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greybeard
Herd Master
I'll tell this related story, set decades ago..
When I was young, 14, (1964) this county was still open range. When you crossed from Liberty County into San Jacinto county, there was a big cattleguard on the blacktop, and running off the ends of what was one of the few fences in the county outside of around people's yards. That fence ran out around the National Forest on the south end to keep cattle from straying off open range country. This was mostly all raw country then, forest, but probably not the kind of forest you have in your mind's eye.
A little history...
This area in the mid to late 1800s, from La westward across East Texas was old growth long leaf pine forest. Texas, when it entered the union and even after the Civil War was dollar poor but land rich and the big timber companies bought up hundreds of thousands of acres for just a few dollars/acre from the State. The forests then, were large 90' tall pines, with a pine needle floor. Trees were spaced apart, with little else growing except in the river bottoms, where dense hardwood thickets had sprung up. When the timber companies cut all the old growth off, sunlight hit the forest floor, wind was able to get to it, and seeds of every kind came in and began to grow. What was for hundreds of years before, a clean forest, like walking thru a well kept park, turned into a thicket of vines, hardwood saplings, yaupon, and tanglefoot and still is today. It's known now as The Big Thicket.
When my father bought 124 acres here, there were few people living in the county that weren't cattlemen and farmers. The cattle and hogs were not kept at home, but were branded or ear notched and ran loose--all herds mixed together. Among our neighbors that ran cattle free range, was a cowboy of the old style. He was in his 60s when I met him in '64. He was a ww1 vet, and had served in the US calvary. He helped during spring roundup, done before the brush put on leaves. His name was Peerless Elisor, and was a black man, tall, wiry, friendly and tough as nails. He, like like most people here, ran some pretty rough stock. Horned, mixed breed with lots of Brahma influence.
Peerless was an avid hunter and did most of his hunting from horseback with an old lever action Winchester. One day, he was ambling down a pipeline right of way, when a big buck walked right out in front of him about 100 yards down the right of way. Peerless dropped his reins, and of course the horse reached down to graze, as Peerless pulled the winchester out of it's scabbard. Just as he sqeezed the trigger, something caught the horse's eye or nose and he raised his head up. Peerless came walking out of the right of way with his rifle, saddle and hackamore, his horse still laying down the r-o-w shot thru the back of the head.
