My Last Shot of Bourbon

A country girl’s final ride

November 1993

“Hey Dolly, if you ain’t got nothing goin’ on this mornin’, I gotta a job for you.”

My dad looked at me over his breakfast mug of coffee. His eyes sparkled a little too brightly, but I didn’t think much of it.

I was home from college for Thanksgiving break that fall. I was nineteen, between boyfriends and enjoying the time with my family, knowing full well these days were fast coming to an end.

A few months later my parents separated. Mom was injured on the job the year prior and the ranch refused her worker’s comp claims because she wasn’t a ‘paid’ employee.

However, when a ranch hires a couple or a family, it’s an unwritten rule that the wife works too. To refuse is to engender a sense of ungratefulness and invite social isolation.

But that all fell away when she herniated a disc being thrown from a horse and had severe sciatica down one leg for months and years afterward. It only got worse, to the point she could hardly move. Plus, there was no money or medical insurance to have it treated.

With the destruction of her health, came the destruction of their marriage.

My dad made a terrible decision that year that he regretted until he died. He didn’t stand by her or defend her from his employers, and then she said she needed to move closer to town so she could get a job and receive medical care and therapy.

He refused to go with her, or even help her. He even refused to stand up with her in court when she took the ranch to small claims to assist with her medical bills. She lost the case and any sense of self-worth for several years afterward. It broke her heart.

He abandoned her when she needed him most. The booze, and his cowboy reputation won instead of his family, and years later after he was sober, he could never forgive himself.

But this winter day occurred well before that all went down.

It was a crisp frosty November morning. The day before Thanksgiving, and mom had made pancakes and eggs, while the turkey was brining. It was a slow morning, and we watched the sun come up through the plate glass window that looked out over the stubbled alfalfa field.

“Sure, Dad, what do you have in mind?”

“I gotta move two-hundred pair out of the back allotment to the calving grounds near the barn. I could sure use your help.”

In November, the mama cows were pregnant with their early spring calves, but still had the yearlings hanging on. During the winter months, the cattle were brought down to the feeding grounds where the big round bales of fragrant alfalfa were rolled out every morning to the hungry masses like a buffet, to prepare the heifers and mamas for an unforgiving and cold calving season. Two hundred pair was actually four hundred animals. Adults, and almost adults. It was a good size herd and definitely too much for one person to push alone.

“You want me to ride with you?” My shock at the request was not surprising. I put my cup of honeyed tea down on the table with a splash.

He knew I wasn’t all that interested in following in his line of work. I was an artist, a soft sentimental fool with a liking for romance novels and fairytales.

I was not a cowgirl.

But I had been raised as one, and I loved riding my horse Snip, when I was in high school. He had been my friend and confidant many times over my teen years. Snip had found a new home when I went away for school the year prior, so I didn’t know who I was going to ride. Dad could tell I was a little concerned.

“Yeah, you’ll be fine, most of the guys are away for Thanksgiving, and I’ll give you Bourbon.”

Bourbon.

Bourbon was the ranch’s best Quarter horse. He was tall, smart, athletic, whip-fast and absolutely gorgeous. Plus, he knew more about herding cows than I ever did. I knew that all I had to do was aim and hang on, and he’d do the rest. He had that gorgeous shiny honey-chestnut coat with a black mane and tail. He was like riding the sunset or swallowing that first smooth burning sip of whiskey.

“Really? They’ll let me ride him?”

“Yeah, Dennis won’t care. You’re a good rider, and you won’t do nothin’ stupid.” Dad slurped more of his coffee and eyed me over the rim.

I was terrified but also excited. “Okay! Mom, can I wear your boots?” I didn’t even have cowboy boots anymore, and the popular low-heeled Ropers were too expensive for me to afford.

Twenty minutes later, we were bouncing down the gravel road toward the Foreman’s house and barn where the good horses were kept. My dad’s ranch truck, “Whitey” was a 1978 white Ford flatbed with the foam dashboard half gnawed off by generations of excitable cow dogs.

Bo, dad’s Blue Heeler mix was beside us, his tongue lolling, and a happy expression on his face. Bo knew he was going to get to bite something today, and that made him ecstatic. He may have munched a little on the dashboard himself.

We pulled into the barnyard, and I got the thermos and lunch cooler out and put it in the shade of the tack room. We had our tasks cut out. First was finding all the mamas; their yearlings would follow. Then we had to round them all up and push them through a narrow gate into the flat lower pasture that was calving and feed grounds.

Dad saddled Bourbon for me and brought him out. He was so beautiful, and as we got to know each other, he saddled his favorite big red horse, Joker. Joker had a white blaze up his face, and three white sox up to his knees. He was sweet, but absolutely untrustworthy. If he was excited, he’d take to bucking just to prove he could. I never rode Joker. He could smell fear and it made him happy.

Bourbon was like riding the missile in Doctor Strangelove. The view was beautiful, the speed made the wind in my hair flutter, the excitement was palpable, and you didn’t really know what was going to happen. But you just knew that one wrong tilt, one ill-advised move and your ass was grass.

Dad and I rode out into the foothills of the BLM range. It was a small partition actually, surrounded by deeded land. Only about five-hundred acres but covered with low scrub that looked exactly like black and brown cattle. They were hard to see. My job was to keep the cows that Dad flushed down from the hills in one area and bunched together. The more they were in a herd, the more likely they were to stay that way.

For hours, Bourbon and I waltzed and swayed, and we kept pulling that drag down the base of valley, while Dad brought down three to five pairs at a time from the foothills.

After he had made his way down the entire ridge, we both took the herd across the flat land. Dad lined them all out, with his bullwhip cracking, and Bourbon and I took the back flanks making sure none of the yearlings got a wild hair and tried to peel away.

A few times Bourbon saw a bratty yearling dart back into the sage, and I just held on while he chased it down and brought it back to the herd. All I had to do was talk to Bourbon and keep my balance in the stirrups. No kicking, no fancy reining. He was such a smart horse and I loved him for helping me do a good job.

As we made it to the fence line, we bunched them up on the wire and it acted like a chute on the other side, keeping the cows in order and moving fast. Dad came barreling toward me and brought Joker to a halt.

“I’m gonna go down and open the gate,” he yelled. “You just keep ’em bunched up on the fence and bring ’em all down. Can you do that? I’ll give you Bo. He’ll keep anything from breaking away.”

“Okay, sure.” I was breathless and my senses were sharpened from the adrenaline of working these cows to go the direction I wanted. It didn’t dawn on me until later, that my father trusted me to bring four hundred animals down a fence line on a five-hundred-acre parcel. All. By. Myself.

Bourbon and I danced. We were a team. I leaned and whispered, he would sense what I was looking at and move toward the stray cow, nudging her back to the group. If there was a slowpoke or a rebellious teenager trying to go back to the hills, I’d sic’ Bo on them and he would race over, nip at the nose or heels and send them bucking back to the herd.

Occasionally I had to give Bourbon his head and hang on as he would gallop hard at a runaway cow or three. I yipped and yodeled, and ululated my way down that fence, while Dad was waiting and watching me from close to two miles away.

I really don’t know how, but I did it.

I moved all those animals all by myself down that line and through the gate, without losing one. Dad stood at the elbow of the gate and kept the herd moving forward into the feed grounds, as we threaded the needle. After the last calf made it through the gate, I exhaled. I was shaky and Bourbon was a lathered sweaty mess, we were both panting as hard as the dog, and the steam from our breath dissipated in the air like a thank you prayer.

Dad sat on his horse, his leather gloves resting on the saddle horn, and he smiled at me. His fatherly pride was more evident than even at my high school graduation when I got up to give my Valedictorian speech.

“Not too shabby for a city girl. I suppose you get to stay one more day.”

Then he laughed hard and trotted away on a very happy Joker whose eyes were finally calm. All the animals were glad not to be running anymore and we slowly trailed through the cows back to the barnyard on the far side of the feed grounds. Earlier that morning Dad had unrolled a round bale in the pasture and all four hundred animals were munching happily on the rich alfalfa from the summer crop.

By the time we got back to the barn the horses were cooled down and I was able to curry Bourbon down using his sweat as conditioner on his winter coat. He leaned into me as he munched on his alfalfa, moving a hip closer for a good scratch. I hugged his neck as I left and told him thank you for a great day.

Bourbon was my proudest moment on a horse. His experience and joy made me look good, and his trust in a stranger was a gift. I’d never ridden him before and never got to ride him again.

That day, I knew I made my dad proud. He had given me the space to see if I could succeed at his profession if I wanted to, and I know I surprised myself as well.

My last shot of Bourbon was definitely delicious and satisfying.

I never got to work cattle again. After my parents split up. Dad went to work on a different ranch, and Mom never got a chance to go back to the desert country she loved. Eventually, Dad retired to Alaska and Mom went back to school to become a jeweler.

I never went back to the Oregon high desert. That life and those people left a bitter taste in my mouth because of the way they treated my mother.

But Bourbon? I’d take another shot of him any day.