Eric Schwennesen: Cowboy Games

Got a new horse a couple of months ago; named him Rodeo, since that was where he'd done his last gigs. There is always a settling-in period to let a new critter get familiar with the new surroundings, but other than being a bit tenderfooted in the rocks he's been adapting nicely. Turns out he knows how to read, too: tracks, trails and bottlenecks. Overall, a pretty fair addition to the team.

Last week gave a chance to see another side of this cayuse's history; it's not hard to read from a horse's behavior; and somewhere in his past there have been some stories...

We'd picked up a couple of strays from a neighbor's outfit and got them into the corral, not without some discussion of the finer points of incarceration; and it finally took the persuasion of two horses to get them into the loading alley. One big red cow with businesslike horns offered alternative restriction choices and was only cowed, literally, by an unimpressed Rodeo. Until...

...until the miscreant bovine finally backed down and went into the chute. At that point Rodeo decided to demonstrate some of his previous experience through some very fancy footwork and attempts at antigravity in the big pen. We decided he needed some room and headed out the gate into the pasture's big canyon to make another stray gather.

We worked the rim and bottom together and made good progress for a while; then came up to a solid rock ledge blocking the whole canyon bottom. This was new to the two horses working the bottom, and they weren't buying any part of it. Half an hour of haranguing accomplished nothing; finally we concluded we'd have to find another way and turned back down canyon to look for a way out.  Some serious searching yielded nothing much; a fly would have had second thoughts climbing out of there; but finally we found a possible way and tried to start up.

Last time I checked, rodeos don't have canyon walls and this Rodeo had objections; but he did try to follow the other horse's dubious progress --- until the shingle underfoot started cracking and slipping. 

It seemed like an odd time for Rodeo to repeat his high-speed backward waltz; we could look almost straight down into the creekbed now quite a ways below; but it then occurred to him to add his impersonation of an Olympic gymnastics champion to his performance, as gravity stepped in to help. I won't soon forget the sight of a saddled stock horse doing a back flip over my head, crashing through the juniper I found myself tangled in, then free-falling into the canyon bottom.

There was an impressive silence from the assembled witnesses for a few long heartbeats. Then slowly, we discovered we were still alive. Down below Rodeo completed a breathless confession of some forgotten sins and managed to get to his feet. He looked around for a few long moments and then decided he'd had enough foolishness for one day, and headed for home, alone.

Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about his experiences.