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There Have Been Other Adventures in my Life

I was a Cowboy for a while

Napajohnb
2006-01-03 20:37:34

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bed, the bike and horse were side by side. On the far side my brave mare went straight up the bank digging into the soft dirt and dragging us both up and over the top. Behind me I heard the bike stall and stop and a cloud of curses fill the air as I swung the heifer around and headed her back toward the herd.

The day may come when machines replace horses on the prairie but that day was not to be today.

"The Barnyard Rodeo"

It was a Saturday night a lot like most. I�d worked a half day and after cleaning up and putting on my best �go to town� clothes the boss had driven me into Winner, South Dakota. I had my $50 wages for the week, the going rate for ranch hands in the 1970�s and I was ready to spend it all.

First I checked into Ella Peashaw�s Hotel so my room would be paid for and within minutes I was headed for the bar, a few doors down. I went to the Indian bar this week. As a white guy I could drink either there or in the cowboy bar further up-town, but I�d been seeing a pretty Sioux girl, named Theresa, for a while so I was spending more time with the Indians these days.

The evening went as usual for a Saturday night. The bar was a dingy little place, with plywood over the windows and sawdust on the floor, loud and wild and just the way I liked it. Theresa and I put away our share of beer and danced to the juke box and dodged the fights that started a little later and settled down to the bar talks that started after the fighters staggered away or passed out as the evening wore on.
I was at the bar with several Indian men talking horses and the talk turned to broncos and bulls and rodeos. Several of the men were rodeo riders, including Frank, Theresa�s old boyfriend and he bragged enough that I finally felt the need to say that I could ride any horse they could come up with.

Now there was no real reason ...