the barn and out
the 8” opening before my wife had
even finished asking her question.
I never knew lambs could move so
fast but they sure did fly. They covered
the 1/4 mile to the willow-lined creek
in about six seconds and were gone,
just like that. That was also the same
summer the Forest Service re-introduced
wolves into Idaho and in particular,
right in our backyard. So I
figured those lambs had about until
sundown to make themselves known
or their number was up. Of course I
mounted a search but it got dark and
there was no sign of them anywhere.
Then about 8pm, the phone rang
and my neighbor asked if we were
missing any lambs. I said yes as a matter
of fact we were. He said one of his
hands spotted them down across the
highway and he was down there right
now. So my daughter and I hopped in
the pick up and drove down the road
to retrieve the little buggars.
We got there and they had “imbedded”
themselves into a herd of Black
Angus for protection. There in the
middle of the grouping was Dee, one
of the neighboring cowboys, with rope
in hand ready to make a night throw.
I mean it was black, the cows were
black and at least one of the lambs
was black. I couldn’t even see my own
boots, and I only knew the cattle were
there because I could hear them. But
one throw and Dee came up with the
black lamb. He handed me that rope
and made a second throw with another
rope he happened to have and just
like that, caught the white one too.
I have never seen Dee rope since
then but my money is on him if he
ever takes up the WRCA circuit.
The rest of the summer with the
lambs pretty much went like the first
day and so it was with some relief that
I talked my daughter into taking them
to the auction with a load of stockers
I was ready to sell. Once again, I found
myself sitting at the Jerome Cattle
Auction waiting to see what price my
stockers would bring. I looked around
the room and recognized the same
bidders from the years before. It was as
if they had never left their seats. No
expression. No emotion. Just an occasional
twitch of the finger. Suddenly
the floor erupted in knee slapping
belly laughs as Smokey and Snowball
came scrambling onto the scale. Even
the auctioneer broke into laughter
and said, “Well now, lookee what we
have here!”
But the last laugh was on me! Despite
weighing almost twice their
weight from when I bought them, they
sold for about $10 less than what I paid
for them since I bought them at the
“pet price”. But just to see those guys
get a good laugh was priceless.