Under the Wire

I was gassing up my pickup a while back when a beat up pickup pulling an equally well used trailer full of saddled horses pulled to the pump beside mine.

The driver stepped out to start his pump and I recognized him as a rancher who lived about 50 miles north of me. Remembering he also was a double tough roper and this being a weekend, I made a mental note he was probably on his way to a team roping somewhere. I also had the thought that his roping fortunes must not have been going well recently. This wasn’t exactly the fanciest rig to pull into a cowboy extravaganza. He saw me standing there...