Horse Mavericks

“We’re gonna get you a bit, today,” Lanny West said when I stepped onto his porch.  An old saddle sat at his feet, the stirrups splayed on either side.  “I can’t sell it to you and I can’t give it to you, but you can use it for as long as you like.”

He pointed to an insignia stamped into the leather just below the saddle horn.  “What does that say?”

“Garcia.  Salinas, California,” I said.

“They didn’t make many of these.  People consider this to be a collector’s item.  Just needs a cinch and a few straps, that’s all.”

I didn’t know what to say.  The entire scene felt surreal.  It seemed that if I breathed wrong, the saddle would disappear, Lanny would evaporate, and the horse–the one grazing the pasture adjacent to the porch–wasn’t really mine, but the neighbor’s.

I checked myself, reviewing everything that had happened up until the moment I stood looking down at that saddle.  I needed to be sure I wasn’t dreaming.  My parents paid a buck for the horse and then gave it to me.  Lanny corrected Gambler’s bad habits for very little money and now there was this saddle sitting there at my feet.  Nobody gets into horses for this cheap.  And if they did, they wouldn’t have a trainer like Lanny or a horse as gentle as Gambler with a saddle thrown in.  Nevertheless, this was reality and I was living it.

“You might have to spend $200 for a bit,” Lanny said apologetically.

I shook my head in disbelief.  “It’s not a big deal,” I said.

We got into his truck and drove to Hurst Ranch in Jamestown, California.  A shack stood perpendicular to the main building with a sign over the door that read, Butler’s Saddle Shop.  Inside it smelled like brand new leather.  Harnesses, bits, ropes and spurs hung on the walls.  A workbench was covered with pieces of unblemished cowhide.

I wanted to take advantage of my good fortune and learn everything I could, but my ignorance blindsided me.  I gave up and relaxed.  I leaned against a table and watched Lanny spend my money.  It would be impossible for me to leave that shop as clueless as I was when I walked in even if I felt overwhelmed.  All I had to do was watch and listen.  

Ron Butler stood over a saddletree sewing leather onto the horn.  All around him workbenches were covered in tools and scraps. 

Lanny introduced himself.  They seemed pleased to shake hands.  “I’ve been in here a lot, but I’ve never actually met you,” Lanny said.  Later he told me they had mutual friends and had heard about each other. 

Lanny studied the bits on the wall.  He picked out a shank bit with silver etching on the sides.  ”That’s a pretty one.”  He turned it over in his hand and fingered the joints.  Lanny asked questions and Ron answered.  Before long they were reminiscing about the days when they liked riding colts no matter how sensitive they might have been.  

Then the conversation drifted to the color of horses and Lanny talked about how he didn’t know the proper names because he was raised by an old horse trader.  He never got a formal equine education, but he described himself as street smart–learning his lessons from the horses themselves.  

Ron said, “I had an old friend who called me from the hospital and asked me what the prettiest color on a horse was.  I told him I didn’t know.  He said, ‘Gentle, you sun-of-a-gun.’”

The two men chuckled deep in their throats.  It wasn’t a jolly laugh, but a knowing laugh rooted deep in a lifetime of hard-knocked experience. 

Lanny pointed at the joint of the bit and said, “That might pinch.”  He hung it back on its hook and picked out a plain iron bit.  Satisfied, he perused the harnesses and reins. 

I took the opportunity to ask a few quesitons about the saddle Ron had been sewing when we first entered the shop.  The saddle tree was formed from douglas fir lumber that had been aged for 5 or 6 years.  The tree-makers covered it with rawhide and now it sat on a stand for Ron to attach the leather.  He said he would add extra padding here or there depending on a customer’s preference.    

I ran my finger over the stitching on top of the saddle horn.  The cowhide was only halfway sewn on and a long thread of rawhide dangled to the side.  As soon as Lanny and I left, Ron would finish sewing the leather to the horn by hand. 

Lanny placed a pile of tack next to one of those big calculators with a roll of printing tape and a credit card reader–the most advance technology in the shop.  A way of life was slipping away with this generation of men.  Once again I felt as if I were in a dream standing in the company of  the kind of people who had inspired Western literature. 

My ignorance was enormous, but my resolve deepened to write Lanny’s story and to get it right.  I owed it to him in gratitude for his tremendous kindness and also to the next generation of horses and their owners.  I want to peel away the glamour Hollywood has attributed to these folks, and re-create them as who they really are–hard working and pragmatic people with deep equestrian insights and well-lived lives.

After we left Ron’s place, Lanny and I stopped by a drive-thru coffee shop and ordered two iced chai teas.  I chuckled and said, “I don’t know how I am going to write you up.  You don’t live up to the image of a cowboy.” 

Could I capture this character who straddles a place in time between the real life horsemen, cowmen and ranchers of the pass–legends in modern day minds–and the eccentricities of the present?  While I sipped my tea through a straw, I decided not to think about it too much.  I’ll just enjoy my horse, the saddle and Lanny’s company, and do my best to record his legacy and the way-of-life he represents.