Black Hills Cattle Roundup
Woohoo! It’s gonna be a stellar weekend for this hombre! Some great friends and I will load up three of my favorite’s ranch horses and head out to Hill City area to roundup cattle off 15,000 acres of Black Hills National Forest land. 
Darin Schmiedt and I will bring our wives to a remote cabin out in the woods. There they will stoke the fire, butcher the day’s kill, and prepare meals for us while we adventure out into the great outdoors. I have no doubt these official “camp concubines” will fight off every urge to head into Rapid for golfing and shopping mischief while attending to the needs of the men.
Darin and I will carry on our saddles ropes, bull whips, guns, whiskey, and beer. Two of the horses I selected for this trip are seasoned cow-chasing veterans, and the one I will ride is a seasoned bronc, that freaks out over every little thing.
My secret hope is to convince my wife to abandon the cabin and join me outside to sleep under the stars on bedrolls near the horses. It’ll be a bit chilly, and they’re calling for snow, but a woman should view this as an opportunity to prepare for such conditions… just in case the need would ever arise.
Getting a huge calamity out of the way last week remains one of the reasons I’m most excited about the escapade. I’m now fully aware that trying to swim through fast rushing water that’s 20 feet deep doesn’t work with horses. As my small band of warriors marauded the Jim River breaks, I felt the Big Jim beckoning me. “Come over here young man.” It said to me. “All great horseman swim across me.” It added. “You are a big wuss if you don’t do it.” The world’s longest un-navigable river then chanted.
What was I to do? Back down? Ya right. I did what anybody exposed to too many western movies would do, I threw a leg over Jack, my 16 hand-high, nine-year-old super gelding, and charged hell with a bucket of water. Err… in this case I more accurately charged water with a bucket of hell. All was well at first. We happily made it out to wither deep levels and we just skipped right along without missing a beat. Then disaster struck as we fell off the edge of the original bank and into the deep, murky river channel itself. I leaped out of the saddle the instant we both went under to prevent drowning my best friend. He came up bewildered, wondering why he ever listened to me in the first place. I could hear the Big Jim laughing as it swept rapids over fallen trees.
At this point ol’ Jack had enough of aquatic life and decided to turn around. I reluctantly went along with that line of thinking, so we both went to swimming back to the beach. But then a funny thing happened, I discovered that cowboy boots aren’t made for swimming. Now Mr. Jim River is chortling so hard he’s barely able to contain himself. So to spite the cackling creek, I did my patented thrash-n-splash maneuver as the current swept us downstream. Just as I was about to get harpooned by a protruding tree branch, I caught sight of mighty Jack off to my right. I reached out and grabbed the end of the life line that was his beautiful black tail. The great beast pulled me like a baby out of the channel and into shallow waters before stopping for a break.
Despite all my degrees and all my book studying, the old “School of Hard-Knocks” is the only place I ever learned a thing. The “Hard-Knocks School” will be in session this weekend as we gather critters out of the canyons of the Black Hills. If I make it back I’ll be far smarter. If I don’t, well… Darin will have some great stories to tell!
