by Julie Carter
The rancher’s wife stands at the gate waiting for him to
make up his mind which direction he is going to go with the small herd of
cattle he’s bringing to the pens. She
sees him look at the cattle that are trotting a little faster than he’d like
and then glance at her, but he says nothing.
With long established telepathy, she knows by watching him
she’s got the wrong gate open even though it’s the one he told her to have
ready. She slams her gate and runs as fast as boots, spurs and chaps will let
her to the other gate that is now the one that needs opened.
The language that is spoken and more often not spoken at the
ranch requires visual skills as well as interpretive ones. Some days the
meaning comes through loud and clear without words.
Cattle and horses speak to their owners through patterns and
natural instincts. A mother cow will
eventually give away the location of her hidden new baby if you just quietly
watch her trying to not give it away. She will look every which way but the
right one until at one point, she’ll glance the direction of her calf.
A baby calf, falling behind the herd while you are driving
them, will get a look in his eye that reads in the next second you are going to
see him with his tail curled up over his back, eyes glazed over, and leaving to
go back to where he came from before you bothered him. By instinct, he will
return to the last place he suckled his momma and wait for her return.
A horse’s ears will perk up to attention while you ride
through the brush and you can bet the bank he’s heard, seen or smelled
something you haven’t. If the rider will
pay attention, a horse will find more cattle in the brush than a rider will
ever see on his own.
Ranch husband and wife communications, while pretty much the
same across the land, take on a bit more animation and sometimes humor. The
“funny” often doesn’t arrive until later, and sometimes much later, like years
later, when the story is retold.
While she’s chunking rocks at the bulls to get them through
the gate and he’s hollering it’s the wrong gate, or wrong cattle or wrong
something, the next rock chunking usually is directly at him. Not hard to
interpret that.
A time-proven cowboy trick is to loudly give the wife
instruction that she doesn’t need, but that someone else within hearing does.
Rather than offend the “help” that he won’t scold, he makes her look less than
capable with his admonitions to her in hopes the one who needs to hear it will.
It usually fails in its intended mission and the chill in the air at the ranch
house could last for days. A can of Spam served on a plate, still in the can
mind you, is a not so subtle hint of the relationship infraction.
A nod, a whistle, a wave or a shake of his head speaks an
entire language to his partner who most often is also the cook. Better judgment on his part is not always in
use when communicating his thoughts. He knows that there is fine line between
making a point and her quitting him all together.
Sometimes though, he just has to ask, “You mean the marriage
license didn’t include ‘for better or worse’ and for mind reading?”
Julie, a fair hand at
reading cowboy sign language and dishing out a bit of it herself, can be
reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com
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