Folklore is not history, but it is historical. It gives us a window into the sentiments and humor of the people who lived in those times and told those stories.
One of folklorist J. Frank Dobie’s favorite stories was that of a longhorn named Sancho. He heard it from John Rigby of Beeville, in South Texas. Dobie figured Rigby had dressed up the story a bit and admitted that he himself had done some “constructive work” on it over the years.
It goes like this.
There was a man named Kerr who lived on a small ranch out in the brush country south of San Antonio. One winter day in 1876, he found a cow dead in a bog with her near-lifeless calf beside her. Kerr roped the calf and took it home to his wife, Maria.
She cleaned up the poor calf and bottle fed him until Kerr could find another cow with a calf to adopt the orphan. Maria named the calf Sancho.
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She began feeding him tamales, shuck and all, seasoned with peppers. Out in the brush, he began eating the chile pequin peppers that grew wild in shaded places.
Sancho was eventually branded and turned into a steer, but he was as strong as any bull. Nonetheless he remained Maria’s pet and came in from the range each night to sleep under a mesquite tree.
When Sancho was 3, Kerr sold the steer to the Shiner brothers, who were to deliver three herds to buyers in Wyoming.
They branded him 7Z for the drive north, but Sancho kept lagging back and was tagged by the boys as one to watch. He was wily.
He would often stop, face south and sniff the breeze for the smell of the Gulf. At night, a cowboy would rope him and tie him to a big bush or tree.
One day, the cattle balked at a full-flowing river. “Rope old Sancho and lead him in,” a boss ordered. They did so, and Sancho led the herd across.
But as soon as he was released, Sancho returned to the rear of the herd where he could watch for chances to head home to his mesquite tree and tamales.
The herd nonetheless moved ever northward. Across the Canadian, across the Cimarron. Across Kansas, around Dodge City, across Nebraska, under the Black Hills and past the Bighorn Mountains—2,000 miles.
They finally reached Wyoming. Sancho was still halting now and then to sniff southward to see if he might get a whiff of Texas somewhere in the wind. He didn’t like this new land.
The new ranch branded CR on Sancho, and the Shiner boys headed home, leaving Sancho behind.
The next spring, back in Texas, Rigby was riding near Kerr’s home. He said, “I looked across the pear flat and saw something that made me rub my eyes.”
He rode over and looked. It was Sancho. He had both the 7Z road brand and the CR range brand on him as plain as day. He went to talk to Kerr.
“Yes, Sancho got back six weeks ago,” Kerr said. “Hoofs worn down to hair. But Maria went might near out of her mind with joy at seeing him.” She hugged him and cried and fed him hot tamales.
After that, Sancho slept every night under the mesquite by the gate.
This story is in The Essential J. Frank Dobie edited by Steven L. Davis.
