Yelpin’ Stretchers and Rabid Dogs
We did fear the unknown and the mysterious, however, and the thing we feared more than the preacher’s devil was the “Yelpin’ Stretcher.” Invariably, as we would bump along in Papa’s green ‘49 Chevy truck down the sandy country lane that separated the Home Place ranch, where we lived, from the larger ranch, which we called the 88, Papa would remark, “Look there he goes; it’s the Yelpin’ Stretcher!” He usually did this along that stretch of the road that passed through the Skull Creek bottom where numerous giant ash, pecan, and live oak trees overarched a swampy understory dotted with palmettos, which we called Spanish Dagger; a stretch of road that always evoked a mysterious, almost foreboding feel, especially at dusk when the last fading rays of sunlight filtered through the forest canopy accenting the gnarled and grotesquely twisted shapes of the ancient tree limbs. Gullible and credulous, we would strain our eyes to see, but always in vain, whereupon we would demand a full description from papa as to exactly what he (it) looked like. He would hint at but never describe fully, giving free rein to our youthful imaginations to fill in the details, which soon conjured up a creature with horns and tail; amazingly similar, in fact, to medieval depictions of the devil, as I subsequently discovered. As kids, the Yelpin’ Stretcher was alive and real for my brother and me; much more so than the invisible devil that our good preacher kept alluding to.
But some of our fears, unlike the Yelpin’ Stretcher, were grounded in reality, like rabies and snakes. Take Black Mike. Papa always kept a two or three snarly cow dogs, which were supposed to stay in a large dog yard that adjoined our back yard, but often had the freedom to roam about. We had a different relationship to dogs than most people do today. They were not cute, affectionate pets that we fawned over and to which we attributed human characteristics. They were working dogs, indispensable for gathering cattle out of the brush and keeping them together while we moved the uncooperative beasts on horseback toward the pens. And so it was with Black Mike, the meanest and snarliest of the pack, but he was a hellavu cow dog, a natural alpha. You see, all dogs are either headers or healers by nature, harking back to their pre-domesticated past as wolves when the pack would divide between those giving the chase and those waiting in ambush. Anyway, when we gathered cattle from the brush on horseback with the help of the dogs, bunched them, and drove them toward the pens, the herd would often balk at passing through the final gate into the trap that led to the pens. They sensed this was a place where bad things happened (from their point of view) and so they would often hesitate and refuse to pass through that last portal, and some of the more spirited ones would even try to make a break for freedom. This is where Mike would show his stuff. He would position himself in the gateway facing the cattle. Now even the tamest cattle, harking back to their pre-domesticated days, regard dogs as wolves and will instinctively bunch up for protection and turn to face their hereditary adversary, while the bolder ones, often feign short charges with head to the ground and tail in the air, and then retreat to the safety of the herd. These attacks are usually bluffs, but not always, because most of the cows were horned and if they happened to catch a dog on the tip it could mean instant disembowelment, which happened on occasion. But Black Mike was much too nimble, and always easily sidestepped or quickly retreated a step or two to parry the attack. This process, however, had the effect of moving the whole herd forward, one charge at a time, and eventually, with patience, would start the reluctant bunch moving in the right direction, and once a few individuals passed through the gate, the whole herd would then attempt to stampede through.
So, harking back to our Neolithic past, we kept dogs not to fawn over and serve as ersatz human companionship, but for their utility; and they, on the other side, accepted our overlordship only because we fed them and in the act of working cattle reproduced a scenario that evoked their natural instincts.
Rabies was a genuine concern for country people back then. Skunks were especially prone to the disease, and it seemed like not a summer passed that we did not have an incident with a ‘mad’ skunk wandering up to the house, showing no fear of humans and sometimes behaving unnaturally aggressive — a sure sign of the disease. But dogs were also prone to rabies since, given the opportunity, they will chase and kill small animals, like skunks, thereby contracting the infection. And you guessed it, Black Mike got rabies. He began lurking around the house and foaming at the mouth and acting very menacing. Noticing his odd behavior, papa realized right away what was up and told us all to get in the house and not come out. This was rather late in the day. Papa took down his trusty hunting rifle, a .270 bolt action he called his ‘slippin-slopper,’ and then, even as dusk settled over the scene, stepped outside to shoot Black Mike before he bit and infected either a person or another animal with the dreaded disease. In the meantime, Black Mike had left the yard and Papa had to go out and hunt for him in an adjoining pasture, which was brushy and wooded. Directly we heard a shot and in a little bit papa returned. We were of course eager to know the score, but papa said he was only able to get off a quick shot in the brushy twilight and had only wounded the dog, which had run off. Papa was confidant he would not survive the wound for very long, but the next day he could not find the dog and, in fact, we never found his body. You can imagine how this played out on our youthful imaginations. For years, I could not venture into that stretch of the woods after dark without senses sharpening, like a deer venturing to water and knowing his vulnerability. Black Mike was still out there somewhere waiting to get his revenge. And the sounds of summer in South Texas reinforced this fear. People forget how downright noisy the nights are in this part of the state. The crickets, the cicadas, the tree frogs, the screech and hoot owls, the occasional coyotes, the whippoorwills, the you-name-it, all conspire to produce a cacophony of noise that is incessant, spooky, and unnerving, and that serves to stoke the imagination of a young boy in fear of rabid dogs and mysterious Yelpin’ Stretchers.
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