by Julie Carter
Cowboy stories are shared over and over and usually last
through several generations. As a rule, they either impart a lesson, offer
simple entertainment value or sometimes the stories are an opening overture for
a new friendship.
Cowboys value humor almost as much as they value grass and a
gifted storyteller will find himself in demand at about every gathering in the
county. When strangers move into an
area, the storyteller is certain to show up to give them his welcome. His real
mission is to make them the beneficiary of the wildest of his stories in his
repertoire since there is no way for the newcomers to determine any lack of
truth.
Such is the story of Rocky and Gene which are fictitious
names to protect the liars but the story telling is true.
Rocky just moved to the county, bought a nice little place,
put few cattle out on grass to make it look right, tuned up his fishing pole,
built a new roping arena and proceeded to move into what he liked to think of
as semi-retirement.
Gene dropped by one day to help Rocky out with the Coors
Lite inventory in the saddle house icebox. With the big W’s on his Wrangler
pockets settled onto an upside down five-gallon bucket, Gene opened the
conversation.
“Rocky, you ever rope any calves?”
Recognizing this as an intro to a story, Rocky allowed that
he had roped a few, way back when.
There followed a Navajo length of silence just to make sure
Rocky didn’t want to tell a story first, then Gene began his story about how he
won the buckle at the big rodeo.
“I had been calf roping pretty steady for a good while, but
I was always coming in fourth when they were paying three places or
eighty-fourth when they paid eighty-three places,” lamented Gene.
He went on to say he had figured out, after giving it
considerable thought, that what he needed to win was a calf horse with a real
good stop on him. He put out the word
and not long after he got a call from a fellow he knew. This guy claimed he had
just the horse Gene was looking for and assured him that he had a real good
stop. In fact, he had named him Stop Hard.
The trade was made over the phone and arrangements were
detailed to meet at the big rodeo with the horse. Gene was entered up in the
calf roping and when they called his name, he backed his new horse into the
roping box.
When everything was just right, he nodded and made a clean
break from the barrier. He stood up in his stirrups and threw his best catch’em-fast loop.
That was the horse’s signal and he planted his backside in
dirt like he’d been pole axed. This
launched Gene straight between ole Stop Hard’s ears.
In an effort to save his life, Gene grabbed the rope on the
way to the ground and slid down it like a handrail until he got to the
calf. He knocked the calf over with his
head and while he was in the neighborhood, he tied up three of the calf’s legs
and threw up his hands.
Turned out that was the fastest time of the day. He won the
event, got his buckle and almost enough money to cover the entry fee. He was a
happy man albeit a little crippled up from the crash landing.
Out back behind the chutes, when the rodeo was over and all
the other ropers came by to congratulate him and admire the buckle, he managed
to swap off that “calf horse with the real good stop.” That made him an even happier man.
And Rocky was real happy he wasn’t in need of a hard
stoppin’ calf horse.
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