THE JACKASS ROPERS 1

on the south slope of the harqua hala mountains the blm jackass roprs were set up. they had a cook and portable corrals. this day the cook was sitting on his lawn chair up against the portable cook house, he was peeling potatos , letting the trimmings drop in a bucket and dropping the fresh peeled into a pot half full of water. he was a nasty man to be a cook. he wore a greasy baseball cap, a worn, holey long handle underwear top and a pair of dirty denim pants over a pair of unlaced brogan boots. he had a plug of days work tobacco in his jaw. every so ofter he would turn his head a spit a stream of brown juice into the sandy soil. a few drops always clung to his chin to later dribble down onto his massive belley. across from him was a sun darkened man with a black hat, a denim shirt and bull hide chaps over denim pants. his spurs strapped to a pair of olathe boots. he was writting in a log book. his horse stood saddled and tied behind him awaitting his need. a broad dirt road slit the desert north to south along this road four mounted cowboys sat each apointed the same as their boss. a utility truck sat to one side , on top stood a television camera. in lawn chairs sat a camera man and a reporter. farther back sat the ranch owner, tom duncan his chevy truck back out of the way. tom was no cowboy, and he had heard about this blm crew so decided he had a over population of burros on his ranch. that he didnt was of no matter. he liked being interviewed by the telivision reporter and he figgured if the crew didnt get any burros they might catch some of his mavericks that he couldnt catch. pete bascome, the cowboy writting in the log book, knew there wasnt many butrros on this ranch. but with the goverment paying five hundred a head for every burro caught plus expenses he wasnt about to let a little thing like no burros stand in the way. up high on the mountain a helicopter was moveing back and forth across the mountain presently it seemed to hover over the head of a particulary rough canyon. the two way radio at the camp started to crackle with static.a voice came through the static" BIRD TO CAMP, FOUR LONG EARS, 6 SLICKS, STARTED DOWN THE CANYON, ETA ABOUT 20 MINUTES. pete got up and closed his book leaveing it laying on his bedroll.me mounted his horse and started out to where the rest of the cowboys were standing. the cowboys had all steped down from their horses and were snugging up the cinchas in preperation for the chase,looking up the canyon you could occasionaly see a head on a burro or a wild cow as they picked their way down the rocky canyon. the helicopter was pushing them as fas as was feasable.the telivision reporter and the camera man had climbed up on top of their truck and had the camera pointed to the canyon. without saying a word pete waved his arm in a arch that would spread the ropers out in a line.they had done this enough to know what was comming. on the end of the line was a new hire. a man with a reputation of catching what needed catching no matter the terrain. presently the bunch broke from the canyon and went to running right across the road and into the flat land that was dotted with mesquite and cholla cactus. as they past the ropers they broke and fell in to pursuit. ropes with ready made loops and tied hard and fast to the saddle horns. one by one the jack asses were roped and snubbed to the horses and led back to the portable corral. when they were penned the crew turned and set out in pursuit of the maverick cattle. pete had one tied down already. the cattle were winded, they were down to a long trott. one by one they were roped and tied down. tom went back home to get a stock trailer to load the wild cattle into. as pete and crew rode back into the camp the reporter ran out to interview pete. he broke off from the rest of the crew and rode over to the reporter and dismounted. one of the crew turned to the new man and said" ole pete never misses a chance to get in front of the camera." the rest of the crew chuckled.