I know him by where he sits in the sale barn.  If the auctioneer’s booth were at 12 o’clock, then as sure as the wind in Kansas, he sits at 3 o’clock, 3 rows up from the bottom, across the ring, down a little, and a bit cattycorner to where I sit.

You get to know folks in the sale barn by where they sit and by their number.  Sometimes you get to know their name. 

I also know him by his brown Stetson hat, vest and long sleeve shirts.  I know him for his bow-legged walk.  And I like to watch his quick, sure scribe, with his left hand, on his buy card.  Neither does it take but a few seconds for all of us there to recognize his brand when his calves start filling the ring smack full with a spanking good pot load of black 8 weight steers.  He knows what he’s doing, and he ought to.  He’s been at it since he was 21, and I’d peg him in his mid-70’s today.  I judge him to be every bit the man today he was then, minus a thing or two he told me about. 

“My dad taught me two things real well,” he said.  “How to work hard and how to cuss.  I’m tryin’ to rid myself of both of em’, but so far, I’ve only been having any reasonable success with one of em’.  I do pretty good, but ev’r now and then I slip a little.”

But so far, what I have described about him doesn’t fall into the Code of the West category.

It was his gesture in the Animal Health store that solidified him in that section of men in my mind.  And it also told me his name was Raymond, not that it mattered so very much.

There were 5 of us standing in line there to get our meds for the calves we had bought or were fixing to buy.  One young buck was filling out paperwork so he stepped off to the side and motioned Raymond forward.  Mickey, the gal behind the counter, asked Raymond what he needed.  He looked back at me and said, “All you gettin’ is a handful of tags, go ahead.” 

I told him I had a fair bit more to get and had plenty of time; that I’d wait for him. 

We talked shop for a while as his order was being filled; he told me some of the meds and implants he normally used, and I told him what I liked to use.

But it was when he looked back at me and told me to go first that I could tell he knew the Code.

That Code is still alive in parts around here.

It’s what had my friends, Lyndon and Ryan, tell me, “Just put a little fuel in it and we’ll be even,” after I had used their truck and cattle pot for a day to haul our stuff to town.  I argued that I had put miles on and got the pot dirty.  “No,” they said, “We need to haul some of our calves soon.  We’ll wash it down then.”

It’s what made my friend Travis call me while I was still at the sale, (he had left and was picking up a few things in town) and offer to come back to the sale if I had more calves than I could bring home in my trailer.

That Code had my neighbor Clyde, tell me, “Just leave your heifers in with our group,” when we couldn’t get the last two that had been on the run caught, and also had him load those heifers up in his own trailer and bring them over to my place.

It’s what made a complete stranger step up to the load out dock I was driving up to and open the gate and hold it for me while I drove through.

It’s also what made 44, that’s his buyer number, not sure of his name, step up to me at a sale barn I was new to and say, “You mean they let you across the state line?”, and then thump me on the back with a grin.  I knew I’d be okay there with him around.

That same code had my friends, Brent, Taylor and Jason, leave what they were doing the minute they heard we had calves out, hop on four-wheelers, and ride, some of them, 9 odd miles, to my area to help out until as many as could be found were found.  They didn’t want pay when it was all said and done, either.

You don’t see the Code of the West so much anymore in the towns and cities.  Sure, they have their dandy western stores where the smooth skinned, soft handed young men and ladies all dressed up in their glad rags greet you at the door and try to imitate all that the code stands for.  I venture a guess they would turn their nose up and find some feeble excuse to leave, should I show up with my rusty, rattly old pickup and trailer that still has a fair bit of that green splash drippin’ here and there on it. 

What those dandies don’t realize, is that all the code really stands for is gettin’ dirty, doing a lot of hard work, and spending a lot of your own time on someone else’s behalf.

But among cattlemen and old-timers like Raymond, the Code of the West still lives.