May 18, 2003
One day I was walking to the meat market to get some beef for that nights dinner. When I was at the meat market, the butcher was talking about three cowboys and a cowgirl. Their names were Jose, a Mexican vaquero whose ancestors once taught the Texans how to ranch, Maria, Joses wife, and Bill, the cook.
The butcher said that they were looking for one more cowboy, and that they were going to travel on the Goodnight-Loving Trail to sell cattle in the Northeast to make a big profit. I said I would join their cattle drive.
The next day Jose, Maria, and Bill came to my house to discuss plans. On the day of July 25 we would start our drive.
There were sixty cattle going on the drive. Jose said that the larger the number of cattle on the drive the better to support supply and demand. The demand for cattle was in the North-East to support their growing population with beef. So Texas cowboys supplied them with cattle drives.
When July 25 finally arrived we all met at San Angelo to start our journey.
All of the provisions for our journey were packed in our covered wagon: food, guns, bullets, clothing, and last, but certainly not least, Bill our cook. The first few days went fine, but then without realizing it we accidentally went off of the trail and rode into Indian Territory. We were raided by a band of Apaches. They held us captive until we made a deal with them.
For seven cattle the Apaches would let us go and tell us the way back to the trail. The Apaches agreed, and told us the way back to the trail and in exchange we paid our end of the bargain.
Once back on the trail, everything went well until a rattlesnake bit Bill and we had to rest for three days while he recovered. When we finally arrived at the Kansas Pacific Railroad we loaded our cattle on the train and rode on the railroad to Kansas City.
We sold our cattle and made 1,925 dollars; we each received 481 dollars. I was very happy that I decided to go on the cattle drive, both for the money and for the wonderful experience.
On the way back home, I drank some pond water that I thought was clean, but it was not. Because of this, I had a horrible case of stomach ailment. This slowed me down for five days, but I made it back to San Antonio.
One year later I went another cattle drive, I was now a cowboy.
