Long ago, the silver screen warped the image of the cowboy in the minds of the general public. Western wear catalogs and country music singers haven’t helped much with the real picture of the cowboy.
No, Virginia, cowboys don’t dress like Buffalo Bill.
In lives dictated by work, wind and weather, not necessarily in that order, function trumps fashion every time.

Cowboys and their female counterparts dress to get the work done and wear as many of the necessary tools of the trade as possible.
One of those necessary tools is a knife. These are used daily to cut hay strings, change the minds and attitudes of bulls, cut the rattles off a dead snake, perform tack repairs and traditionally, give the fingernails a trim.
For decades, the pocket knife, sleek in form, was transported by simply slipping it into a front jean pocket for safekeeping.
As it became more of a tool than just a blade for cutting, knives were worn in a scabbard or sheath in a surprising variety of places: attached to the belt, vertical above their back pocket, horizontally on the belt, in a cross draw position in the front or simply in the pocket of their leggings.

Scabbards can be a personal fashion statement. Often adept at leather work, rawhide stitching, knot tying and tooling, cowboys’ workday knives are usually cased in sturdy proof of their skill. Their Sunday-go-to-meeting knife scabbards may even have tooling to match their saddles and gear.
Knives come in a variety of personal choice brands. We’re not talking Swiss Army here – these knives are as practical as the cowboys who wear them.
You see everything from working knives to seasonal hunting knives to the finest Damascus steel, fancy inlaid-handled knife for church.
Special folding knives made popular by the ropers come with a clip to hold them in a back pocket for quick access in the case of a tangled endangerment. Sometimes it is necessary to cut a perfectly good rope to save the life of a roper or the leg of a horse.
Panhandle punchers who receive load after load of 400-weight steers and bulls swear that in Louisiana knives are used exclusively for peeling pecans because 99 percent of the male cattle that come from that area are still bulls.
“Steer” is apparently not a Cajun word.

Ranch cowboys are forever using their knives at cattle working time and a measure of pride is taken in just how sharp their knife is, frequently drawing blood just to prove the point as they lightly graze it across their forearm shaving a few hairs as it goes.However, clean and sanitary is optional.

It’s not unusual for cowboys to castrate calves all morning and use the same knife to cut their meat at the meal afterward. Careful ranch wives make sure there is a clean knife strategically placed by the cake plate.
Not often thought of but definitely one historical use of a knife is in horse trading.
Many traders whittle during the often lengthy discussions involved in the bartering.  I’m told that if the trade is going the trader’s way, his knife will pull the whittle toward him.  If the trade is going the other way, slivers are driven off the piece of wood toward the buyer.
That’s a good point to know. Probably Buffalo Bill was the first to establish that principle.

An alarm went off in Jenna’s head. Not a ringing bell kind of alarm, but the one that starts out in your gut, crawls up your spine and sends involuntary shivers to your body.

It was the same alarm you might feel when you realize your mother-in-law is coming to spend a week and the main ranch well just conked out or the sewer backed up again for the third time in a month.

Jenna had just come home from her honest job in town where she made a valiant attempt to support her husband’s ranching habit.

On this day, his welcome home news was that their trusty insurance agent had come by and made him a deal he couldn’t refuse.

The agent had talked Rusty into “trying out” a $1 million accidental death policy with Jenna the insured and Rusty the beneficiary. Not quite sure how one would “try-out” a pay-on-death accident policy, Jenna mentally listed other options including cancellation of the policy in 60 days if it wasn’t used.

It was the “if not used” part that caused her the most concern. Her mind quickly went to all the times, when in the course of helping him on the ranch, her close calls with danger would warrant such a policy.

There were those days of helping him sort cattle in the alley afoot while he was horseback and the subsequent stampedes of cattle she was expected to stop, cut, turn or control.

And the days she had gone alone through brushy, snake-infested canyons riding colts that “needed the miles.” Or those long days in the branding pen when calves were drug to the fire and not infrequently over the top of her.

There was the tractor with the cranky clutch that she sometimes drove and the feed truck with no brakes that was hers to use in the pastures with steep hillsides.

She distinctly remembered helping at the chute by giving shots and thanks to a fighting cow, gave herself the vaccination instead.

The more she considered the insurance “try out” idea, the more her level of anxiety rose.

Jenna recalled the years of their marriage and working together. It was her belief that 99.4 percent of the time it had been good.

She allowed that a time or two – surely no more than that – she had inadvertently and innocently gotten something slightly wrong.

At the time she thought Rusty, with his normal good humor, had just let it slide. However, just to be safe, she decided that during this policy “try out” period, she needed to watch her back.

A week or so later, when the policy discussion had faded somewhat, she began to relax again. Then one day, coming into the house through the back door, Rusty jumped out, hollered and scared her.

She screamed as she fell away from him and into the closed door that led to the basement stairs. The impact caused the door to pop open and instantly her life and a $1-million check passed before her eyes.

She managed to catch herself (without his help) before she took the plunge into the depths. Quite contrite, Rusty apologized profusely and told her it was just a joke.

He helped her sit down to catch her breath, re-claim her composure and hopefully, not get a gun. Many times over the years, he pulled similar practical jokes and she laughed with him.

But this time Jenna began telling her friends about Rusty’s free $1-million policy on her and the subsequent “trying out” period. Collectively they began keeping an eye on Rusty and counting down the days. Several offered to hang Rusty should anything happen to her.

Rusty is typical of someone who had spent his life in cattle and ranching. His business sense simply would not let him pass up any good deal offered for free.

However, this time his reasonable intelligence overruled the monetary pressure. He called the insurance agent and gave him back 45 days of the “trying out” period.

He also requested written notification of the termination to be sent by registered mail, addressed to his wife. It was to be accompanied by a dozen roses.

He would let his neighbors fix the water gaps or the fence lines between them, never interfering or offering advice on the projects.

His neighborliness extended to letting his neighbors come get their bulls if they happened to get to his side of the fence and he always offered to let them stay just long enough to get his cows bred up.

One time a rogue bear tore up a good bit of the common fence line be-tween he and a neighbor. Neal told his neighbor it would be OK for him to come hunt the bear as soon as he, the neighbor, got the fences fixed. It’s the least he could offer in the way of gratefulness.

Neal never caused any problems when his cows would find a way over to the neighbor’s pasture. Frequently he would let them stay awhile, even after he’d been notified of their location. It was his way of not causing any problems.

One time he had a set of fairly waspy longhorn-cross heifers. One of them found her way to a neighbor’s herd and made it her job to lead off those cattle at a dead run when the cowboy tried to ride through them.

That got old fast and so the cowboy called Neal and asked if he’d consider putting “heifer retrieval” on his to-do list. Neal told him to put the heifer in the water lot, call him and he’d come with a trailer to get her.

The wild and crazy heifer was not at all impressed by a horse or a cowboy. If she spotted one, she’d take off like a bottle rocket and any cattle in the vicinity would scatter like quail. Heifers like that need to be grateful that not all cowboys are still wearing guns.

One day the cowboy arrived to find the longhorn entertaining herself by licking off her new calf. She was enough distracted that the cowboy got the water lot gate shut on her.

She was immediately on the hook but wouldn’t jump the fence and leave the calf.

Neal got his phone call with the suggestion that he really needed to come get that pair so the other cattle could get to water.

Way down in the afternoon he appeared with a trailer. He mentioned how happy he was that his heifer had fared so well on the good grass and was proud that she was such a good mother. The cowboy was proud to see her leave.

Another neighbor ran a few sheep. Sometimes he even ran sheep that had lambs. One year everybody around him had all their lambs worked, sheep sheared, everything counted and back to summer grass. Fred still didn’t have his first lamb.

Neighbors being neighbors, their community discussion centered on his bucks. They all were worried that perhaps Fred had a problem with bucks that shot blanks.

In the discussion, it finally occurred to Fred that he had forgotten to put the bucks out with the ewes that year. No more mystery.

Neighboring brings out the best in ranchers. One such rancher down Tucumcari way was known to be one of the tighter humans around. His ranch was fairly irregular in shape, garnering him quite a few neighbors with common fence lines.

One time he got a wedding invitation from one of those neighbors. He was just going to simply wish the guy well, but his wife insisted they had to give him something for a wedding present.

Troy offered that he would just give him that water gap between them. Use or lose.

Hola, amigos. Mi llama es Taco. That’s my new name. I had another name before, but when I got a new home, I got a new name and a new profession.

I am in training to be an ace speed-demon team roping horse on the heels end of the roping steer. In order for you to understand who I have become, please allow me to establish my credentials from previous employment and adventures.

When I was a colt, starting out in my working life, I was known as Chapo Bueno. In the language spoken in Mexico, where I lived, that was a quite a compliment. It means “good pony.” I was born of Hidalgo bloodlines, purebred Spanish grandee horses.

This is evident in my beautiful light gray coat accented by a black mane and tail. It is even more evident in my kind, intelligent eyes.

At an early age, I was partnered to Jose Maria, the top vaquero on a large cattle ranch. Jose Maria loved me, taught me patiently the ways of cattle and how to work them.

We worked hard, made mucho dinero for the patron, and I became known as a top mount. As it was in ranching everywhere at the time, grass became short in Mexico. The patron asked Jose Maria to do a little night riding, taking wet cattle across the river to Texas to sell.

Of course, Jose took me, his top horse, to help get the cattle from the ranch across the river. We pushed them hard by moonlight, laid them up by day, and in the seven days it took to get across the river, we had no trouble. In this fashion, we shipped all the cattle belonging to the patron.

At the end of the cattle drives, the patron thought that since Jose and I were so good at being border bravos, we should continue our night riding with a little different contraband. Jose was reluctant to be on the other side of the law, and I was insulted to be asked to carry a packsaddle, but it was work and we needed work.

Our good luck deserted us on our first run with the contraband. La Migra gathered us in at the border.

Jose patted me, told me goodbye, and slipped off into the night. The other horses and I were taken into possession, the drugs taken to the police station, and we were taken to auction.

When I was arrested, I was wearing a packsaddle so no one knew of my history as a top cow horse. For this reason, I was sold for a pittance to a kind man who could see only my plight.

This man had a good friend in Texas, and soon after, I was sent to Dan the Team Roper. Fortunately, Dan speaks Spanish and has taught me the basics of English. We are getting along fine.

When I first arrived, I made a few mistakes. One of those was that I ate all the briars along his fence line. He explained that in Texas, it was customary that would feed me hay and grain.

Another time I encountered an armadillo and spooked until Dan explained that it was just a hard-shelled possum.

Dan has been teaching me to be his team roping horse. He is beginning to understand that my cow horse athletic abilities and training are an advantage for us both. My royal heritage has afforded me the perfect conformation to be outstanding in this new profession.

I am beginning to understand my job and am considering this sport to be great fun. We will win the world someday, and as you follow my career in upcoming year, I wanted you to know my story.

I send Happy New Year greetings to everyone on both sides of the border, but I’m glad to have a home on this side.

There is absolutely not anything funny about a grass or forest fire but often in the midst
of the firefight, humor arrives.

One night on the remote plains of the far side of the county, a lightning strike started a
fire in a ranch pasture.

Not anything much out there except miles of ranchland and what remained of a teensy
town that had retained only a few deserted buildings and a name.

It was also at least two hours by highway from any real fire-fighting agency.

The nearest rancher to this ghost-stop on the highway served as mayor and fire chief by
title and reputation. High desert ranching requires a great sense of humor and the
occasional ego boost that an elevated title can sometimes provide.

One of the items remaining in the long-deserted town of Ramon was an ancient fire
truck. The battery required constant charging, which didn’t happen, and the water tank
leaked so it was never full. Other than that, it was in fine shape.

The night of this specific grass fire, the phone calls went out to a few ranchers. Waking
up the chief of the Ramon Fire Department took some doing, but he finally answered the
phone.

Pulling on his britches and his hat, the usual rancher’s lid that needed an oil change
months ago, he hollered at his nearly adult son and out the door they went.

The process of charging the battery and finding a hose to fill the water truck began.
Meanwhile, over the hill back to the west, another cowboy who had always been a
addicted to farm sales, knew he had a cattle sprayer parked somewhere “over yonder on
the hill.”

The most recent endorsement of this piece of equipment had been at a cattle-spraying
event.

A cowboy commented that he could pee further than the sprayer could spray, leaving its
validity as fire fighting equipment certainly at least questionable.

However, it did hold water, so after the tires were aired up, the cowboy hooked onto it
with the pickup and off he went over the hill to fight the fire.
By this time, the fire had gotten so big, that in the dark, it alone summoned folks from
near and far.

Back at the Ramon Fire Department, aka the chief’s house, the fire truck was revved up
and headed out to the fire. It was very dark and hard to see where exactly to drive as the
truck made its way through the pasture toward the flames.

The chief was at the wheel of the truck, barreling through the night to the rescue like a
caped crusader, while his eldest son was riding fireman-style on the truck fender
hollering “EEEE, HAAWWW,” at the top of his lungs.

About that time, the chief drove the truck off in a wash and it came to a sudden, solid
halt, nose down. The son on the fender was tossed through the air, landing somewhere in
the near vicinity. But he came up dusting himself off. No harm done. Nothing broke,
except the fire truck.

Nearly everyone in close proximity of the fire left what they were doing to go check out
the fire truck wreck.

Meanwhile the cowboy with the sprayer, coming to save the day, blew out a tire. So
when the chore of dragging the chief and his fire truck out of the wash was finished, the
crew all went to see what the problem was with the cowboy.

In the meantime, the rancher with the fire on his property had put his road grader into
operation and made a fire-line circle around the fire. The flames eventually died out on
their own.

It was still the wee hours of the morning, everyone was wide-awake and nobody wanted
to go back home. So they circled their rigs, drug out the food they’d brought (another
standard thing for country folk) and had a version of a block party.

The rancher thanked everyone for their help, and exhausted, headed off to tend to his
livestock and ranch chores.

All this while you slept.

John Wayne taught about every cowboy I know how to be fearless. It’s the movies, but they believe it anyway.

They will fight to get on a horse that clearly has blood in his eye and rope wild cattle that would love nothing better than to run a horn through them or their horses.

They will climb windmill towers in a blizzard wind and track cougars through the snow, fly crop dusters like a wild man, and generally undertake most any dangerous activity they can dream up.
On occasion, they will even go so far as to order their wives around.

When not endangering themselves, they love nothing better than to help their pards out along those same lines.

Button was running a big working crew and had already put in a full day. With great concentration, sitting astride his cowpony, he was counting cattle out the gate.

“Button,” came a voice from behind him.

Button went on counting; ignoring the idiot that would dare interrupt.

“Button,” came the voice again and getting the same response as before.

This continued, but Button just kept counting.

When the last cow got through the gate, Button turned and said, “What do you want, Reese?”

Reese tossed a big rattlesnake onto Button’s lap and the wreck was on.

When the horse was back under control, the snake shaken off and his heart rate back below the critical stage, Button rode over to Reese.

He gave him a mean, squinty-eyed look and said, ” I might not could whup you, but I can surely hit you up side the head with this saddle gun.”

Reese took this statement under thoughtful consideration.

The next week Reese was horseback counting cattle while Button was slowly driving the feed truck along and putting out feed.

Reese tossed another big snake in the front seat of the truck.

Button bailed out the other side, the truck continued on, and Reese beat a cowboy-retreat for parts afar.

During the rather colorful discussion that followed somewhat later, it was determined that Reese would not give Button any more snakes, no matter the circumstances.

At the next cattle working, Button seemed to have misplaced his gloves.

Nobody would admit to anything, even with Button’s threats about what he’d do if he found out someone had assisted the gloves in going missing.

At the break, Reese brought out a Banty rooster he had brought from home and carefully put him in the large cardboard box full of ear tags.

When the cowboy crew started working again, he fessed up to Button about his gloves and told him they were in the ear tag box.

The flapping, squawking rooster moment when the box was opened was not nearly as good as the rattlesnake chaos, but it would do.

The next day Button told Reese to saddle up the new bay colt and put some miles on him. He specifically told him to ride across the tank dam and show the colt how to do that, get him used to it.

Reese rode the skittish, scared colt onto the dam – fence on one side, water on the other- when a big Canadian goose, whose nest was disturbed by this intruder, raised up, flapped her wings and hissed loudly at Reese.

You can break a colt to a lot of things, but a mad momma goose on the fight is not one of them.

It had taken awhile, but it was in this moment that Reese had an epiphany. He was thinking maybe it was time to give Button a break.

I know many cowboys that, if close to a pond or other some such fish habitation, like to throw a line in from time to time.

Curly, Robby, Darrel and Jim slipped off to do little fishing one year. Curly and Robby opted to sit on the bank of the lake, casting lines and consuming adult beverages.

There were more beverages going down than there were fish coming up, but, after all, it was spring and you don’t have to clean the beverages.

Darrel and Jim were drifting along in a flat-bottom boat they’d brought along, casting lines and sometimes catching old tires and other like treasures. Once in a while, they’d even catch a fish.

One of them whipped back a perfect cast after catching a tree limb on the bank. He shook loose the lure, along with it came a snake he’d managed to pick up in the commotion.

The snake hit the bottom of the boat and both the anglers bailed over the side. When Curly and Robby, still bank-side, quit laughing, they had to go save the boat that was continuing to drift on the current.

Cowboys that live where there is a lot of water, specifically lakes, will tell you of a common phenomenon, a culture of people called the Lake Dwellers.

You know you are in the neighborhood of a clan of them by the number of catfish heads on the fence posts and the abundance of Heinz-crossed mutts in every yard. They seem to live off one another, trading belongings back and forth as available cash ebbs and flows.

Occasionally, the cowboys will attempt to mingle with the Lake Dwellers. Jim and Curly had been down to a beer-swilling, pool-playing joint and picked up a couple gals who invited them to a party down at the lake.

When they arrived, they immediately deducted they were overdressed. Having gone home and showered, put on their starched jeans and best boots, they were no match for the crew in Bermuda shorts with no shirts and rubber boots.

Immediately unpopular with the men of the Lake Dweller clan, it didn’t improve when Jim spotted a deer’s behind mounted over the fireplace, tail up.

He promptly stuck a cigarette in the deer’s south opening and things went downhill from there. It didn’t take them long to enjoy all of that party they needed as they were considerably outnumbered.

The recent event where the captain of a hijacked ship managed with the help of a few Navy Seals, to fend off some scruffy pirates, has the cowboys swapping “cowboys as boat captains” tales.

If cowboys are anything, they are storytellers and are the very best at it when it involves themselves. The running dialog speaks of leaky boats (poor folk always have leaky boats) and bailing water to the extent it drove them all to the time-honored sport of bank fishing.

Curly has rounded up a gal to fantasize about – his flavor of the week. He says she has a “just a touch of the Lake Dweller in her.” That means you don’t ever have to worry about what she’s thinking.

Over cold longnecks, they’ve had some relationship discussions about kids and child support. He pays through the nose for one but she announced she’d never birthed a baby (and she has three) from a guy that ever paid a dime.

While Curly was digesting this information, she, in her Lake Dweller directness said, “You wasn’t thinking about getting married again anytime soon was you?”

When this question came forth, Curly was just putting his beer bottle to his mouth. His hand started shaking so bad he was afraid he was going to chip a tooth, and it wasn’t the grammar that was appalling him.

Recalling a previous commitment, he managed to free himself from the immediate Lake Dweller danger, and of late, has limited his vices to full time team roping.