"Firemen Should Be Seen, But Not Herd"
Chapter Three
Gage got the cattle all gathered, right in the middle of the freeway, and then drove over to where his Captain was standing. "That's a top-notch corral you got there, Cap!"
"Thanks. It has two rails," the Captain proudly pointed out, and passed the paramedic his Snickers bar.
"Thanks! Yeah. I see that. Very nice!"
The cattle were all rounded up and the corral was ready. But there was still no 'upright' semi in sight.
Stanley studied the milling, mooing critters for a few moments. "Shouldn't we put them in the corral, before something scatters them—again?"
Gage's gaze shifted, from the still half-crazed with fear steers, to the makeshift cattle pen.
The corral may have been ready for the cattle, but the cattle weren't quite ready to be corralled.
"Trust me, Cap. They'll be a lot easier to work with, if we let 'em calm down a little, first. We try to rush them—before they're ready—and somebody's gonna get stomped on."
Stanley remained skeptical. "You sure they're not gonna go anywhere?"
The drover—er, driver sat there, with his rescue truck's engine running, snacking on his candy bar. "Cattle are herd animals, Cap. They sort a' got this 'safety in numbers' mentality. They feel much safer in a group. Now that we got 'em bunched up, they'll settle right down. You'll see," the ex-cowboy confidently predicted.
"I sure hope so," Hank mumbled, solely to himself.
Settle the cattle did. Why, after just a few minutes of huddling together, one of the critters was
even feeling comfortable enough to lie down.
The rest of the rounded up steers just continued to stand there, calmly and contentedly chewing their cud.
One of the funny looking fenceposts suddenly shifted his weight, causing several of the animals to perk up and nervously flick their ears in its direction.
"Please, don't anybody move!" Gage—who had gone back to circling the herd—pleaded, over his rescue truck's radio.
Kelly groaned, inwardly. He'd never had to stand so still, for soooooo long, before, in his entire life—not even when he was in the service! "Hey, Cap?" he quietly called out. "Can we, at least, talk?"
Hank, who was keeping his back to the herd, thumbed his HT's call button. "Kelly wants to know if it's okay to talk…"
"Sure, as long as he does it quietly. But, if anybody moves anything other than their mouth, these animals are all gonna go flyin' off down the freeway, again."
"Understood," the Captain spoke into his HT. His head slowly swung in the dope-on-a-rope's direction. "Understood?"
Chet started to nod, but then stopped. "Aye, aye, Cap!"
"Hey, Cap?" Chet whined, less than five motionless minutes later. "My right ear is itchy…"
"Suck it up, Kelly!" his Captain shot back.
Kelly sucked it up. But he was bored out of his gourd and sick to death of just standing there. "Damn it, Jim!" he suddenly proclaimed, slipping into his 'Doctor McCoy' persona. "I'm a fireman, not a fencepost!"
His fellow firefighters snickered—softly.
Their Captain's right eyebrow instantly arched and, when he spoke, he sounded very 'Spock' like. "There are times when I feel as though I am talking to a fencepost."
His crew couldn't help but laugh—quietly.
Some of the cattle were also becoming bored and beginning to mill about.
"Let's try singing to them," Hank suddenly suggested.
"Great!" Chet grumbled, just beneath his breath. "Now, I'm a singing fencepost."
"Home, home on the range," Marco obligingly began to croon. "Where the deer and the antelope play…"
Right about then, Chet's stomach chose to growl—and not quietly, either. One Snickers bar had not even come close to filling it. "I'd like to get one of those little dogies home on my range. Or, better yet, my barbecue grill."
The fireman's buddies grinned and exchanged knowing glances. They were all wise to the Irishman's ways. They knew that—for all his bluster—Chet was too tender-hearted to even trap a mouse—let alone slaughter a steer!
"Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word," Captain Stanley continued, his stern gaze fixed upon the complainer, and his melodious words filled with double-meaning.
Kelly begrudgingly broke into song, himself. "And the skies are not cloudy all day."
"Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam," DeSoto and Stoker began again, performing a duet.
They'd just finished their fourth chorus of 'Home On The Range' and Kelly had just begun to ramble—on and on—about the virtues of various types of barbed wire, when reinforcements arrived…non-Code R, of course.
Hank flicked channels and then raised his hand-held radio to his lips. "Engine 36, Engine 51…I need you and your crew to don some life-belts and then calmly and quietly man the rope lines…"
"Engine 36. 10-4, 51," Station 36's Captain unquestioningly came back, and—just like that—the rope rails of their corral were reinforced with six more fenceposts—er, firemen.
Fifteen motionless minutes later, another cattle truck finally pulled up.
Its cab's doors popped open and two guys hopped out.
The trailer's slatted back doors were swung out to the sides and their cattle shute—er, wooden ladders were secured to them. An inner door was then lowered, forming a loading ramp.
"Ready, or not," Gage announced, over his rescue truck's radio. "Here they come."
The cattle were quickly moved, from the middle of the freeway...into the rope corral with all the funny looking fenceposts.
"Okay, Cap, you can start closing the 'gate'…"
The Captain had tied the free ends of his coils of rope to the two ropes Lopez was holding. He started heading over to where DeSoto stood, playing his ropes out along the way.
"All right, Roy…You and Marco start moving toward one another…very slowly."
They did.
As the two 'end posts' slowly converged, the Captain carefully took up the slack in their 'gate'.
The milling moo-moos soon found themselves 'safely' corralled.
The paramedic parked his truck and slowly climbed out, being careful not to slam its door.
"Okay. Now, how do we get them in the truck?" Stanley wondered, as his cattle expert came stepping up.
"We just need one or two to go in. The rest should follow. The problem is, none of 'em are gonna wanna go in. The last time they stepped into a dark, spooky cattle trailer, they got hurt and tossed around. It must a' been like being in a giant rock tumbler, to them."
"That is a BIG problem," Hank quickly determined. "So…What's the plan?"
"We take our time and keep closing the corral in on them—inch by inch—until there's no place left to go but up that ramp."
The three truck drivers watched—wordlessly—as the ex-cowboy carefully orchestrated the crowding of the cattle.
Each fencepost—er, fireman did just as directed.
John's movements were smooth and deliberate, as he continued to close the rope corral in on the enormous—and increasingly nervous—animals. While he worked, the paramedic kept making this 'ch-ch ch-ch ch-ch ch-ch' sound. Which seemed to soothe the cattle—considerably.
Before they knew it, the last steer had high-tailed it up the ramp and disappeared into the now crowded cattle trailer.
The loading ramp was immediately lifted and the stock trailer's slatted gates were quickly closed and clamped.
The firemen celebrated, briefly, and then began to dismantle their rope corral.
"Whatever you do, keep the ropes up outta the…dung!" 51's Captain ordered.
They wouldn't be serviceable, if they got covered with cow s—crap.
Marco continued to just stand there, basking in the glow of victory. "That sure worked slick! Huh, Cap."
Hank had to smile at his crewman's choice of words. "It certainly did!"
Speaking of slick…
Stoker charged his engine's pump back up and the firemen took turns using the reel lines to rinse all traces of the guey cow huey from the soles of their boots.
Nobody was allowed to step foot on Big Red, until they had passed the engineer's inspection—not even the Captain!
"How's your head?" Roy cautiously inquired, as his partner approached.
"My head?" John suddenly looked a bit sheepish. "Oh...you, uh, saw that, huh."
DeSoto gave his bashful buddy a grin and a nod.
"My head's fine," Gage assured him. "But I ain't so sure about my shoulders," he continued, with a grimace and a groan. "Man, I bet they're gonna be sore for a week. I'm used to the 'horse' doin' all the work," he went on to explain, upon catching his partner's questioning look.
Roy flashed his friend a sympathetic smile. "I trust they're not too sore for you to grab onto to other end of this ladder..." he hinted.
John took the hint, and the end of the ladder.
The firemen got their ladders and gear all stowed away.
"C'mon, Boys!" Hank urged, speaking with just the hint of a 'draw-awl'. "We're burnin' daylight, here. Let's head on back to the barn, and rustle ourselves up some grub. "
The guys—er, Boys glanced at one another and grinned their approval.
Apparently, Kelly wasn't the only fireman who watched a lot of Westerns.
The cattle truck drove off into the sunset.
The 'Boys' obligingly headed their rescue rigs on up…and moved 'em on out.
You have now reached the end of the trail—er, tale.
"Happy trails to you
Until we meet again
Happy trails to you
Keep smilin' until then" :)
—Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans