-
8. John's Creek Tales
- University of North Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
8 John's Creek Tales The Brainard family had been on the river since the very beginning. The old man E. H. Brainard came to the Panhandle in 1882 to cowboy for the old Bar CC Ranch, which at that time controlled some fourteen hundred square miles of land in Roberts and Ochiltree Counties. E. H. Brainard was assigned to work out of the John's Creek line camp at the western edge of the ranch, where he lived in a three-room frame house. When the Bar CC pulled out of the Panhandle, ruined by the blizzard of 1886 which wiped out seventy percent of its cattle, Brainard filed on three sections of land around John's Creek and began working to put his own ranch together. Ninety years later, the ranch was being 63 64 -- Through Tim.e and the Valley During the Lazy-B branding, author squeezes in an interview with Bud Brainard [3.91.8.23] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:07 GMT) John's Creek Tales - 65 operated by his son, Bud Brainard, and grandsons Ed Brainard and Ben McIntyre. We arrived at the Ed Brainard place around five in the afternoon . After consuming what seemed gallons of iced tea, we followed Ed down to the corral to take care of the animals. We had originally planned to stop briefly at the house, then ride on down to Willow Creek to make our camp for the night, but Ed and his wife Lilith had dismissed this idea as preposterous, saying they had an empty trailer house nearby and we might as well use it. We accepted the offer. Down at the corral, we stowed our gear in the saddlehouse, while Ed fed the animals hay and oats and doctored Dobbin's cinch sore with salty meat grease, an old-timey wound dressing. When we arrived at the trailer, we found it in a state of activity , as the four Brainard girls, Berklee, Amy, Sally, and little blueeyed Sena, rushed around dusting, picking up, making beds, and putting things in order. Berklee even left us with a vase of wildflowers . An hour later, we took our seats around the long plank table in the Brainard dining room and helped ourselves to generous portions of ham, beef tips in gravy, mashed potatoes, green salad, fresh biscuits and homemade grape jelly. When Lilith had the audacity to apologize for the meal, we rolled our eyes and reminded her that we had been dining on jerked beef and rice for the past three days, though from the amount of food we put away, she might have suspected grub worms and cactus spines. During the meal I sat across the table from little Sena, whose sky blue eyes and cherubic face captured my attention. I was fascinated that a child born in the age of space travel should be identified with a name as old as Sena. In two or three years she would start the first grade, taking her place among a host of Tammys and Tinas, Sherrys and Cindys, and she would be the only Sena in school. 66 -- Through Time and the Valley She was named after Sena Walstad King, one of seven daughters ofC. J. and Marion Walstad, who lived on the flats north of the river in Ochiltree County. Since there were no boys to help Father Walstad look after his cattle on the open range, Sena was taught to ride and rope at an early age. One summer day in 1887, while riding up Picket Canyon, she saw a half-grown bear lumbering through the brush ahead of her. Most girls and boys too would have left the scene in a hurry, but not Sena Walstad. Calmly she took the rope from her saddle, coaxed her frightened horse into range, roped the bear, dragged it home, and made a pet of itl A few years later she married Archie King, another Bar CC cowboy, and they moved into the John'S Creek camp with E. H. Brainard. In 1892 she gave birth to a son not fifty feet from where little Sena Brainard and I were eating our supper. His name was Woods King, and he probably knew more about the Canadian River country and its history than any man of his generation. I was very fortunate to have spent many hours with Mr. King, asking questions , checking dates and names and historical sites. At the age of eighty, he still had a...