I can’t believe I wanted to be a cowboy. This getting up at four o’clock in the morning is for the birds. When I was in high school I decided that the life of a cowboy was for me. Of course to be a cowboy you had to be a horse breaker so that is what I have been doing. It had been going on for a while and I was getting along fairly well at it.

                This morning we were going to move cows off the BLM and get them ready to go to summer pasture on the mountain. Now, I want you to know that I am not a morning person. I don’t even try to talk to anybody till I’ve brushed my teeth and had a drink of water, in that order. So I am not much of a talker for an hour or more and today was no different.

                Anyway this morning we went to the corral to catch our horses for the day. I had planned to take a big brown one. I had started him and he was coming along fairly well, but you couldn’t fall asleep on him. He had a tenancy to try and kill you every change he got.

                I got my rope on him and tried to get him tied up. This happened after we made about three trips around the corral, with my boot heels plowing up the ground. Then somehow, I got ahead of my feet and was flipped loose from the end of the rope and came to a sudden stop against the corral. As I slid down the fence to the ground, I thought to myself “I got out of bed for this abuse?”

                Eventually I got Ol’ Brown tied up and started to brush him down. Kind of careless like I bent over and walked under his neck to the other side. Good God almighty a mountain lion ran in the corral and bit me right on the ass. I spun around cussing and hollering and there stood that brown bastard, looking like he was asleep, with a piece of my pants in his month.

                Well that made me so mad, I grabbed the saddle off the ground, threw it on him and cinched her down tight. I kneed him in the stomach to knock the air out of him and cinched her down some more. I then went and changed my pants. When I came back out he was standing there still looking like he was more asleep then awake. I got on him kind of easy like not sure what to expect but not wanting to ruin another pair of pants.   I had had enough of him already and the day had not started yet.

               

The day went along pretty well most of it. That old brown only ran through the brush with me twice and when that didn’t get rid of me he seemed to give up for the day. Around five o’clock I was making one last pass through the pasture to be sure we had not missed any cows. Careless like I kicked him in to an easy lope and relaxed to enjoy the ride. The wind was blowing easy like around me and the day was finishing up pretty good. I mean the sun was shining, the birds were singing and old brown was behaving. Couldn’t hardly believe he was the same horse that tried to kill you every change he got. I mean things were going good, until I tried to pull him up from a lope to a trot.

                I pulled on the reins to slow him up and felt my pleasant moment vanish. The chin strap broke, it was all downhill from there if you can imagine. When that brown horse felt the strap break he was gone. I mean to say we were off to the races. The wind wasn’t blowing easy like anymore it was more like a hurricane now. I couldn’t feel the sun shining on me anymore and the birds had quit singing, hell the birds had left the country.

                In an effort to stop I was pulling on those reins like I was pulling a pot of gold out of a deep well. All to no avail, no matter what I did nothing was stopping that run away brown. I cussed the bridle for breaking. I cussed the horse and myself for even thinking that I had won with him.

                We were going across a long flat stretch at a speed that put those horses in the Kentucky Derby to same.   Not that there was anything to look at anyway my eyes were watering so bad I couldn’t see. However I did manage to see that he was going to run right pass an old corner post that had been part of a fence line that had disappeared who knows when. Only this one old post was left. I was thinking to myself “I’ll stop now you SOB.”

                I took down my rope and tied it off hard and fast to the horn, shook out a loop and waited till we streaked by that post. As we went past that post I dropped the loop over it.  Now who would have imagined that an old fence post would turn to concrete and grow roots that reached halfway to China?

                I came to sometime later, not sure how much later but later. Even after that it was still sometime before I could finally sit up without the earth trying to buck me off.   When I did manage to stand up, I looked around and behind me was a very strange sight. I could see that fence post off in the distance with my rope still around it. At the end of the rope was a saddle, looked like my saddle but it was not looking too good. About twenty feet from the saddle toward me laid that old brown horse, looking like he was dead. I should be so lucky. From old brown was furrow in the ground that ended right where I was.

                 I got unsteadily to my feet and limped over to where Ol’ Brown was. As I was looking at him, he blinked; he wasn’t dead, too bad. It took awhile and some work to get him back on his feet. He didn’t look any steadier than I felt, we made a pair. I walked him over to where my saddle lay, there was no use putting it on him it was in no shape to use. I would have to come back for it later.

I fixed the bridle with a strap off my spurs, and then I looked at Ol’ Brown and then looked in the direction of home. I thought about walking, then I thought about how far it was and I looked at Ol’ Brown again. I thought “what the hell” and swung up on him bareback and headed home. He had a backbone like a saw blade. With my sore rear end and his backbone, I was thinking death couldn’t come soon enough. I felt every hoof beat, every breath, and every pebble on the ground. 

                It was late when we got back to the ranch, but at least Ol’ Brown had behaved his self all the way home. He was a little wobbly on the way home; I think he was as shook up from that sudden stop as I was. I turned him loose in the corral and hung the bridle on a post. The sight of that post made me shudder. I limped into the house and crawled into bed. I hurt all over and all I wanted to do was sleep for a week. My consolation was that dirty sob had to hurt as bad as me.  I had just closed my eyes, so it seemed when the alarm went off, it was four o’clock and time to get up again and start the day over again.

                To think that I wanted to be a cowboy.

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