Free Faraway Horses by Buck Brannaman, William Reynolds Page B

was over, I really didn’t want to leave.
    Buck on an international tour with the Friendship Force, spinning ropes for the local media in Newcastle, England.
    My stint with the Friendship Force convinced me there was no reason I couldn’t make a good living doing rope tricks. I put what money I had together and took off for Denver and the big stock show held there every year.
    The rodeo producers held a convention at the Brown Palace Hotel, where you went to get your jobs for the year. You promoted yourself by renting a booth and putting up a little display. Because my dad had always handled that part of the business, I knew very little about it. I hadn’t realizedthere was a lot more needed than just being a good trick roper, so I wasn’t prepared at all.
    Buck in Costa Rica with Mike Thomas, manager of the Madison River Cattle Company.
    I spent most of what little money I had on a hotel room, and most of the rest for booth space, but I had nothing to put on the booth. A friend named Doug Deter helped me take some pictures out in the snow, and we put them on a poster board and tried to make some sort of a display. In addition,I had some pictures in a photo album that showed some of my rope tricks, but on the whole it was a pretty sorry presentation.
    I sat for three days and watched the rodeo producers walk by and stop at the other booths. Every producer had a little contract book, and I saw contracts being signed right and left. It seemed as if everybody was signing contracts, but by the third and last day of the convention, I hadn’t signed a single one. All the money I had saved up was gone, and I had no prospects. Although I was really a good trick roper, probably the best one there, no one knew.
    Every day at 4:00 P.M. was happy hour, when the convention committee members passed out free booze and everybody joked, laughed, and told stories. During happy hour on the last day, a very influential rodeo producer passed my booth.
    Forcing myself to summon up the courage to speak with him, I stopped him and asked, “Sir, would you take a moment and look at my album in case you would ever want someone to do some rope tricks at one of your rodeos?”
    He just looked at me and said, “Son, I’ve looked at so goddamn many pictures today, I don’t care if I look at another one.”
    “Well, I’m committed now,” I told myself, then practically begged him to look at my pictures.
    The producer didn’t sit down. Instead, he just flopped my album open on a table in somebody else’s booth and started flipping through the pages. He never looked at asingle one. He was laughing, joking, and greeting people across the room.
    Buck practicing his roping around the time he was looking for rodeo work.
    When he spilled his drink in the middle of my book, I took it away, slammed it shut, and said, “Thanks for your time.”
    He just glanced at me. He didn’t say anything. What happened to me meant nothing to him. As you can imagine, happy hour wasn’t so happy for me. I went upstairs to my room, threw down my photo album, lay on my bed, and cried. Nobody cared.
    I went back to ranching and really thought about quitting rope tricks. I had a good cowboying job, but I had no roping jobs and no prospects.
    Later on that summer a rodeo contractor named Roy Hunnicut out in Colorado called me. He said, “Son, I’d liketo hire you to do some rope tricks for me in a few rodeos. A guy who was trick riding for me broke his leg. You’re the only one who’s not working. I want to give you a try at one in Rock Springs, Wyoming. If I like what you’re doing, I’ll give you the rest of my rodeos.”
    The manager of the ranch where I was working was happy for me. “As long as you come back in time to get the colts ready for the fall sale,” he told me, “you go ahead and hit some of these rodeos.”
    I drove all night to get to Rock Springs for the Red Desert Roundup Rodeo. I didn’t have much of a fancy truck, trailer, or horses. In