DAIRY AND BEEF PRODUCT SALES

When Brannick and Mary Elizabeth were married, she had a few milk cows, a saddle, a blanket, and a bridle, to bring to the marriage.  When they were living in Bandera County, Texas, the last three items were traded for three milk cows that they named Saddle, Bridle and Blanket.  From these 3 cows, a herd of milk cows grew.  There were cows of all kinds, colors, and shapes.  There were even some Texas long-horn milk cows in their little herd.  When they left Texas, they drove this herd of dairy cattle to Colorado.  Upon leaving Colorado and heading for Arizona the dairy cattle were again in the wagon train.  As they had been helpful with their cash flow at Fort Apache and Fort Thomas, they continued to be helpful to them when they reached Fort Bowie.  Again, they sold milk, butter and buttermilk to the soldiers at Fort Bowie.                

Mr. Riggs got a contract to furnish beef to Ft. Bowie, and Brannick and his younger brother Jim delivered the meat.  They had to get up at four o’clock every morning and drive about twelve miles to have the meat cut and ready to sell by six o’clock, then come back and get another beef in ready to butcher in the cool evening, do their school work and then to bed.  This was very hard on growing boys, and very unsatisfactory, especially when Jim got his leg badly broken, and Brannick had to do the delivering alone.  They were breaking two colts and were riding near a deep rut made by an old road being washed out.  Jim’s horse ran sidewise and fell into a deep rut, then threw himself over with Jim’s leg caught under the horse.  Brannick had to lift the horse by brute force off Jim and get his leg out from under the horse.  Brannick always said he was given some supernatural strength or he could never have done it.  Anyway, the leg was broken in the knee, so that Jim always had a stiff leg.  As Brannick and Jim grew older the meat delivery was taken over by the younger brothers.

All of the children had to do their share of the chores on the ranch.  When B.K. was about 12 years old it became time for him and his older brother J.C. to be responsible for delivering a butchered beef each day to Fort Bowie. They would start out early in the morning, before daylight and sometimes when they reached Apache Pass their imagination got the best of them and they were just sure that the giant soap weeds along the way were skulking Indians!” BK told his grandchildren that the horse had been making the trip to Fort Bowie for so long that he knew the way.  So, the boys would start the horse toward home and they would crawl into the back of the wagon and take a nap while the horse took them home.