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I went to work for David Landrum, in Hood County, Texas, and quickly found out I wasn’t near as much of a cowboy as I thought I was. David took care of that. He taught me everything about working a ranch, and then some. He was a rough man. He would cuss you up one side and down the other. If you were doing good, he wouldn’t say a word. But I ended up really liking the guy.
Working on a ranch is heaven.
It’s a hard life, featuring plenty of hard work, and yet at the same time it’s an easy life. You’re outside all the time. Most days it’s just you and the animals. You don’t have to deal with people or offices or any petty bullshit. You just do your job.
David’s spread ran ten thousand acres. It was a real ranch, very old-school—we even had a chuck wagon during the spring round-up season.
I want to tell you, this was a beautiful place, with gentle hills, a couple of creeks, and open land that made you feel alive every time you looked at it. The heart of the ranch was an old house that had probably been a way station—an “inn” in Yankee-speak—back in the nineteenth century. It was a majestic building, with screened porches front and back, nice-sized rooms inside, and a big fireplace that warmed the soul as well as the skin.
Of course, because I was a ranch hand, my quarters were a little more primitive. I had what we called a bunkhouse, which was barely big enough for an actual bunk. It might have measured six by twelve feet, and my bed took up most of that. There wasn’t space for drawers—I had to hang all my clothes, including my underwear, on a pole.
The walls weren’t insulated. Central Texas can be pretty cold in the winter, and even with the gas stove on high and an electric heater right next to the bed, I slept with my clothes on. But the worst thing about it was the fact that there wasn’t a proper foundation under the floorboards. I was continually doing battle with raccoons and armadillos, who’d burrow in right under my bed. Those raccoons were ornery and audacious; I must’ve shot twenty of them before they finally got the message that they weren’t welcome under my house.
I started out riding the tractors, planting wheat for the cattle in the wintertime. I moved on to sluffing feed to the cattle. Eventually, David determined I was likely to stick around and started giving me more responsibilities. He bumped my salary to $400 a month.
After my last class ended around one or two in the afternoon, I’d head over to the ranch. There I’d work until the sun went down, study a bit, then go to bed. First thing in the morning, I’d feed all the horses, then head to class. Summer was the best. I’d be on horseback at five o’clock in the morning until nine at night.
Eventually, I became the two-year man, training “cut horses” and getting them ready for auction. (Cutting horses—also called carving horses, sorting horses, whittlers—are trained to help cowboys “cut” cows from the herd. These working horses are important on a ranch, and a good one can be worth a good amount of money.)
This is really where I learned about dealing with horses, and became much more patient than I had been before. If you lose your temper with a horse, you can ruin it for life. I taught myself to take my time and be gentle with them.
Horses are extremely smart. They learn quickly—if you do it right. You show them something real small, then stop, and do it again. A horse will lick its lips when it’s learning. That’s what I looked for. You stop the lesson on a good note, and pick up the next day.
Of course, it took a while to learn all this. Anytime I messed up, my boss would let me know. Right away he’d cuss me out, tell me I was a worthless piece of shit. But I never got pissed at David. In my mind, I thought, I’m better than that and I’ll show you.
As it happens, that’s exactly the kind of attitude you need to become a SEAL.
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