Over The Edge- Weekly Book excerpts From Bob Kinford Copright Too Lazy For You Livestock & Literary Co. Gardnerville, NV Singlehorse Rollover It all started one bright and sunny morning. Everyone else was happy with the fact they had just made it through Friday the thirteenth without a hitch, but I was nervous. Being the sort who is usually two bucks short and a day late, Saturday the fourteenth can be a real skull knocker for me, and I mean that in the most literal sense available to one's imagination. The plan for the day was to haul the portable panels and a new chute down to coyote gulch pasture and set them up to pre-condition the bull and steer calves the next day, and to gather the three hundred twenty pair of cattle into the one permanent corral to hold them for the night so that we could get a good early start the next morning. Things started out real smooth, then Lester had a flat on his truck and didn't have a spare. At least it happened to be sitting where we would need it the next day to work the hydraulics on the chute. He jacked it up, took off the tire, left the truck up on the jack and we commenced to putting up the panels. Now none of us had set things up here before as the ranch had just been bought by the father and son team of Orville and Wilbur Spendercrash. We were nearly finished when it dawned on us that this corral design would definitely crash when used so we decided to circumvent Orville's plan and go to plan B. Orville and Wilbur showed up right on time just before we were finished and surprsingly enough approved of plan B and were anxious to get horseback. As Plan B was not quite completed, Vern the manager decided to stay back with Lester to finish up. JR and RJ went to the west end while I had the honor of taking Orville and Wilbur to the east end . Now Orville and Wilbur are right at home in abusiness office. Put either of them on a horse and neither would ever be accused of being the Hop Along Cassidy or the Lone Ranger, but they enjoy the "romance" of playing cowboy and rounding up cattle. I headed us off at a trot, not because the pasture as that large, but because it was getting late. About a hundred yards out Wilbur's horse stepped in a hole and crashed to the ground cushioned only by Wilbur's leg. Wilbur was sore but still wanted to ride so I went back and caught his horse up chiding him a little and asking him how he was enjoying the romance. We got started up again and I told him how about how my family jokes that my brother rolls cars and I roll horses. Also, just in case he ever gets hung up, I told him to roll over on his belly so that his foot will be able to come out of the stirrup. This is a trick I learned while being drug across the desert at a high rate of speed by a mule. (By the time I figured it out the mule had covered a quarter mile with a quarter of his tracks on me...) When we were nearly to the end of the pasture I overlooked the situation and decided which way we would go with the cattle. Orville could stay with the cattle and rather than go along the fence he was to bend the cattle north so that we could pick up some cattle that were around the hill and then bend back towards the fence and on in. As I started kicking a couple of pair off of the top I noticed that RJ had come down our way and was kicking the cattle I had seen over the hill down to Orville which meant we could take the easy route long the fence. But as I have said, Orville is a little green and as Wilbur and I came up the draw with the other cattle he got the lead started by pushing RJ's cattle back to where they had just come from, and back they did go at a hightrot with the rest of the bunch following. Since I had seen RJ headed back up country I knew there was no one at the point so I loped to turn them towards the pens. There were only about a hundred and fifty pair so it didn't take much too get them lined out again. All we had to do was go through a short valley and take the south exit to the fence. I had to drop back and keep an eye on the drag as Orville has this real neat trick of spreading the drag out rather than lining it out. He does this by riding up alongside the cows while hollering and waving his hand at them. They kind of slow down and watch him go by and then start wandering off and Iwanted to make sure they didn't wander off too far. About the time I was going back upto make sure the drag had a lead to follow two old swingbags headed out back to the southeast where we had picked them up like the king of all grizzlies was hot on their trail. Now I may be new to this ranch but when they bought this herd I sorta came with the deal and knew that the rest of the bunch would soon be following these to old crowbaits. I rode across through the cattle and loped on up to turn them back, hoping that either Orville or Wilbur would take the point and turn them back towards the fence instead of letting them go back up the hill. Alas, they were too busy enjoying the romance of watching me bring the two old witches back to pay attention to the lead which had headed up the north trail rather than down the south one. It was no big deal however as I loped on over and headed them west over the hill towards a trail which would drop down to the pens. At the top of the hill I was able to relax a little as RJ had returned. Since the drag was a little wadded up and spread out, (Thanks to Orville's talent at doing so) I thought I'd lope on back and show him how to string them out. When I was nearly there ol' sorrely kind of dropped into a badger hole. Thinking "Oh well, here we go again" I dropped my left stirrup and started to bail off of the right side. Then he hit the second hole and fell onto my right foot jamming it into and pinning it in the stirrup and in catching my balance I thought "Oh, donkey dung"as I felt my left foot go back into the stirrup. As his back end came off of the ground I flung myself forward and things got real dark for a second as he went over the top of me. Now all of this was going through my mind kinda fast as this wasn't really a slow motion wreck, but I wasn't panicked yet. My parents gave me a name where the initials spell REK and this was far from my first one and ol' sorrley is a pretty gentle old puke who usually stops on voice command....usually. This time he started running and kicking which is also about the time I though my duck was plucked and this was my last ride. Rather than see my life flush before my eyes I brought my arms up around my head so as not to hurt sorrley's feet when he kicked it and tried to kick my off foot free at the top of each bounce. Finally he kicked me high enough and I got my foot free but I couldn't seem to get rolled over onto my stomach. I uncovered my head to look up and see that not only was my foot still in the stirrup but that my spur was also hung in the cinch. Now I thought about panicking a little but still tried rolling over and finally after what seemed to be about three lifetimes my spur came off, I got rolled over and my foot popped right out of the stirrup. As I rolled on the ground moaning obscenities that would have embarrassed Satan himself I heard the thunder of horses approaching at a dead run. Orville and Wilbur to the rescue, or at least the wake... They were wanting me to lie still but I was too smart for that, I had to get up. Chewing them out I insisted that I would live and for them to get back to the cattle and get the @#&^* cattle gathered up before it got dark! Orville went to help RJ and Wilbur helped me find my hat and claimed the lucky horseshoe he kept in his pocket would find my spur. He was right. About the time he found it Vern came riding up leading sorrely and asked how to get around some cows which were heading back up the hill. Rather than tell him where to get around them I volunteered to go get them myself. I managed to get them back down the hill but also regretted at volunteering as being horseback wasn't quite as comfortable as usual. I worked at the chute the next day and rode the morning after that before my head softened up enough to let me go to the doctor. I found out that I hadn't broken anything and shortly after taking my first dose of painkillers came to the conclusionthat Nancy was wrong, drugs are your friends...(Nancy Reagan's "Just say no to drugs" campaign)