by Jessi Marlatt
“Cowboys, they’re born,” said Gunnison Rancher Jerry Bates. “They’re not made. It is born in them.”
The lives of cowboys have changed over the past century, but the spirit and desire for a simple life remains strong in the blood of these men born with a calling.
Traditionally, the “real cowboys usually didn’t take a truck everywhere,” said Bates. Rather than the use of an engine, the men would “start out in a trot and then they’d lope awhile, and then they’d trot awhile and then they’d lope awhile until they got to the range.” That was only the journey to the jobsite.
Once the cowboys arrived on the range they would work cattle all day. This consisted of moving the herd and splitting the cows apart.
The cowboys would usually circle around the herd; one person would ride his horse in and chase a particular cow away from the rest. The job of the other cowboys was to determine which cow needed to be separated and to keep the rest within the bunch.
The cowboys of the Gunnison Valley in the first half of the twentieth century were men who loved the work, even though the pay was often better in town. Bates recalled, “I used to work for $175 a month in 1961. After that I still had to buy my own coal to keep my family warm.” This was a time when cowboys didn’t always ride the pure bred quarter horses of today.
“People didn’t have money to buy really good horses; they weren’t really well bread horses. A lot of them were cold blooded horses that had a lot of buck in them,” said Bates. This extra buck was often due to the fact that the horses were allowed to run on the range until they were four or five years old. At this age the horses’ spirits would be broken and the horse would be trained to be ridden. In modern times, horses are often broke at a younger age. This minimizes the amount of spirit—and in turn buck—that a horse will have.
A cowboy needs more than a good horse to do his job. As Bates grew up, “just a few people had cow-dogs, but not many. There weren’t too many people who knew much about them or how to get them.”
But now the story is drastically different. Bates believes “you can’t have too many cow-dogs” as three of his begin to bark outside. He remembered when his friend Lawrence Phelps had six or seven dogs at one time. “But he could control them,” stated Bates. “He rode by himself so he depended on his dogs.”
There are certain rules that go along with life on the range, and one of them pertains to the treatment of another man’s cow-dogs. “You don’t feed it or touch it if you want to stay friends. Don’t touch it and don’t feed it,” reiterated Bates. “You can kick it, but don’t feed it.”
Bates told the story of Gary Kinsey; “Gary was there with this other guy and they were setting and eating and he threw a piece of bread to Gary’s dog and Gary said ‘Do you want that dog?’ and the guy said ‘No, no, I don’t want it.’ And Gary said ‘Then don’t feed it. I’ll feed it. You can kick it, but don’t feed it.’”
The reason to never feed another man’s dog lies in loyalty. According to Bates, “It’s better to kick a cow-dog then to feed it, because they will get to where they are going with other people and it’s just better if they know who their master is.”
A good horse, and a good dog care aides to the cowboy, but the tack—or equipment—used is just as important.
There is the silk scarf worn around the neck of a cowboy. This is for warmth in the high country and to protect the lungs from dust storms out on the plains.
With the use of synthetic materials such as nylon, the haters do not break as easily as the leather straps of the past.
Bates believes “the saddles are a hundred percent better than they used to be.” Meaning they are more comfortable. “For years I thought that when you rode a horse you were supposed to hurt, ‘til I got a good saddle and it made all the difference in the world.”
According to Bates, it is not necessary for a cowboy to be born and raised on a ranch; in fact he believes that some of the best riders can be people from the city. These riders often compete in rodeos—the only place with any money for a cowboy—but are still born knowing they want to ride. “A lot of them probably never lived on a ranch, but there are good kids that come from ranches that are good cowboys too. It definitely doesn’t make that much of a difference.” To be a cowboy is a way of life not just where a hat is hung or the clothes put on each morning.
There are many people in the world who look—to the untrained eye—like cowboys. But these people are what Bates calls “wannabes.” They are, “someone who dresses up in western clothing and they’re always really neat dressed but don’t know much about horses or cows.” To Bates these people are not cowboys because, “they just mostly go to town to be dressed up like a cowboy.”
For a real cowboy, “You love your horses, you love your dogs, then you love your wife.” Bates smiled to his wife. “But your horses and your dogs, they get to be with you all the time so they become your real buddies. Your wife kicks you out of the house at daylight and doesn’t see you again until dark.” This is just another rule of the riders.
Daniel Martinez, of Pagosa Springs stated, “I’ll never get married because there isn’t a woman that I could love more than I love my horse.” Two months later, his horse escaped and began running with a herd of wild Mustangs, within the year Martinez was a married man.
The heart of a cowboy is devoted to riding. Bates, now seventy years old, claims his favorite thing about being a cowboy is the horses.
Bates said he also loves the quite. “Most people anymore don’t appreciate the quite. That is the best thing to me, just being alone with my horse and my dogs in the quiet. Just the birds and the wind. That means more to me than just about anything.”
Cowboys far and wide will agree, it is about the love for a lifestyle that will continue for generations to come.
Western State Writers Spring 2009 