The Rodeo

A subtle breeze flowed with the hours, following our six-wheeled caravan's procession between the pastures. Strands of wheat brushed on the warmth of the air in waves and folds, heeding the wind. A line of black cows ambled in the patches of grass of an enclosed hillside, staring blankly on our moving figures with dark, fixed eyes as we went. Watching us, their heads shifted in intervals like a clock's ticking hand. Adam put his thumb and finger to his mouth and sent a great whistle piercing through the open silence. The cows roused from their reverie and started, only a few at first, plodding alongside the fence. Then followed the group with young calves hinged to swaying tails and heels of their cows.

We reached a pale town called McIntosh and decided to stop for the day. The main street of it broke from the highway, harboring a lonely shop with a rickety screen door and a faded post office amid a line of nondescript building faces. Beside these was a playground park and a blue water tower standing high on its four narrow metal legs, the only thing breaking the surface of the one story town. We rolled our bikes into the park and settled down by a covered picnic table.

Christie went off down the street for a walk to more closely examine things. I dug hastily through one of my panniers for my stove, ready to boil some ramen for dinner and then set up on the table.

Christie returned carrying a grocery bag in one hand. She sat down across from me and gave me a peculiar look.

“That's not a very substantial meal,” she said, removing a box of cheese crackers from the bag. She broke open the box and slid it over the table toward me.

“Did you name your bike yet?” she asked.

I told her it was called Yakul. “It's from a movie.”

“We both just got around to naming ours. It's weird the things people name. We met a family who was living in an RV and they'd given it a name.”

“I've been investigating what it is that makes people do it,” Adam said, sitting down and leaning forward, “So far, it seems to me that once an object acquires a meaning and purpose from somebody, more so than it can have in and of itself, once that's happened, it gets a name. The people with the RV named it Puff. Apparently their kid had named it.”

“So what do you call yours?” I wondered.

Christie pointed and looked toward their bikes, leaning on a near tree, “Mine's Ontwa. Adam's is named Jenny.”

“Like Forrest Gump's boat, if you've seen it,” Adam said, nodding.

“And what's Ontwa mean?”

“There's actually a story behind that,” Christie started. “So a while ago when we were riding through Minnesota we came by a street that was Christina Road. Christina's my full name. And then the next street was Adam Street (or maybe Road?). But that's crazy, right? The next street after that even was Juneau Street. Juneau is the name of our dog in Connecticut, so obviously this was destiny or something. I told Adam that whatever the name of the next street was we would have to name our first kid. But it might have been a mistake, because the next street was Ontwa Road. I decided it would be a better idea to just name my bike Ontwa, so I did that instead.”

Christie disappeared over a hill ahead, coffee-saturated blood pumping in her veins, and Adam pushed as best he could to keep up. I fell behind them both, keeping a slow morning pace, distracted from time by the eloquent folds of land on either side of me. The road bent around a hillside and, slowly, a town of substantial size relative to those we'd seen recently was revealed in the distance. Coming into it, I found Christie and Adam in the packed parking lot of a gas station, waving me down as I approached.

“I told you she does that, didn't I,” Adam said in reference to Christie's morning energy, “And do you see all this?” They were both looking on the bustle of vehicles bouncing around on the lot and the road.

Looking down the length of the main street which ran along the station's side I saw parked cars lined on left and right, pick-ups and cars filling the designated diagonal spaces and spilling onto lawns and everywhere else not actively prohibited. A yellow sheet of paper taped up in the gas station window explained the cause with a bold-faced headline, “Lemmon Boss Cowman Rodeo! Friday, Saturday, Sunday.” We were at the local hub, the densest town a hundred miles out, and on the primary occasion of the year: rural life jubilee for western times past.

We went into the station and bought some food to eat for lunch. I came out after them and we pedaled down the street to find a table. Instead we discovered the origin of all the weekend's hubbub. 

A full public block, framed on all sides by haphazardly strewn vehicles, was occupied with the celebration. White pavilions were propped up over lines of plastic tables. Everywhere were mustached men under ten-gallon hats with plaid cotton shirts tucked neatly into iron-pressed Wranglers. Neither stitch nor crease was out of place. Each was bound up by his leather belt and great gleaming buckle, jogging among the jumbled crowd with paper plate and pop in hand, or else standing tall with thumbs hooked on his pocket brims, surveying the crowd with soft eyes and lips curled in a smile of deep approval, polished boots planted wide and firmly in the grass. The women beamed with warmth at each other, their faces shining, scrutinizing each others' skirts and elaborately jeweled collared shirts, the permed or straightened hair meticulously done up. Children bounced around inside a giant inflated castle. They were perfect replicas of their parents and wore the same costumes.

Everyone gathered with their neighbors hoping to preserve a culture that had been stripped and made virtually obsolete by modernity. In their way they meant to glorify the dead cowboy, revive the settler, the trailblazing American past, and honor the tradition of the hardy Western nudge. But behind the simple facade lay an unintended mockery. Their visions were unconsciously distorted by what had become of the place, the country. They were each a glorified image following after a fairy tale born of movies; cosmetic imitations of a somber and rugged past reality. They celebrated themselves, their own unsoiled, over-civilized lives, making an innocent show of an idolized fantasy.

They were excited. Murmurs floated about between the tables describing what was expected of the wild rodeo to come in the evening. Men in bright shirts and leather chaps would lasso from horseback, rope and tie the calves, or strive for the most seconds spent tightly gripping the strap atop an aggravated bull or a bronco's back. They were proud, simple, honest, and pleased with the pomp and daring of it, even if it were diluted of the utility which had made it great. I couldn't begrudge them anything.

It was only early afternoon when we'd finished our meal. Adam and Christie stayed for the show to see the lingering fragments of the West. I knew there remained riding to do that day so I bid them goodbye, leaving them to celebrate with the people. Further solitary distance laid ahead.


Photograph albums: 1, 2,  3, and #4.