Cowboy country

"THIS HERE'S COWBOY COUNTRY!" read the bumper sticker on the back of John's old Chevy pickup. He had gone to White Sulpher Springs to get a part for his truck and was returning to the ranch with a 6 pack of Olympia beer. Dad and I had met him on the road on our way into the "R" ranch. John and Walter had been cowboy'n on that ranch during the summer. It was hunting season and all the ranch hands had returned to claim that prized spot hunting elk that they had earned working there.

I knew of John from highschool. I was in art class with his girlfriend Patty. She always drew horses. I never had any contact with John, but my old man did. All the hands knew and liked my dad. Dad had grown up on a ranch in the old days, so they respected him and cut me some slack due to it.

I wasn't really interested in shooting an elk so I represented no threat to them. Plus I figured that if I made my intentions clear about elk then I would have a good time on the hunt and would get along with all of the hands. It was all about diplomacy. Then after opening day when the elk herd is broken up they don't care. It is every man for himself. All I wanted was a nice mule deer.

So we were sitting around the breakfast table, those of us privilaged enough to be at the table in the ranch house, and after we were done eating John says, "Let's go get don a birthday present." as it was my birthday. We drove out on to the ranch in search of mule deer. It wasn't long and John spotted a couple of mule deer over 100 yards away below some trees on a hill side. I had the old 30-30 winchester saddle rifle with iron sights. I was pretty handy with it and had alot of practice. But all of the guys had fancy rifles with scopes. I shot. The deer ran up into the trees. John said "You got him!" I said "How could you tell?" as it was so far away and the deer looked really small in my sights. "I could tell by the sound, he'll be down up in those trees." And sure enough, when we got up there the deer was down. It was a nice buck. I got some respect from the cowboys after that shot when word got around. Of course Walter knew I could shoot. He showed up out of nowhere and helped out. "Sorry Mr. Deer." Walter said, as he helped us clean it out.

I saw this sign last weekend in Montana. It is kind of like an art piece out there like that. Not really sure what the significance is. Marking land I guess. But I remembered that old bumper sticker on John's truck when I saw it,.. "This Here's Cowboy Country!