The Corralitos: A Memoir of Ranch Life

The Corralitos

A Memoir of Ranch Life

Larry Foster

© 2015 by Larry Foster

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eBook 978-1-61139-321-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foster, Larry, 1945- author.

The Corralitos : a memoir of ranch life / by Larry Foster.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-63293-026-2 (softcover : alk. paper)

1. Ranch life--New Mexico. 2. Livestock farms--New Mexico. I. Title.

F596.F625 2015

636’.0109789--dc23

2014034386

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Preface

The Corralitos, a ranchland covering almost 200,000 acres of high desert, encompasses 300 square miles in southern New Mexico. This memoir is a descriptive narrative of the events and daily routine of tending the cattle and farming the land.

The workload was constant, seven days a week with long hours on horseback and nights spent cutting and baling hay, and the work was dangerous, especially working with the head of 140 cantankerous bulls on a yearly basis. You could never take your eyes off a mean bull. We also grazed 40 head of buffalo and they could be just as ill-tempered and unpredictable and dangerous to handle as the bulls. In addition, we grazed 1600 mother cows and grew 500 acres of alfalfa hay.

The ranch employed six or seven workers and during roundup there could be as many as sixteen. There we up to nine horses in the stable, and they were always shod and ready to ride at any time. There was rarely a slack time, especially during the fall gathering of the herd. It was arduous dirty work, but no one ever complained. The Corralitos saga was one of love, dedication and each new day brought new adventures and memories which will never be forgotten.

1 Lawrence and Howard

I knew Lawrence Daley wasn’t a man that a six-year-old boy should be pestering, especially when he was butchering an old cow for cook-house meat and had a razor-sharp knife in one hand. But I could no longer resist the urge to distract his attention and agitate him, so I cautiously circled the big man as he slit the hanging cow carcass front to rear down the belly, disemboweling the cow and spilling the watery paunch, bowels, and viscera onto the concrete floor of the barn. A miasma of thick, pungent odors wafted up from the slick, shiny pile of steaming innards, and I winced at the smell, but still engrossed in the processing, and up to no good, I circled closer and closer to the action. When I couldn’t hold back any longer, I shuffled near the big butcher, inching forward and back in short shuffles, just out of arm’s reach, and began chiding him.

Ha, ha, I bet you can’t catch me! Ha, ha, ha.

The huge man momentarily looked up from his processing, squinted and eyed me intensely.

Get out o’ here! Go away! I’m cutting ranch meat. Can’t you see I’m busy? he spat back.

Hee, hee, hee, you’re not busy. You can’t catch me! Ha, ha, I prodded.

Get out o’ here right now or I’m gonna stick your head in the cow guts, he warned ominously, and then returned his attention to skinning the animal.

I sidled closer, leaning in daringly toward his sphere of control, and chirped at him again,

Ha, ha, ha!

But with a quick snatch of his powerful ham-sized hand, he caught my ankle and held it firmly. In an instant he stood up and effortlessly twisted his arm, lifted me, and held me suspended upside-down over the steaming puddle of entrails, intestines, and excreta cut out of the old black cow chained up beside me. Looking up, I saw Lawrence’s face glowing, beaming like a cherub with a satisfied smile. Then the muscular arm thrust my head and torso right into the guts below, knocking off my little cowboy hat, pumping and wallowing my upper body in the slather, up and down, like a giant one-armed man churning butter. After a few seconds, with a sucking sound he drew me up out of the belly of the beast and gently plopped me on the concrete. I snapped to my feet a little surprised, hatless, out of breath, with slime dripping down my forehead as I stared once again into his eyes. There was a second of silence. Then Lawrence threw back his head and gave out a raucous crescendo howl, welling from a deep baritone bellow into a shrill, ear-piercing, high-pitched cackle that reverberated off the barns and out-buildings and echoed back from the valley. You could hear his thunderous, chilling laugh for a quarter of a mile. He grinned impishly at me as I stood there, awash in a frothy, stinking mess, and all I could remember was, Stand your ground, look him in the eye, and don’t cry—don’t cry!

Lawrence Daley was an impressive, well-known man from a pioneer ranching family in San Diego County. At age forty he was over six feet tall with a thirty-four inch waist and a muscular, sinuous body. He was agile as a cat, fleet of foot, well coordinated, and would have been any coach’s pick for the decathlon. His friends called him Deer for his foot-speed, and he was a superb physical specimen. Lawrence was my second cousin, the same age as my father, Pete Foster, and another cousin, Howard Foster, who had grown up together and bonded like brothers. Young Lawrence worked long, tedious hours on the vast land-holdings, ranches, orchards, and farms of the area, and in a thriving construction business owned by his uncle, George, the family patriarch. George, a gruff and straightforward man, was the only person who could, and would, spur Lawrence to attention. Lawrence was terrified of Uncle George. Just the report that George was coming up the road and heading toward the big adobe house was enough to make Lawrence, a huge man, leap out of his stuffed chair and scamper around the house like a mouse, peering out of every window and shaking like a leaf, in fear of his contrary uncle, boss, and benefactor. Lawrence, his wife Bertha, and his son George all cowered many hours at the thought of suddenly having to face the cussed, ill-tempered, crusty old man. But at George’s death in 1957, Lawrence and his brother, Donald, inherited more than 50,000 acres of land, as well as a successful road-construction company that worked in and around the San Diego area. It was a growing, booming, bustling San Diego at that time, an era of great prosperity and opportunity; the brothers took control of their acquisitions, hired the best people to work for them, and the business flourished. Likewise, the property values of the ranches appreciated rapidly as the population soared. Daley Corporation was at one time one of the largest freeway-construction companies in California, and the ranches were spread all over San Diego and adjacent counties. Donald oversaw the construction business and Lawrence managed the ranches, and they prospered wherever they went and in whatever they did. Both became wealthy, and the name Daley became synonymous with a growing, vibrant San Diego County.

In addition to being a well-heeled cowman in the southern California ranching industry, Lawrence was also, at times, my babysitter. He and Bertha—a tough, yet tender-hearted woman—helped look after me when my family was relocating after suffering a near bankruptcy from farming in the Imperial Valley. I got jostled around a bit, and sometimes ended up at the Bernardo ranch, waiting to be picked up by Pete or by Sally, my mother, who both worked long hours. Lawrence had various projects underway at all times at five ranches throughout the county, and I loved to ride shotgun with him. He always had some new nifty thing that caught my attention: a four-inch lock-blade knife, or a deer rifle, perhaps a scoped varmint pistol, all neatly displayed in some niche or door panel in the cab of the Jimmy. He regularly shot deer for ranch meat during the season and was an excellent marksman with any firearm.

On one occasion when we had stopped to open a gate, I started to get out, and he ordered me, Hold on, stay put! Unarmed, he opened the door, got out, and slowly stepped toward the gate, bending forward as he went; his gaze glued to the ground, he slowly inched forward, still bending, and then cautiously he lowered his right hand and instantly snatched up a two-foot rattlesnake by the tail, pulling it back toward him. Then he stood and swung the reptile out to his side in small circles, like a cheerleader twirling her pom-pom with just her wrist. The sight of the snake’s body became a blur as it whirled, and then Lawrence took a step and gracefully, with a whip stroke, whacked the snake on the top wire of the barbed-wire fence, decapitating the creature with the head, fangs and entrails flying out into the pasture. He casually discarded the writhing carcass at the side of the road, climbed back in the cab, smeared on some chapstick, and squinted over at me with his See there stare. He liked to show me he was boss, but I wasn’t afraid at all, just impressed with the foolhardy, daredevil act—very impressed.

One hot afternoon riding in the truck, I was bored, not paying attention and bouncing on the seat, when Lawrence told me to sit still so he could drive. But to taunt him I kept banging around on the seat until he blurted out, What do I have to do to keep your ass still, tie you up?

Yeah, I prompted.

He scowled at me, spun the truck in a circle, and made a beeline for the barn. Skidding to a stop, he took me by the arm and pulled me over to the stacked hay, grabbing a rope off a saddle on the way.

Well if you’re so goddamn goosey, let’s see you get out of this, he growled. Then he wound the rope around my legs and shoulders, up one side, down the other, back and forth, a hitch here, a cinch there, and in less than a minute he had me hog-tied, lying on my back on the dusty concrete floor, bound up like a horse-hair cocoon, and thinking to myself, Boy, this will be fun when I get out and give him back his rope.

I’m getting out of here, I promised, gritting my teeth.

Watch out for the ants! He grinned, then jumped into the truck and left.

For a half hour I writhed, grunted, and rolled around on the dirty concrete, huffing, puffing, and jerking back and forth like a Mexican jumping bean, but I managed to get only three fingers free from his rope web, and they were turning numb. I had gotten myself into a tight spot, all balled up on the floor, sweating head to toe, worn out from fighting the heat and the rope. Then suddenly I felt the first ant crawl up my neck, then the second, and I knew then he had won this round. A half an hour longer, hot, swaddled-up, soaking wet, and no longer inching around, I laid there, like a giant, ant-infested spitball, all juiced up, and stuck to the floor. Then I heard boots crackling on the gritty concrete, and Lawrence came into view with a tobacco pipe clenched in his teeth, hesitating, and slowly shaking his head woefully from side to side as he neared, with that I told you so look on his face. Slowly he took the pipe out of his mouth, laid his head back and gave out a blasting, bellowing caterwaul, so shrill it hurt my ears. Then, giggling, he untied me. All I suffered were some rope burns, scuffed-up ears, a couple of ant bites, and a slightly bruised ego, which healed quickly when we got in the truck and went back to work.

Often at night I would prod Lawrence into a wrestling match on the living room rug, and always I would end up with whisker burns, struggling as he sat on top of me waiting for Bertha to bring his dinner. In the swimming pool one afternoon I egged him on to a water-fight that ended with my protective aunt, Blanche, rescuing me after he repeatedly dunked my head under water until I was near delirium.

Lawrence, what the hell are you trying to do, drown that kid? she bristled as she stormed out the door and confronted him.

Well, the little bastard won’t leave me alone, he bit back.

I loved my aunt’s intervention, but I had no plans to curb my small attacks pinching his dominion, or retreating a single inch.

Lawrence’s biggest problem was his mouth. He was not an abusive man, never bruised or battered anyone, but his uncontrolled verbal outbursts were punishing and demeaning, especially to the loved ones closest to him. Aunt Bertha and cousin George took the brunt of his bellicose ranting and belittling diatribes. George would avoid Lawrence when he was venting, but Bertha would stand toe to toe with him and defend herself and others with an admirable toughness. Then Lawrence would retreat and go back to work, and Bertha would go into the bathroom, lock the door, run the water, and bawl her head off.

Aunt Bertha was like my second mother, and I wanted to kick Lawrence for the hurtful tongue-lashings he whipped out at Bertha and at George, but kicking him would have been disrespectful and wouldn’t have helped anyone. Bertha had most of it right: she stood her ground and looked him in the eye. But then she cried. She sobbed when she should have grabbed a big broom and swatted, whacked, and driven him out the door. He would have understood that, and would have returned with his hat in hand, a more respectful man. At his uncle’s death, Lawrence’s inheritance produced a man who was generous but unconcerned about the feelings of others. He could be loud, oppressive and stubborn with an unbridled tongue at one moment, then contrite, handing out goodies for retribution the next. He had become like his caustic uncle George, the old man whom Lawrence had dreaded for many years; he had become like a spoiled, mannerless child with no possible guidance or effective direction. Lawrence Daley was to be my boss for the next forty years, and despite all of his failings and shortcomings with people, I loved him. He was family.

If there was an individual who personified post-war agriculture in the southwest United States, that person was Howard Foster. His achievements in cattle feeding, ranching and farming were benchmarks for all his contemporaries and his successors. The digging of the All American canal brought precious water from the mighty Colorado River and turned the inhospitable Mojave Desert sinkhole—one of the driest, lowest, and hottest spots on earth—into a huge breadbasket, a winter wonderland of vegetables, and a cornucopia of crops and cattle. After World War II, there was a population explosion in Southern California, and the Imperial Valley was perfectly situated geographically to provide a constant supply of foodstuffs to the expanding coastal cities—San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco—as well as to grow, for the entire nation, winter vegetables that were hard to raise in northern latitudes. Howard spearheaded the creation of large-scale agribusiness in the southwest.

Howard’s genius was his