Lazy E over O

CATTLE BRANDINGS ON DUNVEGAN HILL were once a year, the smell of burnt hide hung in the air, hair and skin grafted into an old brand, the Bearpaw, Lazy E over O, right rib. We were country kids, and my older brother Fraser gathered cattle in the pasture while on his leggy dapple gray race horse. Mom on Drifter, and together they rounded up the cows in no time at all. All were headed for the homemade piped corrals, wrapped in orange plastic tape coming off in places like a recoiling party horn.
 
“Coboss,” my dad called, while beating on a five gallon bucket of chop.
 
The cows came, knowing his voice, knowing the promise of chop and maybe freshly forked hay. He walked confidently, feet in aging and angular cowboy boots, the land in his veins, every step closer to the large holding area where the spring Angus calves would be separated from the cows.
 
A rising chorus of cow bawling sounded like work, smelled like summer, and tasted like a little chew of dirt in your mouth.
 
We were modern cowboys, baseball hats and jeans instead of Stetsons and chaps; a calf table to hold the animals in place instead of horses and ropes. But we still branded our cows the old way, propane torch and irons, the calf would cry, then a short burst of quiet.
 
All operations in one smooth motion. Vaccinate. Brand. Eartag. Castrate. Release.
 
I asked my father why we branded our cattle.
 
“Well son, when we run our cows in the community pasture, they’re required to have a brand, and ear tags often fall off and a brand is the only sure way to identify an animal.”
 
He went on to tell me about the old days when cattle rustlers would carry a running iron, steal cows, change the brand, often at a campfire. It still happens from time to time, these days, he said. He told me he didn’t agree with the huge industrialization of ranching, the overcrowded feedlots, the animals need space, but that brands were necessary.

IN LOS ANGELES I began building reclaimed wood furniture as a way to work with wood, to fold the rustic into the city, to look at a white wall and see the juxtaposition patchwork of honey, gray, and brown boards. I ordered a brand, a running iron of sorts from Santa Barbara, the metal twisted into the shape of a little campfire. I branded the corner of my homemade bed.
 
How is it that I never wanted to wear cowboy boots as a child? And yet, a pair of boots sits next to the door, as I live just blocks from Hollywood boulevard, riding the city range.
 
I remember the cattle squeeze, this huge green bulk of steel bars and levers, remember the cattle coming down the chute at mach 9, cow shit flying at times, but always there was a respect for the animal.
 
Sometimes branding of a single animal would send such steamy and thick smoke plumes into the air, I imagined my old cowboy Grandfather Jock, taking shape in those moments, a smile over his face, catch me, he’d ask.
 
I’d answer back, “Not yet, Grandpa.”