Pretty Shadow Cowboys
- January 27, 2026
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
The word had been put out in the area to keep an eye out for a heifer missing from a ranch a little out of
my neighborhood. Yearling heifers can sure cover some country when they take the notion, so I had been watching for her. I was still riding on about 1800 head of cattle by late that summer, so the possibility was real that she might turn up. As I shipped each bunch I made sure she wasn’t included.
Sure enough, one day she was in a little bunch of cow/calf pairs in my charge, so I called the brothers
who owned her and let them know. We arranged a day that they could meet me at the pasture and they
could get her loaded up and hauled home.
I’d known these two guys most of my life, and furthermore, liked them as people. They were within 10 years older than me, and we’d danced some and visited more over the years. Always well dressed, they were quite a dapper pair and had a nice shape to their hats. The truth was that I had never seen either of them horseback and didn’t know just what sort of cowboys they were, having never had occasion to be in their part of the country.
I arrived at the pasture and the heifer had stayed with the cows, which was a relief. I saw them coming, but a ways off, so I rode around the pairs and eased them to a corner while I waited for their arrival. They unloaded a nice looking pair of horses and cinched up while we planned our strategy. I figured since it was their heifer I’d sure let them take the lead, and while we chatted I realized that they had assumed there would be corrals in the pasture. Well, there wasn’t a set of pens any closer than five miles, so it was a rope-her-and-load-her out in the open deal, as I had figured it would be. Certainly nothing us three cowboys couldn’t handle.
They stepped on their pretty horses and I remember one was a stocking legged sorrel with a bald face,
so he was sure flashy. Both horses were fat and soft, but I figured they’d been busy haying or something
and hadn’t been riding much. My horse was not fat and soft at the tail end of summer, to say the least.
Kelly was fit as a racehorse.
We rode slowly into this bunch of gentle cows and they confirmed that the heifer was theirs, so I eased her out to the edge so one of them could stick a loop on her pretty quiet. I repeated the easing out to the edge several times and neither one had ever even ridden closer, though they had their ropes down and a loop built. By about the fourth time of “easing her out” the heifer was getting agitated and was going to become a problem child so I suggested pretty strongly that one of them had better rope her before she turned it into a horse and heifer race.
Unfortunately, they seemed pretty concerned about actually roping a yearling heifer out in the pasture and their consternation was clear even at a distance. I was suddenly aware that I was going to be the roper in this scenario, so as the heifer dove back toward the cows, I stuck a lucky loop around her neck and stopped her. She did the usual flop around like a blue marlin, but that didn’t concern Kelly at all so we just headed for my trailer.
I was pulling an open topped trailer that summer and it was pretty slick for loading one up when I was alone. Just ride by it, flip my rope over the side and ride on by and pretty quick, the critter would be loaded. Their trailer was a solid top with sharp edged side slats, so not wanting to strand my rope, I took
her to my rig and before she really knew what was happening, she had made one more jump of protest
and Kelly had snatched her into the trailer.
My two “cowboy” friends were still just sitting there on their pretty horses in apparent shock at how
simple that had been, so I told the closest one that he ought to probably get up there and close the trailer gate and maybe even swing the divider closed. I instructed the other that he could probably get the loop off the heifer if he would be so kind. My personal thought was that they probably wouldn’t mess up the creases in their nice hats or get their crisp shirts too dirty doing that, nor would their pretty horses break a sweat.
They did what I asked and then I got off of Kelly and loosened my cinch a little. I had other riding to
do and needed to load him up and hit the dusty trail, preferably without their heifer along. So, I said we
could just hop her over into their trailer if they’d back up to my trailer. One of them got in their pickup and after many tries, got it backed up close enough that the heifer would make the transfer without a
problem.
She hopped over to their rig easy as pie, and we all loaded our horses into our own trailers and were
ready to go our separate ways. They thanked me profusely, very happy to have their heifer back, and we
parted with cordial waves, still friends and all that. As I drove away though, it could be said that I was sure disillusioned over my two friends who I had always figured were cowboys. They sure looked it.
They always looked like something off the cover of a Rancher Fashion catalog. I even questioned whether their horses were anything more than pretty. It was a very disappointing morning for me. It turned out that they were just for show. Just a pair of “pretty shadow” cowboys. Over the years since then, I’ve encountered quite a few.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....