From time to time, I astound someone – and whine a little – about how often we as a family moved. My best guess is somewhere north of 42, not counting moving from one house or camp to another on the same ranch.
Apparently, cowboying is a transient business. Those men – some are women now, but I don’t have insight into their personalities – have a strong urge to see the other side of the mountain and will not tolerate insult whether real or imagined. At least the good ones don’t. They are too sought after to have to stay somewhere they are unhappy for whatever reason. It is akin to Patrick Mahomes or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looking for a new place to play ball. They would be snapped up in a New York minute, and the same is true for the handful of top hands.
The Stranger was such a hand. The folks at the Forest Service might not have known him by sight, but they knew him by reputation. He – and consequently the ranch owners – was never sited for overgrazing or mucking out riparian areas. His stock went on at the right time, came down at the right time and were kept out of the waterways.
He did not tolerate crap from his employers. And if that meant I never got rid of our moving boxes, it also afforded me a life that most would love to have.
I have ridden the shale fields in Colorado, the high narrow game trails in Idaho and the wide grassy plains in Montana.
I have heard elk bugle from among the aspen trees down in the fall and seen bears in the wild. The black bears were too close for comfort, but the grizzly was just the way I like them – far away and headed in the opposite direction at a high rate of speed.
I’ve driven carriage in Georgia and sleighs in Estes Park. I’ve hauled trailer loads of bulls across Oklahoma and Nebraska and horses across half the country. I’ve lived 38 miles to the pavement, been off grid for months and heard wolves cry in the distance.
We have been chased horseback by moose and spent more hours than the law allows pushing cattle where those cattle don’t want to go.
There have been unexplained instances, too, when those cattle would not stay in good grass near clear water, nearly beating us home because they felt the same hoodoo that made our horses blow and snort in places the ancients did not want us to be.
I’ve tagged calves and pulled calves and lost calves. I’ve ridden (or driven) good horses and broncy pissheads. I’ve walked because I could not stand that rotten soand- so one more mile. I’ve gotten mad and gone back to the house and I took the dogs with me.
It hasn’t always been fun – those who say they would like to work on a ranch haven’t done much of it – and it has been hard. There were times when I questioned my own sanity, which is easy to do when sleet is hitting you in the face so hard your horse is walking with its head turned sideways.
But it has been an adventure every mile and I would go back to it tomorrow. I guess life is like that, you don’t recognize the good times until they are gone.
So this is a giant thank you to the Stranger, his way of life, his dogs, muddy boots and rotten horses. To his halfpacked boxes and unbending attitude. I would not be who I am now if he was anything other than a cowboy.