SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

The day Buck won the big rodeo

By Julie Carter

Cowboy stories are shared over and over and usually last through several generations.

As a rule, they either impart a lesson, offer simple entertainment value, or sometimes the stories are an opening overture for a new friendship.

Cowboys value humor almost as much as they value grass and a gifted storyteller will find himself in demand at about every gathering in the county.

When strangers move into an area, the storyteller is certain to show up to give them his welcome. His real mission is to make them the beneficiary of the wildest of his stories in his repertoire since there is no way for the newcomers to determine any lack of truth.

Such is the story of Buck and Rowdy which are fictitious names to protect the liars but the story telling is true.

Rowdy just moved to the county, bought a nice little place, put few cattle out on grass to make it look right, tuned up his fishing pole, built a new roping arena and proceeded to move into what he liked to think of as semi-retirement.

Buck dropped by one day to help Rowdy out with the Coors Lite inventory in the saddle house icebox.

With the big W’s on his Wrangler pockets settled onto an upside down five-gallon bucket, Buck opened the conversation.

“Rowdy, you ever rope any calves?”

Recognizing this as an intro to a story, Rowdy allowed that he had roped a few, way back when.

There followed a Navajo length of silence just to make sure Rowdy didn’t want to tell a story first, then Buck began his story about how he won the buckle at the big rodeo.

“I had been calf roping pretty steady for a good while, but I was always coming in fourth when they were paying three places or eighty fourth when they paid eighty three places,” lamented Buck.

He went on to say he had figured out, after giving it considerable thought, that what he needed to win was a calf horse with a real good stop on him. He put out the word and not long after got a call from a fellow he knew. This guy claimed he had just the horse Buck was looking for and assured him that he had a real good stop.

The trade was made over the phone and arrangements were detailed to meet at the big rodeo with the horse. Buck was entered up in the calf roping and when they called his name, he backed his new horse in the roping box.

When everything was just right, he nodded and made a clean break from the barrier. He stood up in his stirrups and threw his best catch’em fast loop.

That was the horse’s signal and he planted his backside in dirt like he’d been pole axed. This launched Buck straight between ole “Stop Hard’s” ears.

In an effort to save his life, Buck grabbed the rope on the way to the ground and slid down it like a handrail until he got to the calf. He knocked the calf over with is head and while he was in the neighborhood, he tied up three of the calf’s legs and threw up his hands.

Turned out that was the fastest time of the day. He won the event, got his buckle and almost enough money to cover the entry fee. He was a happy man.

Out back, behind the chutes, when the rodeo was over and all the other ropers came by to congratulate him and admire the buckle, he managed to swap off that calf horse with the real good stop. That made him a real happy man.

And Rowdy was real happy he didn’t need a hard stoppin’ calf horse.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net. She doesn’t know that many stories but she knows lots of gifted story tellers.

© Julie Carter 2005

I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.

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