Another very fine story from Kenny Lewis

Back in the 90’s we searched various ranches for the best hunts available in South Texas. We had gotten to know Dusty Davis who owned the Cinco Loma Ranch between Batesville and La Pryor. It was not a large ranch (2500 acres), but with high quality deer. This ranch was along Highway 57 on the way to Eagle Pass and surrounded on 3 sides by a large ranch called the West Wind. Larry Martin owned it and was a very successful business man from Houston who had sold his Waste Company for Millions of dollars to the nationally known Waste Management Inc.

Larry hired George to be his ranch foreman; he was very experienced and familiar with all duties necessary to run a large game ranch. One of those duties was to inspect the many deer stands on the ranch regularly for critters ranging from wasp to owls. One day during his inspection he found a nest of young buzzard chicks in one of the stands. Knowing he would not be able to leave them there until they were old enough to fly, he decided to take them home and raise them. Unfortunately one didn’t make it but a few days and expired. That left him with only one; he named him “Ugly”. They over the next year became very close and Ugly followed him everywhere.

Part of George’s regular ritual was to have morning coffee with the locals at a small restaurant in La Pryor. Ugly had become accustomed to following George no matter if he was on foot or in his truck. When George went to town Ugly followed. While George was having coffee, Ugly would set on the tailgate and wait patiently. One day as George got in his truck, he said “OK, Ugly let’s head home and that they did. As George topped a hill half way back to the ranch, he could see a car on the side of the road with a half dozen Mexican passengers standing beside it while one of them (Boy! Do I know how that feels) fixed a flat tire. As he got closer he could see Ugly on the shoulder of the road, with wings spread in the attack position. He would hop towards the group as long as the retreated and hop backwards as they advanced toward him. This went back and forth while George approached.

Upon his arrival of the standoff, George reached across the seat, opened the passenger doors and commanded Ugly to get in. As ordered he hopped and away they went. George said he could not understand what the group was saying to each other, but he did say they were looking at each other ‘like what the heck just happened here”.

We enjoyed Ugly’s visits while hunting the Cinco Loma for years to come.