Home on the range
Hanging out at Rodeo Village, the cowboys’ campground
Cowboys apparently like to sleep in. At noon, Rodeo Village, the combination campground and horse barn that the Houston Livestock Show Rodeo offers rodeo competitors, is barely stirring.
Four young men sit at a long table covered with a red-checked cloth. They’re playing “Palisades,” though that’s not what they call the card game.
“Webster,” says Chuck Swisher, pointing across the table at his pal Cody Webster. “We call it Webster because he kind of makes up the rules as he goes.”
Webster squints back. In a Western, there’d be a gunfight now. But if Webster is trying to look menacing, he has a long way to go. Such is cowboy life in 2017.
Posh, for cowboys
For rodeo pros, Houston is just one more stop on the circuit. During the 20-day rodeo, Super Series contestants rotate in and out of Rodeo Village every few days.
As cowboy accommodations go, it’s posh. For horses, there are 300 tidy stalls, a pasture for roaming, and a fenced-in area for training. For people, there’s shuttle service and dry cleaning, not to mention the “Bistro.” The
tent with long cafeteria tables serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, cowboyfriendly food like chicken enchiladas and banana pudding. And at night, its proprietors lead Bible study.
Swisher jokes through the card game. Webster, more serious, talks earnestly about Bible study and how much he
loves meet-and-greets with the fans. They’re both from Oklahoma and both bullfighters — one of the most dangerous jobs in a dangerous field: They protect bull riders who’ve been thrown, distracting the raging bull so that it doesn’t trample the cowboy.
For them, the rodeo’s rhythms are different. While other cowboys rotate in and out of Rodeo Village, Swisher and Webster stay for the whole rodeo.
Later today, while other cowboys shine their boots and put on Wranglers and chaps, Swisher and Webster will paint their faces. They wear shiny gym clothes with sneakers to the competitions, not cowboy boots. Boots are for riding. They’re no good when you’ve got to outrun a bull.
Yes, ma’am
During the weeks that Rodeo Village is in operation, the cowboys arrive, mostly, in campers and trailers. Some of those vehicles are underwritten by the cowboys’ sponsors, brands like Wrangler Jeans, Justin Boots, American Hats, and even Matador Jerky.
Outside Cooper’s trailer, Eugene King’s friends line up for haircuts. King, a cowboy who’s not competing in Houston this year, rode here with a friend anyway. And he brought his electric razor and other barber tools.
Randall Carlisle, a tiedown roper, sits ready for his haircut, draped with a plastic cape that looks like an American flag. A man of few words, he allowed that he doesn’t do this at every rodeo. Then he deflected conversation to other cowboys — Cooper and Legend Mills — sitting nearby on the tailgate of a pickup.
Cooper, 27, is a threetime world champion tie-down roper and the rodeo world’s reigning heartthrob.
Sure enough, female passers-by are examining him — or to be more precise, his busted lip. He got it in competition the night before, when he fell from his horse.
In Rodeo Village, it’s easy to spot the vehicles of rodeo superstars like Cooper: Their oversize images are splashed on the outside, like a pop star’s touring bus. Cooper’s trailer bears a nearly life-size photo of Cooper on horseback, a rope clenched between his teeth, arms swinging, ready to pounce.
His list of sponsors is swanky: Chevy trucks and the MGM Grand Hotel, plus Rock & Roll Cowboy for clothing, Platinum Performance horse feed and American Hat Company for (what else?) hats.
Agreeably, Cooper allows a peek into his Bloomer custom trailer. “It has leather furniture, a bathroom, kitchen and a fridge. It has everything you need,” he said. “Yes, ma’am.”
Back outside, Mills shows King a photo of the haircut he wants: a fauxhawk with a large feather etched into the short hair left on each side of his head.
Someone nearby jokes that Mills just earned a new nickname: Two Feathers.
Mills smiles, unfazed: “It would be unique.”
Nearby is Casey Martin, a steer wrestler from Sulphur, La. Martin has seen a lot of rodeos: He’s been a cowboy since he was 15, and has competed in RodeoHouston since 2005.
“I remember playing a lot of cards back in the day,” he says, looking over at the group playing Webster, or whatever it is that they’re calling the game.
“The younger crowd likes to play games on their phones,” says Martin. “Crying shame, if you ask me.”