Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Yesterday’s cowboys

by Julie Carter

The last of them are leaving this world with alarming regularity --that generation of cowboys that went before me. Things were very different then --the decades of the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Cowboys in those days weren’t always born cowboys. Cowboys that fathered generations of today’s cowboys were often “made” not born. The freedom and excitement of life on the range was very alluring to many young men whose parents intended for them to be doctors and lawyers or even just hoped they’d get any kind of a job that would support them.

My Dad and uncles were some of those babies of the 1930s that grew up to be fine cowboys and respected cattlemen.  Their on-job-training started very young and was a crash course in the finer etiquettes of a ranch cowboy.

My Dad died before his stories got set on paper so what I have of him are memories and what he taught me. I put the burden of recording those days on paper on one of his younger brothers.

My uncle wrote: “In 1947, at 13, I got my first job at trying to be a cowboy working for the KC Ranch in Colorado.  They had three ranches. One at Gardner, Colo., one in the Davis Mountains west of Pecos, Texas and one in an isolated area about 70 southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico, 70 miles northeast of Vanhorn, Texas and 70 miles northwest of Pecos.”

“The summer I was 14 I went to the Davis Mountain Ranch to work. We spent those months doctoring cattle for screwworms. The summer rains started and it would rain between a half and an inch-and-a-half every afternoon. Excellent weather for screw worms.”

“I went back to the KC north ranch in West Texas the summer I was 15.  We’d move or work cattle from daylight until about ten, and then spend the afternoons shoeing horses or doing whatever else needed to be done.”

“The summer I was 17 and had just graduated from high school,  I was going to win my fame and fortune rodeoing but I needed a nest egg to get started.  So back to the KC ranch in West Texas I went. I let it be known to the other hands that I was going to have a career at riding bucking horses.”

“I told them I was only staying long enough to get enough money to hit the road.  When the cow boss cut my string of saddle horses,  he cut them with my ‘future career’ in mind.  Every one of them would buck quite a bit every time you would ride them.”

“I had one horse named Half Dollar. He had bucked off about everyone who had ever had him in their string.  We had a herd of cattle thrown together and all of a sudden he started to buck and bucked for a good little bit. I was lucky and rode him. Everyone gathered around me and was talking about what a great bronc ride that I had put on.  About that time Half Dollar shook real hard and I fell off — right flat on my back.”

“When I left to pursue my rodeo career, everyone wished me luck and told me to not let any horses shake with me. I didn’t think I’d ever live that down.”

Along with the usual job skills, every cowboy inevitably learns a little humility.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.