By Julie Carter
The pickup looked a little "ranchy" and had been re-painted several times. The last time it got a fresh coat, its appearance suggested a whiskbroom had been used to apply the faded blue paint.
The wobbly single-horse trailer had never been painted and was complete with wood-slatted sides and the metal bows over the top - no top of any kind, not even a tarp. The gate was crooked and needed to be wired shut and one could only imagine if the floor was solid enough to hold anything heavier than a small dog.
The oversized-palomino roping horse looked better suited to pull a plow, but the poor boy from down on the river managed to use him to compete quite handily in the calf roping.
"Snoopy" he called him. The only explanation he would give was: "Every time someone tells me I need to get a new truck and trailer, I tell them there is nuthin' wrong with the one I got. But, I do worry about my horse a little so I'm in the hunt for some big Snoopy goggles and a Red Baron scarf for him."
Knowing the true path to the pay window, this cowboy didn't waste much on frills but more than paid his way with skills. Pretty is as pretty does.
The other side to that story is another story.
It's not uncommon for cowboys going down the rodeo road to pencil their travel plans around a stop at a buddy's place.
There, they will run his cattle for practice, eat at his table, and sleep in his bunkhouse - all in the name of a last minute tune-up before the "big one," - rodeo or roping.
It was Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (WNFR) time in Las Vegas and behind every rodeo hand that qualified, there were legions who wished they could.
Some marketing genius decided to offer the "wish I could" ropers a place to compete, close to Las Vegas so the fun and atmosphere was a perk, but the roping was open to anyone with a pulse and checkbook.
David and his partner, whose name I never did catch, stopped off to tune-up for this big "also ran" roping. They arrived in separate $50,000 pickups, pulling $50,000 aluminum trailers and if rig shopping was a contest, they had it won.
The first session went badly. Missed heads, missed heels, missed dallies, missed everything, half heads, bad handle ... you get the idea.
After a day, the unnamed header loaded up and headed for the city of lights but David stayed a little longer to perfect his uncountable imperfections.
The first two steers that were headed for him, David completely missed the heels.
No one is quite sure what happened next, but the resident header nodded, roped, turned off and when everyone looked David's way, he was lying in the dirt and so was his horse. The horse got up but David continued to lay there like a dead tuna.
This was not his shoulder's first encounter with the arena floor and David was in bad shape.
A bag of ice, some high voltage Motrin and a shot of Tennessee whiskey later, David was absolutely positive he'd never been better.
Assured that his horse was fine, his friends unsaddled him, lifting the gear into the trailer for him because David couldn't lift his arm to poke his own eye.
Asking "how do I get to Vegas from here, " David waved good bye with his good arm which did not happen to be the arm he needed for roping.
A little detail like a wrecked roping arm that didn't work very well even without injury wasn't about to keep him from his dreams of winning the world. Or at least seeing Las Vegas when it teemed with cowboy hats, pretty girls and lots of possibilities.
You gotta love'm.
© Julie Carter 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment