by Denis Boyles
—CYD MC MULLEN Elko, Nevada 1993
It sure helps if you know you’ve got a good horse. The first time I met Trigger, I wanted to know how good a horse he was, so I got on him and turned him. Well, he could spin on a dime and give you nine cents back in change. We just fell in love. From then on, I never let him out of my sight. Finding a horse like Trigger is like finding a wife. The horse is your other half in this—he’s your partner, and he can get you out of plenty of scrapes and close calls.
—ROY ROGERS
In Texas, the history of the horse is equally as important as that of its owner.
—ANONYMOUS in The Daughter of Texas 1886
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
You git on a horse from the left and off the same way. Some folks leave by a different door, but that’s because they forgot to git hold of the steering wheel, which is the reins. The first thing a man should know about a horse is that the reins is everything—brakes, starter, steering—everything. The stirrups give you something to stand up on when the ride gets a little rough, and the saddle horn, it’ll give you a place to tie off a steer or what have you. But a cowboy without reins is a man just waiting to hit something hard.
—LEWIS ELIAS Montana 1931
If I’m going to get on a horse that someone else has saddled up, before I get on I’m going to check out the cinch and the blanket beneath the saddle. If the blanket is not on right, it can rub the horse’s hair the wrong direction and give him saddle sores. Then, you check the cinch. To do that, you make sure you can get two fingers between the strap and the horse’s belly. The last thing I would look at is the bit—you want to be sure that it’s not too tight or too loose for the horse. Usually, I offer to saddle up my horse for myself.
—SHANA ZUCKER Pinole, California 1993
When your ass hurts more than your legs, that’s when you’ve got your stirrups adjusted to the right length. Some people say you should stand beside the horse and your stirrups should end at the bottom of your armpit, but the bottom line is, you want to be able to stand up in the stirrups a little bit—you want to be able to clear about two inches under your crotch when you stand in them.
—BRUCE NEGRE Fresno, California 1994
It is the roper’s horse that can really make or break a champion. Keep your eye on that cow pony when the chute opens and the calf breaks into a dead run in front of him. It’s the spectacular speed of the horse that gives the rider a chance to sling that rope out and encircle the calf’s head—and it’s the action of the horse in keeping the rope taunt after the catch, that helps the rider make “time.” Two throws are allowed before the rider is disqualified. The rider dismounts the instant the catch is made, leaving the rope tied to the saddle horn. At this point, it’s the horse’s job to keep the rope just tight enough by backing away or moving forward, always facing the calf until the tie is made. Three of the calf’s feet must be securely tied with the piggin string. It’s “no time” for the cowboy if the calf can get up after it is tied.
—MAX KEGLEY Phoenix, Arizona 1942
HOW TO MAKE A QUICK GETAWAY
Sometimes it just happens where you’re standing over here, and your horse is over there, and there’s a whole heck of a lot of big trouble in between. What you want in the worst way is to get to your horse, make a running mount, and clear out before the bullets start to fly.
To do a running mount:
1. Run alongside your horse with both hands on the saddle horn. Then, as the horse picks up speed, but before he reaches a gallop, you kick your feet forward to a point alongside about where his front feet are. Plant your heels. Then, what with the momentum of the horse, you bounce up into the saddle, just like that.
2. Land in the saddle. As you jump, the horse’s about in the right position for you to swing your right leg over the saddle. This does take a little arm strength, of course, but not all that much. It’s not as bad as doing a pull-up, even. But you have to have enough strength to be able to keep yourself from going past the saddle and ending up on the far side of the horse.
3. Grab the reins before you put your feet in the stirrups. You ought to leave the reins around the horse’s neck, where you can reach them easily. As you get better at this, you’ll do all three—land in the saddle, grab the reins, get your feet in the stirrups—all at about the same time. But that’s the order, in case something goes wrong.
If you don’t get this right the first time, you’ll have a mighty powerful incentive to improve. You’ll only miss that saddle three or four times before you get pretty accurate. I always find that experience is a swell teacher with something like this.
—ROY ROGER
MUSTANG MANIA
If ever there was a horse paradise, it was this staked plain of Texas, and here the mustangs were in all their glory—tens of thousands of them. I have heard the number put as high as fifty thousand, and I believe that was a low estimate. These horses were well grown, larger than the mustangs in south Texas, fourteen to fifteen hands high. Some of the stallions were over fifteen hands and weighed 1,000 to 1,100 pounds.
—FRANK COLLINSON El Paso, Texas c. 1936
The wild horse can see, hear, and smell a man farther than any other animal, except a woman.
—FRANK M. LOCKARD Norton, Kansas 1924
|When chasing mustangs| the rider had better not be riding a plug draft horse if he expects to keep within the dust. The rider should change horses as often as possible and riders should be relieved as often as convenient. After four or five days of about seventy-five miles per day, the horses become tired and will let the rider come within two hundred yards of them.
The first horse caught should be the stallion with the largest harem. Then his harem should all be caught and put with him, when all the herd have been clogged, except the yearlings and two-year-olds, and some of the weaker ones. The herd is brought to within fifty yards of the tent door at sunrise and kept there until noon. Then the man in charge will whistle to them and start them toward the lake to drink and graze for one hour and a half. He then brings them back to the same place to stand until sundown, when they are started to the lake to spend the night. This procedure is repeated every day, the reason being that if the horses graze all day, they will wander away at night. But if they are kept hungry all day, they will graze at night and not be far away in the morning.
—HOMER HOYT Greeley, Colorado 1934
Nothing scares a horse quicker than a quiet thing that moves toward him and makes no noise. He will jump and break his neck at a noisy movement of a rodent in the grass or a falling twig, while a roaring buffalo or a steaming train will pass him unnoticed. That is because he has the same kind of courage that man has: Real courage, the courage to face any odds that he can see and hear and cope with, but a superstitious fear of anything ghostlike.
—CHIEF BUFFALO CHILD LONG LANCE Cardston, Alberta, Canada 1928
The first act in breaking a horse is to catch him. In the early days this was done by penning the manada, the bunch of mares, with which the young, unbroken horses ran, then roping the potro—the unbroken horse—that had been selected. If there were a choice, the selection would be of a potro about five years old. Any horse younger than this lacked the strength and endurance to do the hard work that might be required of him; older than this, the horse would be harder to break.
—RUTH DODSON Mathis, Texas c. 1940
When you go to ride a bad horse, first get your horse by the bridle and pull his head to one side as far as you can and stick your five fingers in his eyes as deep as you can and if the horse pitches, sit as limber as you can and twist your toes around in your saddle stirrup and you will find that it will be much easier on you and always handle stubborn horses rough and use limber bits and make him go your way and not his.
—LONDON BROWN Nocona, Texas 1892
My granddad taught me how to fall from a horse: When you hit the ground, you curl. He said, “There will come a time when you’re going to get bucked, and you’re going t
o need to know what to do so you don’t get stepped on.” And you do that by curling in; you get your arms and legs in real close to your body—unless you feel like waving ’em around out there in front of the horse like a target.
—VALERIE FARMER Shreveport, Louisiana 1994
There are more horses’ asses in the world than there are horses.
—GAGE LOVETT MARTIN 1964
THE NAMES OF THE BEASTS
The cowboy’s usually the one on top.
Cowboy Hoss
Ken Maynard Tarzan
Hoot Gibson Mutt
Lone Ranger Silver
Hoppy Topper
Tim McCoy Midnight
Lash LaRue Rush
Cisco Kid Diablo
Tonto Scout
Rex Allen Ko-Ko
Johnny Mack Brown Rebel
Smiley Burdette Ring Eye
Roy Trigger
Dale Buttermilk
Gene Champion
—Way Out West by JANE and MICHAEL STERN 1993 and my AUNT CANDY 1994
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LOVE & WOMEN
When Roy dies, I’m going to have him stuffed and mounted on top of Trigger.
—DALE EVANS
Jealousy’s a funny thing with women. A man gets jealous, he gets right to the bottom of it. He screams, yells, shoots, whatever it takes to clear the air. But a woman, she just stews and plots and waits. It’s almost enough to scare a man onto the straight and narrow.
—JACK MCMAHON Casper, Wyoming 1946
I fell in love with a very beautiful woman and married her, but I was tortured by the fear that she was unfaithful to me; so one day, in order to satisfy my doubts, I told her that I would visit my parents in Magdalena.
That evening I went down and took the train, but at the first station I got off and walked back to my house. Sure enough, there was a light in my wife’s bedroom and in great excitement I crept up and looked through the keyhole. But some clothes were hung over a chair in front of it and I could not see. Neither could I see through the crack of the door.
I thought then of looking through the transom, but as you see I am a very short man and, as there was nothing for me to stand on, I took out this eye and held it up to the transom. There, instead of another man, I beheld my poor wife sitting upon the bed and weeping over my picture. This so agitated me that I ran from the house and clear to the railroad station, resolved that she should never know of my suspicions. But in my excitement I still carried my eye in my hand, and when I reached the station it was so cold and had swelled up so that I could never get it back in.
—EL TUERTO
There was an unwritten law, recognized by the good women of the towns as well as of the country, that whenever a party of cow hunters rode up and asked to have bread baked, it mattered not the time of day, the request was to be cheerfully complied with. Not from fear of insult in case of refusal—for each and every cowboy was the champion defender of womanhood, and would have scorned to have uttered a disrespectful word in her presence—but from an accommodating spirit and a kindness of heart which was universally characteristic in those frontier days. I remember the many times that cow hunters rode up to my father’s house, and, telling my mother they were out of bread, asked that she would kindly bake their flour for them. Everything was at once made ready. The sack was lifted from the pack horse and brought in, and in due time the bread wallets were once more filled with freshly cooked biscuit, and the cowboys rode away with grateful appreciation. These acts of consideration on the part of my mother were entirely gratuitous, but the generous-hearted cowboys would always leave either a half-sack of flour or a money donation as a free-will offering.
—LUTHER A. LAWHON San Antonio, Texas c. 1920
Being the only woman in camp, the men rivaled each other in attentiveness to me. They were always on the lookout for something to please me, a surprise of some delicacy of the wild fruit, or prairie chicken, or antelope tongue.
—MRS. AMANDA BURKS Cotulla, Texas c. 1920
At every stopping place, the men made little fires in their frying pans, and set them around me, to keep off the mosquitos while I took my meal. As the columns of smoke rose about me, I felt like a heathen goddess to whom incense was being offered.
—CAROLINE LEIGHTON en route to Puget Sound c. 1884
Get down there and pick it up, you ignorant bastard. Haven’t you got any manners when you’re with ladies?
—BELLE STARR to her husband, Blue Duck, after losing her hat to a gust of wind Fort Smith, Oklahoma Territory c. 1875
COWPOKE COURTSHIP
I saw how a man meets his wife, this was in Oklahoma at a legion dance. The feller was standin’ with me and the boys talkin’ about horses mostly but also wimmin a little bit. There was a new girl in town from Texas I think or from Loosianna and all the girls was watchin’ out for her but she knew what she wanted, that feller. She walked over to him and smiled and when he smiled back she stuck a hook in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t feel a thing, he didn’t even see it go in. So then she went back over to the bench where her girlfriends were sitting waiting for us gents to call on them for a dance. After that she didn’t do much except smile and slowly reel the feller in until he was wagglin’ and thrashin’ around on her bank, wondering what worm did he swallow and when. Now they have four boys and a half-section.
—ELMER FITCH Northbranch, Kansas 1933
You must go down to the stream at twilight, sit on the bank, and wait for my niece to come down and fetch water. You will find other young men waiting for her, and probably one or two of them will jump up and throw their blankets over her head and talk to her. You must watch, and when you see the first sent away by her, and the second, and perhaps also the third, you will try your luck. I am inclined to think you will succeed where others have failed. When you have thrown your blanket well over her head, and popped your own beneath it, you can tell her all, and I will answer for it she will listen. You can tell her you love her, that you admire her, and that if she will marry you, you will give her every comfort and necessary—in fact, tell her all the nonsense young men tell girls when they want to marry. You will go down to the stream, go through the same performance, repeat the same words, every evening for ten evenings. At the end of that time, you will return to me and report the result. Go now, my son; I do not wish to speak to you on the subject until then, so be good enough not to refer to it again.
—CHIEF SPOTTED TAIL’s instructions to John Young Nelson on the proper methodology for courting his niece, Wom-bel-ee-zee-zee Platte River, Nebraska 1843
I never thought I’d marry anybody but a cowboy. Maybe that’s why I’m still not married.
—ROSIE northern Nevada c. 1990
Nothing men do surprises me. I’m ready for them. I know how to whack below the belt.
—PATSY CLINE Nashville 1960
Sunday, May 24, 1840. Rested well last night. Awoke about 4 o’clock a.m. Rather restless. Arose at 5. Helped about milking. But by the time I had done that found it necessary to call my husband & soon the Dr. I had scarcely time to dress & comb my hair before I was too sick to do it. Before eight was delivered of a fine daughter with far less suffering than the birth of our son. The morning was pleasant. In the p.m. fine thunder shower. Babe very quiet. Think it weighs not more than eight pounds.… Have been reading Mrs. Trollopes Domestic Manual of the Americans the past two weeks, find her disgustingly interesting.
—MARY WALKER Waiilattu, Oregon 1840
No English gals for me. Give me a Kentucky gal or a Texas gal or a Kansas gal every time, a gal who knows how to cook ol’ corn bread and make good coffee. What them English gals want? Tea and white bread all the time. Where you all gonna find tea and white bread in a cow camp?
—GUS WHITE Wheeler County, Texas c. 1880
Our furniture consisted of a pioneer bed, made by boring three holes in the logs of the wall in one corner, in which to drive the rails. Thus the bedstead required but one leg. The table was a mere rough shelf, f
astened to the wall, and supported by two legs. The smaller shelves answered for a cupboard, and were amply sufficient for my slender supply of dishes, which comprised mostly tinware, which, in those days, was kept scrupulously bright and shining. My sugar bowl, cream jug, steel knives and forks (two-tined), and one set of German silver teaspoons, I had bought with my own little savings before my marriage.
—BETHENIA OWENS Roseburg, Oregon c. 1854
It has been said of the cowboy that he feared only two things—the hospital and a woman. There were only a few women in the cow country. Not more than one-half of the homes upon the range had a woman in them. The women who were there had not alone the protection of law—a feeble thing—but the protection of men. You might neglect, mistreat, or even steal a man’s stock, and get by with it; but caramba! Let his woman alone.
—OSCAR RUSH Salt Lake City, Utah 1930
The old-time cowboy was most respectful of women as long as they kept their place. If they let down the bars, one of those boys would go the limit.
—OLIVER WALLIS Laramie, Wyoming c. 1950
A cowboy is pretty touchy in protecting a woman’s character. He feels that a man is pretty low that would bring a woman into contact with dirt, or allow her to touch it of her own accord. He places her on a high fence because he wants to look up to her. He wants her feminine with frills and fluffs all over. He has no use for those he-women who wear pants and try to dress like a man.
—RAMON ADAMS Sonoma, Texas 1969
Wanted: A nice, plump, healthy, good-natured, good-looking, domestic and affectionate lady to correspond with. Object—matrimony. She must be between 22 and 35 years of age. She must be a believer in God and immortality, but no sectarian. She must be a gadabout or given to scandal, but must be one who will be a help-mate and companion, and who will endeavor to make home happy. Such a lady can find a correspondent by addressing the editor of this paper. Photographs exchanged!
