RUSTLER PATROL
Gun-Fighter BobCopyright 1990 truth-or-consequences
2440 Words Exactly
Non-Fiction
Sold to: "The Western Horse Magazine"
It seems that anytime you have something, there's always someone who wants to take it away from you. It's that way with cattle too.
Most folks don't give much thought to cattle rustlers. They think that they're a brand of bad guy that went out with the coming of modern civilization back in about 1899. But that's not the case at all.
Cattle rustling accounts for a great deal of loss to the cattleman in certain areas of the country, and it's often big business, and, some would say, sometimes a branch division of organized crime. Usually, however, rustlers are small potatoes. But when each cow they take can be worth $1000 or more, even these small time hoods can make life difficult for ranchers, the small independents especially.
When you begin losing cattle you try to do something about it. That's just common sense and the American Way. The law is too often a day late and several logs shy of a load when it comes to curbing the problem. Some sheriff's departments simply don't have the manpower or budget to sit out on the range all day waiting for some flea-bag rustler who might only hit the herd twice a year. Some sheriff's departments are in on the take, as well. And some sheriff's offices are just plain incompetent.
On the rural, open ranges, just as in the old days, the cattle rancher is pretty much on his own. You protect your cattle the same way a sheep herder protects his lambs....with guns....against predators.
Modern electronics are helping in the battle against rustlers, and if anything is to be the salvation of the rural rancher, these gizmos are it. Inexpensive game counters can keep track of the times of movements along trails and back roads. And more expensive game counters come equipped with cameras that will record license numbers and can even take pictures of faces in darkness, clear enough for identification in court. These devices can be camouflaged in even the sparsest brush. And tiny video cameras that feed into long-play recorders can be used to monitor all activity on sections of roadway or range, even on the darkest nights. Some are about the size of a pack of cigarettes. And they're becoming affordable, too.
One of the most effective ways of tracking down rustlers in small communities is to keep an eye on local butchers. Even taxidermists and small grocery store owners have been known to dabble in stolen meat. The first-time or occasional rustler may approach these markets offering beef at a price too good to be true, or they'll hold out for higher prices with phony brands and altered paperwork. If the rancher can maintain a rapport with these businesses and offer rewards that exceed the profits they might make from using the rustled beef, it can serve to reduce rustling in these communities dramatically, and will yield some arrests and convictions as well.
In addition, it's in the best interests of the rancher to be friends with everybody. Rumors and tips have a way of getting back to the rancher in this way. And it's been my experience that the ranchers that folks hate will lose five times as many cows as those they like.
But when it comes down to it, when all else fails, the only solution is to saddle a pony and patrol your ranges yourself.
Depending on the size of the range this can pose some problems. I rode for a man once who controlled 1100 sections (704,000 acres)--and not a foot of fence on the place. There were about 300 entry points to this range, most of which were not and could not be secured by gate. The ground was steep, which meant that you could only see a tiny area at a time-- and it meant hard miles for tired horses. When you did spot some suspicious activity, the chances were you couldn't get to it in time.
We tried carrying radio transceivers but the rugged terrain usually kept them from working. Cellular phones worked not much better. Sometimes this rancher lost as many as sixty head a night, and certainly bigger hauls were made on surrounding ranches from time to time.
The frustration of some ranchers can cause them to turn to violence, and the occasional gun spat is not unheard of. Rustling is usually construed as a felony and that makes rustlers fairly hard-driven not to get caught-- but beyond that, ranchers who face losing their homes and livelihoods to rustlers see the activity in the same light they saw horse stealing in 1840. It was a hangin' offense then-- and ranchers feel the same way about rustling now. Who's to say how many unlucky would-be crooks are quietly buried on some desolate hunk of range every year in the West. The ranchers keep quiet about it, and the rustlers aren't talking either.
Perhaps two thirds of modern rustling is accomplished by independents-- groups of one to three men who, often on a Saturday night lark with a few beers under their belts for courage, decide to put some beef in the pantry freezer, or who want to try their luck at supplementing their income down at the mill or factory where they work. Much of this meat gets sold or given to relatives and friends.
They usually only take one cow at a time, most often a calf. These men don't account for a big loss individually, but in some areas their numbers are so great that they literally run ranches out of business. Then the remaining cows get sold at auction-- then the part time rustlers have no cows to rustle at all. It's ironic to realize that even many strains of microscopic parasite are smart enough not to kill the host they feed on.... Many rustlers, however, aren't that evolved.
Regrettably, some of the rustling problems come from neighboring ranches. There are more than a few big cattle barons who got to be big cattle barons by borrowing their neighbor's stock. There's probably not a lower critter on earth than this type of rustler.
The occasional neighborhood rustler is tough enough to catch, usually because of the "Good Ol' Boy" code of silence that persists in many rural communities.
More organized bands of rustlers are well armed with high capacity, automatic weapons, and they may not be hesitant to use them. Indeed, they may have used them in some other state just the week before.
The pro's usually send a man or a team into an area, posing as tourists, campers, lovers, or locals out for a Saturday afternoon ride on old Peanut. The rustler hunter can sometimes learn to spot these scouts, and when he does, it's only a matter of staying glued to them for the next several days. Teamwork is handy, and strong horses who can move out and who can thrive on bad feed and unpalatable water and still give 110% day in and day out, are essential.
When the rustler's scout has completed his recon mission he'll report back to his boss. If the herd looks profitable and if the team feels they can make a clean entrance and exit of the range after meticulously studying all the data, like roads, vantage points, back-up escape routes and the like, then the go-ahead will be given for the operation.
A couple of men are usually inserted into the area on horseback the evening of the planned theft, or sometimes even a day or two prior. They'll begin to bunch the selected group of cows and head them for the pick-up point. Often the rustlers will move the cows slowly, and will stay well back, making it seem as though the cows are just moseying along of their own accord. The longer the rustler can keep from being spotted, the better the chances of pulling off the heist.
Some of these operations go off like military raids, with precision timing and no wasted moves. Sometimes the rustlers will place an extra man or two, to work stealthily in behind the obvious vantage points that the ranch rider might use to spy on the rustlers. As a rider on rustler patrol you have to worry about being taken out by a bullet you'll never hear, hours before the team even arrives to pick up the cattle.
At the prescribed moment, in total darkness, the truck, perhaps a full sized semi, will pull quietly into position. A few gates or fence panels might be placed to help run the cows into the chute, or natural geography is used where appropriate, and in the matter of four minutes a hundred head can be loaded and the truck will be moving out of the area, unlit.
If the cowboy moves in and gets the drop on the crooks before any cows have been loaded, he may not have much of a case in court. The men moving the herd can say they were just out for a ride, and these silly cows got in their way and began moving down the trail ahead of them. Try proving that's not the case! And the men on the truck can claim that they were lost and made a wrong turn-- and they never saw those men on horses before, in all their lives. Today's judicial system being what it is, these nonsensical and transparent stories often work. And the rustlers leave the courtroom laughing out loud, only to hit another range the following week.
The rustlers know full well that if any attempt is going to be made to capture them it will likely be just as the cows are loading, though if a rustler hunter can video tape the procedure and get clear shots of license plates and faces, the rustlers can be apprehended weeks or even years later. Few rustlers worth their salt, however, are not smart enough to cover license plates and wear masks.
Tensions run high during these few minutes of loading. Weapons are cocked and safeties are switched off. Vigilance is heightened. Some teams even use night vision equipment and heat sensing scopes, a luxury very few ranches can afford. These devices give the rustlers an extreme edge, for the man on rustler patrol can be spotted even if hidden in dense brush-- and a few rounds sprayed into a clump of sage by the rustlers will be the end of the game for him.
It can be an intimidating experience for a lone man on a tired and unpredictable bronc, a long way from home, to sit on a windy ridge top at midnight and to watch in the valley below him such a scene unfold. He has his trusty six shooter-- not much of a match even for a pack of blind, three legged coyotes, let alone a band of paramilitary kooks with machine guns, bent on staying free at any cost.
And the cowboy has his unwavering sense of right-- not much of a match sometimes for peculiar and mystifying twists and technicalities of modern American law.
And he has his guts-- which can dissolve like sugar in hot tea when it comes time to spur his horse down the mountain and to yell into the barrels of half a dozen Uzi's. I suspect that many rustlers in such circumstances get watched-- but never approached.
I agonized on many long patrols over what I would do, alone and faced with a really well organized and determined compliment of hard bitten losers. Thankfully I never had to make the decision for the few rustlers I was ever able to catch were of the small potatoes, garden variety, and they'll seldom offer much resistance to the man who is determined. It helps, as well, if you've lived a full life, and are ready to go, and just don't care..
I did get shot at twice over the years in two different states, and I defended myself to the best of my ability (rustlers can become quite indignant if you have the audacity to try and stop them from stealing your cows).
I don't ride rustler patrol much anymore. Once in awhile a friend needs some help, but in the long run it wasn't worth it to me as a career. The loneliness was the worst part. And I could never make a decent living. Besides, I was never sure I had the guts that it took to do a really proper job; I was never sure I could gallop down the face of that mountain at midnight and square into the teeth of almost certain death. Some nights that's easier to ponder than others.
Rustler patrol is for idealistic young men, men who want a little adventure in their lives, for a little adventure is all they're likely to get. It's mostly hard riding with no clear destination and less satisfaction. It pays little, and it often doesn't pay at all until you catch a rustler and convict him, which will prove to be far more difficult than just catching the rustlers in the first place, no matter how hard that was.
It involves long, lonely nights, bad food, cranky, exhausted, half broke horses who might have caught you those two wily rustlers down in the draw if only they'd gotten some sleep the night before and had had a little grain in the last few days.
And it involves a more than modest amount of legal liability. Many young men, bent on riding for the brand, have compromised their freedom because the rancher promised to back them up. But when the chips were down, the rancher's guts evaporated. And the legal issues went phooey.
Rustler patrol means moving from ranch to ranch, for your presence alone will often discourage the activity, and the frugal rancher, assuming the problem has been solved, will let you go, only to wish he hadn't, six months later.
And rustler patrol often means head butting contests with local law enforcement, for even though the modern day policeman, college educated and straight from some urban setting, may be unable or unwilling to do the job himself, he may take it as an insult or a challenge of his authority when you try to protect your own property or the property of the brand--
We're going to see an increase in rustling as the economy sags and as ordinary folks become more desperate and as hungry bellies begin to obscure the once clear issues of right and wrong. The need for men to ride rustler patrol will become greater, but rustler patrol means an almost constant frustration, and it's getting hard to find men with more moral conviction than sense, more raw honesty and purified honor than smarts, the patience of a rock, and more true grit than John Wayne and Elliot Ness put together. There just ain't many of that breed left. And the rustlers know it.
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