The Indadequate Cowboy

 

      by  Timm Rawlins

 

 

 

 

 

                Back when I was a cowboy, I suffered from deep seated feelings of inadeqacy. I still do. Even to this day I hate disapproval. Every time my wife rolls her eyes at me it sends me into a tailspin. So I spend a lot of time trying to gain a little respect. When I was cowboyin’ I spent all my time trying to get a little respect, maybe that’s why I did it, after all, can you think of anything more respectable? I wanted to be admired. It even went deeper than that, I wanted to be idolized, to be talked about wherever cowboys would gather to talk about old time cowboy stuff, like horses and cattle and great hands they had known.

 

                 I possessed this vague hope (actually it wasn’t so vague) that my name would someday, soon, come up in all conversations about great hands. “That Timm Rawlins,” Some well respected old timer would say smugly- actually dropping my name- “What a hand. I’ve seen him ride a buckin’ horse in places so rocky and steep you or I wouldn’t even walk there, rides a slick fork saddle too. And rope? I’ve never seen his touch the ground, he packs seventy feet of rawhide and has never missed once, ever. He’s a dally man, wraps his saddle horn in bear snot. One time they was brandin’ for the XZ and the manager come out- wanted to play cowby- , had rubber on his horn. Rawlins hung him with it. Aint nowbody ever said a word. You don’t mess with Rawlins. I don’t guess its his fault he’s like that. Shorty Chawspit said he only saw Rawlins once without a bandana around his neck (he took it off to tie up a bear he’d roped when they was out thar goofin off near Widderwoman crick) worst rubber burns he’d ever seen- they say his own Pa done him that way.”

 

                “ He always rides the rough string too,” He continues on, even into another paragraph. (When guys get to talkin about this Rawlins character they often go on for paragraphs at a time even if they didn’t plan too, which is great because everyone just eats it up) He rides wild bronks you or I wouldn’t be caught dead in the same state with. Rawlins breaks all the colts on every outfit he’s ever worked for. Why, he breaks colts that you or I couldn’t even put a saddle on. A common horse breaker puts the first ride on a colt when he’s three or four. Not Rawlins, he waits until they’re nine years old to start and prefer’s it if they’ve never been handled, better yet if they’ve never seen a humin being.”

 

                “He’s as tough as they come. He rides in weather so cold that you or I wouldn’t even leave the bunkhouse. He don’t own a pair of gloves, told me his calluses keep his hands warm enough. Why, up Montana way he didn’t bother wearin his longhandled undewear until it got down to twenty below. “He’s one heck of a horse-shoer too. He can shoe horses that you or I couldn’t even pick a foot up. Once when he was ridin’ for the PU outfit. the other cowboys paid him to shoe there strings, he did all fifty in two days he made so much money he went and bought a case of whisky, the kind you or I couldn’t... “Yeah, we know,” somebody interrupts, a little exasperated “The kind you or I couldn’t take a whiff of.”

 

                “ That’s right, the old timer goes on. He drank the whole thing in one night, didn’t even get drunk. He was the first one up the next morning."

 

 After hearing all of this most of the cowboys leave, now having to deal with their own feelings of inadequacy.