Donnie and the bunkhouse
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

By Julie Carter

Some years ago, Dan signed on to work at the Tierra Verde Ranch. While Dan was moving his gear into the bunkhouse, Stan, another young hand, showed up and said they needed to go rescue a friend in trouble.

That would be Donnie, who was married and lived off the ranch.

Donnie was going to make a good old man because he'd been practicing it since he was a kid. Work and worry weren't going to be his cause of death at any age.

He was the kind of guy the boss gave the easy jobs to because, in his ineptness, Donnie wasn't about to complete a complicated project.

Dan had gas in his truck, so he and Stan jumped in it and off they went. They pulled up to Donnie's house and met his wife in less than desirable circumstances. She flew out of the house with an armful of shirts, threw them into the truck over the top of Dan and told him, "Don't bring that S.O.B. back here."

"Yes Ma'am," he told her.

She disappeared shortly, but when next he saw her, she was throwing a load of Wranglers over Stan on the passenger side and giving him similar instructions.

They were getting anxious about Donnie when he appeared running full tilt around the house in hot pursuit of a goat. The goat had a pretty good lead, but Donnie was hot on his trail. The third time around the house, Donnie made a flying tackle, broadsided the goat and got up yelling, "I'm the champeen goat dogger of all time."

He then spied his wife standing with her hands on her hips. At the same time, he saw the rescue truck so he cut across the flowerbed and dove into the pickup. Dan quickly put it in gear and they retreated.

Donnie stayed a fair spell in the bunkhouse with Dan and Stan. When he figured his wife had gotten lonesome enough and probably tired of cooking for one, he went back home and used some cowboy charm to reclaim his roost.

Dan was young and single and loved a good time. When payday rolled around, he would routinely travel to Stephenville to "give the girls a chance" at one of the local honk tonks.

One Friday evening, cold and misty, the boss told the boys to take it easy and go on home as they'd been working pretty hard. Donnie asked Dan where he was going. When Dan allowed that he thought the town girls could use some dance lessons, Donnie announced that he was going along.

Borrowing a clean pair of Wranglers and puttin on his new sparkling white high-top Nike tennis shoes, he was good to go. The lads were welcomed at the local spirit emporium, as good-looking cowboys always are. They spent the night dancing and having fun but at closing time Dan told Donnie to load up and he'd take him home.

Down the road a ways, Donnie got very quiet and suddenly asked Dan to pull over. He bailed out of the truck and began rubbing green grass on his shoes until he had them covered in grass stains. Dan just had to ask, "Why?"

"I'm going to tell my wife the pure truth," Donnie replied. "I'm going to tell her we have been out dancing and chasing women all night. She won't believe me. I can hear her calling me a liar and telling me I ain't been dancing, I been playing golf."

Dan thought about this awhile. Being a tactful person, he told Donnie that was a pretty good story but there was one flaw. There wasn't a golf course within a hundred miles and neither one of them had ever been real close to a golf club.

The bunkhouse got crowded again the next day.

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