I’m leaning against the top rail of a paddock bristling with spindly-legged black and white calves, brawny quarter-horses and bulging-with-muscles black bulls.  Across the dusty paddock, beyond the verdant woodlands, shimmering in the August heat, rise the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.

“Why is there so many horses daddy?” my ten-year-old son asks, lifting his Red Sox hat to wipe his sweat-sheened little brow.

One light brown horse turns his head towards to the sound.

“I don’t know?”

“Thought you knew ever’thing,” his sister, three years younger, snaps happily, squeezing my hand.

“Maybe it’s recess,” my son laughs.

The light brown horse slowly approaches, backs up and approaches again. He stares hard at us, his nostrils flaring, as he tries to determine if we have treats. 

My daughter, picking up on his cue, stoops, grapples with some wiry, yellow grass, gaining enough to offer the skittish animal a paltry treat.

Again his nostrils flare, his long head bops, his hooves trace lines in the dirt.

“Here missie, this is what y’all need,” says a trim, fifty-something year-old cowboy, complete with broad-brimmed hat, tan shirt, faded jeans, dusty boots. 

He’s about twenty feet down the wooden railing holding out a slender carrot toward my daughter.

She stares at the carrot, flicks her hazel eyes to mine, then back to the carrot.  She grabs her brother by the arm and tries to propel him toward the carrot.  He shrugs her off, scowling beneath the brim his Red Sox hat.

“See, this here is what they all eat miss,” he smiles warmly at her shyness.  “‘Cause they is atha…leets.”

He gently waves the slender carrot up and down.

“Go on, one of you can take it,” I exercise my role as episodic familial executive.

Head down, her hand reaches out limply, but she doesn’t step toward the cowboy.  Her brother turns away, deliberately disinterested.

The cowboy walks the twenty feet toward her.

“Now that there feller’s name is Bob…cat,” he places the carrot in her hand.  “We don’t usual give ‘em names, but Bobcat, he’s a sociable feller an’ he whinnies kinda sharp like some guy offa the TV, so the boys down the yard give ‘im that name.”

He turns, adjusts his hat and looks into the paddock.

“Now be careful, he aint got no aim at … all with them there teeth a he’s,” he forces out a guttural chuckle.  “Juz hold that carrot one end an’ he’ll free it from yer hand pretty durn fast.”

Her skinny seven-year-old arm extends through the wooden rail, the carrot protruding towards Bobcat.  His nostrils quiver, hooves dance in the dirt. 

Behind Bobcat crowd three more quarter-horses, their long faces swimming in the dusty, sultry air.

Bobcat lurches forward.

My daughter drops the carrot.

Her arm shoots back inside the rail.

All of us, except the cowboy, back up from the rail. 

Bobcat stops and backs up in confusion.

The carrot lies on the hooved, dusty ground; a thread of orange drawn in the tan soil.

Another quarter horse rushes around Bobcat, nose to the ground, nostrils noisily flaring.  The new horse rummages roughly in the dusty soil with his nose; the sight of his jaw muscles moving being the only indication of victory.

“Aint they a well nourished bunch,” the cowboy says, with a half laugh.  “There’s lots a people don’t eat as good this bunch, let me tell ya that.”

“Yeeeaaah,” I say, dragging out the word to enhance my concurrence.

The horses are indeed impressive with their perfectly defined muscles, glistening hides and bursts of energy in which one horse takes off at a gallop only to be joined in seconds by the others.  A herd of twenty or so athletic looking animals careening around the paddock while the jet black, bulging with muscles, bulls sit in the dusty dirt, with their jaws sideways chewing the cud, as they look on languidly.  

“There’s no business like show business,” he says with a sigh, “an’ these fellers, including tham there bulls put on row…dee…oh like you aint never seen.”

“Ooohh,” I nod in recognition.

I had seen a retro poster for a rodeo in the ranch restaurant: A canary yellow background with a nutbrown woodcut of a bucking horse at an impossible angle, a cowboy on his back, one hand clasping the reins, the other forcing down a wide brimmed cowboy hat.   

“So, these animals all came in just for the rodeo tonight?” I ask.  “I thought a rodeo would all be just local people with their horses an’ stuff.”

“Oh no partner, no, no, no, there’s some a little a that.  But keeping atha…leets like this is an expensive business, an’ rodeo’s a business, just like any other business,” he shakes his head a lot.  “I ben in this business since I wuz twenty-one.  Started with jus’ a couple a horses, now I gots a ranch out in Iowa, the Three Hills Ranch, with three hundert horses, a hundert fifty bulls.  I got a buyer as gets me them calves, then sells ‘em on when they’s too big no more fer the arena.”

“That’s a long way for these guys to come,” I nod at the busy paddock.

One of the bulls, a block of muscle wrapped in black leather, is up moving around.  He’s calm and inquisitive, his nose down to the dusty ground sniffing at something unseen.

“Don’t they mind that?  I mean loading them up into trucks, those long journeys.”

“Weellll …, like I said, it’s a business … we all do ‘bout twenty shows a year.  This here crew’ll do ten of ‘em,” he takes his cowboy hat off and waves it at the paddock.  “We’re three nights here at the Flyin’ Doubleyah, tanite, Fridah, Saturdah, that being the biggest night.”

He puts his cowboy boot up on the bottom rail, dragging it to clean the dirt off the sides. 

“Then we’ll go on home, an’ when I’m bustin’ mah hump gittin’ ready for the next trip, these fellers’ll be restin’ up in the fields.  They all’ll git a coupley a weeks a loungin’ ‘round afore they hit the road agin.”

He takes a step closer.

“I’ll ya what.  Them thare animals deserve the rest an’ all the high calorie food they can get,” he lowers his voice.  “They’s the real stars a the show.  Cowboys cum an’ cowboys go, but these fellers an’ gals they work so hard in that arena … whay afterwards you cud knock ‘em over with a shove.”

With two fingers extended, he gives my shoulder a gentle shove.

“Well, we hope ta see ya all at the show tonight.”

“Ohhhh,” I start looking for a better excuse than I have, “we’re goin’ to a concert in town, … some kids group, kinda thing.”

“Aint that a durty shame!” he says with genuine regret.  “I’d a luv these little ‘uns ta see the show.  Bet they don’t see no rodeos up in Boston city.”

He points at my son’s Red Sox hat.

“I’n gettin’ a pony,” my daughter says to no one and everyone.

“Gud for you gurl, get a gud one, a quarter horse is the best, learn how to ride for real.”

“Eh, we’re n…, we don’t have really any space to keep a horse,” I say, feeling both ridiculous and cruel with every word.

“I ken keep it my room,” my daughter says to the cowboy.  “It’s going to be white, with a vury long tail, … a pony tail.”

She chuckle-laughs at her own joke.

“Well missie, keep up yer nergotiations with yer dad here an’ you’ll work it out.  Just remember kids, don’t nuthin in life that’s wirth nuthin cum ta ya for free.  Ya gotta fight for ever’thin’!”

We leave the paddock area and head across a yellow grassed courtyard towards the blacksmith’s forge. 

On this short walk, along with the humidity, the dust clogging my sinuses, the horseflies extracting lumps of flesh from my neck, my daughter hammers away with her seven-hard-year’s gained logic at the anvil that is her stupid, stupid, stuuuuppid father’s incomprehension as to how accommodating an equine lodger in her room would be so simple: “He can poop in the closet an’ I’ll just close the door.”

“This is not the Global Warming we’re talkin’ about!” I admonish, generating deliberate confusion. 

“It’s not possible to just pretend there isn’t a pony in the closet!”

Thankfully the blacksmith has a red-hot fire going so we can warm ourselves to full on heat exhaustion in about thirty seconds.  But at least we’re out of the relentless sun, and the horse flies don’t seem to be quite as thick in the dimness of the forge.

The blacksmith is a bulky man, with enormously broad shoulders and forearms modelled on Popeye’s.  For a man of his girth and scowling face, he’s remarkably gentle with the old horse he’s shoeing. 

Gentle but firm. 

The horse he’s shoeing is big, shaggy-haired, white and pensive.  It turns to look at the sudden movement of my two kids dashing forward for a better look at the sole of its hoof held aloft by the blacksmith.

A sixty-something-year old man holds the horse’s bridle, but gently so he can turn.  This man is in a slightly-ridiculous-when-seen-not-on-a-ranch sky blue cowboy outfit, … well, actually it had been sky blue once upon a time, but now it’s kind of a tired blue, with dark clouds of stains on the knees and white threadbare clouds on the stretched elbows

A boney, sixty-something woman, in a matching once-upon-a-time sky blue cowgirl outfit sits on a folding chair, well out of horse kicking range, talking with barely a breath pause.

“Them durn shoes is gittin’ ta be as expensive as mah own shoes,” she furrows her brow; thin black lines of penciled on eyebrows dart toward each other.  “Whay, I wuz down Sears a coupley a weeks back an’ they all had shoes from over Europe way as wuz a gawd awful price, I tol’ the manager, I says ta him, whay in the name a the gud Lord would a person pay near a hundert dollars, one … hundert … dollars ‘Merican …”

The blacksmith’s strong arms cradle the horse’s hoof as he expertly drives home a nail with three quick swings of a shiny steel hammer. 

“… this weren’t no Canada Sears I wuz in, I won’t buy nuthin up there ‘cept mah pills, I don’t know what stuff costs up there, no one does, they got that Monoplee money they use, that aint real, what if I wuz ta try an’ pay you for that there shoe with some a that funny money …”

The blacksmith clips any loose edgings off the hoof with what looks like a huge wire cutters. 

“…a theirs with a photer a the Queen on it, if I didn’t seen her on it I might a thought fer real it wuz from some stoopid game, an’ then they wants ya ta pay them ta takes it back at the border, less an’ ya want to take it home to leave in t’ever’thin’ drawer …”

The blacksmith files the horse’s hoof, the shavings peel off to leave a whitened border. 

“… some little hussy in behind a big piece a glass an’ her speakin’ with hardly no English, I though they wuz a English country, this ‘un she said she on’y speaks Franch gud, well that aint no gud ta me I says, I didn’t drive ten hours ta haf someone tell me …”

When she slows for a breath, the blacksmith snorts loudly and says:

“Turn this ol’ girl round an’ we’ll git the front ‘uns done.

“… what language ta speak, I on’y speaks one language, ‘Merican.  Watch ya’ll don’t trip mah gurl turnin’ her, she’s gitten all a lame on me, sometimes I feel bad headin’ out on the trail, she should just stay home with me an’ her lookin’ in the trailer windah at mah soaps.”

She sighs long and loud, giving the blacksmith a chance to jump:

“This ol’ gurl’s hooves is … o…k, but she’s tender as all getout when I touch them ankles a hers, I’d say ya shud talk ta that vet in town, he’s a German feller, believe it or not, yeah, a German, an’ he knows horses pretty gud, cattle better, but horses fair ‘nough.  He’ll tell ya what ta give her fer that sorta pain.”

“Oh mah poor baby, her legs is hurting, she aint young no more, I aint young no more.  Fer some reason last night I wuz thinking about mah ol’ friend Linda May.  See one time Linda May was stayin’ over in mah trailer, ‘cause her man, Bob, wuz on the town, an’ she was staying over an’ wearin’ mah pajamas, a pair of yeller pajamas.  An’ ya know of course, Linda May was a little rounder in the middle than me.”

She sits up erect on the folding chair and moves both hands in quarter circles in front of her once-sky-blue torso, until they meet with a small clap. 

“Anyways, Bob wuz goin’ at it pretty hard, an’ he come back late, well wasn’t Linda May out back a the camper having her a Pall Mall, that gurl loved them Pall Malls, I don’t know whay, her momma died a lung cancer, but that didn’t stop her none.  Anyhoo, when she heared Bob coming hootin’ an’ hollerin’ up the trailer park, she finished up her cigarette an’ got inside just before he come round the Appleman’s trailer.  ‘Member that Lucy Applemen, what a beee… she had her man git her the first a them big buses as is a trailer.  Well, Linda May thought she got in quicker than she did, cause, the next day, an’ us all sittin’ down for pancakes an’ bacon, an’ Bob with a head on him the size a Texas, he says ta everyone at the table; ‘but durned if last night I didn’t see the big…gest ever canary!’” 

“Aahhh,” the blacksmith says nodding his head but not looking up as his knife peels off hoof.  “So that’s where the canary girls come from.  I remember down at line dancing that’s what they all called you two.”

“Yeah,” she sighs loudly.  “That’s what done it.  Bob seeing Linda May in mah pajamas out back a the camper.  An’ now they’re all gone, all dead, just me an’ Ken left …”

She shakes her head a lot.

“… an’ a course our horses, but we don’t ride ‘em hard no more …”

She purses her thickly rouged lips.

“.. no, no, … no more hard riding.”

Later in the afternoon, when the sun was marginally less relentless and we were still full of equine-excitement, we signed up for a trail ride.  The stable-hand gave me a quick glance and then issued us large moving sofas of horses.  A perky young woman guided our group as our furniture-horses lumbered out of the stable yard.

“Y’all goin’ ta the row…deo tonight?” she asks turning easily in her saddle.

Beneath me Ezra, a broad backed, chestnut with a blonde mane, moves along automatically, my Cossack riding skills barely … actually not at all required.

“No, … no, we’re…,” I answer distractedly as Ezra stoops his head to grab some green weeds on the shady side of the barn.

“We are goin’,” my daughter says from her very comfortable position on top a small white pony with a pink bow on its tail.

“The man said we hafta because it’s a ‘durty shame’ we live in a borin’ city an’ don’t have horses to play with.”

“I guess we’re goin’ ta the rodeo,” I say, resignedly patting Ezra on his, or is it her, ample neck.  “The Singing Puppets will have a few, already paid for, empty seats.”

We trail on across the ranch.

As we pass the paddock full of rodeo animals, all the quarter horses crowd at the rails, snorting and snuffing.  Ezra turns his head to them, snorts loudly and turns his head back to the trail.  The guide’s horse whinnies, its head chucking back, mouth open revealing a row of solid, creamy-grey teeth.

We enter the woods on a narrow trails that opens onto a full width dirt road rutted by years of enormous campers getting towed in for rodeo and other weekend celebrations.  Off this road, every fifty or so feet, the trees and brush are cleared away leaving a bald spot large enough for a thirty foot plus camper trailer.  Some have water, sewer and electric hookups.  Some are just a bare opening the woods.

We lumber along, the guide exciting the kids for the rodeo.  She’ll be doing barrel riding on a pedigree quarter horse her uncle owns.  Interestingly, she doesn’t keep her horse in a bedroom closet; her uncle pays exorbitant fees to have it stabled on a ranch twenty miles away.  Not having the exorbitant stabling fee option available to me, I start to contemplate where we can possibly keep a stock of barrels in our apartment to entertain the horse stabled in my daughter’s closet. 

Ezra takes advantage of my zoning out and munches on anything even remotely green.

We all follow the guide, our horses clearly programmed for such maneuvers, into an empty camper spot to let a battered, black Dodge pickup truck pulling a tired camper pass us safely.  The driver, a seventy-something man with a sagging, unshaved faced, waves his hand and cigarette to us.  Blue smoke rises from the cigarette as his splotchy-skinned arm rests back on the open window, his five-second smile already faded.

“Cum on, we’ll get outta the way of all these campers,” our guide says, wheeling her horse left into a hiking trail. 

“They’ll be comin’ all day an’ all night.  Some of ‘em comes all the way from Long I…land.  They don’t get here ‘til the middle a the night, but it’s worth it just ta get away from the city.”

Sure enough, what looked like woods in the distance is heavily populated with campers.  Old couples sit in beach chairs by the side of the road waving to newcomers.  Grilles are getting set up: Enormous coolers filled with ice and Busch beer: Half empty bottles of Captain Morgan Rum are deposited on picnic tables next to huge bags of Utz chips: Nailed to tree is an old plastic sign: “A Cute Chick and an Old Rooster Live Here!”

Three hours and a few ice-cold Buschs on the front porch of our cabin later, I’m ready for my first rodeo.  It’s quite important to get that first rodeo behind you, so that in testy exchanges in the office you can, truthfully, snap: “This is not my first rodeo!”

After purchasing the standard What-Made-America-Grate high fat, high salt, high sugar snacks and one usuriously expensive bottle of lukewarm, plasticky water, we take seats high enough up on the bleachers that we can observe everything with minimal cowboy hat interruptions.

Across the arena, I can see the rodeo owner busy moving things along with impressive efficiency.

First up are the cowboys, some professional, roping the spindly legged calves.  The terrified calf bolts from a metal railed chute, dust flying where his hooves hit the dirt.  The cowboy, in a cream-colored hat, red gingham shirt and jeans, explodes into the arena on his quarter horse.  The calf’s front and back hooves touch beneath its belly as it careens down the arena, the quarter horse closing the gap at an alarming pace.

The calf is roped around the neck; in an instant the cowboy is magically out of the saddle and next to the calf; the gingham and denim grapples the black and white leather to the dirt; the ginghamed arms execute an elaborate bondage knot that seemingly ties every calfly appendage together into one mass of bovine flesh.

The cowboy stands and slowly waves to the crowd with his cream-colored cowboy hat.

We see this same routine, executed to different degrees of excellence, a lot.

Next up is barrel racing.

We watch for our guide, but every girl has pretty much the same cowgirl look: cream colored hat, ponytail, gaudy colored vest, jeans, cowgirl boots.  They fly through their routines, completing a race circuit in seconds that would take Ezra and I about a week, naps not included.

There’s other events but my daughter is too tired: An overdose of sunshine, junk food and horses.  She nods off in my arms.  I want to stay for the bull riding, so I bribe my son with another ice cream sandwich, but by the time I’ve carried my daughter down there and back, I’m ready a cold shower and a good sleep myself.

But the bull riding is worth the sweat and fatigue.

A silence falls over the arena as the cowboy climbs up the metal rails of the bull pen.  He’s dressed in a kinda-sorta football helmet, a flak jacket and bright red, frilly chaps.  In the arena stand four, extremely brave to the point of foolishness, cowboys in white aprons, florescent yellow baggy shirts. 

Out shoots a ginormous bull – way bigger than the ones we had seen in the paddock this morning.  This bull is fifteen hundred pounds of anger, with horns that look like they could deliver a cowboy to a gorey death! 

The cowboy on his back is desperately trying not to fall in front of the sharp horns and stomping hooves, but he barely lasts the bull’s first rollicking turn.

He’s cast like a rag doll across arena; his helmet kicking up a splash of dirt.

The bull turns, horns down looking for him.

The men with the worst job on the planet get to work in their white aprons and florescent yellow shirts.

They dart in front of the bull, slapping at his face, arms waving.

The bull will not be daunted until he gets at least one run with his horns at the cowboy.

But the rodeo clowns know their job and confuse and enrage the bull such that he chases one of them who goes just far enough that the cowboy can run safety.

The bull’s anger dissipates surprisingly quickly.

I feel my daughter tighten in my arms.

“What are they doing daddy?”

“It’s bullfigh… I mean bull ridin’.”

“No, it is bull fighting an’ the bull is winnin’.”