Eaten by Deer Flies

From the open skies of Wyoming, here’s this month’s short story about ranch life, an insight I learned from my family, and a piece of trivia.

Story

When I was a young boy, we built pasture fences and corral pens all over the ranch. Our shearing pens were centrally located, and secure corrals were critical there for holding livestock between moves from pasture to pasture. One year, a couple of us dug scores of holes three feet deep to sink treated railroad ties as corral posts, which gave added strength to the pens. It was back-breaking work. Sticky sweat dripped into our eyes and poured down our bodies in dust-clogged rivulets. To make matters worse, we dug all day alongside a putrid marsh inhabited by colonies of leaches and blood-sucking deer flies.

One afternoon, my cousin and I were digging tie holes at the shearing pens with a new man my dad had recently hired from Rawlins. Gib was built like a weight lifter, with a square chin harder than titanium. He was eager to do anything Dad asked of him, including working with two young kids in their early teens.

But there was one big problem. He was a recovering alcoholic just coming off a recent bender at the bars lining Front Street in town. When he started to sweat, the tepid air around the whole fence line stank of rotgut whiskey. My cousin and I sucked air in deep breaths because we needed oxygen to fuel our digging. 

With each shovel thrust, Gib wheezed and then leaned against a nearby post, his shirt soaked with foul-smelling sweat. He bent over and purged the contents of his last bottle and town breakfast. Deer flies found the sick man leaning against the tie and buzzed around him like a pack of hyenas circling a wound zebra. They landed, bit, and drew whiskey-tainted blood.

“Damn, I can’t stand it, boys,” he said. “I just want to die.” 

My cousin looked at me. “What are we going to do, Mark?”

We opened a cold Clorox bottle filled with ice water to quench our thirsts and poured the rest over Gib’s head and face. 

“Go lie down near the truck,” I told him. “The breeze up there will keep the flies away.” 

He stumbled to the truck, collapsed in the shade, and slept off his condition. My cousin and I finished the fencing on our own, fighting deer flies as they flew by, because that’s what partners do for one another other on a ranch in the country.

Gib at the barn dance in 1979.

Insight

From Dad: When you get bucked off, get back on. There is no alternative. When things go wrong, try harder. 

Gib became completely sober, got married, had a family, and was one of the hardest workers on the ranch. He proved to be a great “investment” for Dad.

Did you know?

While working on an oil rig, Gib was once struck with a flying sucker chain that broke his jaw, but it didn’t even knock him down!

Book News

I had the honor of receiving the following book review from Larry Wilcox, a Rawlins boy who made it big in the televisions series CHIPs. A member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, Larry is currently a Hollywood writer, producer, director, and actor. My heartfelt thanks!

“A story of gratitude and reciprocity with respect to nature and man. . . . A Sometimes Paradise reminded me at times of John Steinbeck and the silent loneliness and the harsh realities of life for the working class who faced tough and often solitary experiences. I wonder if the cowboy’s work ethic, being a central aspect of their “can-do attitude” and their identity, came at the cost of personal connection and emotional fulfillment, neglected, denied, or transferred to nature.”

Until next month,

Mark Miller

For all our hired hands, “the country brought out kindness in their character.” From A Sometimes Paradise