ALONG THE WAY

The Spring and Fall Cattle Drives at Orme School Provided Kids with Memories for a Lifetime

"After lunch we started branding and had a wonderful time rolling in the dirt."

About a mile north of Milepost 273, west of Interstate 17, near the very center of Arizona, dips the sway of a land-shaped saddle atop the ridgeline above a winding draw. It is part of the east pasture of the Orme family's Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch. I know the spot well. The cold, often freezing dawn of Novembers. The hot breezes of May. Fall and spring roundups for the Orme School kids, more than 50 years ago. Nine to 14 years old, we are from Arizona, California, West Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico students of a oneroom adobe schoolhouse, out of class, helping with roundup. Names and nicknames: Tote and Favor, Addie, Carol, Sylvia, Fido, Tee and Scrib, Penny and Allison, Susie and Ron, too. Riding horses named Bosco, Dunna, Suzie-Q, Shoo-Fly, Cuter, Pal, Lady, Spinner, Cigarette, Flicka, and Little Tony.

We ride with five adults: Charles H. Orme Sr., sons Mort and Charlie; Franklin Dandrea; and foreman Bruce McDonald. They set the example to learn by doing. "Listen up!" The voice belongs to McDonald who, with one good eye, sees farther than all of us with two. We divide into three groups. I go with McDonald. The November dawn glazes the eastern ridges. The breath of horses and riders clouds the cold air. McDonald reaches a place where he points west, upward toward the saddle dipping within the ridgeline. "If a fella was to ride up there and wait long enough, some of us will be bringing the cattle down that wash below. A fella's got to watch the hillAside below for any cows that might be ahead of us trying to me, two springs and one fall. Roundup always begins at the east pasture. The 5 A.M. bell, rung loud and long, awakens us. In the morning darkness, holding tie ropes in one hand, flashlights in the other, we try to catch the moving shadows of our horses in the corral.

The next bell signals breakfast. In the fall, Aunt Minna (Mrs.

Charles H. Orme Sr.) reminds I get away." McDonald speaks in the third person, but the one good eye is cocked at me. I turn my horse, riding toward my solitary outpost. There I will watch the sun rise higher in the sky. And wait. I am 11 years old and being given responsibility. Older riders have more. Those on their first roundup less. They will soon learn the endless boredom of waiting to "hold herd," waiting for as long as it takes McDonald's group to gather and drive the cattle down the draw below me. I have the experience of three roundups behind me, "Young man, wear your Balbriggans," her word for the long underwear I consider too sissified for an 11-year-old cowboy. Wearing two pairs of socks, several shirts, a jacket and chaps, I can barely lift myself into the saddle.Five days in November and in May. The east pasture is fol-lowed by the CCC Pasture, the west pasture, the Taylor Place, and the always eventful Os-borne Wash, where first light sends cattle running for the cover of a mesquite forest flanking both sides of the dry streambed.

Charging down the opposite hill, we try to head them off. The cattle win. We are in the brush. When Jolly Stevens does not duck, a tree limb knocks him from his horse. The smallest of us dismount and crawl into the brush, hunting cattle. Jolly is up and with us. Late afternoon. After our lunch of frijoles and cornbread, we separate the mother cows from their calves, and branding be-gins. We move among the calves, flank them. In November they are usually heavier. Hold-ing them, one of us at each end, through dehorning, ear mark-ing, castration for the males, vaccinations, and branding. The youngest of us carries the bucket and paints the wounds with black "bug juice" to prevent infections.

Dinner and sleep. Waiting again for the five o'clock bell. To be on horseback at dawn. Everyone waiting for the honored call to re-sponsibility: "If a fella was to..."

Years later, driving past Milepost 273, I recalled the faces and voices in the dust as we drove cattle toward a distant corral, and the sound of the wind when alone and waiting on that saddle above the wash, and wondered where all the riders are today. Knowing, too, that Aunt Minna was right. Novembers on that hill would have been a lot warmer wearing Balbriggans.

"I helped drive the cattle back to the pasture after they were branded, and we got home just as it was getting dark."