Of Floods and Men

Cómo estás, Isaias

Of Floods and Men

Double Clutching

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Kevin and Cathie drove home to Leesburg from the Carolinas in the shared path with Isaias, that unpronounceable politically correct and racially named hurricane.

The conversation detailing the experience began with a solemn family announcement, but what it was like being under such a genuine soaker couldn’t be avoided. What is it really like to be in a rain that totals as much as a foot of precipitation? Can you breathe in a deluge like that? Could you drown if you stuck your head in the air and crowed like a rooster?

These are serious concerns, you know.

Living in the Southwest where 12” of rain might be stretched across two years makes it that way. What we could do with that same amount of rain spread out over three months in ½” episodes gives an old cowman chills. It really does. If it could be experienced once in a single lifetime, it would be cause for celebration.

If we desired to make it a regional event, we could even name it.

Por ejemplo, Isaias, himself, could be elevated into the annals of history if the joyous festivity became cause de Isaias. Yessiree, the choice of preference among the light beers could be drawn and a toast offered at the onset, but, alas, it could well be in vain.

Isaias probably hasn’t been fully vested, and, in that, is TROUBLE spelled with capital letters.

For all we know, he could wind up being yet another name in history to eventually be removed from the archives due to his offending nature to some fragile soul (mob, or board) who is inconsolable, and can only be released from real tears by agreeing to change the history of the world. Further, by penalty, we might be made to recover all the beer that had been filtered and released by natural processes during those long past celebrations.

On second thought, we’d better rethink any form of cause de Isaias.

Of Floods and Men

Most of the world has little idea of the importance of rain as viewed by a rancher.

It is a matter of success or failure. It constitutes life or death. It is the central theme of our worldly existence.

Before the world of television, it was the major form of summer evening indulgence. Rains were watched with huge interest. The whole family observed and commented in real time.

That rain is falling right there at the mouth of Moonhull and it is going to run some water.

Listen, I think there is hail in that storm.

It’s falling right now in the Trivio Pasture and it sure is needed!

Oh, I’d say that was over Hidden Pasture and those breaks going off into Turkey Creek.

Bear Creek is going to be running tonight.

That’s on the Moons’.

That’s on the Bar Y’s.

Let’s get in the pickup and go see where it rained!

And, go we did with us kids most often riding in the back talking, laughing, and smelling the fresh smell of what Duke Davis always referred to in lyric form as that sweet New Mexico rain.

There was nomenclature associated with those events, too. If it rained hard enough to run water something was going to come down.

For sure, the Mangus is going to come down.

It rained hard enough up above the river came down last night and remains muddy this morning.

Listen, I think the creek is coming down right now.

Mogollon Creek came down so big they were caught on the other side.

All those drainages under Jumble Rock came down and water gaps are going to be down everywhere.

Those floods held fascination, too. Everybody came out to watch a big flood. At the mouth of Mangus where so much verbal history remains in diminishing form, floods were not just observed they were experienced. There is the tale of the cowboys on the bobtail going to Cliff when the Mangus was running too big to cross. Among others, Clarke, Roy, Pete, and Albert were there with Albert barking the instructions.

Now, Clarke (pronounced Clarky), you’re driving, and you’ve got to get a run at it and keep it bogged to the floor to make it across. Now, you boys in back, you’ve got to get clear to the back and start jumping  up and down at the same time especially when we get to the far bank and have to pull that ledge where it’s been cut (by the water).

The story ends with the bobtail pulling out of the torrent on the north side of the creek with Albert jumping out and lifting on the front bumper as the incline at the cut was reached. With the crew hoopin’ and hollerin’, Clarke never missed a beat. He double clutched, caught another gear, and headed on to Cliff as Albert jumped on the running board, opened the door, and assumed his passenger window position as cowboss.

Another time in the exact place, it was Dale who was at the door on the passenger side. Albert told the boys not to try to get out on the upstream side of the truck if they had to get out to help only to have Dale do that very thing. The water was so high it not only flooded the cab, it sucked Dale out of sight and under the truck. When he bobbed to the surface sputtering and spitting on the lee side of the truck, he suggested to the boys, Well, hell, you’d let a man drown wouldn’t you!

Legend has it, Clarke, again in the driver’s seat, never missed a beat. He double clutched, caught third gear, and headed on to Cliff with the throttle bogged to the floor.

Indeed, New Mexico was once an enchanting place.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Nowhere in this world do summer rains smell like those in New Mexico.”