The Marlboro Man

"Well, they ain't got but one score, a 57. Second and third's still open."

But the reality, the intimately felt experience of sporting events is diminished in proportion to the number of people witnessing them; it is inverse, also, to the size and splendor of the facilities. The Pinedale rodeo is a case in point. One of the contestants in the senior girls' pole bending cannot stop her horse after their run. He veers at the fence, jerks her loose, and while she is in the air beside him, whacks her with his head and smashes her into the calf-chute. The cowboys on the rail nearby turn their heads with mild interest. A bronc bucks his rider off balance and goes for a gallop closer and closer to the rail with the cowboy hanging out sideways and finally wipes him off against the main gate. The noise is awful. Winfield and his cronies guffaw at a photographer who turns away with a hand over his eyes, appalled.

Suddenly Tom Lozier is down in the dirt at the far end, a bone sticking out of his leg. He sits up and calls for an ambulance.

The team roping had been going on for half an hour and it was dark when Carl Luna and Danny Mendes, with their wives, pulled their rigs around behind Darrell's. In the Jackson rodeo last night they had roped head and heels in winning time, stretched the steer out between the two horses—almost—and then Luna plumb dropped his rope. Darrell said, "See? Bringing those women will jinx you. You look at the winners. They don't bring their wives."

Kip Alexander and his partner going eighth had set the time to beat so far—10.8 seconds. Doug Vickery went out on a horse Winfield had brought over for him to try. Darrell said, "Hope he does good so he'll buy him." The horse did all right but the head cowboy threw his loop away. They could have taken another rope; Vickery could have gone for the horns while his partner re-coiled his lariat, but they spared everybody the delay. This was the biggest night of the year downtown. The Stockman's, The Cowboy, The Corral were spilling live music and customers all over the only paved street. Vickery and his partner took a no-time. Darrell told Vickery, "Victory, you know that's a cow-watching son of a gun, a good horse, he gives you all he's got. You keep him till you get used to him."

And aside: "I know I ain't going to make no money roping. I have got to make it some way."

Danny Mendes and Charlie Tuna were called, and they took a 12, plus five seconds for roping only one hind leg. Charlie Tuna and Tom Bloomfield took a no-time. Now Winfield mounted Luna's big gray gelding. Danny missed the head this time, a thing he does not often do. To make sure everybody knew whose fault it was, he schooled his horse a bit. Then Tom mounted it to ride as Winfield's second partner.

At the chute, he asked the barrier judge, "How's this steer run?"

"He runs straight," the judge said, honest like a cowboy, "but pretty hard."

The steer broke out and veered away to the right. Tom drove his horse after it, the lariat whirling round his head, and let loose over in front of the announcer's stand. He came up empty.