Highly Exalted Transcript
00:18 (Wind howling)
00:24 (Crow cawing)
00:25 (Light guitar music)
00:40 [Dean] Once in a while I'll have an occasion to get around people that are not associated with the cowboy's way of life. They'll ask me what I do for a livin'. I tell 'em I'm a cab driver. I'm a mechanic. You tell 'em you're a cowboy and they think you're a Waylon Jennings imitation, or would like to be. They don't have any idea what a cowboy really consists of.
01:11 (Horse snorting)
01:47 (Cowboys shouting)
01:48 (Cattle mooing)
01:48 [Dean] A lot of people look at us like we were not quite up to snuff with the rest of the world, but I don't see nothin' the matter with it. As far as I'm concerned, we're the highly exalted. And just take a good look here. Let me get my shirt together and straighten up my hat. If you don't think I'm highly exalted, well, maybe you better look in the mirror when you shave in the morning.
02:17 (Cattle mooing)
02:20 [Cowboy] Well, if they hold.
02:24 [Cowboy] I'd like to go back to a reunion sometime when they's all there, that class that I should have graduated with.
02:29 [Jerry Cross] I would too, someday.
02:31 [Cowboy] Kinda interesting. 'Cause I was probably, they never voted anybody, you know, the least likely to succeed, but I'm sure that if they had had such a vote, I'da got it, and they're right.
02:41 (All laughing)
02:46 [Cowboy] I quit school when the principal told me I didn't know the
difference between a church and a pool hall.
02:50 (All laughing)
02:52 [Cowboy] You just knew that she'd been eating house cats.
02:55 [Dean] Ain't nothin' wrong with eating a house cat.
02:58 (All chuckle)
03:01 [Cowboy] Tastes like a rabbit?
03:02 [Dean] Like a rabbit? Well, different than a rabbit.
03:08 [Cowboy] You ate your cat?
03:11 (All laughing)
03:14 [Dean] Yeah. Haven't you ever ate a cat?
03:19 [Cowboy] Not one of my own.
03:20 (All laughing)
03:22 [Cowboy] What, they claim it's about like horse meat, isn't it?
03:25 [Dean] Similar to horse, yeah. Similar to a horse when you get talking about around folks. Folks think you're not supposed to do that. They say normal people don't eat cats and horses.
03:37 [Cowboy] Why'd you eat your cat?
03:40 [Dean] Usually say, why did I eat my cat? Like I ate Old Pusser. I didn't eat Old Pusser. I was trapping one winter, and building some fence, and groceries was lean. That was one of them times when I was self-employed and not doin' so good. That's what I say like this. It's working, hell ain't nothing to it.
04:05 (Stream babbling)
04:14 [Dean] My family was a mess, to tell you the truth. My mother, it just was a mess. It isn't anything that you'd write home about. You know, more or less I was a juvenile delinquent, held up gas stations, and that sort of thing. I was 12 years old when them adoption papers were signed, and that's like trying to graft a yearling onto a milk cow. It just don't graft very well. And so I caught me a train and I hoofed it. I came back out here and went to work and I've been kicking around working ever since. So, I don't know, cowboyin', it's been good to me. Everything I've got has came from buckarooin'. So why not stay with it? I like it.
05:01 (Gentle guitar music)
05:05 (Stove hissing)
05:06 (Meat sizzling)
05:10 [Cook] I used to cowboy, all my life, really, 'til I got hurt by a horse in '79. The horse bucked with me downhill in the dark. Split my pelvis. The doctor told me to stay off them horses.
05:30 [Cowboy] Thanks, Blackie.
05:33 [Cook] More work than it looks, you know. In this day and age, I'll
tell ya, it's hard to come by an old ranch house cook, chuck house cook, you know? They're almost extinct like a bird.
05:44 [Cowboy] No.
05:45 [Cook] You can't find 'em. I've seen guys come out here, hell, I don't know. You can't take a man cook in the casino, come out here and expect him to be a chuckwagon cook, you know? He know nothing about it. Or a guy cooking at a cafe.
05:58 (Plates clattering)
05:59 (Food sizzling)
06:02 (Cowboys chattering)
06:08 [Cook] You know, to be a cook, you gotta love to cook. I'm no cook. I never did learn.
06:14 (Cowboy laughing)
06:16 [Cook] Shoot, I ain't no cook.
06:18 (Bird singing)
06:18 (Brook babbling)
06:22 (Harness jingling)
06:26 (Mellow music)
06:31 [Cook] They had one good chuckwagon cook here. His name was Dick. He handled the team, too, you know. Drove his truck and then
pulled the chuckwagon. Drove the chuckwagon. And that's the way all the old, the old chuckwagon, that's the way they did it, you know. The cook drove the chuckwagon. That was his. But now you can't get anybody, anybody to skin a team, even drive a team, or harness one up, you know? Hard to find 'em.
07:03 [Dean] Jerry, gimme some brake! Brake!
07:06 (Mellow music)
07:08 (Hooves clopping)
07:08 (Wagon rattling)
07:23 (Dog barking)
07:47 [Cook] You drive to the job, this day and age. Nice pickup, horse
trailer, you know; warm.
07:57 (Dog barking)
08:22 (Dean talking to horses)
08:38 [Dean] Don't take much to be a cowboy. Just boots, hat. That's about all. Pickup truck with a tape deck in it. Couple of Lynn Anderson tapes a-hangin' up there on the dash. Maybe a Waylon and Willie. Rascal, haw, haw. Rascal, haw. Whoa, whoa. Whoa. Drive 'em straight home.
09:22 [Cowboy] Yeah.
09:24 [Dean] Corral's there. (Indistinct) over there looks worse now than it did. Unsnap that stuff, breast strap.
09:37 (Sledge smacking)
09:40 [Cowboy] Nobody cowboys for the money, 'cause money ain't that good. The average cowboy will make about $13 a day startin' out. And if he's a good'n and he looks like he might stick around for long enough to get to know his way back to camp, he might make a little more. Maybe he will, maybe he won't.
10:05 [Cowboy] Good enough. Need some support there.
10:09 (Thunder rumbling)
10:18 [Cowboy] Your groceries don't cost you nothin' and your house don't cost you nothin'. You furnish your own bed. But what the hell's a pile of
blankets and a piece of tarp? Don't amount to nothin'.
10:39 [Cowboy] Drying out outside, is it?
10:43 [Cowboy] I hope my tent dries out.
10:47 [Cowboy] You'll make her.
10:49 [Cowboy] I'm makin' her. I'm bellyaching, but I'm makin' her.
10:56 [Alyne] Whah, we made 'er!
11:00 (Cowboys chattering)
11:02 (Doors slamming)
11:05 [Cowboy] I shouldn't make it sound that bad. Actually, I went six weeks at seven.
11:09 (Laughs)
11:10 [Dean] The day I got my report card they told me that they
didn't need me anymore.
11:13 (Cowboys laughing)
11:14 [Cowboy] He wasn't worth the paperwork, eh?
11:16 [Dean] They told me I was incorrigible. I wonder where they'd ever got that.
11:19 [Cowboy] You was what?
11:20 [Dean] Incorrigible was the word they used. I didn't know what that
meant for a long time. Kind of a nonconformist.
11:25 [Kent] Anybody home?
11:27 [Cowboy] Who are these guys?
11:29 [Cowboy] A couple gangs, I think. Yeah, yeah.
11:32 [Cowboy] Hey!
11:33 [Cowboy] Buzz, you-
11:33 [Cowboy] Hey, he's got his suit coat on!
11:35 [Cowboy] Hey!
11:35 (Cowboy laughing)
11:36 [Cowboy] Geez.
11:37 [Kent] Hey, we come right from town. God, you guys are eating food? We just brought whiskey.
11:43 [Cowboy] Well, we'll have a drink of whiskey.
11:45 [Cowboy] That wrangler boy, he likes a little drink before supper.
11:47 (Cowboys laughing)
11:50 [Alyne] I'm Alyne Ross. How you doing?
11:51 [Cowboy] Good to meet you.
11:53 [Jerry Cross] That's right down my alley. I drank before supper.
11:54 [Kent] How much you need? Whole glassful?
11:57 [Jerry Cross] Just half.
11:58 (Cowboys laughing)
11:59 [Jerry Cross] Half water and half whiskey.
12:02 [Kent] Oh man.
12:02 [Jerry Cross] What's your handle?
12:04 [Jerry Souza] Jerry Souza.
12:05 [Jerry Cross] Glad to know you, Jerry. Jerry Cross.
12:08 [Kent] Kent Craven.
12:08 [Jerry Cross] Kent Craven? Glad to know you, Kent.
12:10 [Kent] Pleased to meet you.
12:11 [Cowboy] Well, you fellas is the ones that took that old whore back there to-
12:13 [Cowboy] Colorado, yeah, that's it.
12:15 (Cowboys laughing)
12:19 (Cowboy talking)
12:21 [Kent] Well, if money was no object, when you travel with one of those working girls, I'll guarantee you money is no object.
12:28 [Cowboy] Did you put her to work on the way?
12:31 [Kent] No, we never put her to work. She had a purse about
that big, right Souza?
12:36 [Jerry Souza] Yeah.
12:37 [Kent] And there was just an endless stream of twenties. Nothing bigger than a 20, but there we figured there was a little man in there about that big printing twenties. There was just no end to 'em, right Jerry?
12:47 [Jerry Cross] How many days was you on this vacation?
12:51 [Kent] Well, it took about-
12:53 [Cowboy] What's today?
12:54 [Kent] Three or four days to go from Elko, Nevada to Colorado Springs. Of course we weren't in any hurry.
13:01 [Cowboy] Was you nasty to this lady along the way?
13:02 [Kent] Oh no. She was true to the man we were deliverin' her to.
13:06 (Cowboys laughing)
13:09 [Cowboy] How long's it been since you ate, Souza?
13:11 [Jerry Souza] I was gonna ask, this is food, huh?
13:12 (Cowboys laughing)
13:14 [Kent] You recognized it right off.
13:17 [Cowboy] Damn.
13:18 [Cook] We got some pineapple cake up here.
13:22 [Cowboy] It's almost as good as that whiskey.
13:25 [Cowboy] Oh my God, look at them bubbles roll.
13:29 [Cowboy] Geez.
13:29 [Cowboy] Sign of a conditioned man.
13:31 (Cowboys laughing)
13:32 [Cowboy] How long's it been since you worked?
13:34 (Cowboys laughing)
13:37 [Kent] At least 13 days. What's it been, 13 days?
13:40 [Cook] Oh yeah, they sit around here and tell their life history after supper, you know. Now I've seen people in worse shapes than that one, but they weren't too bad, really. They were happy. I mean...
13:57 (Dog barking)
14:04 [Cook] I grew up on a Ogallala Sioux Indian reservation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota. I've been gone from there for 40 years. I went to school at a great big Catholic school, Holy Rosary Mission, and I went
to Ogallala boarding school, government school. Graduated there. Had a scholarship one time for Notre Dame. Never took advantage of that. I was a pretty good athlete in my day. Kinda wild.
14:36 (Hooves thundering)
14:46 [Cook] I used to ride what they call the rough strings. They don't have them no more, either. They don't have a rough string anymore. They were the bad horses, you know. Horses that kicked, bite, and lay down, run off, buck, and everything. But they don't have the rough string on these ranches no more. But this one guy, that's all he did, you know? Take ride the rough string. They bite, they kick, they paw you, lay down on you, balk, whatever.
15:15 (Horse nickering)
15:19 (Cowboy talking)
15:23 [Jerry Souza] Why am I here?
15:24 [Blackie] Yeah.
15:25 [Jerry Souza] I'm not smart enough to be anywhere else.
That's how come I'm here. How come you're here, Blackie?
15:31 [Blackie] Same reason, I guess.
15:34 [Dean] I'm here 'cause I like it. I got me a honey, couple little bam beetles, and it's secure. Like a welfare check. Not a care in the world.
15:48 [Cowboy] 'Til some other outfit takes over.
15:50 (Cowboy laughing)
15:53 [Cowboy] Here for the money.
15:56 [Blackie] Stay a long time, Jerry. You might get rich.
16:00 (Water splashing)
16:03 (Horse whinnying)
16:07 [Cowboy] One of the things about this northern Nevada country, the uniqueness or vastness of it,
16:14 (Upbeat music)
16:15 [Cowboy] is there's a lot of times when we start on circle that we'll trot for 25, 30 miles in one direction before we start our circle,
start our day's work.
16:29 (Hopeful music)
17:10 (Cattle mooing)
17:28 [Cowboy] It took about five years of rodeoing in an amateur class to find out that I never was gonna make it big time riding buckin' horses. So I started riding buckin'
horses just as part-time, just to play for entertainment. I got to startin' a lot of colts for myself and for other people. And one thing led to another until that's about all I do now. I've spent almost 20 years buckarooin', and you don't spend that long at something and not like it and not get to be pretty good at it, too.
18:03 (Cattle mooing)
18:25 [Cowboy] The enjoyable part of working in a rodeo ground is that it's quiet, and you get a chance to see these fellows work the horse
and can get a chance to see a young horse maybe come along and really puttin' some nice moves on a cow. And the man is, you know, he's bringing this, what natural ability there is in the horse, he's tryin' to help bring that out and position the horse to put this work on these cows.
18:54 [Cowboy] Oh, we had an older cow. And we had some wild ones.
18:59 [Cowboy] You got country all around you and it looks big, but living as you do with a bunch of cowboys, you're living pretty close. And if you work with a man for very long, you get to know him really well. He'll pretty well tell you his whole history through the course of a year or so. You don't live like a rat in a den alongside somebody and not get to know how he thinks, and where he's been, what kind of person he is.
19:32 (Bird singing)
19:33 (Mellow music)
19:35 (Trees rustle)
19:42 (Footsteps crunch)
19:52 [Cowboy] If you could buy a cowboy for what he's worth and sell him for what he thought he's worth, we could all go on to Florida and reside.
20:01 (Cowboy smooching)
20:02 [Cowboy] Cowboys are pretty stuck on themselves. You know, they think they're the one and only, and they like to have people think that they walked on water, but they don't do. Common as cornflakes. But they're a gear ahead of the ranch hands and the hay hands. They have a trade that took a long time to learn. If they're good at it, it took years. And if they're really good at it, they never do learn it all.
20:33 [Cowboy] Whoa. Whoa, Red.
20:35 [Blackie] Oh, it's a pretty open job. Especially, well, I've been around long enough. There's quite a few guys, you know, you get around long enough, they get to knowin' you. They talk about you. It kinda helps if you just kinda try to keep up your reputation a little bit. Don't quit 'em in a jackpot. Kinda wait till the work quits, or something like that. Just always watch out your name.
21:08 [Cowboy] Dean's good with a horse. You know, he plays with a horse a lot. Person has to do somethin'. Go nuts on these outfits if you don't.
21:17(Body thuds)
21:23 (Whistles)
21:25 [Dean] Ta-da. What do you want me to do here?
21:28 (Hand patting)
21:30 [Dean] Maybe we'll do a mounting job, huh? Scrounge up. Scrounge up.
21:36 (Clicks tongue)
21:40 [Dean] All right?
21:40 (Laughing)
21:42 [Blackie] I met Dean six years ago, but we went to Arizona
together four years ago. That was the second time run acrossed him. That's when we kinda got to know each other. And then this year's the first time we've seen each other after four years. We had quite a little trip down Arizona.
22:03 [Dean] Quick, Blackie, he's gettin' away. Right there! Take that. Go the horn.
22:10 (Cowboy laughing)
22:13 [Blackie] Good thing it was standing still.
22:18 [Dean] Well, everybody comin' up through the ranks of a buckaroo have to serve an apprenticeship, and apprenticeship just amounts to going to school. By going to school, I mean you go to school here, and there, and this and that.
22:31 (Hammer ringing)
22:33 [Dean] You don't go to school anywhere.
22:34 [Blackie] The old timers, they'd come over and they'd tell you what you did wrong.
22:39 [Dean] Yeah, when you're-
22:40 [Blackie] Not in a very nice way, either; kinda upset.
22:42 (Hammer ringing)
22:44 [Dean] When you're a kid, you think just because they're old, they're older than you are, they're smarter. And after a while, after you get about so far along, you find out that them old men don't know nothin'. Not all of 'em; some do. But the majority of the old men don't know nothin'.
23:01 (Lariat whistling)
23:02 [Dean] Just 'cause they're old don't mean anything. It's like anything else. You know, that age didn't make 'em good. It was the interest, self
discipline that made 'em good.
23:18 [Cowboy] It's like roping. I mean I do a lot of practicing and a lot of guys that aren't very good ropers, they know they ain't good ropers and they don't practice. Whereas me, I always gotta rope in my hand every day, you know, for every day of the year, you know, somewhere,
unless I'm in town. But I go outside and practice all the time. And I'd like to work for a charro once in my life. You know, a Mexican charro. They do all the trick roping. I'd like to go to Mexico just to improve my roping for my own personal satisfaction. With a lot of people, they're satisfied if they can just go out and rope something, you know. I ain't, you know. I don't like to do that. But you gotta be a horseman, too. I mean, you gotta show your horse how to get there first and then you have to rope it.
24:05 (Mid-tempo music)
24:08 [Cowboy] That was a new trick.
24:09 (Cowboy laughing)
24:13 (Cattle mooing)
24:42 (Calf bellowing)
24:45 (Hooves clomping)
24:51 (Calf bellowing)
24:55 (Wind blowing)
24:57 (Rain pattering)
25:06 (Cowboy muttering)
25:09 [Dean] I was gonna hang my bed outside, but it's a good thing I never. In fact, my tepee door is open, Blackie, and if your heart was in the right place you'd ease on out there and close it for me.
25:19 [Blackie] Well, if yours was in the right place, you'd ease on out there and grab my war bag and shut my door, too.
25:24 (Dean chuckling)
25:27 [Dean] Yeah, I don't have time.
25:29 [Blackie] Well, I don't either.
25:31 [Dean] You don't either, how come?
25:33 [Blackie] Because I'm just on the finishing processes of this stampede string.
25:37 [Dean] That old piece of junk? You oughta throw away anyway. Look how scabby it looks.
25:41 [Blackie] Well, it might-
25:41 [Dean] That piece of trash.
25:43 [Blackie] I might give it to Taylor Canyon.
25:45 [Dean] You oughta give it to me and publicize. Advertisement.
25:48 [Blackie] Well, you might get it.
25:49 [Dean] Maybe I'll sell it for you. What would you take for
that stampede string right here today?
25:54 [Blackie] 40 bucks.
25:55 [Dean] $40? Jesus, did you pant?
25:57 [Blackie] No.
25:58 [Dean] For cash?
25:59 [Blackie] I got money-
25:59 [Dean] I mean green money.
26:01 [Blackie] I got money in my pocket. I don't need it.
26:03 [Dean] Well, how much money you got in your pocket today, my man?
26:07 [Blackie] Well, I ain't got nuttin' up here, but I'm-
26:08 (Dean cackling)
26:10 [Blackie] Hey, I do too. I got a paycheck up here.
26:13 [Dean] One flush buckaroo, ain't he? He ain't got nothin' but a dream and a far away anticipation.
26:21 [Blackie] Well, I got a paycheck over there.
26:24 [Dean] Where?
26:26 [Blackie] Don't you worry where.
26:27 (Dean laughing)
26:30 (Hooves clattering)
26:47 [Cowboy] You gather your horses every morning. Every morning you wrangle, catch up what you're gonna ride that day. And if you've got a circle to make in the afternoon, then you might wrangle again.
27:03 (Cowboys talking)
00:27 [Cowboy] So they cut you a string of 10 head of horses and any one of 'em would buck you off, and some of 'em can. If you're scared of 'em, you're not gonna make it, you know, because, well, you're just not gonna make it, that's all.
27:27 [Blackie] This horse is a piece of cake.
27:30 [Dean] That white horse?
27:31 [Blackie] Yeah, he's a piece of cake.
27:32 [Dean] Well I seen a kid wrangled horses on him that was just about green as leaves on them quakey trees. Is that the one you've been talking about supposed to be a...
27:42 (Cowboy laughing)
27:45 [Dean] Well, he ain't even worth mentioning.
27:51 [Cowboy] I've started horses with fellows that, God, they'd spend 30 minutes a-hitching their pants and checking their cinches, and just doin' everything they can do to postpone gettin' on him, you know? But hell, everybody gets bucked off. You hear them stories about fellas that never get bucked off, but anybody that never got bucked off, never rode many.
28:13 (Whip cracking)
28:15 (Horse whinnying)
28:22 [Cowboy] If you come on a ranch and you may get six or seven or eight or 10 horses and you'll have maybe one good bridle horse, or maybe two, just depending. And you've got maybe two or three other horses that are particularly adept at working cows. Some have a lot more ability than others, or desire, whatever, and it's a lot probably in the way they were started and the way they were handled to begin with.
28:53 (Cows mooing)
28:53 (Cowboys shouting)
29:03 (Cowboy whoops)
29:04 [Cowboy] This is a wreck.
29:08 [Cowboy] But there's days when you couldn't get anybody to quit here. But then there's days that that dudes just write their check and they'd be down the road and ready to go. They don't like the job, or they don't like the horses, or they just gotta go somewheres else, or get tired. You know. There ain't no reason for 'em to stay, unless they got married and settled down. If a man's single, you might as well move around, I guess. Do whatever you want.
29:38 (Slow guitar music)
29:42 [Dean] You see a lot of fellas out here because they can't do nothin' else. But I'm not here 'cause I can't do nothing else. I'm just here 'cause I like it.
29:57 (Sledges ringing)
30:03 (Dog barking)
30:04 [Blackie] Just come into a new outfit, I'll get tyin' them knots, and if they start asking me, I really whip them all out.
30:11 [Cowboy] Well, there'll be some scoutmasters watching. The dragon bowline, hmm. Mother, get that book on knots. Dragon bowline?
30:19 (Cowboy laughing)
30:21 [Blackie] This one they told me whenever you fall off a cliff and so you're hanging on, somebody throws you a rope, there's the bowline. There's another bowline. This one, if you ever in the second story, and you gotta get away from a fire, or a jealous husband, and you're lucky enough to have a rope, you've got knots to slow you down on your getaway. This what I call the hair-trigger bowline, cook that was here. 'Cause I don't know where you can use it. That's what I call a hair-trigger bowline. And if you've never heard of a dragon bowline, there's what they call the draggin' bowline.
31:10 (Pup growling)
31:15 (Coyote yapping)
31:20 [Interviewer] What was the story about when you first went to school how you'd run home every night?
31:23 [Cook] Oh yeah, I'd run away. That was a Catholic school. Yeah, that was Holy Rosary Mission. It was a boarding school. I mean, yeah, you boarded there. I mean you stayed there. Had a little teacher called Rosie Swallow, I remember that. And she wasn't so bad though, she wasn't a nun. But nuns were the ones that were mean. The nuns. Well, I'd run away so much they put a red stocking cap on me. You know, they had a playground out there, you know. And every time they spotted that red cap gone, they knew I left. So I'll tell you, you know, that was 55 miles to the ranch from that school.
32:01 (Hooves clattering)
32:02 [Cook] And I'd leave in the morning, I'd make it by midnight. Did 55 miles. Running, usually. Goin' uphill and downhill.
32:09 (Dog barking)
32:10 [Cook] You see when you run away from there, if anybody catches you and takes you back to that school, outside of your parents, they give 'em $25 to take you back there. So a lot of guys, a lot of them people along the way, you had to duck 'em, you know. You couldn't see anybody, you know. But nobody's ever took me back but my folks 'cause I always got home.
32:31 (Slow guitar music)
32:37 (Birds chirping)
33:00 [Blackie] Town? Party. That's what most of 'em do. I've done it. Spent every dollar I had.
33:15 [Cowboy] Goin' to town to see the girls is a big part of this life. You're out here, you've seen what this is like out here for 30 days, and you know, it's sure a lot of fun. But it isn't near as much fun as goin' to town, drinkin' whiskey, and seein' those girls. That's a lot of fun.
That's really fun.
33:35 [Cowboy] Why is it that a cowboy always talks about the girls out on these ranches, and as soon as he gets to town, he's talkin' horses. The last thing he can even think of is girls.
33:44 [Cowboy] Some of these truck drivers, you know, come in there, and boy they got a bankroll, you know. You know them billfolds are great big long, they got a chain hooked onto it. Several hundred dollars or
maybe a few thousand in there. And they're not shown near as good a time as the cowboys when they go in there. And when they go in there, they spend everything. They may go to pick up some things that they need, but everything that's left over goes for whiskey and girls. So when they're all in, they're all in, and they spend it all right there. And you know, those girls will ante up and give you, here, here's some money, go get breakfast. Or they may fix you a sandwich right there, feed you right there, and give you a place to lay down and rest or something.
34:33 (Coughing)
34:33 [Cowboy] So there's kind of a camaraderie. Wouldn't you call it that Blackie, between some of those girls?
34:44 [Blackie] I don't know.
34:46 [Cowboy] It's just the thing of being single, I guess. And there's very few cowboys that have something steady because of their job, more or less. They can't afford it for one reason, and then couldn't keep 'em if they did have one because you might not show up in town for a month. There was times I went two and a half months without goin' to town. That kinda screws things like that up, you know? They ain't gonna wait that long for you. But then you wonder when you call 'em back up or whatever, why they're gone. But that's why, you know. So you just kinda have to live with it until you find something that's really worth it.
35:36 (Music playing on radio)
35:36 [Cowboy] Something you can make an effort towards.
35:45 [Cowboy] Well, town's jumping tonight, isn't it?
35:47 [Cowboy] Yeah.
35:50 [Cowboy] He should be really wound up here pretty soon.
35:51 [Cowboy] Yeah.
35:54 (Cowboys chattering)
35:56 (Car rumbling)
35:59 [Cowboy] 'Spose everybody's here?
36:00 (Band playing country music)
36:01 (People whooping)
36:06 (Music playing) ♪ Quite as often as I could have…Maybe I didn't treat you quite good as I should have…Little things I should have said and done…I just never took the time…You were always on my mind…You were always on my mind…You were always on my mind…You were always on my mind ♪
37:00 (Patrons chattering)
37:05 (Dog barking)
37:15 (Bird singing)
37:21 (Blade scraping)
37:26 (Truck rumbling)
37:32 [Cowboy] Dean, are you sorry you got married? I mean…
37:34 [Dean] Oh no-
37:35 [Cowboy] Scooter says it's sort of a drag.
37:36 [Dean] No, no, I, I don't think so. I've tramped around, been a lot of places, seen a lot of stuff. No, I ain't sorry. I kinda like it.
37:51 [Cowboy] Good ones.
37:55 (People chattering)
38:04 [Reva] Hi there.
38:05 [Debby] Hey, puppy.
38:06 [Reva] Hi, Kim.
38:07 [Cowboy] What are you packin' there?
38:08 [Debby] Bread.
38:09 [Reva] We're gonna set little stand out here and sell our wares.
38:12 [Dean] Reva's pretty tolerant, but I shouldn't say tolerant. She's really good.
38:16 (Reva laughing)
38:18 [Dean] There's nothin' glamorous for a woman sittin' around camp, or in a house somewhere with no money, and no future while the old man's out there roping the wild ones and riding the tough ones.
38:31 [Cowboy] Get out of this burning desert.
38:32 [Reva] Oh, I know. I know how it is.
38:37 [Alyne] Hey, good-lookin'
38:38 [Reva] Hi, Alyne. How goes it?
38:41 [Debby] Yeah, I call Reva up at 10:00. We're supposed to leave
at, no, it's 10:30.
38:45 [Cowboy] How long you been sittin' over there?
38:46 [Debby] Oh, we just-
38:47 [Reva] Hours. Kept thinkin', "Well, a buckaroo will come by and rescue us fair maidens."
38:51 [Cowboy] Drag you across the creek.
38:53 (Reva laughing)
38:56 [Debby] By our hair. “You're goin' with me.” I even had school this
morning, and everything, and I was ready on time.
39:03 [Cowboy] You had school? Saturday? How come?
39:05 [Debby] We had a project we had to finish, so they made us come in.
39:08 [Reva] Mother's Day project.
39:09 [Debby] Finish that project. Tomorrow's Mother's Day.
39:12 (Radio playing music)
39:13 [Cowboy] It's gonna hit the big screen, and I got news for you.
39:16(Reva and Debby laughing)
39:19 [Cowboy] Only "The Exalted" goes to screen.
39:21 [Reva] Oh, okay. Well, I was pretty exalted last night.
39:22 (Laughing)
39:26 [Cowboy] Looked pretty friendly to me. Exalted or exhausted?
39:28 [Debby] Pretty friendly?
39:31 [Reva] I told Debby, I don't know if I was funny as I thought I was, but I thought I was pretty funny.
39:31 (Laughing)
39:35 [Cowboy] You're telling me. It wasn't really all that fun.
39:38 [Reva] Yeah.
39:39 [Debby] Just thought you were.
39:40 [Reva] Little of that goes a long way.
39:42 [Cowboy] Whatcha building' over there, Cookie?
39:45 [Cook] Pie!
39:46 (All laughing)
39:47 [Cowboy] I hear they told you the one about the women sittin' on the thing.
39:50 (All laughing)
39:52 [Reva] Where's Al, okay there, Alyne.
39:54 [Debby] Now you got our interest goin'. Now tell us.
39:57 (Cowboy speaking)
39:59 [Debby] Tell 'em that one you said last night, or the other night. The one that I got, not the one that I didn't get.
40:07 [Cowboy] You tell that.
40:08 [Cowboy] I don't know any good clean ones.
40:10 (All laughing)
40:12 [Blackie] Ed was having a little bit of trouble. Wanted a new brain, so he goes to the doctor, this brain surgeon. He's gonna get a brain transplant. He's asking this old doctor, he says, "I wanna brain transplant. Show me brains." He says, "You bet, I've got quite a few of 'em." Ed said, "Well, let's look at 'em." So they went in, they looked at this one and his doc said, "This is a doctor's brain. "It's worth $300." Then he looked this other one, he said, "This is a lawyer's brain, it's worth $400." Well, Ed said, "You got any more?" And he says, "You bet." He said, "Here's a cowboy's brain, it's worth $10,000." So Ed, he asked, he says, "Why is it the doctor and lawyer brain "ain't worth very much, but that cowboy's brain's worth a lot?" "That's because it's never been used."
41:00 (Reva and Debby laughing)
41:04 [Dean] Oh, we oughta have somethin' better than that, but I don't know any.
41:09 (Bird singing)
41:11 (Mid-tempo music)
41:33 [Cowboy] Cowboys, I don't know if they're any more scarce than they've ever been, good ones. But when this country goes, when Nevada goes, the cowboy will be done. No more long rides. This country's even all fenced up, gettin' more fenced all the time, hemmed in, although it is still big. And the cowboy, he's not so much a dying breed as the country is phasin' him out. Fences is probably as hard on a cowboy's future as anything. And as long as you've got cattle, you've got cowboys. But if they ever get it fenced up to the point that a man don't have to go look for his cattle, he knows where they're at, cowboy's day and time
will just about have it. Be done.
42:48 (Truck rumbling)
42:57 (Cowboys whistling and shouting)
43:00 (Cattle mooing)
43:29 (Cowboy and driver talking)
43:34 [Cowboy] I'm sure they have more (indistinct).
43:39 (Truck revving)
43:58 (Wind whistling)
44:01 (Slow music)
44:05 [Interviewer] Who do you think would be most likely to leave here first for this crew?
44:12 [Cowboy] Probably me.
44:12 (Laughing)
44:19 [Cowboy] But that's, what's that? Well, that's what I mean. You get tired of it, you know. It'd be all right if I had a deal set up, you know, where I was makin' more money than what I was.
44:32 [Dean] Knowledge is like money. When you trade, you wanna,
if you're gonna trade a car, you try to trade up. You got a little money,
and if you sit someplace and build your knowledge and then you trade, you wanna trade up. And a young man that's climbed the ladder as high as he can climb where he's at, it's time to muscle around and find him a new ladder.
44:51 (Wagon and harness jingling)
44:56 (Mid-tempo music)
45:02 [Driver] Whoa! Hey. Whoa!
45:50 (Hooves pounding)
45:51 [Cook] Yeah, but I'm gonna give this life up February. Headin' home. Start life all over on the reservation. After all these years. When I left there, them Indians used to travel in wagons, you know, team of horses, drive a team of horses, wagons, two, three dogs following them. Maybe a couple of the boys were riding horseback coming on from behind, you know. Some walking. The roads were just nothing but old dirt. Dirt roads. Had a place where they tied their horses up into the agency. That was a long time ago, though. But now they tell me they got blacktop highways,
46:32 (Dogs barking)
46:33 [Cook] shopping center, and everything. Housing projects, you know.
46:48 [Cowboy] Money don't mean nothin' to a cowboy. It don't make any difference whether you paid him a thousand or paid him a hundred. He'll work 'til he knows the country, or kinda hits it off or he don't hit it off, and then he'll roll it up and go on down somewhere else.
47:18 (Dog barking)
47:38 (Crow cawing)
47:39 [Dean] Some cowboys are just pretty content just to coast along. I can't. I have trouble just following along, following somebody. I sing my own song, you know. Hell, I don't know. She says I won't ever change, but I will, it's just a matter of time. I bought that little piece of property, see in Idaho and thinking that I'd maybe start a house there. I keep telling her if I do that, then I'm in a rut. I'm sitting there and
you've just got a circle, like an old ant in an anthill. Only so far you can go, and your whole world revolves around that. So whenever I jerk the
wheels off this wagon, I feel like I'm gonna limit myself a little bit.
48:27 (Wind whistling)
48:31 [Dean] Cowboying's the only thing that ever made me any money. You know, I sit up here and work along this mine just for something to
do for the last month. And I've got this fence contract, and I'll go down and build that fence, and, but I'll take a couple teams of horses up there, and a wagon. And a cowboy is something that you, either you are or you're not. And I've been cowboy all my life. And maybe I don't look very cowboy sittin' here with a cap on, you know, and no cows around, but that isn't all there is to it, you know. And if he is a cowboy, you can still pick a cow and he's still a cowboy.
49:17 (Fire crackling)
49:24 (Dean singing) ♪ He gets to the fence row…And then a weaving behind…My head gets to poppin'…I sort of go blind…When he takes the hand springing way up in the air…And leaves me a sittin' on nothing up there…Up there I turned over below I can see…He's a-pawin' the round…He's sure waiting for me…I pictures a grave and a slab made of wood…Readin' here lies a rider that thought he was good…I hit on the ground and I've got enough sense…To outrun that bull to the hole in the fence…I get my old saddle and I'm tellin' you…I hightailed her back to that old Flying U ♪
50:14 (Dean chuckling)
50:15 [Interviewer] That was great.
50:20 [Dean] Y'all was lookin' at us like we were so strange. And it just made a reference as to highly exalted ones as just kind of a joke, you know? I mean it was because anybody in their right mind take one look at us and see there's nothing highly exalted about us.
50:38 (Gentle guitar music)
