Benson Parker

Jared grew up in cycles. His parents alternated every six to eight months going from religious obsession wherein they went to church several times a week, read the Bible every night, and lived a right righteous life, to going on a full-tilt, months-long drunk.

Kent Hanawalt

Pull leather / pul lethər/ v a disparaging term used to indicate that an off-balance rider has been forced to grab his saddle with his free hand in order to prevent falling off his horse

Sitting a well-broke cowhorse when he is working is always a joy. But it can sometimes be a real challenge stick with him, and no cowboy wants to be accused of having to pull leather to stay aboard. One day, however, I had to grab my horn – not once, but twice – in order to maintain my seat atop my horse. First, a little background:

By Lawson

It was like patterns on a Navajo crystal rug--rays of azurite blue and ochre red from the morning sun forming a backdrop behind the tumble-down shanty. Scott Drayco squinted at the cracked beams of the small hut, marveling it was still standing. Neither a trailer home like so many others in Chinle and on the Rez nor a traditional hogan, it was an architectural half-breed.

Drayco turned to his friend and asked, “Not much to look at, Josh.”

“What did you expect? You’re the one who wanted to tag along on a murder case, man.”

Teresa Owen

I was blessed with a very good mother. She was kind, thoughtful, generous, creative, and a great cook. When she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease at age 65, I tried my utmost to return her many caring gestures.

For two years she declined. As she regressed from a vibrant, outgoing caretaker to an immobilized, unspeaking dependent, I began to reflect on our happier times together. Easily, the best times of my life were when I was about 10 years old on the family farm.

Cynthia Murphy

“The moon is at her full and riding high, floods the calm fields with light; the airs that hover in the summer sky are all asleep tonight”
William C. Bryant

Maureen Gilmer

He heard them go that morning, Pap and the little brothers loading the horses for Saturday jackpot roping down valley. Glen feigned sleep to avoid his father's sad eyes that spoke of his most promising son's fall from grace. When it was quiet again he got up and hobbled out to the dusty back porch to lean against a fly stained post. He remembered so vividly what his life was before that saddle bronc went endo on him and broke him all to hell. His shoulder would never swing a rope again and the doctors said and he'd always walk with a limp.

Maureen Gilmer

Ishmael shoveled manure all day, every day. He awoke at sunrise to feed all the boarded horses, then go back to the rake and wheelbarrow for the rest of the day. He'd work his way down the pipe corrals slowly lifting every road apple out of the sandy ground.

He knew every horse, their behaviors and personality. He named one stall-kicker Bruce Lee. Another big bone black quarter horse became Oso Negro. His quiet observations during the eleven PM check revealed where each horse preferred to lie down in its paddock.

R.Howard Trembly

When I was a young child of nine, we lived in a small hollow in the woods called Alderwood Manner, in the state of Washington

The house we lived in was small for a family of five children, my oldest sister had already married and moved away, leaving my older brother to fend for the rest of us kids, while my mother worked as a waitress on one of the Ferry Boats going from Seattle across Puget Sound to Bremerton, Washington and back several times daily.

Kerry Taylor

Clayton Montgomery and his friend Joe Tallman were some very tired hunters as they rode down the rough dusty road toward the Montgomery ranch. “Clay’s Angus Ranch”, as most called it was west of Saddle String, Wyoming, at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. The sun was low and golden, and not as blinding as usual as Clay drove directly into it, toward home. Late in the fall of the year, the air is filled with Aspen leaves and dust, turning the evening aglow in shades of yellow.

Kerry Taylor

I’m trying to adjust to the fact that I sold my saddle the other day.

I put a lot of thought and work in that saddle. I found the best hardwood saddle tree with an old time slick fork, then I modified it to fit my horse and my posterior. With the best Herman Oak Leather, I cut and carved, stitched and laced, constructed and crafted what I saw as the perfect saddle. There had been many before that one. Some I had repaired too many times and sent off to where used-up equipment ends. My butt was proud of that saddle though, and it was a good one.