What Is A Cowboy?

Probably not what you think.

I have mentioned before that actual cowboys are a rare breed. Just because you have a cowboy hat and know how to saddle up a horse doesn’t mean you are a cowboy. You may own a shiny one-ton pickup with a sticker in the back window of a cowboy on his knees praying next to his horse. You may ride bulls at the rodeo. You might even win some money at some local team roping events.

None of that stuff in an of itself makes you a cowboy. Why does my opinion matter? It doesn’t. I have spent so much time working around livestock with the people who own them, I’ve come to understand who knew what they were doing and who didn’t. Among the group who know what they are doing, there are a few who stand out in my memory. Those few are the cowboys.

So, what is a cowboy? In my opinion, a cowboy is someone who can do everything required in caring for livestock off the back of a horse. A cowboy knows how to train a good cow horse who will be an asset to him. A cowboy and his horse can sort cattle in a round pen quietly and efficiently. He can open and close gates without dismounting. He can stretch sagging barbwire fence with his horse. A cowboy treats the bosses’ livestock like they are his own. Maybe most importantly, a cowboy understands how livestock think.

I’ve known a scant handful of guys who are cowboys in my career. One of them is a man named Bob. He was probably in his late sixties when I met him twenty years ago so he may no longer be with us, but I thought I’d tell a fun story about a man I admire and learned a lot from.

Before I go on, I know that I keep referring to cowboys as males. I’ve known several women who were and still are great hands. I’ve got some stories to tell about them too. I’ll get to it. I’m a slow typist. Give me a break.

 I also want to make sure you understand that I am no cowboy. Not even a bad one. I have only moved cattle while riding a four-wheeler or driving the feed truck as bait to get the herd to follow me home. Despite my wife’s best efforts at teaching me to ride properly (that is a story to come!) I just want a horse to take me into the high country at a walk so I can hunt and fish for the day and then back down again. Honestly, I sit a horse like a sack of potatoes but I try not to. That being said, I know a cowboy when I see one.

I met Bob twenty something years ago at a ranch south of Harlowton. The owner of the place had called me to find out if I could fit them in to my schedule, and warned me Bob would not be pleased. He was the ramrod on the place, they call them managers now, but he also was the chief cook and bottlewasher as well. Bob always shod the horses on the place, and from our phone conversation I thought the owner was concerned Bob was getting too old to do it anymore. Bob evidently disagreed with that assessment. I wondered just how welcome I would be. This could get ugly.

Bob was standing in front of the barn as I drove in that first day. He glanced at his watch. I was ten minutes early as usual. He wasn’t going to catch me out there. Bob wore a beat up, black Resistol cowboy hat, faded Wranglers, and a long-sleeved shirt that had the elbows and cuffs worn out and was a tad tattered. His leather gloves were well broken in and sweat-stained at the wrists. He pulled off the right one to shake hands. The man had a grip like iron, but I anticipated it and gave as good as I got.

“You must be Bob.” I said.

“Yup. You must be the shoer. I’ve got them ready for you in the barn. Come on.”

Bob led me into the barn where three horses were haltered and ready. One was on the aisle on cross-ties and the others in their stalls.

“Toe and heels will be fine and make sure you don’t cut down their heels. I’ve got some irrigation I have to check on. I’ll be back.” And with that he climbed aboard a four wheeler and raced off in a cloud of dust.

People giving me instructions on how they wanted their animals shod was normal. Once I had a woman read to me on how to shoe her horse from a book which was amusing, because I knew the gentleman who wrote the book. Every shoer has it in his library.

People who told me what to do were just concerned about their horse which was fine. But I quickly learned that they almost always had no idea what they were talking about. I just did their horse according to my knowledge and expertise while nodding agreement to their instructions. It looked all the same to them! Bob’s instructions however made sense . Toe and heel shoes were something I had learned about when I came to Montana. They didn’t impress me much, but folks thought the horse got a better grip in the ground and the extra steel in the cleats would make the shoes last longer. They certainly didn’t hurt the horse and you only cut down heels in proportion to the amount of toe you trim so it was possible Bob knew what he was talking about.

I began to set up the truck to get to work and took a look around to get a feel for the place.

The ranch buildings were situated down in the bottom of the American Fork River. There were some modern houses there where the owner and his family lived, and an old homestead building that stood maybe fifty paces from a barn that must have been sixty years old or older. It was a typical western horse barn on a typical ranch. Low ceilings, small stalls, and a tiny well-sealed tack room that could barely contain the saddles, ropes, and bridles the ranch owned, not to mention horse cake and grain. It needed to be well-sealed to keep the mice and pack rats out.

There was the usual messy but at the same time orderly, accumulated bric-a-brac that horse barns collect. Broom and aluminum scoop shovels hung from spikes on the wall with a never emptied muck bucket of manure, horse hair, and hoof trimmings underneath them. An ever increasing pile of old horseshoes lay in a corner. A very stained and well used one-inch white cotton rope hung from another spike. An anvil sat on a stump in another corner with clunky old style shoeing and forging tools in a wooden box lying next to it.

The floor was made of worn cottonwood planks, a terrible wood for floors because it’s so soft. Of course, they probably didn’t have access to any other kind of tree back in the day when this place was built. As was usual with these kinds of floors, I started my day whacking down any nail heads that were sticking up so neither a horse nor I would trip.

It was dark inside the barn. So dark in fact that the light from the single light bulb seemed to be sucked up by the wooden walls. The walls were discolored from many years of accumulated dust and grime and no 40-watt bulb ever made would reflect off them, especially when the bulb itself was stained from generations of flies and moths that had incinerated themselves on it. Fortunately, the open barn door let in enough light to work by, but for some reason I always flipped the light on when I first entered. Habit I guess.

I was just finishing up the first horse when I heard the four-wheeler coming back. Bob strode up talking to the horse while still outside the door, letting him know that someone was coming in. I appreciated the thought. There wasn’t much room on the aisle and startling a horse in here could make things go Western in a hurry.

Bob picked up a front foot and inspected my work. He sighted down the foot to make sure everything was level. He ran his finger at the heels to check for length. He ran his whole hand around the outside of the foot and shoe to check the finish for smoothness.

He then set it down and bent over with his hands on his knees looking at the pastern angle. He squinted at me.

“That’s some nice work. I appreciate you made a nice crease all the way around between his foot and the shoe. That’s a professional touch. In the old cavalry days they called it a Quartermasters Crease.” He walked around the horse inspecting the rest of the feet. “What did you say your name was?”

“John.” I replied.

“Well. You’ll do John. When you’re done, write up the bill and I’ll be sure you’re paid before you leave.”

He stood at the horse’s head stroking his neck.

“Charlie was good for you?”

“You bet. Practically fell asleep.”

“Good. You’ll find all the ranch horses are like that. Well...” Bob sighed as he pulled his gloves back on, “I’ll let you get back to it. I’ll check back every half hour or so.”

He went outside and roared off again and he was as good as his word. Bob checked back every half hour, and two hours later I had finished the last horse and was cleaning up after myself. I noticed he didn’t do any more inspections, which pleased me. I guess he trusted me a little.

When Bob came back from the owners house, he looked a little embarrassed. I was expecting him to say he couldn’t pay me, and I would have to send a bill. This happened every once in a while, and I was ready for it but I wasn’t ready for what happened next.

“John, let me ask you something. Do you shoe green horses?”

“Well, it depends on what you mean by green. Do you mean young and stupid or a gorilla?”

Bob barked out a laugh and spit.

“Young and stupid but it’s my fault. I haven’t had time to work with her feet much. I’ve got her broke and can ride her around. I can even rope off her, but she gets foot sore easy and I need to get some shoes on her. It’s her damn white feet.”

The “white feet are bad” theory is commonplace in the horse world. There is a little rhyme about it.

“One white foot, buy him.

Two white feet, try him.

Three white feet, be on the sly.

Four white feet, pass him by.”

The rhyme is sort of true but in my experience, I’ve seen a lot of black feet that were in poor condition. I’ve also seen bi-colored feet the same way. I’ve just learned it’s best to keep my theories to myself and deal with each animal’s needs as they are presented to me.

“So, where is this horse?”

Oh, she is in a corral out back. Come on. I’ll show you if you got time.”

Out in the back corral was a little paint mare. The first thing I noticed was that she was short. That was probably why Bob didn’t mess with her feet. Short horses hurt your back.

“Sally is coming three.” Bob explained as he went to the corral and caught the horse.

Three years old and hasn’t had her feet done? That wasn’t good. Normally you begin picking up feet when they are foals. Then, you do all your groundwork including foot handling before you put a saddle on their backs. But at least she was easy to catch and seemed calm and interested in us.

I entered the corral to see what her reaction would be and again, calm and interested. I noticed her feet had been trimmed and said so.

“About that.” Bob said, “I needed to tie her feet up to do it.”

“You used that soft cotton rope in the barn and a saddle?”

“You know about that stuff?”

“I’ve seen it done.”

“Ever use it yourself?”

“No, it looked awkward to me and a little dangerous. You could get hung up in the rope and the horse could really hurt itself if it pitched a fit with one hind foot tied up.”

“You are right on both counts. But if you are willing to try, I don’t think her front feet will be a problem. It’s her hind feet that are trouble. She just acts like her hind end is tight and she doesn’t want to rest in your lap. I’ll pay extra for your time and trouble.”

The whole time Bob was talking I was running my hands over Sally. She seemed to not mind it. When I reached down for a front foot she picked it up and let me hold it.

Well, that’s not exactly true. She snapped her foot up with a lot of force and jammed my thumb but at least she picked it up. However, whenever my hand got anywhere near her hind end she tensed up and swished her tail in annoyance. I did manage to bring her right hind leg forward and catch her foot but she wouldn’t let me get under her. She just stomped her foot down and shifted her weight onto it to let me know she wasn’t having it. The positive thing was she never once offered to kick at me but I also hadn’t pushed the issue. I straightened up and walked to the front and stroked her neck, watching her eyes. They were kind eyes. Now that I wasn’t messing with her feet she sighed and relaxed. She sure wasn’t mean. I guessed she just didn’t understand what we wanted.

“Bob? Tell you what. I’m willing to try but I get to decide when to quit. Even if I only have one shoe nailed on. If I say enough, then that’s it.”

“That’s fair.”

“You’ll do all the rope work because I don’t know how. You’ll take full responsibility for the horse’s safety. This will take twice as long as normal shoeing, I would think, so the price is double, and I get paid the full amount even if we don’t get anything done. Deal?”

To be honest, I really hoped Bob would say no and just work on training Sally to be shod. Bob looked Sally in the eye.

“You are such a pain in the ass but you’re so damn pretty.” He whispered and then looked at me with a grin, “Just like my first wife.”

He led the mare towards the gate.

“It’s a deal!” he said over his shoulder, “Let’s go up to the small corral near your outfit and I’ll go get my shoeing rig from the barn.”

Bob’s shoeing rig was exactly what I thought it would be. A saddle with no stirrups and that dirty cotton rope I saw hanging in the barn. Letting her lead rope fall loose to the ground Bob swung the saddle up and onto Sally’s back then cinched up her belly bands. He walked her around a little then gained a couple more holes on the cinch strap.

“She likes to blow herself up a little every darn time.” Bob explained. “You want to start on the fronts?

“I think so. That way her sore feet will be protected even if we can’t get the hinds done today.”

“Good idea.”

While Bob tied Sally up to the post in the middle of the corral and got his rope ready, I went to my truck and got my hand tools along with a foot cradle and a three-legged stall jack.

“What the hell are those?” Bob asked.

“Well, the cradle is for Sally’s feet. The rope will be in my way so I can’t get her leg in between mine to hold it still. We’ll just lift her foot up and set it down in the cradle to work. But don’t let off all the tension on the rope. We don’t want her slamming her foot down and have to start all over. The other thing is a stall jack. I can shape shoes cold on it and save time walking back and forth to the anvil.”

“Where did you learn about this stuff? Shoeing school?”

“Nope. I apprenticed back east for a few years on the hunter/jumper circuit. Traveled up and down the coast following our barns. Started out on a coal forge to learn the right way to forge shoes. Graduated to a gas forge which we used on the truck. It took a few years but eventually I knew enough to be useful. You know how it is.”

Bob pushed his hat back on his head and gave me a look with those bright blue eyes of his like he was just seeing me for the first time.

“Yes sir, I do know how it is. I come up the same way cowboying. It does take a while to figure it out.”

Bob had a loop spliced in one end of the rope and put the standing end through it to form a sliding loop. That went over Sally’s pastern, the first straight bone above her foot, and then ran the rope up and took a turn on the saddle horn which is called a dally. I encouraged her to pick her foot up, keeping my thumb out of the way this time. Bob took up the slack on the rope, holding the mare’s foot up. She looked confused but didn’t offer to fight the rope. I slid the cradle in place, Bob lowered the foot, and I guided it onto the cradle’s webbing. We had a couple false starts when Sally snatched her foot away but sure enough, she figured it out and rested her foot so I could work on it. It was easy after that. Bob was pleased.

“She is a smart little thing, isn’t she?” he said never taking his eyes off the mare.

“She is that.” I replied, “Was your first wife like that too?”

Bob laughed and spit on the ground.

“She married me so how smart could she have been?”

I had finished nailing and stood up to take a quick break when Bob spoke up.

“So how are we going to clench her up? I don’t think I can tie her foot up going forward.”

“Oh, I’ll just hammer clench upside down.”

Clenching, or clinching, is how you bend over the clipped nails to the foot wall to keep the shoe on. Normally you use a clinching tool but it wouldn’t fit right with the rope in the way. Bob was curious.

“You’ll do what now?”

“Hammer clench. You’ll see.”

I really only clinched this way on draft horses because I didn’t own big enough clinchers, but I had gotten pretty good at it so even upside down I got it done. The clinches were tight and perfect squares just like they should be.

“I’ll be damned.” Bob said when I finished, “When I was a kid the local blacksmith did that to our two Percherons dad used for plowing and haying. They even took us to church on a sled when the snow got too deep for our ranch vehicle. I forgot all about it.” He took a closer look, “Looks real nice too.”

With both fronts done it was now time for Sally’s hinds.

“Ok, time for me to teach you something,” Bob said. “We have to change the set up. I’m going to put the loop over the horn and lay the rest of it down flat. You are going to gently push her over, so her hinds are straddling the rope. I’ll bring the rope around and catch her pastern, bring it forward and take a dally on the horn. She probably wont like it so be ready to move.”

We got Sally all squared up and balanced. Once Bob lay the rope out I pushed her over and she obliged by stepping over the rope. Bob brought the rope around, took his dally on the horn, and pulled her hind foot off the ground. Sally bent her neck to see what was going on. I stepped in staying very close to the horse’s side to keep away from flying hooves and slid the cradle into position. We lowered the foot down and cradled it just like the front feet.  I pulled out my hoof pick and cleaned out the underside of the foot, then trimmed and leveled the foot. I checked a shoe for size and then went to use the stall jack to shape it.

“I’m going to lower her foot to give her a rest while you are getting that shoe ready.”

“Good idea. I’ll shape both shoes because the two feet are so similar.”

Bob was loving on the little mare with little pets and compliments because she was so good. I had seen it before. Sometimes I could do things to a horse’s feet their owners just couldn’t do. I knew how to make the horse comfortable while trimming and shoeing. A horse can also sense if you are confident or nervous. Most owners don’t really know what they are doing with feet, and it makes them nervous. Nervous humans make nervous horses.

I was ready so Bob pulled the foot back into position. I checked for fit and was having a good day. The shoe fit perfectly. Eight nails later and some hammer clenches and we were done with the foot.

“I’ll be damned.” Bob muttered.

We switched sides and did the same procedure. I pushed her over, Bob pulled forward and took a dally and BOOM. Sally went ballistic.

I felt her pull back hard. I bailed and carrying my cradle ran for the corral walls. When I turned, Sally was sitting on the ground pulling with all her might on the halter and lead rope. Bob had managed to take the dally off when Sally first blew up so she wouldn’t hurt her leg. Sally was making some weird noises that sounded more angry than scared. Bob was standing there grimacing at the three-year-old.

“You alright?’ he asked.

“Fine. You?”

“I’m fine. This is what I get for thinking everything was going well. Come on Sally. Get up!” Bob yelled and slapped her butt with his glove.

Sally did not move except to redouble her effort to break that halter or pull the corral down, which ever came first.

I walked over.

“What if we both spank her butt with our gloves at the same time.”

“Ok. One, two, three!” We both whacked her with our gloves and screamed like banshees. It worked! She bounced up, stepped forward, and then reared back again. This time the halter buckle couldn’t stand the strain and popped open. Sally flipped over backwards and ended up on her back with all four feet pointing straight in the air. Bob and I ran for the walls again. Sally rolled over onto her belly and then stood up. She gave herself some big body shakes to get rid of the corral dust and stood there like nothing had happened.

“Damn horse can break their necks flipping over like that and slamming their heads on the ground. I lost a nice gelding like that years ago.” Bob said as he walked up to Sally and gave her a pet or two while checking her out, “You all right sis?” He asked her.

Sally seemed fine but we checked her over carefully. Not even a scratch.

“Do you have another halter, Bob?”

“You want to try again?”

“Yeah. I don’t want her to think she can win by doing a back flip.”

“Ok, whatever you say.”

Bob seemed incredulous that I would try again but I was serious. If Sally thought, she could pitch a fit to get out of doing something it would not end with shoeing. She would do it for everything and become useless as a ranch horse.

We got her all set up again, but this time Sally hung her head and never moved. On a hunch I took the rope off her leg and pulled her foot up to set it in the cradle. There was resistance but not much. I went as smoothly yet fast as I could. Finished, I set her foot down. Sally sighed a big ol’ horse sigh. I went to each foot and picked them up. The front feet I placed between my legs. The hinds I wasn’t brave enough to get under yet.

Bob was stunned.

“How did you know?”

“I just guessed. She’ll probably kick my head off tomorrow, but I hoped that her flipping over taught her something.”

“Like what?” Bob asked.

“That when humans want you to do something you just do it and then you can be a horse again when you’re finished. Got any cake or treats or something to give her?”

“You bet.”

Bob came back from the barn with a bucket of horse cake and a couple brushes. That was an excellent idea. We both brushed the dirt off Sally and fed her some cake as a reward for being so good. Most horses like a good brushing.

“I appreciate you being patient with her. Lots of guys wouldn’t be. Like I said its my fault she didn’t know about shoeing.”

“To be honest Bob, I only stayed and tried because you admitted it was your fault and didn’t blame the horse.”

“I’ll put her up in a stall and let her think about all this and turn her out with the others later. Would you like a cold beer? I’ve got some stashed in the homestead ice box.”

“That sounds good.”

Bob led the mare out of the corral and headed to the barn while I gathered my tools and put them away in the back of my rig.

“Hey Bob?”

“Yes sir?” Bob said from inside the barn.

“Your first wife’s name wasn’t Sally, was it?”

Peels of laughter rolled out the barn door.

“You are too damn smart for your own good. You know that dontcha?”

We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking a few bottles of beer in the shade of a big willow tree outside the old homestead. Bob regaled me with stories about the “bad old days” as he put it, growing up in eastern Montana.

Breaking horses for eating money. Long, lonely winters in a line shack feeding cattle with a sled and a team of horses when he was a teenager. Seemingly even longer summers putting up hay, if there wasn’t drought, which there almost always was. The time he broke his hip and had to ride twenty miles for help. That time the train caused a grass fire that started the cattle running and breaking fence. Took a week to find them all.

The mouse infested bunkhouses, the blizzards, the seedy bars and the fun dances where he chased the pretty girls. Brandings, bottle feeding calves, doctoring horses and other cowboys. Doing a C-section on a cow because no vet could be found and doing it by flashlight with a pocketknife. Both patients lived he said with pride.

We both polished off our last beer and I told Bob I needed to go home. We shook hands and he said he would give me a call in six weeks or so to schedule. I saw in my rearview mirror he had his hand raised waving goodbye and I stuck my arm out the window to wave back. It’s funny how you can make a friend when you least expect it.

So you see, if someone asks what a cowboy is, you can just show them this story about Bob. They just don’t make them like him anymore.

Once again, if you enjoyed this help me out by hitting the heart shaped Like button at the bottom. Feel free to share this anywhere and if you aren’t subscribed just enter your email address and line yourself out. You can do it for free or support me by taking a paid subscription. Weather sure has gotten warm so be careful out there and keep drinking water!