What's the good in a rodeo? - #49

In the subculture of broncos, calves, ropes, and lassoes.

“Pardon me,” she said with that twang that swings high into the roof of your mouth. I stepped aside as she climbed the metal bars, up and over into the paddock. Only a few inches from her, you could see the beige nylons she was wearing under her suede shorts. Cowboy boots and a cowgirl button down topped it off, lasso rope in her hand. Standing there, waiting for her cue, you could see past the rhinestones and tassels. From the stands I might have guessed her to be fresh out of college, but next to her, you could see this was old hat — she was a career cowgirl and this was just another night in the dirt.

She waited, rope in hand, until we heard the announcer rally the crowd. 

“Y’all better get ready for a show, because that’s what this gal puts on, let’s hear it for Bailey Jean Gabel, one of the best damn ropers you’ll ever see.” The cowgirl stood still, her head turning toward the gate, and I followed her gaze to see a horse gallop into the paddock with a woman standing on its saddle waving an American flag. 

It was just past 7, and storm fronts were circling the mesa, closing in to get a better view of the show. We were down at 7,000 feet, rain long behind us, for a summer must: the San Miguel Basin Rodeo. Gabel was starting off the night, her feet tucked into the hippodrome strap on her trick saddle, hips thrust forward to ride out the gallop.

Note the trick shoes — very similar in structure and use to climbing shoes, except these have ankle support.

 Some 30 years ago, I didn’t even climb the fence — I was small enough to slip through the rails, fingernails always laced with dirt. I could scramble up into the saddle, climbing that horse like a tree. I never learned any tricks other than the ones we taught ourselves when we needed each other. When the old girth would break again, Snicker would kneel and let the saddle (and me) slip down her neck and over her head. On the ground, I’d feel her nose pushing my butt, making sure I took the landing OK. Sometimes I’d even motion her to come to the fence so I could jump on as she trotted by, trying to be like the only person I ever idolized: Indiana Jones. 

The cowgirl held her post near us until Gabel cantered straight to her. As soon as Gabel was past the stands, her smile disappeared, swapped out for determined focus as she rode up to the girl in suede shorts and nylons. Their operation was smooth and impressive. Gabel ditched the rope as she ended the lap, pulling up to the cowgirl for a different one. In each lap around the paddock, she swung the lasso as she swung herself to hang from one stirrup, foot secured through special trick holds.

Preparing for the next trick.

The crowd was tired. The announcers and rodeo clowns struggled to rile them up and cheers were thin for tricks they’d seen before. Gabel trotted out, unfazed, followed by her cowgirl assistant. Lightning split far in the distance, and a break in the action left time for libations. There was one drink trailer and one food stand. I got two hot dogs, Skittles, and a ranch water. I stashed the Skittles in my bag for later, wolfed the dogs in my head-to-toe denim, and turned my attention to the crowd.

Cowboys and cowgirls were in from all over the West for this rodeo, old Wranglers paired with brand new state-of-the-art horse trailers. We the People tattoos and hard seltzer, teenage barrel racers draped over their horses with their cell phones, texting and DMing right up until the event. Calves roped and tied, horses groomed and kisses, broncos run into fences, lassos cut immediately. A yo-yo of ethics and politics, until a calf shot out from the gate, a rider hot on their tail.

The rider, a cowgirl about my age, threw her lasso, roped the calf, halted the horse, and the calf ran off, all in under 5 seconds.

Leaning on the railing, the smell of beer and burgers and manure tempered only by the whispers of rain on the horizon, I asked Ben, “do you know how they score this?” The woman next to us, Wranglers, ponytail, leopard print top, leaned over, “this is called breakaways. The point is to get the rope around the calf and pulled out as fast as possible.” The best breakaway ropers can do it in just two seconds.

Breakaways require a horse that’s quick-footed and knows how to stop.

It seemed like the best option for the calf. A quick pursuit, a rope around the neck with little tension, and then they run to the other side of the paddock to have it taken off. Five seconds to outrun some girl on a horse seems better than veal. I still winced every time.

“Do you know people competing?” I asked the woman.

“Oh yeah, lots, but mainly my kids. My son did mutton busting earlier, and my daughter’s up later tonight in barrel racing.”

“Are y’all from near here?” I asked.

“Down in Durango, we’re on the rodeo circuit, so we’re going from one to the next right now. How about y’all?”

I told her where we lived and she threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh y’all are crazy! We took that road into your town back when the kids were in carseats and I said Hail Marys the whole way down. My husband at one point had to tell me to just keep it to myself so he could focus on driving!”

And then her husband sidled up beside her — a cowboy in his Sunday best.

“Honey, these folks are from that town we drove the truck into, the one where I was crying the whole time.”

He laughed, his eyebrow and his smile and his hat all cocked to one side, “that’s the hardest town to live in America as far as I’m concerned.”

We smiled, knowing well and good running an actual ranch would always be more challenging than a dedicated shoveling routine.

The next calf out the gate was bigger, and two riders launched out behind them. It was the team roping event, and yet again, we had no idea what was going on. There was yelling in the paddock and we looked at each other confused. Our new favorite cowboy leaned over, “the heeler couldn’t get that one tight.” In team roping, there’s a header and a heeler. The header lassoes the calf’s head while the heeler lassoes the feet. Time is called when you’re facing each other on your horses with each rope taught.

“This next son of a bitch is dating my daughter.”

“Is he good?”

“One of the best,” he said under his breath, eyes locked on the paddock. “Here he comes.”

They had the calf in 5.3 seconds. They’re in high school, competing at the pro level in rodeo.

I turned to the cowboy.

“At least he’s good,” I offered as a consolation for his daughter dating someone who ropes faster than he does.

“Never seen a person drink so much chocolate milk in my life. Every night that kid is in my house drinking my chocolate milk. And at first, I was thinking to myself, what the hell is wrong with this kid? But then I sat with it, and ya know what, better chocolate milk under my roof than something else under someone else’s. That,” he pointed, “that’s my daughter.”

She sat on a chestnut some 20 feet behind us in a floral top tucked into her high-waisted jeans, her massive iPhone tucked behind her even bigger belt buckle. Whether it’s a mustang or a Mustang, teenagers remain teenagers. Minutes later, she too was all speed into the paddock, a barrel racer since she could ride. The evening’s hopes were dashed when the first barrel fell, clipped by the horse’s shoulder. A quiet and clipped “dang’it” before her dad excused himself from his perch against the fence with us.

What a teenage dream.

Rodeo culture was only something I was peripherally aware of growing up. At the county fair, where my mom’s quilts would win their ribbons, I would watch the rodeo girls give themselves with speed and abandon to the ring, one with their horses. I grew up with a trail horse riding hunter jumper — a posh sport I only ever felt like an outsider in.

But even with the romance, rodeo is a tough thing to wrap your heart around this late in the game. It is sport at the expense and fear of animals. No matter how fast you cut the rope, or how much the bronco “knows what’s happening,” the root of most events is either the fear of the calf, or the anger of the bronco or bull. Barrel racing was maybe the only event I felt joy watching, but even then, I’m clouded by my own romanticism of a woman’s relationship with her horse.

Before the cowboy had left us to tend to the broken spirits of his daughter, I asked him a few questions.

“Who supplies the calves and broncos?”

“Contractors — they’ll have a whole business around it. They’ll take a cut of say 10% for each rodeo. All the calves and steers and broncos here tonight are from one supplier. ”

“Do some suppliers have a reputation of having like, tougher broncos or faster steers?”

He turned to look at me from under the brim of his hat.

“You bet your butt they do. They’re raising ‘em fast and strong and wild enough that when they get here, they let you know it.”

I imagined a tough bronco idling back into his stable after another night at the rodeo, regaling the colts and fillies with stories of how he’d thrown another cowboy in under two seconds — a fairy tale that does more work to make me feel good than any horse. But under a dark sky fighting the last light of day, the sound of horses nickering and sighing in paddocks and trailers, I left feeling more a part of this place than I had before.

A few days ago, a Northern Flicker flew head first into one of our windows, knocking itself dead onto our deck. I heard it happen while I was on a Zoom call. I would deal with it later. But when later came, so too had the magpies. They had decimated the flicker, eating every ounce of muscle off his pterodactyl-like body, leaving only bones, tendons, feathers, and beak. Nature has no pity. It’s a cycle, and what’s given is always taken. The way of death in the wild is often brutal and merciless. I think often of cats who thousands of years ago seemed to collectively decide living with us would be easier than going it alone, terrible as we could be.

Looking at the animals at the rodeo, when they’re not in an event, they’re in myriad states of being fine. Eating, nuzzling, leaning on their owners, snoozing by their trailers. It’s just a work night for them, and they’ll be back to the pasture soon enough. Whether it was my grandfather in the mounted police, my mother herding cattle, my dad tying pack strings, or me just sliding over the head of my horse as she let me slip to the ground, I know there can be something special there in that bond, in pushing each other to do difficult and challenging things, of hanging on for dear life when things don’t go as planned.

Closing time in the corral.

Up in this valley, there’s no room for livestock. We’re all on old mining lots, big enough for a house and a shed and couple of trucks. But down the road, in an avalanche path that sits innocent and flower-ridden in the summer, there are three horses who join us at the beginning of monsoon season through when the leaves make their way to the ground. They run amongst the puddles and marmot holes, nipping at each other and the grass, enjoying the scenery as much as it benefits from them being in it. One of those horses was spooked earlier this year, and kicked his owner. Broke her pelvis, I believe. An accident. And she’s still out there, mucking and grooming, because she loves them. She respects them. And in partnership with her, they live long and protected lives.

Because I grew up with horses, it comes up every few years whether or not we should try to build a life that could include them. I care less about riding them than I do just being with them. There’s a reason entire therapeutic programs have been built around time spent with horses — there’s something they can intuit about a person. And maybe like people, they want to serve a purpose. Or maybe, like people, they want to do hard and dumb things just for the joy of it. Maybe rodeo isn’t it, but maybe for some of them, it is. I don’t know. I can’t know. I can barely understand most humans, let alone our hoofed compatriots.

But I do know that if I want to understand where I am, who I’m surrounded by, and what our future can look like together, it requires time spent out of my comfort zone, time immersed in someone else’s, and if I can find the right fit, at least one evening every summer hollering from the bandstand in a real good pair of Wranglers.