Chief

When I first met No Legs, I was working in a dude string. He would show up once a week and replace the shoes on those of us who needed it. He liked me right off the bat because I was not only gentle to shoe, but because I would never lean on him while he was shoeing me.
After I had been there a few months a couple of two leggers showed up looking for a horse. Being I was a dark bay with blanket as white as new fallen snow, with sorrel spots I stuck out like a diamond in a coal mine. After a few text rides they bought me and took me home.
Things went really well for a few months. The two legger who rode me was an FBI agent so he would sometimes be gone for a few weeks between rides. This was a heck of a lot easier than working in that dude string. I didn’t want to wind up back there so I took really good care of him.
Then one windy spring day he decided to saddle me up and go for a ride with his wife. We were almost home when a big blue tarp came out of a dry irrigation ditch. It wrapped around my legs and part of it flew over the top of me. It was then I sensed my two legger was afraid. He was also swinging his arms back and forth trying to get the tarp off his head. As a result, he puled me off balance and I stepped off the edge of the ditch. After rolling several times I was at the bottom of the ditch while my two legger was lying half way up the ditch. Being a little spooked about the whole thing (especially as my two legger was hollering and screaming at me) I ran home.
He didn’t try riding me for a few days. When he started to get on me, I sensed that he was nervous about something. Every time we rode past anything that might blow in the air or might move if I stepped on it, he would tense up. I didn’t know why he was so tense and nervous, but if he was, then I needed to be on the lookout as well! Within a few weeks he was so nervous I was ready to jump out of my skin every time he took me for a ride. Then came the day when I actually did step on a stick. He was so scared his whole body jumped in the saddle. Of course his fear went through me so I jumped as well
with my two legger falling to the ground.
This time I just stood there, but rather than get on me, he led me home. The next day I was loaded into the trailer. To my surprise, rather than being returned to the dude string, to taken to a sale barn, I was unloaded at a training stables. Adding to my surprise, No Legs came out to get me.
As soon as my two legger left, No Legs saddled me up and took me to the arena. I didn’t sense any fear from him so I just stood perfectly still when he got on my back. He walked me a bit, then started trotting me. It was nice to be able to relax for a change rather than being tensed up and wondering what my two legger was so afraid of.
After a couple of times around the arena, He called out to a two legger to get a towel and throw it to him as we went by. No Legs was still relaxed so I had no reason to be afraid as the towel was thrown to him. I kept going straight as he swung the towel around my head, and even drug it across the top of my head. Next he took me out for a ride on the trails and even along a road. I never took a wrong step. It was such a relief to not be constantly worrying about why my rider was filled with so much fear.
That evening my two legger showed up with his saddle. He was telling No Legs how surprised he was that he was able to “fix” me in such short order.
My two legger was nervous as he saddle me up. As he started to mount me, he was so scared he was shaking, so I was fidgety as well and stepped away from him.
At that time No Legs suggested that he ride me first. No Legs didn’t get his moniker from being long legged. The stirrups were set about six inches too long for him so he was wallering around all over the place trying to get his leg over the top of the saddle. Of course he wasn’t worried about anything so I just stood there perfectly still.
Once on top of me he told my two legger to throw me the towel he had placed on the fence. My two legger immediately refused, claiming he didn’t want to get No Legs “bucked off.” After arguing about it for a couple of minutes, he called out the two legger who had thrown him the towel that morning. No Legs started trotting in circles and playing towel catch with the two legger.
After No Legs explained to my two legger that I was acting the way I was because HE was being afraid he began thinking about it. No Legs got him on top of me and started playing towel catch. Within a few minutes my two legger was relaxed, and so was I.
It had been impossible for me to relax when My two legger was so worried about me spooking. I had no idea what he was worried about, but as soon as he quit worrying and started relaxing, it was sure nice to be able to be able to relax and enjoy the trails again!

Ahab

My start in life was great. My owners imprinted me at birth. By the time I was four months old I was getting my feet trimmed, wormed and vaccinated with no problem. I enjoyed being around people and doing things with them. Then at three years old I was sent out to be started under saddle.
The person to saddle me the first time was nice, but, as they say, “young and dumb.” As I was gentle, they just threw the saddle on me and cinched it up tight without preparing me for the pressure. When I started to walk out the pressure from the cinch startled me and I began to buck, and eventually fell over backwards. I felt something in my withers but did not have any way to tell anyone about it. After ten days of cinching me up tight and having me buck, this young two legger told my owner that I was “too rank to ride.”
My owner took me to No Legs and explained the situation as she saw it. He started out slow, doing his ground work and thought I was a pretty responsive and willing horse. He even put a rope around my girth and had me leading by that rope. When he saddled me, he didn’t cinch it too tight, and I was comfortable enough to work without pain.
Then came the day for my first ride under him. We walked around the round corral a few times in each direction with no problem. Then we started trotting. I was a little uncomfortable, but not too bad.
Then a sack blew up against the side of the round corral and I started to shy away from it. That is when the pain hit, and I started to buck, and buck hard! After several wild trips around the pen I lost my balance and fell on my belly and laid there. After a couple of minutes of sitting on me and waiting for me to get up, No Legs stepped off of me. With his weight off of me, I stood up.
Now he put together the fact that my bucking started when the sack had blown up against the round corral. He had now way of knowing that it wasn’t the sack that made me start bucking, but the pain in my withers from flinching at the sack. All he could think was that I needed more sacking out.
He not only sacked me out in the round corral, but tied garbage bags and tin cans on my saddle and ponied me for hours in the desert off of Storms. Every once in awhile I would feel the pinch and go to bucking. It just didn’t make any sense to either No Legs or my two legger. After several weeks I wasn’t bucking quite as hard. In fact I learned to just stop when it hurt. That was a new problem to solve, but No Legs figured I was safe enough to ride.
Now while No Legs was trying to get me safe to ride, my two legger was researching trying to find a reason for my behavior. After all, I was a gentle horse who liked two leggers. There had to be a reason for what I was doing.
Then came the day of our defining wreck. We were heading across the desert at a trot when suddenly I stopped and picked my head up to look at some mustangs in the desert. No Legs just sat there still, expecting me to start bucking, but hoping I’d relax. Instead I threw myself down on my side. The first thing to hit was his shoulder, then his head. After sliding on top of him a couple of feet I got up and ran home.
Luckily one of the neighbors happened to see the wreck and drove over to give No Legs a ride home. When he caught me, he noticed my eyes were bulging out like that two legger Rodney Dangerfield. He had never seen that in a horse, and it was his first clue I had something physically wrong. I was making progress and learning, there just was no telling when the pain would strike, forcing me to buck or throw myself down.
About the time No Legs was completing the last week of his contract to ride me, my two legger discovered I probably had a pinched nerve in my withers from the first time I went over backwards. After taking me home, I was given two chiropractic/acupuncture treatments and my problem was solved. I was given to a young female two legger who loves to endurance ride. Three months after being given my treatments I finished the Tevis cup in the top twenty. If anyone would have been able to properly diagnose me at the start, both No Legs and myself would have had an easier time of things.

Gertrude

The only problem I really had was my two legger. He had absolutely no sense of timing, balance feel or focus. As a result I had no clue as to what he wanted. This was especially true when he wanted me to stop as he kept leaning forward telling me to go faster. He also kept leaning to the side and falling off.
Then one day he and his wife decided to go to a clinic on speed control and stopping. What a mess. He couldn’t get me to go into a trot without falling off, let alone go into a lope and stop. At the end of the clinic they talked to No Legs about taking lessons on a family plan.
A few days later they loaded the kids and all of us horses into the trailer and headed over to No Legs for their first lesson. He already had Storms saddled and warmed up. Just a few minutes into this first lesson he stopped everything and had my two legger take my saddle and bridal off, put my halter on and get on me bareback.
Needless to say my two legger didn’t feel comfortable with the idea. No Legs told him that he needed to develop balance to stay on top, and that he needed to be able to feel what I was doing in order to do that.
As No Legs led me off at a walk, he told my two legger to close his eyes and tell him when my right front foot was leaving the ground. At first he did let my two legger hold onto my mane for security. After several weeks of lessons (and practicing at home) my two legger could finally feel what my feet were doing at a walk. Next we practiced at a trot. By the time my two legger could feel where my feet were at a trot, he also had the balance to stay in the middle of me without falling forward or sliding off the side of me.
Next we started working on getting my two legger to balance himself in a way that actually communicated to me what he was wanting me to do. No Legs really concentrated on teaching my two legger to to get me to relax and give to pressure which was something I hadn’t really learned.
The whole goal to these lessons were to get the family, especially my two legger, confident enough in their riding so that they could take us on camping trips into the desert. After several months of twice a week lessons, No Legs began meeting us in the desert to conduct the lessons in the environment they wanted to ride in.
On the last ride we took with No Legs my two legger was confident enough in himself and me that he put the reins on my neck so he could light a cigarette. We were just coming to the bottom of a fairly steep hill at the time. I stumbled and dropped my head then started trotting off. The reins had dropped over my head, but my two legger had gained enough balance and focus that he didn’t panic. He simply said “whoa, reached down, grabbed both sides of my breast collar, and pulled up on it. Since we had been working together on the giving to pressure, and he remained balanced, I simply stopped.
Since then we have spent many enjoyable weekends exploring the desert, and he hasn’t fallen off since.

Flipper

I began as a broodmare prospect on a Nevada ranch. That way of life ended at the age of four when it was determined I was physically unable to become pregnant. It was then the two leggers decided to salvage me as a saddle horse. I was dubbed with the moniker “Flipper” by the first two legger who saddled me when I flipped over and broke his saddle. After I did the same thing to the second two legger’s saddle, I was turned back out to pasture. I thought I showed them I wasn’t to be messed with, and that they had learned their lesson.
A month later I was brought back into the pens and introduced to yet another two legger. Rather than just saddle me up as the other two leggers had done, this one started flipping a rope at me. I wasn’t going to stand for any of this two legger nonsense. I tried running off, but the pen was too small, so I couldn’t get away. This two legger didn’t get excited and just kept following me around and flipping the rope out at me. It didn’t hit me every time he flipped it at me, and when it did, it didn’t hurt. After a few minutes I decided to stop and face him, and when I did, he quit flipping it, and stood there talking to me.
When he started to walk towards me I moved away and here came that flipping rope again. The two legger didn’t seem excited or angry, he just kept moving towards me and flipping the rope at me, and sometimes across my body. It didn’t hurt, so after a bit, I stopped again and faced him to see what he wanted.
This time when he came up to me, most of my fear of him was gone and I was beginning to be curious about what he wanted. When I let him walk up to me, all he seemed to want to do is scratch my neck and pet me.
Next he started rubbing me with the rope and sort of absentminded like flipping it over my body and dragging it off. This was a big difference from the other two leggers. All they had done was rope me, fight with me to tie me up to a big post and saddle me up. So far this one hadn’t mad a move to force me into anything.
He moved back once more and started flipping the rope at my hindquarters and moved at me in a sort of aggressive manner that told me I should move out, which I did. A couple of different times, he flipped the rope in front of me and moved at my head, so I turned around and went the other direction. He was really getting my curiosity going. Nothing he did was hurting me, but he was sure getting my attention to move in the direction he seemed to want.
Once again he stood still, so I stopped and faced him…Just what did he want?
This time he picked up a halter and lead rope and started to walk around me rather than up to me. Not wanting to lose sight of him I turned to I could keep facing him. When he changed direction, I changed with him. Then he walked up to me and began scratching me again, and flipping the lead rope over my body and neck. Then he flipped the rope over my neck, and rather than pulling it off, began walking around me again. Still curious (and not wanting him to chase me again) I followed him a few steps. He stopped and began scratching my neck and head, while talking to me. I didn’t really know what was going on, but whatever was happening seemed to be making this two legger happy, which somehow made me feel at ease.
Once again he moved me out, and had me change directions a few times. I was beginning to enjoy this. When he took the pressure off of me this time, I faced him and took a couple of stets towards him. After rubbing my neck, face and head a few minutes he put the halter on me.
When he put a little bit of pressure on the lead rope I panicked and ran backwards. Rather than trying to hold me, the two legger began chasing me backwards and working the rope in a way I couldn’t get turned around to run off. Through all of this the two legger remained calm. After a few seconds he stopped chasing me backwards, and I stopped.
After rubbing me a few seconds, he started to walk around me, once again putting a little pressure on the rope. I went to backing up again, but not as fast as the first time. Sure enough he started chasing me backwards again. This time I decided to stop on my own. What was the point of running from him? He wasn’t doing anything to hurt me and there was nothing in his attitude to make me afraid.
This time when he started to walk around me, and put a little pressure on the lead rope, I took a couple of steps forward. He stopped to rub my neck and face again. From the tone of his voice, it sure seemed like he was happy with me. Within a few more minutes I figured out that when there was pressure on the lead, all I had to do was step forward and the pressure went away. All I had to do was follow this two legger and there was no pressure.
Next he started flipping the longer rope over me again. I was used to this so I just stood there. Then he flipped it around my body and grabbed the end. Running the end through the hondo, he pulled it tight around my girth.
Instantly I began to rear up, but before I got all the way up, the pressure disappeared. Once again the two legger let me relax and scratched my neck a bit. He pulled the rope around my girth tight and once again when I started to rear, the pressure disappeared, and I came back to the ground. As soon as I was on the ground, he tightened the rope again, then released it as soon as I started up. Within a few minutes of this, I realized the pressure was not hurting me, so I quit trying to rear up. Sure enough, he went to rubbing and scratching my neck again.
He kept adding more pressure and releasing it until my reaction was to step into the pressure rather than try to pull away from it. Next he did the same thing on my feet. Once I gave to the pressure on my feet, he once again applied pressure to my girth. When I gave to the pressure, he rubbed and scratched my neck, then let me go back to my pen.
The next day we repeated all of this. This time I just gave to the pressure rather than fight it. As I was not fighting the pressure, he put his saddle on me and tightened it up, but not real tight. After leading me around a bit to get used to the constant pressure while walking, he tightened it up a little more. By this time I was used to the pressure and was relaxed. In fact I was curious to find out what this two legger would want to do next. Within a few days he was riding me out in the pastures, and to my surprise, I was actually enjoying it!

Bureau of Lost Minds

AS ANY RANCHER or cowboy who has had much contact with the Bureau of Land Management can tell you, the initials BLM are actually a top-secret government code for Bureau of Lost Minds. You don’t have to take my word for it, though. Just look at the way they conduct their affairs.
In New Mexico the BLM has undertaken a “Wilderness Study” to determine if a certain area should be proclaimed a wilderness. Not only is the area littered with beer cans, it includes numerous abandoned homesteads and sheep camps plus a section which was
used during the second world war as a practice bombing range. There are abundant deer and elk within the area, even though a government big game specialist who was counting them told me that there were so few deer that he hadn’t seen one in six weeks. I was puzzled because I would see as many as twenty at once. These deer and elk had plenty of water to drink since local ranchers
had put in hundreds of miles of water line and built hundreds of dams to catch runoff from the snow. I guess man made ponds, wells, waterlines, and bomb craters are commonly found in pristine wilderness areas.

Then there is the method by which the BLM hires its qualified help. I nearly applied for a job as a wild horse wrangler for the BLM, but I had some serious thinking to do when I started filling out the application, as it was actually a multiple-choice test. “Do you have a name : YES______ NO______ MAYBE______.”

It was just like the test all cowboys take to graduate from high school, designed to be fail-proof so that your teachers never have to look at you again. Well, maybe your name wasn’t part of the test, but they sure hadsome strange questions as well as possible answers:
1) Can you saddle a horse?
A) I can accomplish this task with little or no difficulty.
B) With some difficulty I can accomplish this task.
C) I cannot accomplish this task.
D) With close supervision I could possibly complete
this task.
E) I am considered a journeyman in this area, and
people often ask me for advice in this matter.

That is an actual question from the application along with the choices for answers. Aside from the fact that I
have never been anyplace where a cowboy didn’t know how to saddle a horse, the BLM left out the most important answer: “F) Depends on the horse.” I had actually started completing this application in a serious manner, but then I came to the trick questions.
“Can you use and maintain a screwdriver?” Well,
one or two.

“Can you sleep outdoors in a tent?” Only if I use and
maintain too many screwdrivers during the day and
fall asleep with my feet sticking out.

Were they looking for cowboys or wood carvers? (I have always found screwdrivers make excellent wood chisels.) By this time I was really wondering what kind of gunsels you would wind up working with. Would you really have guys asking you which end of the
screwdriver to use and inquiring as to which end of the saddle was the front? I knew that most BLM wranglers worked in pairs, but there was one in our neck of the woods that seemed to work alone, so I went to him for enlightenment. His tale was enough to make me quit before I started.

“My last partner was supposedly a hot-shot roper from down in Fallon, Nevada. He got the job because of the extra points he accumulated on the application for being newly discharged from the army. On our first day together we had to rope a stud and bring him in, and I decided to let my partner do the ropin’. Well, he caught the old stud on his third loop and pitched his slack as his horse slid to stop and started working the rope. Turned out the kid had never roped anything but calves in an arena, and
neither had his horse. That old horse was a good calf horse and doing his best to handle that stud, but the kid was sure in a panic. His eyes were as big as dinner plates and he was struggling just to stay on his horse while trying to get shuck of the stud, which was trying to run up the rope at him. I rode up and managed to get his rope off’n his horn and was trying to get up enough slack to catch my dallies, when the kid hollered at me to
remember to keep my thumb up when I dallied!

“When we got back in that night, I told the boss I wasn’t working with that kid any more and not to bother sending anyone else because I wouldn’t work with them either. I’ve been working alone ever since, and it been just over two years.”

I went home to think of what this old boy had said and of how the BLM seemed to define quality help. I built me a fire, starting it with the application, used and maintained a few screwdrivers, and fell asleep with my feet outside the tent.

This story is an excerpt from my book Cowboy Romance (of horsesweat & hornflies) available on Amazon.

Cowboy Style Change and Hope

Politicians who run on a platform of hope and change don’t realize that hope never put beans in the pot, or that change is not always for the better. This past week is a great example of that as well as how much of a roller coaster ride working as a cowboy can be. At 9PM Sunday night I was contacted by a local ranch to work am eight-day stretch branding calves. Tuesday morning I loaded the horses and headed out to the ranch.

By 10:00 we had the calves sorted off and started branding in a 30 mph wind. The colt I was roping off of is broke well enough that I can ride him with only a light rope around his neck. Dragging calves to the fire is the only ranch work this colt had not done. He is good enough, and so calm about everything, someone is always wanting to buy him. I heeled the first calf and he acted like he had been doing it for years…The second calf was a bit different.

With the wind blowing so hard the loop didn’t travel and was just hanging on his hips. No big deal, just adjust the horse and have the calf back up into the loop. About that time, a gust of wind came up, hard enough to blow the rope up into the air as the calf turned around and managed to get the loop halfway down his body, as another calf tripped over the rope and pulled it down too tight for him to walk through it. I knew that under the conditions, this was over the colt’s head, so I stepped off to try and take the rope off, but the manager hollered out to bring him. I stepped back on and that is where the “change” began.

A gust of wind blew up a cloud of dust which recuced vision to zero and the calf ran around the colt who decided to try his hand at being fast. My first reaction was to flip the rope around to the other side, but between the wind and a bad shoulder, that didn’t happen. Concentrating on getting rid of my rope without getting tangled up, or having coils on the ground for someone else to get tangled up in, I lost focus of where I was at for the next three bounds. That is until I knew I was not going to stay with the turn at the end of the pen.

As I saw the two-inch pipe making the top rail of the fence, I thought “No problem, I’ll just flip over the fence.” However rather than going over the rail, I tested its structural integrity with my ribs. As I was lying on the ground breathing like a cow dying of pneumonia, the manager asked if I was OK, to which I replied “No, but I will be, how’s the fence?”

A few minutes later I was back to vaccinating calves. I decided not to work on Wednesday as I couldn’t get my truck in gear to drive back out. Thursday I managed to get saddled up to help gather. Now usually getting horseback has always made me feel better no matter how bad I feel. However this was not the case, but I made it through another day.

Friday, we were to gather a fairly decent sized pasture of around eight sections. Once again on the gentle colt, the cattle scattered. Going at a long trot the colt stumbled, and that was when I discovered what real pain is. Real pain is when it is so sharp that you pee your pants. Not much, but you just lose control of your bodily functions. Now I had been hoping to make it through the next four days of the works, but that was when I changed my mind and decided that this would be my last day of this works.

On the way home, my situation changed once again. Halfway home my steering suddenly became stiff. I pulled over to discover that the bracket holding the smog pump on had broken. Crawling under the truck I managed to untangle the fan belt and salvage it. After bracing myself mentally and several tries, I managed to get out from underneath the truck, and in a few more minutes was actually standing up. The rest of the way home was made in stages. When the truck started getting too warm, I would kick it out of gear, turn it off and coast as far as I could, then sit there and wait for the engine to cool down.

My first stop in town, before dropping off the horses, was at Napa, hoping to buy a new bracket. That hope changed to hoping I can find a used bracket in town as Ford no longer makes that part for 1995 pickups. I also have a new hope, that my book sales drastically pick up over the next couple of months so we can keep one nostril above the financial seas of inequity. If you like reading true things about life as a modern-day cowboy, and also like to laugh, you can do so (while helping a broken down old cowboy at the same time) by going to the Texas Crossroads Gathering website’s Agritainers Sales page and buying my books. It will also help the cause of the gathering as 4% of the sale goes to Crossroads. I thank you for your support!

A Night on The Town

COWBOYS ARE FAMOUS the world over for their celebratory nature when they descend on town for Saturday night, and I guess there may be a reason for
it. However, on this particular night I started out being very well-behaved, if I do say so myself.
I was working on a ranch frequently visited by the local hunt club. Club members would come out to chase our coyotes, which were too numerous to even begin counting. Being the type to try any kind of horseback
I come across, I joined them and spent my free Sundays riding on a postage stamp for a saddle to chase coyotes across the desert while dressed in my “sissy” English outfit. Since this club is registered with the International Society of Fox Hunts, it used English fox hounds for the chase. As the top speed of these hounds is about ten miles an hour slower than that of a coyote, all we did is harass the coyotes as they were harassing our calves but without their more successful results.
It was a great way for the club’s members to relax and get a little exercise. Most of them were bankers, lawyers, doctors or other professionals. Of course, the club was also an excuse for members to get together socially for things other than riding, such as the falling off
party. Everyone was required to bring an allotted amount of mood-altering beverage for each time they had fallen off of their horse. Many members carried flasks of elixir during the hunt and thus would wind up owing several bottles. Another big event was the opening hunt party to kick off the season, which was my excuse for going into town this particular night.
It just happened by coincidence that my sister had decided to drop everything and travel a thousand miles to move in with me. Arriving the day before the party she hadn’t had time to unpack anything fitting to wear to such an auspicious occasion. My good friend Rachel offered to loan her an outfit for the night, so with directions in hand she headed for Rachel’s at noon.
When I got into headquarters around five, I unsaddled and skedaddled, barely making it to the party by seven. The members, being who they were meant the food was a wonderful array of tasty treats to satisfy any
discriminating palate. Greek, Mexican, Italian, and German cooking were represented, as well as any kind of mood-altering beverage a person could imagine. I am not quite a saint and have been known to over-imbibe a little on occasion, but this was not one of them. This was a sophisticated crowd compared to a bunch of cowboys, so I let Rachel and Sis do the drinking.
Besides, one of us had to be sober enough to drive. After only one drink I switched to soda pop.
Actually, I didn’t need to worry about getting drunk and looking like a fool with this crowd, for some of it did top-notch job of diverting attention away from others. Since it was a pleasant September evening, the
windows were open and the sliding glass door was merely screened. Presently, one of the more prominent women of the club wore her formal gown right through the closed screen. After that the glass door was closed,
and it wasn’t long before another prominent lady bounced off it to a less than graceful landing, which necessitated a visit to her proctologist, who was also at the party.
When the party wound down around nine, Rachel’s friend Beverly invited us to go down to the Gun Butt bar where she was meeting some of her friends. Neither Rachel nor myself really liked this place, but we didn’t
want to offend Beverly by turning her down. Besides, at this point Rachel and Sis were well primed, so it seemed we might as well keep the ball rolling.
Once at the Butt, things sort of fell apart. The tables were too small for the whole group to sit together, and the bouncers wouldn’t let us move them closer. After a while, we decided to leave for another place. Everyone
else left as Rachel and I waited for Sis to get off the dance floor.
When her partner escorted her back to the table, he asked Rachel to dance.
She declined, but suddenly he asked, “You’re Rachel Boone, aren’t you?”
It turned out they had been friends in grade school. Though they hadn’t seen each other in thirty years, he still recognized her. They got to visiting and Sis wanted to dance, so we hit the floor for a song or two. When we got back to the table, I found a miniature bottle of vodka
in my seat. Joking about it since all I had been drinking that night was club soda or ice water, I cracked it open, had a sip, and placed it on the table for the barmaid to remove, which she did. She also returned with a
bouncer, who informed me that the manager would like to speak to me.
Having already forgotten about the bottle I had found, I went cheerfully to the front desk with Sis following me. After explaining to the mentally challenged manager how I found the bottle and what I had done with it, I was ready to leave. At his request, I explained it one more time, wishing I had access to paper and crayon so I could draw him a picture. I then informed him I was going to get my ride and leave. As I turned
around to go get Rachel, the manager called me a liar in very sexually explicit terms. I turned back to face him and informed him that he was lucky I wasn’t eitherdrunk or ten years younger and left to get Rachel.
To enter the lounge I had to cross a hall partially blocked by a rather large man leaning across the entrance. As I ducked under his arm, he grabbed me around the neck and started twisting my head. The fight was on, although I wasn’t sure what it was about. All I wanted to do was get Rachel and leave this den of iniquity and despair. But fight it was, so I grabbed my assailant around the leg and stood up. I wasn’t trying to inflict any damage, I was just trying to get away. I did make it back into the lounge, but every time I would get out of one grip, I would find myself in another. In the background I heard the sound of breaking glass. That would be the manager passing through the glass display case. I didn’t know what they were trying do with me, but if they couldn’t control a little shrimp like
me they must be a bunch of big wimps. I enlightened them with this trivial wisp of knowledge and was rewarded with a boot in the face.
Finally they had me pinned on my back. Rachel’s long blonde hair was in my face and she was telling me to calm down and everything would be all right. I did and she was wrong, for the next thing I knew, I was face down, having been thrown out onto the pavement.
Before I could get up, someone knelt on the side of my head and started twisting my arm out of its socket repeating, “Give me your (sexually explicit) hand you (sexually explicit) (anatomically incorrect),” over and over. Now, I’m not in the habit of giving anyone my hand under the best of circumstances, let alone someone to whom I haven’t been formally introduced who’s bouncing my head off the pavement with his knee while twisting my arm out of its socket and calling me profane names, so I didn’t offer my hand. The last thing I saw before blacking out was Rachel standing on the steps with an outstretched arm screaming, “What the HELL are you doing to him?” The next thing I saw, when I could see, was Rachel lying down with a policewoman kneeling in the middle of her back. At the shock of this sight I remained still for a half second and was fitted with a pair of highly decorative yet restraining bracelets. Then we went for a ride downtown.
I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Rachel, all ninety-eight pounds of her, was charged with battery upon a police officer, and her bail was twice as high as mine. Because neither one of us
had ever been in trouble before, our good word was enough to get us released.
The Butt’s owner dropped all the charges, then fired the manager and bouncers. We weren’t quite as lucky with the police, though. Outside the courtroom, the office who had arrested Rachel re-read the police report containing the list of injuries the manager received. Once again the officer referred to me in sexually explicit yet anatomically incorrect terms. Strange as it seems, even though the officer needed to read her own report before entering the courtroom to refresh her memory, during the trial she described in detail the rage in my face (I was face down when the police showed up) and remembered the alcohol on my breath (from the club soda?). Luckily, the judge let us go if we promised to be good. We haven’t
been to the Butt or in trouble since.
This story is an excerpt from my book Cowboy Romance (of Horsesweat & Honflies) , available at Amazon