Starting a new job can be an interesting experience as you are not only seeing new country and meeting new people, you also have a whole new string of horses to ride which you know nothing about. When I was younger and dumber it seemed I would always end up riding the rough string, which made things even more interesting. The rough string is made up of the younger horses which don't know much and older broncs which either no one else wanted to ride or in some instances could ride if they wanted to. They would have phobias from cannibalistic rabbits to horse swallowing shadows and anything in between. Their reactions could be just as varied, one might buck straight, one might spin, another "sunfish" and turn his belly to the sky at the top of the jump while another might simply cold jaw you and run off or flip over backwards. Saying you can get hurt on these critters may be understating things a little, and they don't pay you any extra to ride them because you can't get as much done on them. In fact I' m not so sure that the ranches still running a rough string aren't doing so for the pure entertainment value of the situation as there is hardly anything in the world more beautiful to watch than a good bronc rider on a bad bronc with no arena to confine things, and it sure is fun razzing a guy when he gets dumped on his head (even though you wouldn't get on that horse if you were drunk and they offered you a hundred bucks...) So the theory goes that if the can find someone dumb enough to try them, and good enough to get the job done, the rest of the crew will show up for work after getting paid just for the entertainment... Such was the case when I started work on the Rocking Rek out of Dry Springs New Mexico. As soon as Theo told me to "Ride the mule today" Speedy started shaking his head. Speedy was from Mexico and his usage of the English language was about as impaired as mine is of Spanish, "No bueno " he told me. "He buck?" I asked, to which he shook his head. "Whats he do? I asked. "Que" asked Speedy with a confused look upon his face. I pointed to the mule and made a sort of up and down motion with my hand and shrugged my shoulders with a questioning look upon my face hoping I was getting through to him. It worked. He shook his head then kicked out a couple of times, started acting as if he were biting at imaginary flies then started acting as if he were frantically pulling back on the reins as if trying to stop a runaway and saying "Muy loco". Now I knew my mount for the day would bite, kick, runaway with me and was generally mentally unstable. "Hey Theo" I called out "This mule broke?" "Plumb Broke, put a curb in him" Theo replied, adding "Just don't tie him". I roped him out and hobbled him. He only kicked at me a couple of times and tried biting me once as I saddled him. We loaded our mounts and hauled out about ten miles to move a pasture of pairs. Forewarned is somewhat prepared and I grabbed the cheek piece of his bridle and pulled his head around to the saddlehorn to mount him. Sure enough he tried running off before I got my leg swung over but he couldn't do much as I had him kissing my saddle. We split up to make our gather and it wasn't any time at all before I was appreciating my ride. I had never been on anything so smooth in my life, and other than abruptly avoiding all of the mule eating rocks and twigs he really didn't seem that bad. After a couple of hours I joined up with Theo and Speedy, adding my cattle to the ones they had found. After several hours and a couple of wire gates later, Theo sent me back to bring the truck and trailer up. At the first gate he stood there for me to get on just like the "plumb broke" mule Theo had described, but the second gate was a different story. Once again I had him kissing the horn, but I was more or less relaxed and when I started up his back leg swung around the back of my knee flipping me upside down. On my way down I let go of the rein and he was off to the races...with my foot still in the stirrup which left me bouncing across the ground and him kicking at me with each stride... Needless to say I was under the impression that I had just made the final mistake of my life, but I was mistaken. After what seemed like an eternity of sliding through the brush, cactus, and making gravel out of the rocks with my bouncing head I began to realize that I wasn't that hurt, yet. Then I started wondering if there was any way I could get out of this predicament without waiting for the mule to make it the five miles to the trailer. Pondering about what to do I wondered what would happen if I rolled over onto my stomach (if nothing else, at least it would change the view...) After the third try I made it and my foot popped right out of the stirrup and I laid there watching the fading out through the brush like a bad dream. My arms and ribs were bruise from all of the kicks which had landed and the back of my vest and shirt were slightly shredded, my back kinda lacerated and my pants had a semi load of dirt pebbles and other debris but I was basically OK. I walked back a quarter mile to the gate to get my hat and headed for the truck. Theo and Speedy rode up about the time I reached the truck and both were laughing. "Where's your mule?" Theo asked, "He buck you off" (Still laughing of course...) I pointed to a speck in the distance and said "I didn't loose the ignorant dink, there he is right there" and explained what had happened as well as described in very explicit terms as to where he should put that valuable mule for safe keeping which go another laugh out of him. Speedy rode out and roped the mule and brought him back to me so I could load him in the trailer. After that first day I started hobbling his front feet so close together they were touching, pulled his head around to the horn and jerked the hobbles loose once I was on him.

Of course the first time I did this he took a jump to run off and I turned his head loose then pulled it around in the opposite direction and stepped off. He crashed to the ground and I dallied my reins so he couldn't get up and let him lay there a minute. After that he wouldn't flinch in his hobbles when I mounted. Of course I had the problem of loosing him if I had to tie or hobble him, but other than that I was getting along all right with him. Then came the first day of branding. This was another one of those outfits which wrestled the calves all the way to the fire rather than rope them so I wasn't worried about roping off of him. However while gathering the trap my latigo came out of it's holder and of course the mule noticed it before I did. About every other step he would kick at it and catch my foot instead. Whenever I would try and reach down for it he would duck off and go to bucking until I finally managed to grab it with my toe and hold it up high enough that it wasn't hitting his leg. I tried to get a couple of the day workers to give me a hand but the were too afraid of the mule to get close enough to be of any help, besides, once again they were getting a laugh out of my situation. Finally Speedy showed up and handed me the latigo via a piece of dead cholla cactus. In order to preserve my tack and keep track of my mule threw him in the trailer for the morning's work. When we finished and had the cattle turned out I went to unload him and help hold the cattle until everything was paired up only he did not want to get out of the trailer. He stood there with butt to the door and refused to move, so I closed the door and tried grabbing a rein to pull him around. He just moved his head over so hat I couldn't reach him. I got a little hot headed and ignorant, went back, opened the door and jumped in after him. The next thing I knew he'd kicked me three times (according to the tracks on my chaps) and somehow I was in the front of the trailer but also still in back of the mule who was rapidly approaching for another run at me. Luckily the canvas top was not on the trailer and I was able to jump out before he got there. "What your whole problem is , Bob" stated Theo, "is that you are just to nice to him." Each time I would ride him it seemed like he had a new irritating series of stunts to pull until one day he caught me completely off guard and actually did something good! We were sorting dry cows out of the pairs on a remote section of the ranch and had the cattle thrown up in a corner made of a fence and a mesa. Theo was cutting out a pair when a dry cow came fogging out after them and just as I was about to turn her one of those mule eating jackrabbits jumped out and the rodeo was on. In the middle of it Theo hollered at me to bring back the pair so as soon as we were under control I loped out and the old mule acted as if he were the world champion working cow mule, anticipating the cow's every move I brought them back in at a lope. Then Theo hollered at me to get the dry which was just topping the mesa so I dropped the pair with the herd and peeled off up the mesa. By the time I picked my way up to the top of the mesa (there was no trail) the cow as out of sight but her tracks were headed straight down the fence so away we loped. About a mile later I spotted the old witch at the same time she spotted me and the race was on. After a quick half mile I was around her but instead of turning she just stopped. I headed towards her assuming she would turn and go the other way, wrong. Instead she just lowered her head and used it as a battering ram on the mule's chest. On the second try the old mule turned and ran for about fifty feet on his front legs with the old witch carrying his rear baggage. On the next three attempts the old boy was running for his life and kicking to keep her from getting her head underneath him again. Being just a wee bit frustrated and forgetting that I was riding a bona fide bronc I built a loop and went at her again. This time as he turned I pitched a backhanded loop and managed to catch the old witch. I dropped a couple of coils and went to the horn, briefly remembering what I was riding and wondering how many pieces I was going to come out of this one in. Nothing went as expected though and instead of bucking when the rope came tight the old mule surged forward. Rather than pulling back and fighting the rope as expected the old witch took that as her cue to continue chasing us. Now things were getting a little busy. I'd pop my dallies off and go to coiling rope as she gained on us, trying to keep the rope from getting around the mule's tail and then dropping a couple of coils and going back to the horn when the old witch would stop and involuntarily flinching as everything came tight again (was my saddle cinched tight enough???) couple of times she caught up with us and carried the old mule's rear baggage for a short spell before ducking off again and he would just keep motating right on along as if he were the best mount a guy could want. As we reached the edge of the mesa there was no time to catch a lower gear so we just bailed off of the top making the Man From Snowy River look like a walk through the park giving me a severe case of perma pucker. About halfway down the old witch decided to stop again but we had too much momentum going. The mule kept his feet and she lost her and bounced off of several large boulders and rolled a few times before regaining her balance enough to resume the chase. I could hardly believe it when we reached the bottom more or less in one piece. When I got the wreck to a stop Theo's brother Leo rode over, got off of his horse and started walking down the rope to take it off the old witch, whose sides were heaving with exhaustion. "She'll take you" I tried to warn. "Naw, she's too tired. Give me some slack so I can get it off..." He never finished the sentence but the next one had some of that real colorful words in it as he grasped the obvious fact that we needed to heel her and stretch her out to take off the rope. Once we got the rope off and had her in with the other dries they let me know I was the first person in eight years to even try roping anything off that mule without getting in a wreck. It just goes to show that anyone can have some good luck and and that any idiot can have a brief spasm of brilliance!    Bob Kinford can be contacted via e-mail.