Angels in cowboy boots

By Julie Carter

The year 2007 started with the plains of eastern New Mexico and Colorado buried in several feet of snow and 10 -12 foot drifts separating ranchers from their livestock.

Hay is being dropped from helicopters to stranded cattle and the event has made national news. Like a fingernail across the blackboard, Eastern newscasters slur Western pronunciation of words like La Junta and Hereford while cameras roll documenting the blizzard.

It is times like these that stories emerge telling of miracles that can't be explained and people helping people with a kindness most of the world has never seen. One ranch family in eastern New Mexico opened the doors of their small house and it became home to 44 people stranding during the blizzard. Divine providence provided that one of those guests was driving a truck loaded with foodstuffs, providing basic sustenance for all for several days.

Every now and then, something happens to all of us that gives us cause to know we aren't alone in this world even when it appears that way.

Some years back, out in the middle nowhere New Mexico, in the middle of the night, two cowboys were headed home from one ranch to another to the south. It was past 11 p.m., on a dead-cold winter night. They had been lion hunting all day, but as the norm, dark wasn't a deadline for a hunting dogs. The pair had to wait late into the night for the hounds to return to the pickup so they could head home.

Snow had fallen the day before and a good amount of it was still on the ground when they left the other ranch headquarters and headed south. About half-way into the 14-mile drive, one of the cowboys was beckoned by the call of nature. Having just left one ranch headquarters and so near another, it didn't seem like it should be urgent but apparently it was. They stopped and stepped out into the cold starlit night to "visit" the backside of the horse trailer.

Out of the darkness, back a distance from the road and from beneath a big cedar tree, came a weak voice repeatedly calling "help, help." Both men looked at each other, not sure if they were hearing things or if perhaps one of them was losing their mind.

One cowboy with a tad of streetwise instinct was sure it was an ambush and a set up. He reached into the pickup for his pistol. The other cowboy wandered toward the voice, without pause, wondering, "Who in the world would be out here in the middle of the night?"

Frail, thin and 80-something, John had taken a drive through the back country roads, headed nowhere, but as he later told them, he did this often just to see the country. That afternoon he had gotten his car soundly stuck in the mud and snow on one of those remote dirt roads. He wasn't sure where he was but soon decided to attempt to walk somewhere for help. He had no idea where the nearest ranch house was or which direction he should go.

It was a warm afternoon when he started out so he didn't take a coat with him. He wore only a light shirt, cardigan sweater, dress slacks and dress shoes with thin socks. His footwear got wet early in the afternoon and as the sun began to set and temperatures dropped, a chill settled over him. But John kept walking.

The thermometer fell into the teen temperatures that night. After walking for hours in the dark, cold, miserable and totally disoriented, he said he curled up in a tree and prayed. He later told his rescuers he believed he would die that night and be found huddled in the cedar branches.

Sometime later, he heard the cowboys' pickup and trailer as it rattled down the road. Summoning what little strength he had left, he again began calling for help, knowing his prayers had been answered.

In the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and from someone that, under normal circumstances, would never have been there at that place at that time, he was rescued.

No one involved that night thought anything that had happened was a coincidence. The cowboys, unable to vocalize their thoughts, shrugged it off as best they could. But John never quit giving praise for his answered prayers. He knew his prayers had summoned two angels to save him - and this time, those angels wore cowboy boots.

© Julie Carter 2006


Choices

I write this as my farewell to you, the readers of this column.

I will return to my real life soon – my life as a husband, father, grandfather, West River rancher. Calving season will be in full swing March 28th, and I plan to be there.

I had originally planned to continue the column until I retired as secretary, but the column was a team effort. It just isn’t the same now that some of the team members are gone.

The purpose of this column has been to make people think. While attempting to keep it factual, I admit it is written with a rancher’s bias. I hope you have found it interesting, sometimes humorous, but most importantly thought provoking.

A goal of the column has been to weaken resistance to change. And I sense that we are making progress – giving more young people a reason to stay in South Dakota. It is all about opportunity – the same opportunities that made this state and country great.

The column has even had an impact in our nation’s capitol. I was one of the first to oppose the bill to stop the slaughter of horses for human consumption. It’s not that I want to eat my horse, but if someone wants to eat horse meat, is it wrong? Is it better or worse than letting horses die of abandonment?

I have also taken strong positions regarding the management of our federal lands – insisting that the manager of the land also be the steward of the land. And that pests, weeds, bugs, and even prairie dogs be managed or controlled. And that forest health be a priority so that we aren’t left with a sick and dying forest – one that will surely burn. While I support pristine areas, places of pure beauty, I do not support wilderness areas. That designation ties the hands of the land managers. Landowners, public or private, should be good neighbors.

I have supported animal agriculture of various shapes and sizes, but never at the expense of the environment. Science can and is being utilized to protect our precious water and minimize and manage odor. It is all part of being a good neighbor.

I continue to argue for certainty in planning and zoning. Develop the rules and then follow the rules without discrimination, as is demanded by the Equal Protection Clause of both the U.S. and South Dakota Constitutions.

It is fitting that I close with words I heard my first summer as your Secretary of Agriculture –“Change is imminent. We can either oppose change and most likely be consumed by that change, or we can approach change and try to shape it for our own benefit. The choice is ours.”

I hope the column has caused you to think – the best decisions are products of thorough thinking.

Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture