Featured Article - March 2009
 |
Head 'em Out
(Excerpt from the print edition)
Cattle drives were once great odysseys: battles of will, tests of strength. Are these epic journeys of the American West still alive and well in the digital age?
Story By David Moore • Photography by Chuck West
I’ve done some unlikely things in my time—cycling across Europe in pursuit of a medieval Celtic saint, for
example—and these adventures have
elicited a range of mainly perplexed responses from my friends. But none were as intense as the reactions to my announcement that I was going on a weeklong cattle drive.
Some laughed at the thought of me as a cowboy; others were envious. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” they said. When I asked them why, they couldn’t explain. “You know, there’s just something so . . .”
Patricia Chesser, who owns and operates the Burnt Well Guest Ranch with her husband, Kim, pinpoints the ranch’s appeal. “Every American boy, when he’s five, wants to grow up to be a cowboy. And we give people that dream.”
But was it my dream? I didn’t have much in common with the familiar, rugged, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later Hollywood cowboy—which is probably why my friends laughed in disbelief. I have more academic degrees than is good for me, and spend most of my time in front of computers. I wasn’t sure I could ever be at home on the range.
Burnt Well is a working 15,000-acre ranch that’s been in the Chesser family since Kim’s father, Ivan, bought it in 1950. The Chessers welcome guests to supplement their ranching income, and offer three weeklong cattle drives annually. The tasks planned for each drive vary. This one would have us spending a day rounding up calves for branding at the ranch, four days driving one herd to leased land 25 miles away, then bringing a second herd already there back to Burnt Well. We’d ride all day and camp in cowboy teepees—simple canvas tents hung from two crossed poles. If I couldn’t hack it during the journey, there would be no easy way to cry off....
What do you do on a weeklong cattle drive at Burnt Well Ranch? First, you ride. And ride. And ride. For at least four or five hours a day. As I proved, you don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to be comfortable walking and trotting a horse for reasonable distances over open country. This definitely isn’t the nose-to-tail plodding found on many trail rides.
Next, you eat. Patricia serves up hearty family-style meals ’round her kitchen table at the ranch, and, with the help of a friend, Jeri, produces Dutch-oven wonders from the campfire.
Third, you talk. Kim reports that each group has a different feel, but the combination of shared interests and diverse backgrounds makes for good conversations and good-natured ribbing around the campfire. And if you ask nicely, Patricia might play some beautiful airs on her fiddle.
Fourth, you sleep—soundly. On the drive, we collapse into cowboy bedrolls: thick, comfortable mattresses with duvets and blankets enclosed in heavy canvas.
Finally, you meditate. Not in any formal way—this is Roswell, not Santa Fe—but out on the plains, walking beside a black sea of Angus-cross cattle, you reflect on everything and nothing. These days are far removed from normal experience, and offer a chance to spend time with yourself (and your horse) that’s both refreshing and profound. You have to concentrate a little when heading off a cow on a breakaway or intent on stopping for a snack, but the herd’s rhythmic ebb and flow means you might find yourself chatting with someone new, or realizing you’ve been alone for the past hour.
Time spent out here seems to lend itself to a philosophical nature, hinting at a more reflective version of what a cowboy is really like than the rough, tough Hollywood picture. That’s not to say that Kim and Tim Ballard, a Chesser family friend and the hired hand on the drive—and my exemplars of all things cowboy—aren’t practical and resourceful. Tim’s performance roping calves in a crowded pen is astonishing in its precision, and there’s not much I wouldn’t trust Kim to take care of in his unflappable way. But they also share a calm, humble manner, not to mention a dry wit.
Around the fire one night, Kim matter-of-factly tells the story of how a horse nearly killed him. He was back riding soon after—what else was there to do?
Read the full version in the print edition - on newsstands now!
David Moore is an Anglo-Irish writer, web designer, and photographer living in Santa Fe. He now owns
a cowboy hat.
