Out of the Chute

The spirit of the West has always been epitomized by total self-reliance, an indomitable will and remarkable courage. You’ll find plenty of all these in this, our first themed issue. I can think of no place else in our society where these traits are more regularly or matter-of-factly displayed than in rodeo. Whether a cowboy is sitting on a 1,200 pound bronc or straddling an 1,800 pound bull, diving off a galloping horse to wrestle a six or seven hundred pound steer or risking the loss of a finger or two when he takes his dally in the timed events, it’s sure to get your adrenaline pumping. But sometimes the greatest acts of courage are found in unusual places. This column is about two such incidents. One I witnessed in person and another I’ve only seen on film.

Back in the spring of 1976, I was a Marine sergeant preparing to compete in the Camp Pendleton military rodeo. It was the second and final weekend of practice before the big show. I’d bucked off my bareback draw and was killing time waiting for my friends who were bullriders.

When the barrel-racing was over, the announcer introduced the clowns. We called them clowns back then, but they were the same caliber bullfighters you see today. This day, there was a third clown. He was a skinny eighteen-year-old local kid from Oceanside who wanted to learn to be a rodeo clown. This would have been unusual enough, but the kid was black. This was unheard of back then, although western fans and historians know that more than twenty percent of the cowboys who drove the herds up from Texas a hundred years earlier were black men. There were the predictable remarks both in the stands and behind the chutes but nothing to his face that I heard. But the stock contractor was Bob Cook of RSC, Inc. He was the owner of Oscar, the World Champion Bucking Bull, and his word was law in the arena or around his stock. If he said the kid could be there, then he was going to be there. Period.

The bullriding got underway and the kid pretty much stayed close but out of the way of the other two clowns. Since everyone was focused on the bulls and riders, he just sort of faded into the background. About six or seven rides into the bullriding, a big old white Brahma-cross bull named Pinky was the next out. I don’t remember the cowboy’s name. Pinky, though, was unusual in three ways. He had a very tall hump, he was known to be a mean bull who would go after a cowboy he’d bucked off, and his horns curved straight up and forward instead of curling out from his head.

The gate opened and Pinky bucked across the arena before he finally set a spin. When he did, the cowboy missed his timing and bucked off into the well with his hand rolled over and hung up in the rope. The two professional clowns tried but couldn’t get an opening right away to get the cowboy loose and he was getting jerked about pretty good. Sud-denly, there was a flash of movement in front of Pinky. The kid took two running steps and jumped straight up in the air. He twisted sideways in midair and landed with his right hip right between Pinky’s eyes and his waist between those horns without three inches to spare. He grabbed the tail of the rope and jerked just as Pinky tossed him ten feet in the air summersaulting over the back of the bull. The cowboy was loose and the other clowns took over doing their jobs like the pros they were. The kid got up, dusted himself off and went back to work like nothing had happened, but there wasn’t a cowboy, clown, or pick-up rider there that day who didn’t make a point of shaking his hand or slapping him on the back.

The second incident, the one I only saw on film, happened in the seventh round of the National Finals Rodeo in1995. Less than two months earlier, in the final round of the PBR World Finals, a bucking bull named Bodacious jerked Richard Neale "Tuff" Hedeman hard forward, then throwing his head back, broke every major bone in Tuff’s face. It took several hours of surgery and a lot of steel plates and screws to put him back together. At the National Finals, Tuff’s face was still noticeably bruised and swollen. His young son demanded that he promise,

“If you draw that bull again, Daddy, you turn him out.” Tuff made the promise knowing that the odds of drawing Bodacious again were very slim.

The seventh round came, and the unlikely draw came with it. Tuff climbed up the chute and set his rope on Bodacious. God only knows what was running through his mind or the inner battle being fought. There was a gold buckle on the line and Tuff was no quitter. He put his hand in the rope, scooted his boots along the rails to get up over it and nodded for the gate. As the gate opened, Tuff stood up. He’d turned out. He stood on the back rail of the chute and doffed his hat to Bodacious.

The crowd went wild.

I don’t know what I would have done in Tuff’s place. I can imagine the courage and sheer will it took to keep his promise. But he'd given his word, and when a cowboy gives his word, you can take it to the bank.

I hope you enjoy reading this special rodeo issue of Saddlebag Dispatches as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together for you.

Until Next Time,

Dennis Doty, Managing Editor