Going Down The Road

What happened was that Billy Jack got recognized by another cowboy as being RCA at a little rodeo in Hull Daisetta. Jack had the misfortune to be with Billy Jack at the time, and about eight of those old country boys got the two of them behind the chute and commenced to throb their knobs. Me and Player had taken a count and decided there was no point in us getting mixed up in it. So we had got ourselves good seats on the fence where we could see the fight, what there was of it. J.B., being the wonderful human being he was, had gone and sat in the pickup. I didn't blame him for not getting in the fight, but I did think he could at least have had the decency to watch. But that was J.B., never a thought for his friends.

When we finally got away that night there was a cold wind blowing. Jack and Billy Jack were riding in the bed, where we'd put them after the locals had got through with them. After they came to and all the way until our first stop they were hollering and banging on the rear window, which made it hard for us in the cab to hear the radio. Then when we stopped for gas they went to whining and moaning about the cold wind. They were considerably lacerated about the head and face and they complained that the wind made their cuts burn even worse. It didn't sound like that big of a deal to me and Player, but the upshot was they insisted on riding in the cab, and riding five in a pickup cab, especially if the other four are unwashed and smelly, ain't any bed of roses.

Well, we decided we had to do something. We'd had trouble the whole time about who was going to ride in the bed and who in the cab. At first we'd decided the fair thing was for the three high money winners at each rodeo to ride in the cab, but that hadn't worked. There were times when nobody won anything and other times when there'd be four tied for second place with a grand total of zero. That kind of a situation brought on nothing but squabbles, a commodity we were already overstocked on.

So there was nothing for it but to make some changes. Right after the next rodeo we left the circuit and went to Temple , where Player's parents lived, and got hold of a cutting torch and cut the rear third out of the cab and moved it back about three feet. Then we took some sheet metal and welded it in the open space and ended up with a long cab body big enough for two seats. Of course they have that kind of pickup now, but our innovation may have been the first of its kind. We called it a double-barreled pickup, and it was probably the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen on the road. Naturally we didn't bother to paint the sheet iron we'd patched it with. We were in too big of a hurry to get back to rodeoing, so as soon as we'd made it weathertight we threw our rigging bags in the bed and took off.

All the other hands on the circuit thought the double-barreled pickup was about the funniest thing they'd ever seen. We'd come skidding up to an arena, running late as usual, and everybody around the chutes would start laughing. But the pickup ran good. It was only about five or six years old at the time and very dependable. I think it would have gotten good gas mileage if we hadn't forever been driving 85 and 90 miles an hour. We'd bought it from Player's daddy for $900 and we sent him a money order every week for $25 from wherever we were. We were pretty determined about keeping up those payments, and more than once we shorted ourself on grub to get that money in. I guess we were that way because Player's daddy was a fine man and we didn't want him to find out just what a bunch of worthless no-goods his son was running with.

Once, at a rodeo in Brownwood , we were really down on it. We'd spent our last cent to get to the show and hadn't a one of us won a nickel by the time we got to the bull riding, which is the last event. J.B. and Billy Jack and me were all in the bulls, but both of them had already bucked off, which left it up to me.

You'd of thought it was the World Series the way those other four gathered around my chute and began having a prayer meeting with my heart. They were giving me more help getting down on that bull than I could just about stand. Of course, they all knew I was scared of bulls. You don't hide something like that in rodeo.

They were all up on the boards behind the chute. Jack and Billy Jack were helping me get down, J.B. was saying, "Shoot, this ain't no bull. Anybody could ride this animal." Player was quietly pulling my bull rope and giving me advice about how much rope to take. You ride a bull with what they call a bull rope that goes around his middle with a bell on the bottom. You never actually tie it off, but rather take several wraps around your hand in such a fashion that when you buck off it comes loose and you won't get hung up and get your arm yanked out of the socket.

But of course that happens anyway.

You tighten your bull rope around the bull's chest depending on how strong you think he is. A bull's muscles swell an uncommon amount when he explodes out of the chute and he'll snap that rope right away from you if you take too tight a pull.