In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

45 W i l l i a m N o t t e r Cowboys They didn’t look like rodeo cowboys should. The bronc rider, Kevin, could pass for a small-town running back in work boots and muscle shirts. Les, the short one, rode the bulls, but dressed in overalls and a wide straw hat at work. At Friday quitting time they drove all night to rodeos, Mondays pulled in straight from the road. They planned to ride in every town they could on the long July Fourth weekend, but only Kevin came back. Les was laid up in Amarillo where the bull had broken his leg in three places. But that won’t make him give up rodeo. Kevin points out his own scars, a hospital tour of the southern plains— pins in one leg at Lubbock, three cracked ribs in Carlsbad, collarbone screwed together in Wichita Falls. They both grew up near Bottomless Lakes, where early cowboys tied rocks to their ropes and fed them in, but never found the bottom. Legend had it someone drowned at the lakes and washed up in a cavern fifty miles south. Nothing in that border country is constant, Ciudad Juarez and the Rio Grande just hours away, intermittent streams, 46 irrigated hay the only green for days, another world moving under the sand. They learned to travel fast and light, ready to run wide-open, to fix the rope and brace against the animal’s torque. ...

Share