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When You're Dad's a Cowboy
January 2005
 My dad flew off his horse and landed on the rock-hard
ground with a thud.
The
big three-year-old buckskin he’d been riding kept bucking until hitting the fence
on the other side of the corral. Dad and I both stared at each other for a moment,
him flat on his side in front of the crowding alley and me in the doorway of the
old barn on his South Dakota ranch.
"Are
you all right, Dad?" I noticed blood poured from a chunk of skin ripped off
his nose.
"Well,
I think I might have broke a nail." He said and held his wrist aloft. It was
in the shape of a well-formed 'S'.
We
headed into the closest emergency room 80 miles away.
"You
got good tires on this car?" Dad asked.
We
made good time.
For
as long as I can remember I have been trotting around at the heels of my Dad's well-worn
cowboy boots, bouncing beside him in a dusty pickup, or riding along with him as
we moved cows. Whether the ranches were in Wyoming, Arizona, or South Dakota I've
frequently been at my happiest helping him with ranch work.
I
spent a week on my parent's South Dakota cattle ranch this December to write and
gather information and images for my current novel. I found myself chuckling as once
again we walked out to doctor a filly with a torn leg. I was doing the same thing
at age 36 that I'd done at 6. And, still loving it.
That
day Dad and I were going to go for a ride down in 'the breaks', where the flat prairie
pours down into rugged cedar and juniper dotted ravines leading down to the Cheyenne
River. I was going to ride Dad's main working ranch horse, Speed, and Dad was going
to ride his green-broke gelding, Lucky (who has since been re-named… to Bucky).
It
had been six months since Lucky had last been ridden, but he came in from the pasture
and took the saddle well. Dad did expect him to crow hop a bit, so he mounted right
there in the corral. As soon as Dad climbed into the saddle Lucky started bucking.
He bucked and lunged up toward me where I stood in the barn door. He stopped when
he ran into Speed, but then Speed spooked and bolted and Lucky started bucking again.
Several jumps later Dad got off to the side and with the next buck was down on the
ground.
By
the time we made it to town, Dad could no longer move his legs. An hour later he
was in excruciating pain with any movement of his torso, despite a pain threshold
that mere mortals can only dream of. Seeing my adored father in such agonizing pain
led me to the previously undiscovered wonders of straight tequila and cigarettes.
At one point after a long day of searingly painful tests for him, he was getting
an MRI and for the umpteeth time that day I thought I was going to pass out. I laid
down on the cool tile floor right there in the office, cheek to the tile, bum in
the air. The doctor turned and saw me and said, "Um, ma'am? Would you mind waiting
somewhere else, please?" No problem. I crawled out of the office and into the
arms of José Cuervo and the Marlboro Man. They now come highly recommended
to fend off nausea and feinting spells.
A
separated pelvic bone, shattered wrist, internal bleeding and one week later, Dad
was released from the hospital.
His
first day home the yearling fillies got out of the corral. Dad was out there shuffling
along with his rolling walker, trying to bring them back in, with Mom following
along behind carrying his catheter bag.
The
glamours of the ranching life never cease….
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"First day home after the hospital"
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"1976"
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