Burro Jerky and The ‘Ol Man

Nigh on to fifty-two years ago now, I learn’t about hangin’ jerky on a barbwire fence from a cowpoke, called “The Ol Man”. I do him the honor of writin’ this in the lingo that he spoke.

He was married twenty years late in life to a younger woman. Lips chapped and swollen from desert sun and wind— smeared white with Watkins salve or bag balm— he looked as old as his worn, brow-stained, Stetson, which he wore with a tight curled brim, a little cockeyed. He was about half cowboy crossed with rancher and desert prospector. He had more knowledge of the ways of desert than anybody I ever knew and could survive on balin’ wire and burro jerky, which he did. I seen him follow wild burro tracks up an arroyo and find a damp spot where they had pawed a hole in the sand and waited for the water to rise up at night. Now, that kind of knowledge proves to be lifesavin’ when you need it.

Livin’ along an upside down river called the “Big Sandy” with his wife and three sons, he was ranchin’ out north-east of Kingman, Arizona, where he ran a few head cattle. Whenever he felt the need; he would hunt down a wild burro up in the Hualapai Mountains. So as not to kill it outright, he would shoot the burro through the neck just below the mane, somethin he called, “creasin.” Once ‘creased,’ the burro would hump up partly paralyzed and then he could easily toss a rope on it and horse it back to the ranch. There it was dressed out for jerky, hide and chicken feed. Chickens need protein to produce eggs, and ‘store bought’ chicken feed was scarce. It was slim pickins for them chickens, save for some milk-soaked sour grain and a few scraps, and maybe scratchin around the hay shed was about all they got. Actually, it was not much different for that desert rancher and his family at times.

Any protein like burro, venison, jackrabbit and rattlesnake meat were often stripped and hung on a bobwire fence to dehydrate in the sun ‘til it was jerky. That stuff would get brittle as a soda cracker! Snake jerky tends to crumble like fish or hardtack. After the meat dried out and harden it was ground up and sparingly fed to the chickens. Egg production would soon increase and them eggs would change from pale faces to the most golden yellow yolks you ever saw! Somehow that made them even more apetizin’ and richer tastin’. Deep down most every hand knows… pale egg yolks look sick and it changes the taste.

Dog food was made from food scraps and ground jerky. These table scraps were stored in a shallow square pan and then mixed and cooked with cornmeal into a firm mush. At feedin’ time, slices were cut off and fed to the dogs. Now, that was long before Purina Chows or any other ‘store-bought’ dog food existed. Shucks, at times, the animals were fatter ‘n the kids!

Beef and burro jerky fit for man to eat was first soaked in a special meat brine and maybe flavored up a bit with pepper and oregano then hung over a bobwire fence, but, most times on lines strung up on the screened back porch or a shed. Dryin’ jerk in the direct sun gives it a funny washed-out taste; sorta like the taste of a roll-yer-own made from sun-baked stubs. The brine and pepper helped keep the blowflies and yellow jackets off. Hey! A chaw of burro jerky ain’t half bad and can tide you over till yer next meal! The jerk was kept stored in cotton or burlap sacks and hung up where the dry air kept it clean and fresh and away from various scavenger beetles.

Under some big Arizona Sycamores was The Ol Man’s, four-room, ranch house. The place had no ‘lectric. It was built as a combination of lean-to’s, made of rock masonry, a few timbers, railroad ties, and weathered batten boards and a rusty corrugated tin roof. The Mrs. was proud of her colorful Indian blankets that she raised and lowered for window coverin. In front of the sittin places, her wood floors were covered with gray-black burro hides and some wood furniture had a perty calfskin laid over it or a colorful Mexican serape. One wood stove served for both cookin’ and heatin’. In the short winter months, the desert can get mighty cold!

Runnin water was a shaller crick that they hoped didn’t dry up in late summer. They did have steady drinkin’ water comin’ down a slope through a two-inch pipe, from a spring a’way up the crick somewhere on a mountainside. It had been flowin’ that way for many years and they had never known it to go dry, even when the creek did. They said the fresh water came from an old mineshaft that was caved in at the entrance for a long time. The water was definitely hard but sweet, with a slight mineral taste, kinda like galvanized nails.

Hangin’ on the front porch was a burlap-wrapped, olla water jug, with a clay cup over the spout. Somehow, that water was the coolest, freshest most thirst quenchin a ranch hand ever drank on a hot day. The ‘Ol Man’ would say; “git yerself a drink of Adam’s ale, you’ll git more miles on it!” Out front was a big log-slab table and benches and a couple of straight backs, set out under the Sycamores. That’s where the food and hospitality was served eight months out of the year—that is, if you slapped the chickens off the table. Jerk gravy over Dutch oven biscuits with fried eggs and a cup of boiled coffee, early of a cool mornin’—maybe some berry preserves with them biscuits— now that’s plum scumptous.

Nearby, the chicken yard or small animal enclosure was fenced with six to eight foot, Ocotillo cactus stakes, wired closely together with balin’ wire, and buried a couple of feet deep in the desert sand. Portions of these natural plant shafts often took root and grew, adding some nice green to the fence in the spring and summer.

With the horses tied in the shade, switchin’ their tails and snortin’ every now and then, flies were ever constant but not really that much of a nuisance. Fleas were a much bigger problem at times, especially to those certain folks whose blood— as the flea determined— more closely resembled canine. I was one! They say it has to do with a lack of vitamin B, which makes it apparent dogs have none. I guess that’s why when you feed it to them they die flealess, of measles or whoopin’ cough!

Off near the dusty horse ‘n hay shed was a hand-made anvil made from a chunk of railroad iron and horse-shoe-nailed to an oak stump. Beside it, was a welded-up sheet-iron table. His three boys had stripped an old ‘B’ model Ford down to the frame and rigged up their own arc welder. With scraps of iron and metal from old equipment found here and there, along with some old water pipe, strap iron and bicycle chain, some wire coat hangers for weldin rod, or maybe the real stuff at times, there weren’t much that them boys couldn’t make, fabricate or repair. And the place showed it in all sorts of unique ways. Not always perty but, practical, ornamental wrought iron at it wroughtest.

Besides ridin with The ‘Ol Man’ at times, the boys made a little spendin money by diggin hematite crystals. A one pound coffee can full of clean hematite weighed twelve pounds and fetched some perty good pocket change, that is if they could get it hauled to the smelter. That was akin about the same as collecting aluminum cans these days.

Well, here I am reminiscin’ about an old man back more than fifty years ago. Lookin’ back on that long ride up the “Big Sandy” and through miles and miles of arrow-weed and short-grass desert, up to the foot of the Hualapai’s and that humble ranch of a real desert cowpoke—now that’s a pleasurable memory trip. “The Ol Man”… such a handle for a cowboy can only be said with the deepest respect, because only a ‘top hand’ that made burro jerky is worthy of the title.

(That’s the way The ‘Ol Man spoke)
Ed Keenan © 09-02

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