Gone are the Cowboys - Trace Wayne Hudson

Gathering the Remnants

Gone are the Cowboys

Trace Wayne Hudson

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Perhaps this life of cow dust and creak of saddle leather is not at all what divides us, but rather … what unites us.

            I sat next to Walt as he held Adelita Haught. That beautiful little blue eyed child had him wrapped around her finger as they discussed issues of her interest while eating lunch. She had come to sit on his lap when the tables of the San Lorenzo community center were filled and she needed a place to set her plate. She had accepted his offer to share his chair without pretense. She knew him well since he was one of her closest neighbors living some 12 miles southeast as the crow flies from her home on the Mud Springs Ranch. She talked nonstop.

If she didn’t agree with something, she would emphasize the point by wrinkling her nose. Only a child exposed predominately to adults would have the confidence and the tendency to engage in such conversation.

Adelita is like far too few American children. She is a precious child of continuing western heritage … just like the child we had gathered to remember.

A sea of cowboy hats

With only a few exceptions, they were summer straws.

The exceptions were clean black felts and two silver bellies. Every one was worn by a native son of the American West. The setting was just under the Kneeling Nun on the Delk Ranch east of Santa Rita. The little cemetery was the family plot of the Delk family. The family has been there sharing Lamp Bright Draw with copper and cattle since 1879.

The morning was still fresh. An intermittent, cool breeze swirled through the pinons and the one seeded junipers. The grama grass that wasn’t mown within the fenced enclosure swayed in response.

What beautiful country Grant County remains. What beautiful cow country it truly is.

Not that anybody was counting, but there were more men gathered than women. A number were there alone without spouses. I found that interesting, and, perhaps, a human behaviorist might judge it similarly.

A young cowboy was laid to rest that morning.

Without prompting, those hats were removed with prayer only to be reset with Amen. There was ample evidence of grandmother influences within those in attendance.

As Joe, his sons, and his niece played music that transcended any peace and comfort found in words, another scented breeze reminded us all the impact of our cattle heritage on our lives. There was just a subtle hint of sweet aromatic monsoonal promise. It was immensely fitting.

How many times have the living gathered to pay tribute and find consolation as words are spoken over the departure of a young cowboy? We certainly did that morning.

As a graveside service, the proceedings were brief. A memorial service had taken place in June in Oklahoma before the remains were brought to New Mexico for burial. The open wound of grief was reopened for those parents who had to prevail through both services. Words were offered as best they could be arranged. They were appropriate and considerate, but words of finality are seldom inspirational and certainly not for a child. How can those words be found?

I will submit there are infinitely more eternal words born of silence, inspired by open spaces, and set in the backdrop of the accoutrements of western life that don’t equate to ‘things’ than preached in a sermon over a child. Such reminders are found in abundance in traditional songs and verse that exemplify unbroken links to our past.

When ‘Barney’ was ‘killed riding Dunney to his death’ in the ‘Cowboy Song’, we sang “bringing in the sheeves” and “the Rugged Cross”.

In ‘The Sunset Trail’ parting arrives in nostalgic abundance when … now that roundup is done I will miss you more than words could ever tell.

In ‘The Journey’, our creator himself is our partner when I found beauty in this lonesome desolation for I know God himself had lingered there.

Montana poet D.J. O’Malley captured living with death’s conclusion in ‘When the Work’s All Done This Fall’. As the mortally injured young cowboy directs the disposition of his worldly affairs with gathered comrades, his last words harkens back to mother, giver of his life, I’ll see my mother when work’s done this fall.

And, then, there are real life stories close to us and our history in the loss of young cowboys brimming with life, strength, and future. Ralph Worthington Hooker was killed horseback while running cattle when a juniper stob was driven into his chest. After taking the place of a horse wrangler one morning, Ed Moss was killed by an assailant who thought he was shooting the wrangler who had begged out of the duty.

And, young Rankin Giraud, tuning his roping horse, got hung in a rope and was drug to death on the Mimbres near the hall where little Adelita sat in Walt Anderson’s lap eating her lunch. She would have asked pertinent questions of that heartbreaking incident if she had known about the outcome.

Nostalgia, wonders, and sorrow are … strange bedfellows.

Trace Wayne Hudson

Trace Wayne Hudson was 13 years old when he left those who loved and knew him best. He was born the same month and year as my second granddaughter and departed this earthly world on June 11. I simply cannot imagine the burden such a loss must be to those closest to Trace. Surely, only by God’s grace can they endure and heal.

The only image most of us have of him is the picture of him standing posing in his Wranglers, blue shirt and black hat. There is a hint of a smile. That picture suggests he strongly resembled his mother.

What Trace did for us, though, was much more than what we attempted to offer his parents and family in their grief. Trace brought us together. At a time when our world seems catastrophically imperiled, his death was not the added plank of sorrow that I anticipated. It became a reminder … a celebration of those things that matter.

As the fellowship on Trace’s day played out, other, more significant words from our heritage certainly would have been appropriate and hugely fitting. They could have come from the 23^rd Psalm … paraphrased for range stewards.

The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall not want.

He Maketh me to lie down in tall, green pastures.

He leadeth me beside still, cool waters.

He restoreth my soul.

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me the days of my hard drives … drives that I willingly signed on to and agreed to finish.

And, Lord, there was no quitting. Not by me, and … not by you.

God Bless the … forever … young cowboy, Trace Wayne Hudson.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Our 13 year old Raegan Lee was somewhat taken back by the affection we offered her when we saw her later the day of Trace’s service. She, no doubt, was a bit befuddled by our emotion.”