SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

The art of horse trading

By Julie Carter

The cowboy stood at the door in what, at one time in some other lifetime, might have been a red canvas jacket.

Today it was more on the aged side of pink, fringed with very raveled seams and had a pocket that was holding on only by a creative thought. He was headed to town.

After some verbal exchange with his wife who knew he owned a better coat and reminded him of that, he drove off.

His rationale was that he was on his way to bargain for something and it was politically incorrect to go horse trading (a term used for any kind of bartering in the west) in new or even salvageable clothes. It is the nature of the work to be done that drives the appearance.

A friend has a ranch on the east side of the state that is free and clear of mortgages and he has enough money in the bank to stock it without the banker's permission. At shipping time, this guy would appear at breakfast dressed like the rest of the cowboys and stay that way until the cattle were penned.

Somewhere just after the gate closed on the last steer and the cow buyer who had been waiting at the road with the cattle trucks showed up, this rancher would transform into a pitiful creature. He would be clad in a sweater with holes at the elbows, cuffs hanging by a thread, a hat that had been through the big war and boots with more holes than a prairie dog patch.

The cow buyer would arrive clean and shiny with creases in his jeans like George Strait, driving a new Lincoln, a white new out-of-the-box Stetson and wearing a big pinkie ring. The contrast was always appreciable.

And even though the actual numbers for the trade had been signed for months before and were never questioned, it never failed to come up in a conversation that the next time the buyer would have to do a little better.

Trading, bartering, and making a deal, whether buying or selling, keeps a cowboy's heart pumping strong the same way riding a good horse following fat cattle in belly deep grass does.

There is an art to "horse trading" that is passed through generations. It is honed to a sharp edge, practiced constantly even on the wife and kids and often has nothing to do with a horse.

But if it is about a horse, the trading will often go beyond the monetary value of the animal. It is not unusual for the dickering conversation to go on for hours when the transaction involves something other than cash.

Showing up at the trader's place with a trailer hooked to the pickup puts a spring in the step of the guy with the merchandise for sale. It is common practice to leave the trailer parked a couple miles away at the truck stop and arrive only with any other tradable goods to start the transaction.

Before the discussion of cash floats into the conversation there may a considerable amount of time given to offering other livestock, colt breaking, horse trailers, day work, saddles, pasture leases, or pick of the new litter of blue heeler pups as part of the "deal."

It is fun to listen to horse traders while standing out in a dusty lot watching one "trader" pit his wits against another. A true regret to this unheralded talent is the increase of horses being bought and sold over the Internet.

An entire art and language is being lost on the cyber highway. Without it the western world will be a less colorful place. But more than ever, the "buyer beware" phrase needs to be pasted to the pickup windshield or better yet, to the computer monitor.

This is part one in a series of columns that will discuss the art and language of horse trading. Stay tuned and hold your wallet.

© 2006 Julie Carter