Animals Don't Blush

by David R Gross

  I shook hands with all three men, and the four of us walked to the house, John and I sipping coffee.

  Kathy served us bacon, ham, sausage, fried eggs, pancakes, syrup, and crispy potatoes fried with onions. There was plenty of fresh coffee from a blue, enamel coffee pot kept on a back burner of the stove.

  “Well, we’ve got sixteen head of horses to cut,” Ted said. “They’re in a corral on my place about two miles from here. I suppose we ought to get on with it.”

  “Is there clean water at the corral, or do we need to take some with us?” I asked.

  “There’s a good well,” John answered.

  “So, how are you guys going to restrain them?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that; we’re old hands at this,” Ed answered. All three conspirators smirked.

  We thanked Kathy, the Simpsons giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. John embraced her in a bear hug, swung her around, and planted a wet kiss on her lips.

  Blushing she said, “I’ll drive over later in the morning and bring some lunch. Ferdie, you go with the men. I’ll bring Jenny with me when I come.”

  John and Ferdie joined me in the practice truck following the dust trail left by Ted and Ed in the Ford. It took minutes for the dust to settle onto the two vehicles after we stopped at the rounded, six-rail corral. A windmill and water trough abutted the corral, half the water trough situated inside. Three saddled horses stood quietly, tied by halter ropes to the third rail of the corral. There was a black four-horse trailer parked next to the windmill. The horses inside the corral were quiet, but all were facing the trucks, watching, their ears twitching.

  I opened the back of the practice truck. After half filling a stainless steel bucket with the cloudy water flowing from the windmill pipe, I added three times the recommended amount of disinfectant and dropped in a scalpel with a disposable blade, two curved forceps, and my White’s emasculator.

  “What’s that gizmo?” Ferdie asked, pointing.

  “That’s an emasculator.” I took it out of the bucket to show him. “I use it to cut and crush the spermatic cord in one squeeze. Do you know what the spermatic cord is?”

  “Ouch,” Ferdie said. “Is that what leads to the nut? I think it’s what Dad scrapes with a knife until it separates when we cut calves.”

  “It’s the same in horses, except the blood vessels are a lot bigger and bleed a lot more if you don’t crush them.” I put the emasculator back in the bucket and placed a package of chromic catgut in the pocket of my shirt. I filled a syringe with a half-and-half mixture of Combiotic and long-lasting benzathine penicillin. I left the hypodermic needle stuck in the rubber stopper of the bottle of penicillin. Then I put the two bottles of antibiotics and the syringe into a second bucket.

  The Simpsons pulled their Resistols down tight, mounted their horses, and got ready to move into the corral, uncoiling their nylon throw ropes. John pulled his hat down and mounted his horse. He held an inch-thick, twelve-foot-long, cotton rope with a small slip loop at the end. Ferdie opened the gate, the three men rode into the corral, and Ferdie closed the gate after them. The boy then climbed to the top rail. I threw my Resistol on the driver’s seat of the panel truck, rolled up my shirtsleeves until they were tight around my biceps, and hitched up my Wranglers. Taking the two buckets, I climbed up next to Ferdie.

  I can’t believe I agreed to do this.

  John looked over. “You ready to go, Doc?”

  “Whenever you are,” I answered.

  John nodded to the Simpsons.

  “Let’s do it.” Ted squeezed his horse with his legs and moved toward the now milling mustangs. He held a big loop with his right hand low off the left side of his saddle horse, his throwing arm across his chest. With one motion, he stood in the stirrups, brought the loop across his body and then over his head, and flipped it, backhanded, over the head of one of the horses.

  I had practiced throwing the hoolihan on foot but had never seen it done from horseback. Twirling the loop over your head frightens horses, and they are apt to do stupid things, like run through corral rails or over the person trying to rope them.

  The horse Ted caught was a nice-looking dun. Dun horses range from a sandy yellow to reddish brown in color. Their legs are usually darker than their bodies, and some duns have zebra-like stripes on their legs. Duns always have a dark stripe down the middle of their back. Sometimes the stripe extends over the rump to the head of the tail. The tail is dark, and their manes can be dark as well. Many duns also have a dark face; this one did not.

  Ted took a couple of turns with the rope around his saddle horn, called dallying, and then turned his horse, pulling the dun out of the herd. The dun strained against the rope, tossing his head, fighting and choking until he realized he had to go forward to be able to breathe. Ed laid his loop just in front of the dun’s back hooves, jerking out the slack as the horse stepped into the loop. Both Simpsons spurred their horses off in opposite directions stretching the dun between them.

  John bailed off his horse, ran up, grabbed the mustang by the tail, and jerked him hard onto his side. Leaning across from the animal’s back, John slipped the loop of the cotton rope over one front hoof and flipped the slack in a half hitch around the other. He pulled both legs up to the dun’s chest, put a knee on his neck, and nodded at Ted, who let up on his rope, jumped off his horse, and grabbed the dun’s head, twisting his nose up. He made a second loop in the nylon rope, passed that through the loop around the neck, and placed the second loop around the dun’s nose creating a crude halter. Ted then straddled the horse’s neck and twisted the animal’s head up to his chest. The dun started to struggle. Ed backed his horse dragging the dun by his hind legs, his brother and John holding on.

  “OK, Doc,” John called. “You’re up!”

  I jumped off the top rail with a bucket in each hand, stumbled, fell to one knee, but managed not to spill the contents of my buckets. I ran to the back of the dun, put down my buckets in the loose dirt, took out the scalpel, leaned over the animal’s back, and palpated the scrotum, making certain both testicles were down. I made a bold incision through the skin over the lower testicle, pulled it out, and separated the cremaster muscle with my fingers. Ferdie was standing behind me holding up the bucket of instruments.

  I smiled my thanks as I reached back, dropped the scalpel into the bucket and found the handles of the emasculator. When I applied the instrument, the dun squealed. I squeezed down and held the instrument closed. Ed’s horse dragged the dun, with the three of us attached, two feet through the dirt. After counting to ten, I removed the emasculator and straightened up. I replaced the emasculator in the bucket of disinfectant, rinsed it, and fished out the scalpel, repeating the procedure for the second testicle. When finished, I replaced the instruments in the bucket of disinfectant and rinsed off my hands. I took the syringe, removed the needle from the bottle, buried the needle into the dun’s thigh, attached the syringe, and injected the antibiotics. There was only a slight amount of bleeding from the castration wound.

  “Come on, cowboy,” I said to Ferdie. “Let’s get back on the fence before they let this gelding loose.”

  Ferdie and I jogged back and climbed onto the top rail. John disengaged his rope from the front legs. Ted removed his rope but still held the dun’s head up against his chest. When John was clear, Ted nodded at Ed, who urged his horse forward as his brother let go and scrambled back to his own horse. The dun lay on his side for a few seconds and then struggled to his feet. He stood with all four legs spread, shaking his head and trembling. Blood poured from his wound for a couple of seconds and then slowed to just a few drops. He staggered back to the herd.

  We proceeded as we had with the dun. I changed water and disinfectant every other horse. Four hours later, we had roped, cast, and castrated ten of the horses. It was eleven thirty in the morning, getting hotter. All five of us, Ferdie included, were caked with a mixture of sweat and dust. The front of my shirt was splattered with blood.

>   “Well, Doc,” said Ed Simpson, “you’re a pretty good hand, but we’ve still got a ways to go. You gonna hold up?”

  I ignored the question. “I’m more concerned about how upset the rest of these horses are getting.”

  “Yep,” Ed said, “but this corral’s the only one tall enough and strong enough to hold ’em. I reckon the four of us will be involved in a real wild horse rodeo by the time we get to the last couple.” He smiled in anticipation.

  “Well,” I said, “let’s get on with it.”

  We castrated two more before Kathy and Jenny drove up. Kathy spread a clean oilcloth in the bed of the Chevy and set out a platter of thick roast beef sandwiches, a Mason jar of bread-and-butter pickles, a huge bag of potato chips, and a plastic pitcher of iced tea. She also had a cooler filled with ice and a case of Coors. We all washed up at the windmill. John and the Simpsons attacked the cold beer, each downing his first can in long gulps before reaching for another.

  I sipped my beer.

  “This certainly tastes good, but we still have four to deal with,” I observed. I finished the beer and then filled a plastic glass with iced tea.

  “Hey, Doc, there’s plenty of brew. You not going to drink your share?” Ted teased.

  I’ll be happy to match you one for one once we finish with these horses, but I’m not going to get kicked in the head because I’m buzzed, I thought. “After we’re done,” I said aloud.

  “It’s OK, Doc. We understand. Some guys just can’t handle their beer,” Ed needled, reaching for another while taking his third sandwich.

  To my surprise, none of the three men showed any effects from the four beers each consumed. If anything, they seemed to be more efficient roping and casting the remaining horses.

  The last one was a scruffy-looking black with wild, pig-like eyes. He had dodged and ducked all day, avoiding Ted’s rope. At some point, the three, without saying anything, had agreed to leave “Pig-Eye” alone until the end.

  John moved his horse slowly into the herd of milling horses. Pig-Eye crowded further into the herd, always keeping two or three other horses between himself and John. The mustang didn’t notice that Ted had positioned himself on the opposite side of the herd. The black finally broke from the herd to make a mad dash around the edge of the corral intending to rejoin the others from the opposite side, putting the herd between himself and John. Ted’s rope slicked out and Pig-Eye’s head went directly through the loop. He didn’t seem to notice. He hit the end of the rope at a full run and was yanked over backwards, all four hooves in the air.

  “Jesus... surely that broke his neck or his back!” I murmured looking over at Ferdie who seemed unconcerned.

  Pig-Eye rolled over on his side, jumped to his feet, bucking and kicking, squealing with indignation. He reared up on his hind legs, fighting the rope. He charged directly at Ted who spurred his horse away to keep the rope tight between them. Suddenly the black changed direction trying to snap the rope or pull Ted and his saddle off.

  Ed maneuvered his horse to get a loop on Pig-Eye’s hind legs. He missed with two throws at the kicking hind legs but on the third caught one leg. They stretched Pig-Eye out with the roped hind leg kicking wildly. John moved in and dropped his cotton rope, with a big loop, just behind the black’s front hooves. Ed pulled him back by the one leg, his horse, Old Red, straining. Pig-Eye bucked, hopped backwards stepping with both front hooves directly into John’s open loop. John immediately spurred his horse off to the side while dallying the rope on the horn of his saddle. Pig-Eye went down hard.

  I put my hand on Ferdie’s shoulder. “You and I are staying right here until they get him under control.”

  Ed got Old Red straightened out and jumped off. The well-trained horse leaned back into the rope keeping tension on the one hind leg. They now had Pig-Eye on his side, in the loose dirt, stretched in three directions.

  “OK, Doc,” said Ed, “when I say, you get up on Old Red. When you do, he’ll give me some slack, and I’ll loop both them hind legs.”

  Ed leaned over Pig-Eye’s back and narrowly avoided being kicked by the horse’s free leg. Ted added a little more tension on the neck as Ed grabbed the rope attached to the other flailing hind leg.

  “OK, Doc,” he shouted.

  I mounted, the rope slackened, and Ed made a loop and half-hitched both hind legs.

  “Back, Doc.... Back him up,” Ed shouted.

  I hauled back on Old Red’s reins, but the horse was already leaning back into the rope. John threw the end of his rope to Ed, who pulled Pig-Eye’s forelegs up, bracing his knees against the animal’s back. John jumped to the ground, ran around to the black’s head, sat on his neck, and twisted the head up when Ted gave him some slack.

  “OK, Doc,” Ted said. “I’m going to stay mounted so I can stretch him out if I have to. Old Red knows what to do; you can come down.”

  I dismounted and went for the buckets I had left at the edge of the corral. The first testicle came off cleanly, although the black grunted and struggled when I applied the emasculator. I made a second incision in the scrotum, and Pig-Eye went berserk. He threw John off his neck and almost got away from Ed, who managed to maintain his hold on the front leg rope.

  When John went airborne, I retreated towards the fence, both buckets in hand. Old Red pulled Pig-Eye and Ed three feet through the dirt.

  John and Ed got back in position, and I returned to the fray. I got the second testicle dissected and placed the emasculator. As I clamped down, the black again came off the ground, this time tossing both Ed and John into the dirt. I kept my hold on the emasculator, but it tore off the spermatic cord, and I joined John and Ed sitting on our butts in the dirt.

  Ted and Old Red got control, and John and Ed rejoined the action. John bit down on the animal’s ear while holding Pig-Eye’s head up against his chest. Ed regained control of the front legs. I leaned over Pig-Eye’s back to get a look. Blood was spurting out of the wound, forming a red pudding in the powdered dirt.

  “Shit!” I exclaimed. “He’s bleeding like a stuck pig. Hold onto him. I have to go fishing for that artery.”

  I found one of the hemostats in the bucket, leaned over, opened up the wound with my left hand, and reached in as far as I could. After three attempts, I found the cord, pulled it out far enough to see what I was doing, and clamped it with the hemostat. The bleeding stopped. Hunting for the second hemostat in the bucket, now full of dirty, bloody water, I cut my thumb on the scalpel blade. Dissecting with the second hemostat, I isolated the spermatic artery and clamped it.

  I leaned all the way over, peering into the scrotum. If he gets loose, I’m in deep shit, I thought. I glanced at John.

  John nodded his understanding of the situation and bit down harder on Pig-Eye’s ear. The horse struggled again, and blood from his ear oozed out of the corners of John’s mouth.

  I shook my head in amazement, reached into my shirt pocket with my left hand, and extracted the packet of catgut. After ripping the packet open with my teeth, I tied a tight ligature around the artery and removed the hemostats. Pig-Eye struggled, but there were only a few drops of blood. After rinsing off my hands, I filled the syringe, administered the antibiotics, and returned to my perch on the corral.

  They released him, and Pig-Eye jumped to his feet, kicking out with both hind hooves. Blood dripped from the injured ear, now hanging at a ninety-degree angle from his head. Only a few drops of blood fell from his scrotum.

  I dumped the bloody disinfectant out of my pail filling it with fresh water and more disinfectant. I washed my hands making certain the slice into my thumb was clean and dry before bandaging it.

  The Simpsons hooked up the horse trailer to their pickup and loaded the three saddle horses that, when taken to the door of the trailer, calmly walked in, all their efforts just an ordinary day. The two brothers hoisted four bales of sweet-smelling alfalfa hay out of the bed of their pickup and threw them over the fence. One of the bales broke open when it hit the ground. Joh
n went into the corral, cut the wire on the other three bales, spreading them out. He collected the wire from all four bales, twisted it into a bundle, and pitched it over the fence.

  The mustangs were munching hay as everyone gathered around me. I finished cleaning my instruments and put them away. Kathy opened the beer cooler, and they each polished off two quick beers.

  I took out my receipt book and wrote up a receipt for castrating sixteen horses at ten dollars a head.

  “Who gets this?” I asked

  Ed fished into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wad of ten-dollar bills, folded over once. “I’ll take that Doc,” he said.

  I took the bills without looking at them, shoved them into my bloody shirt pocket, and gave Ed the receipt. I glanced at my watch as I put it back on my wrist. It was almost three thirty.

  “You should hold the horses here for no more than a couple of hours. They’ll do better in a pasture where they can move around without stirring up a cloud of powdered dirt and manure. They’ll probably be pretty sore for a few days. If you see any with a swollen sheath or any kind of pus draining from the wound, let me know.”

  While the three ranchers discussed the logistics of how they would care for the horses for the next few days, I sipped at a beer and called in on the two-way radio. Dick Mathes gave me one more call to make on the way back to town.

  “How did your day go?” asked Dick.

  “Regular,” I answered.

  The cowboys smiled their approval. When I put down the microphone, Kathy was standing by the door to the truck.

  “You married, Doc?” she asked.

  “A little over three months.... Her name’s Rosalie.”

  “Well, how about you and Rosalie come out this Sunday to share dinner with us?”

  “I’ll have to check with the boss, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have anything else planned.”

  “We’ll be in town to shop Saturday afternoon,” Kathy said. “Give us a call before then so we’ll know if you’re coming. You can show up anytime Sunday, but I’ll plan dinner for about one or two in the afternoon.”