Family History Part 08: James Emmit Mc Cauley Poem by Cowboy Ron Williams

I never did figure out exactly how James Emmit McCauley
was related to me. My pa tried to explain it to me once,
but I was too young to understand it at the time.

I never met James, as he died in 1914, long before I was born,
but Pa was always telling stories about him.

He lived the hard cowboy life, much harder than I ever had to do.
Very few people ever saw an old cowboy back in those days.

There probably were a few, but the truth is that most cowboys quit cowpunching after ten or fifteen years. The work was rough, and sleeping in the open and not taking care properly of injuries when they happened created many a 'stove-up' cowboy who would spend the rest of his life nursing poor health.

James was one of those. The words that follow are his own.

* * *

I have done as most cowpunchers do after they have got too stove up to ride. For a man to be stove up at thirty may sound strange to some people, but many a cowboy has been so bunged up that he has quit riding that early in life.

Now at thirty I went back to my early raising. When I realized I could no longer follow the long horned cattle I determined not to work for wages any longer.

In just a little less than a month after I left the hospital I had married a girl I had known for ten years or longer. I found my little capital had went down and I was worth less than $500. I've been married now three years and I have 320 acres of land and it would take $5,000 to get me to move.

I consider I have done far better than I possibly could have working for wages. Besides, I have two little ones to bless our home, a boy two years old and a girl most a year old.

All I got out of cowpunching is the experience. I paid a good price for that. I wouldn't take anything for what I have saw but I wouldn't care to travel the same road again, and my advice to any young man or boy is to stay at home and not be a rambler, as it won't buy you anything.

And above everything stay away from a cow ranch, as not many cowpunchers ever save any money, and 'tis a dangerous life to live.

* * *

I was far luckier than James. Although I was bucked off horses many times and involved in other accidents, I never had a broken bone, and at eighty years old I can walk better than most people I pass on the streets of Durango.