Call of the rodeo road
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Jess and Jim were legendary professional ropers, at least in their own minds and dreams.

In real life, they were ranch cowboys, thinking they'd work at that until the old rodeo road didn't look quite so long.

They practiced practically nonstop, as in, whenever the chance presented itself. A good bit of that time, this happened when they were supposed to be doing something else.

The boss had lined the crew out early that morning. The job was to sort off several loads of calves from the mother cows, getting them ready for shipping.

When the calves had all been cut, counted and safely stashed in the shipping pens, the two hotshot ropers looked over the cows.

Jess spotted what he was hunting for and hollered across the pen, "Look there, Jim, that old cow has a horn growing into the side of her head. We ought to do the boss a favor and trim that up before it gets to hurting her."

Of course, the good deed required roping the cow, but it was just part of their integrity to get the job done.

The remainder of the cowboys knew they would be the ones tailing over this big heavy cow, sawing off the bad horn, getting all bloody and very likely kicked in the process.

One of the hands came up with an old rusty saw from his toolbox. He made sure everybody understood it had been left there by somebody else since saws are not generally considered a cowboy accessory.

The cow was handily headed, heeled and the ropers were happy. The rest of the crew got her pulled over, the horn trimmed and the cow released.

While Jess was coiling up his rope, he spotted another one that might need a little trimming up too. Before it was over, they had roped about half the cows. These all had to be been tailed-down and something or other sawed off each one.

One of the cowboys who had been doing the cow wrestling told Jess he thought it was about time he started roping and Jess could saw off horns.

Jess gave him a shocked look and said, "Do I look like a carpenter?"

The fight was on, but when the dust settled, it had ended in a draw. It was also concluded that maybe the rest of the cows' horns would be all right until the next time they were worked.

A couple of days later, Jess and Jim were told to go check some yearling cattle down the road a ways. While they moseyed that way, they noticed a number of fancy yearling Hereford bulls in a nearby pasture.

An ample-sized pasture loaded with horned bovine. In the roping world, that is referred to as entrapment. No true roper could pass up that kind of challenge. Jess and Jim decided to take a little time out of their busy schedule and get some roping practice.

The bulls had weights at the tips of their horns to make them curve down properly as they grew. After the practice session, the ropers figured that these horn weights must have weakened the horns considerably. Several horns had broken, and some were just a little bent. They knew a bull never really needed fancy horns to get his job done and probably nobody would notice.

That Sunday, the paper had a big notice announcing a $5,000 reward for the culprits who had damaged the nearly priceless pedigreed bulls that were scheduled to go to the Fort Worth Stock Show.

Suddenly, that old rodeo road didn't look nearly so long. Jess and Jim make a quick decision that they would rather starve at team roping than spend time as guests of the county.

Practice doesn't always make perfect.