The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day 42

Watch out!” Ronald and I yelled simultaneously to the boys. The cow took a flying leap and cleared the fence just missing us and others beside us

We watched them as they were let into the ring, the horses’ heads down, heels up in the sky.

They knew every trick in the book for unseating riders and didn’t hesitate to use them.

The cowboys knew all the moves also and were expert in moving into what they anticipated the horse would try next but I wondered how they could stay on any of the horses for one second let alone eight.

The roping of calves was the next event. The calves had been herded straight from the open range and had hardly, if ever, seen man or horse before. They were wild, nervous and fleet of foot.

The aim of the cowboy was to lasso one with his lariat while galloping through the ring, then jump off his horse and tightly bind his captive all in the fastest time possible.

“Six seconds – that’s what they have to beat to make a new record,” I overheard someone say in the crowd. “But I sure don’t think they’ll do it today.”

Simplicity

We watched them let loose the calves into the ring and then in came the cowboys – man and horse moulded together.

The art of swinging a lariat (it was never called a lasso in Alberta) looked simplicity itself but I knew what endless practice and usage it must take to be able to catch, with such fine judgement and accuracy, these madly running calves.

It was a spectacular sight to watch them catch the calf, jump from the horse with the speed of light and truss up the four feet of the struggling beast.

No one did it in six seconds that day but one or two were not far off it.

Other events were equally as breathtaking. Texan bulls were let into the ring. They were all lean and rangy. Some so thin that you could count every rib in their sinuous bodies. They had long mean pointed horns.

They were allowed to run round the ring for a while and then in came the mounted cowboys.

Their task was to get as close to one of these beasts as possible, get hold of a horn, jump on to its neck and by a clever manoeuvre tip the beast over with four feet off the ground.

I was glad that this task was accomplished fairly early on. The first to do so was the winner and the contest was over.

I was relieved, I could see it was a dangerous occupation.

“Dangerous,” said a cowboy. “What you’ll do when you’re young! I’ve sure left some flesh on different stamping grounds but there is one thing that no one could ever persuade me to try and that is to ride a Brahmin bull. For me, certain death. They’d kill you in a minute.”

That was the next event – Brahmin bull baiting. I shut my eyes at this one. I’d had enough and Mandy had told me this was the most dangerous event of all. Sometimes a cowboy was killed.

I heard the ohs and ahs of the crowd, felt the mounting tension around me and then at last the cheering.

“You can open your eyes now, Mummy. lt’s over and there’s nobody deaded,” said Richard.

Cheering

A later event was a little less dangerous, perhaps, and certainly amusing. That was the wild cow milking.

The cows were let into the ring, the mounted cowboys cantering after them in pairs.

One cowboy concentrated on throwing his lariat round a cow’s neck and restraining it as best he could while his partner jumped off his horse holding a bottle and procured spurts of milk into his bottle from a madly thrashing cow. Not easy!

Quite a bit of clowning went on, some cowboys getting more spurts of milk over their faces than into the bottle.

There was loud cheering as one after the other cowboy rushed to the winning post to get their few spurts of milk accurately measured.

The winners were the team who had the most milk in their bottle in the fastest time.

I actually got the biggest fright just towards the end of this competition.

Suddenly one of the cows was rushing towards us from inside the ring. I could see what it was meaning to do.

“Watch out!” Ronald and I yelled simultaneously to the boys. It took a flying leap and cleared the fence just missing us and others beside us.

On it barged and taking another flying leap cleared the second barrier also.

My heart was still thumping madly when I heard a calm voice drawling from the loud speaker in the ring: “That one’s sure in a hurry. I guess it just can’t wait to get back to the open range.”

In the evening the big event was chuckwagon racing. Chuckwagons were covered carts, replicas of those used long ago for carrying food across the prairies by homesteaders on trek. It was exciting to watch.

Each team was all out to win. There were quite a few collisions although no major damage ensued.

In the middle of it all, a chill wind blew in from the Arctic reminding us that it might be high summer in Alberta, but that there was little to stop a wind coming straight from the North Pole.

Irritable

The boys were getting tired and irritable and Mahri-Louise hungry. We made for the car. While I was feeding Mahri-Louise, Ronald and I talked over the day’s events.

“What now?” I asked, “head for the open prairie?” Instinctively I knew Ronald didn’t feel like going home just yet.

“What’s on your mind?” I queried. “There’s a party planned after dark in the supermarket,” he replied. “We are invited and the kids too, of course.”

Darkness fell sooner and more quickly than it would have on a Scottish summer evening. In the back of the car Ronnie and Michael had fallen asleep.

Richard was, as usual, as wide awake as an owl. Mahri-Louise nodded off as I cradled her in my arms. I placed her gently in the pram that now, without its wheels, served as a carrycot. It fitted nicely over the front seat.

Ronald drove close to the door of the supermarket and he took Richard with him.