Out of harm's way

The best description of a pickup man, like many things in rodeo, can be found in a country and western song. In this case, from the cowboy poet and musician Gared Baker. "But there's someone out there watching, He knows when things are wrong, There's someone out there waiting, And it don't take him long, To move in and take over, When a cowboy needs a hand, There's someone looking after things, The pickup man." The pickup men are the rescue squad. At the Round-Up, in their signature red shirts and flowing white neckerchiefs, they assist in virtually every event, helping cowboys to the ground after bronc rides or ushering animals out of the arena. To the cowboy entangled in his rigging on a bucking bronco, the pickup man is an angel from heaven. "They're cowboy lifesavers," said Sonny Hansen, a Round-Up volunteer and one-time pickup man. As talented as the men they rescue, pickup men usually train their own horses and are proficient in a variety of cowboy skills. And they know how to act fast. On the Round-Up's large grass arena, their job is just a little harder. The grass is slick, and, in all that open space, the action even more unpredictable than usual. "Things go fast, and there's a lot of different things that can go wrong," said Bob Marriott, who's been a pickup man for 20 years. Nevertheless, he said, he looks forward to the Round-Up. "There's no rodeo in the world that gives you the same rush as when you first walk out on that grass," he said...Oregonian