Louisiana Swamp Cowboying
- June 29, 2026
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life, Uncategorized
In 1948, my Dad’s family sold their eastern Colorado ranch and started the process of moving to western South Dakota. The livestock were sold so they didn’t have to be moved. Restocking the new ranch would be done after a headquarters was established to receive livestock off of the railroad. My uncle and his wife were sent to Kansas wheatfield country to take care of sheep that were going to be bought over the winter. My Dad and Mom were sent to Louisiana to buy sheep and light cattle for summer grass, accumulating them until there were railroad carloads.
So to Louisiana they went, along with their toddler son, Steve. DeRidder was the town they went to and it was quite a different environment than the dry eastern Colorado plains. It was classic Louisiana, with bayous, swamps, brush, alligators, Cajuns and more.
My folks were young and ambitious and viewed the whole deal as a grand adventure. The people in the area accepted them and treated them great. The neighbor ladies took Mom and little Steve into their circle and made them feel right at home while Dad was out learning all he could from the locals and
buying stock for the company.
The regional sale barn was a gathering place and he got acquainted with the area farmers, ranchers,
traders and the sale barn owners. Just like Mom, he was taken in like a lost son. He was intrigued with
everything there, from the swamps to the wild cattle, so he was invited along on many adventures with his new friends the Cajuns and the Redbones.
Through the sale barn owner, he was introduced to a man named Elzy Pollard (I’m guessing at the spelling). Pollard was the local wild cow and bull catcher and knew the bayous and swamps like the back
of his hand. He made a fair living at getting the wild and dangerous cattle out of the swamps and the local farmers and stockmen would send him a message when they were being bothered by the feral cattle.
The feral cattle were of Brahman blood crossed on what Dad was sure were gators and mountain lions. If a local would come face to face with one, whether a cow or bull, he might have to spend the night in a tree to save his life. Besides the general dangerous aspect of the cattle, they also crossed with the domestic cattle and that wasn’t a desirable situation at all.
One day Dad was at the sale barn early when Elzy Pollard drove in with his bobtail truck. He had a horse in the stock rack and asked Dad if he’d like to ride along and see how he went about his business. Dad climbed in with him and they took off. They eventually turned into a trail that followed higher ground back into the bayou. After what seemed like half a day under the trees that met over the trail and the moss brushing the windshield, they drove out into a clearing of several acres. Pollard had been explaining how the bayous had many places where people lived, farmed and raised stock and there were way more folks and livestock in the heart of the bayous than Dad could believe.
Pulling into the middle of the clearing, Pollard and Dad got out. Dad watched while he let the tailgate
down on the truck, making a ramp for the horse. Once he had the horse unloaded Pollard went up into the truck and invited Dad to join him to see how he set his rig up. A gate divided the truck box so that it
would close off the front third of the stock rack, which had high sides made of pipe. The gate was also of pipe and had a slam latch. Everything was build very stout.
The gate was opened and Pollard strung a thick cord across the box that would be about chest high on
a horse and tied it to the gate and ahead of the slam latch. He double checked everything before walking back down the ramp. Catching his horse, who had been grazing, he went over his rigging, cinch and gear with a careful inspection. He did the same with his rope. Pollard examined the whole rope, inspected the hondo, recoiling it as he went. He took the bullwhip off his saddle and checked it over as well, before tying it back on.
Finally, satisfied that his equipment was in good condition, he cinched up and stepped on his bay gelding. He told Dad he would be a while and rode off down a narrow trail littered with dead tree
branches, stumps and heavy sawgrass and brush. In a minute he had vanished, though he could hear them for a while longer.
Dad said he remembered thinking that he sure hoped Pollard made it back out as he was absolutely
lost. The turns and bends and dissecting trails they had taken to get to where he was sure were confusing. He sat down on the running board on the truck and waited.
The hours passed and Dad was getting concerned. He’d paced around the clearing, peering in under
the hanging moss into the black water swamp that surrounded it. He listened and only heard birds and
suchlike for a long time. Finally, he thought he heard a crash of brush in the far distance. He waited and
heard it again, a bit closer.
He climbed up onto the cab of the truck to see what was coming. He could hear quite a lot of brush
breaking, then the loud crack of the bull whip, followed by the deep beller of a bull. The noise was rolling
ever closer, with the bull whip cracking and bellers from the bull, along with some splashing.
Suddenly, Pollard and his horse came at a high lope out of the dark swamp. Behind him a short distance, was a bull in pursuit. As the bull cleared the timber, though, he stopped suddenly. Apparently anticipating this, Pollard had stopped and wheeled his horse to face the bull. A rope connected horse and bull. Before the bull had time to think, Pollard cracked the bullwhip on the bull’s nose and that broke him loose, as he charged the horse, who whirling, ran for the truck. This repeated several times until the horse and bull were quite close to the truck. Pollard rode toward the bull, baiting him to charge again. With a bellow, the bull charged and the horse whirled again and this time, ran up the ramp and into the box, running against the cord and slamming the gate behind himself. The bull stopped at the top of the ramp and before he could turn and run, Pollard had the rope tied off to the stock rack. When this was done, he told Dad to hand him the heavy rope from the outside of the rack. As the bull fought the head rope, Pollard threw another loop around his horns with the heavy rope and tied it off, keeping the bull’s head inside the rack, while he fought to pull away. Dad said the truck was really rocking!
Pollard stepped off his horse and onto the gate then. His horse was breathing hard and glad for the rest at the front of the truck, as he was dripping with sweat and had mud and moss splashed up on his chest and sides. Pollard untied the catch rope and ran it around an upright pipe several times, then handed the end off to Dad, with instructions to take up any slack he could.
Dad was young, quick and stout, so when Pollard teased the bull to make him charge, Dad quickly took up the slack. In a few minutes, the bull was securely tied to the side of the rack with his head in the corner by the center gate hinge. Pollard added another stout head rope to the bull as insurance, then
stepped back down into the front of the truck with his horse. He loosened his cinches then climbed over
the rack and down to the ground. He and Dad picked up the ramp and closed the back of the truck.
Dad described the bull as being a reddish brown with brindling, a hump, long Brahman ears, and high, sharp horns. The bull was significantly bigger than Pollard’s horse, but the skills of a man and a well broke horse prevailed. One more dangerous swamp bull was on his way to the sale barn.
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life, Uncategorized
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....