Boots O’Neal age 92, longtime Four Sixes Ranch cowboy was raised in West Texas still gets horseback every day. A cowboys, cowboy.

At age 92, Boots O’Neal still gets horseback every day. The longtime Four Sixes Ranch cowboy was raised in West Texas and started working at age 15 in 1947. He has since hired on with legendary outfits such as the JA Ranch, Matador, Waggoner, Babbitts and now the Sixes. Despite encountering his share of broncy horses, snorty cows, merciless droughts, severe winter storms and visits to the emergency room — a couple of them recently — he has never wavered from his chosen occupation. He received the Working Cowboy Award from the National Ranching Heritage Center in 2018 and was inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2023.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, Boots O'Neill, it's a pleasure. It's been a pleasure to know you for so
long, and I really am excited about having you on my podcast and just getting a chance to talk to you.
You're a very well-known cowboy, and I think so many people respect you because
you've been devoted to this way of life for so many years.
And you just told me just a minute ago, you've been cowboying for 77 years?

(00:22):
Yes, sir. That's awesome. What year were you born? I was born in 32.
1932. I went to work for the JAs full-time in July of 49.
July of 49. And I was 18 years old and turned 19.

(00:42):
I turned 18, 17. I was 16 when I went to work for them. I'm sorry.
And about two months later, I turned 17.
And then I worked for them three years there at the NN West.
My brother came up shortly after that. He was a little bit younger than you.

(01:06):
We worked together there.
We broke them broncs. If I get started on something you don't want,
here, tell me. Okay, I will. You're good.
We broke them broncs three years in a row there.
At that time, me and him, and we'd break around 50 head of four-year-olds that

(01:30):
had never been touched other than cut and branded.
Wow. And they were four years old, and we didn't have chutes or nothing.
We'd have to four-foot one and tie him down to put the halter on him the first
time and then let him up. And this is when y'all were pretty much teenage boys.
Pardon? Y'all were teenage boys at the time.

(01:52):
Like this was like right when you started working for JAs or like shortly after.
So you would have been 17, 18 years old.
See, we broke them three winners in a row before we could vote. Yeah, exactly.
And we'd break around 50 head.
We had to break them to rope them, and they'd stop.

(02:17):
We'd rope them a horseback and jerk them around, which wouldn't be acceptable now.
And then we had to break them where we hobble them.
It broke the hobble, and then you could saddle them and get on them,
and then it was kind of up to you.
We just rode them Bronx, and this is—I have to even be careful telling this

(02:39):
because people—I had a friend telling Red Steagall this, and one of my buddies called me and said,
I wondered if you was embellishing that,
Boots, I told him that offended me because I certainly wasn't,
but I told him we just rode them Bronx five saddles,
two in the curl and three outside and rock them to the wagon,

(03:01):
and we'd start another bunch.
Yeah. And then take them and then another bunch, and then another.
We'd start eight at a time and break 50 head. Yeah.
We stayed there at JA headquarters, and they fed us, and then they cut your
wages off when you went to the Bronk Pen.

(03:23):
Oh, is that right? $15 a head for every horse you took to the wagon.
And they wasn't broke, but they could rope them and lead them out of the rope
corral, and you could hobble them and saddle them and get on them,
and then the rest of it was up to them.
So y'all did 50 one year and about 50 the next year, is that? Yeah.

(03:48):
Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, we broke 150 there in three years.
In three years. Somewhere, you know, one year there's 52 and one year there's
49 that I remember the counts, but just depend on what they had,
but around they're shooting at 50 head.
And you said it was during the wintertime that y'all did that?

(04:09):
So you didn't spend the entire year starting those 50 Colts.
No, we'd usually start riding Bronx right after Christmas, and we'd try to have
them at the wagon and gone from there by the 1st of April.
Yeah, because you'd want to be ready for spring works and stuff.
See, the wagon, the way they started then, the Matredors and the JAs both,

(04:33):
the way they started the spring works wasn't like now.
They'd have a date set or a computer deal they went if it rained and the grass
was coming it would carry the,
Grass horses, you had 150 saddle horses turned out on grass,

(04:54):
and a lot of times they didn't feed them winter or summer.
They just there, and you gathered them. If the grass was coming and you could
start riding them on grass while we gathered them and started the spring works,
and if it was slow raining,
well, we had to wait a little while because you couldn't ride the horses coming

(05:19):
off winter grass and they'd be weak. Yeah.
And then what determined when we'd pull it in and we'd stay out, that is to say in April.
Right. And along in November, you'd notice that your horses is getting weak
and the grass is turning brown.

(05:40):
Yes, sir. And they'd pull in then because we rode them horses on grass,
and they didn't feed them.
Yeah, you didn't have, you know, 12% horse pellet or any kind of alfalfa hay
or cubes or anything like that. Like that, this great grass.
Yes, sir. You had about, whereas now, we'll have five or six horses to a man,

(06:04):
but we'd shoe them and feed them and do the same amount of work,
but then we rode them on straight grass, and if—.
You staked a horse every night. They issued you, when you went to work,
a slip of paper with about 12 horses' names on it.

(06:28):
Yep. And a stake rope.
Mm-hmm. And you staked the horse by the neck every night. Oh,
really? That you'd ride in the morning.
Okay. And you had to move that stake rope every night.
The wagon boss would kind of watch that. But if an old boy staked one in the
same place two or three nights in a row, he isn't getting anything to eat.

(06:51):
That's right, yep. Because that's all he had to eat was what he got on that
30-foot steak roll. Yes, sir.
Yeah. It was totally different. Now it's even hard to imagine.
And you stayed there three and four months at a time.
Everybody there, nobody come or went, and they didn't have, the JAs at that

(07:15):
time had 12 camps and about 500 sections in the calder, and they didn't own a pickup.
Not at the headquarters, they didn't have a pickup. Wow.
And they just done everything horsebacker with wagons and teams.
Yeah. You put out salt and stuff with wagon and team.
You know, that reminds me of a story I heard about you, and especially talking

(07:40):
about how different things were back then.
There's a really interesting story about when you did hire on with the J.A.
Ranch when you were 16 years old, how they came and picked you up.
Do you remember that story, how that worked, how you how you started working for the J.A.
Didn't they like have to cross a river to come get you?
Yeah, I come to I was about and it's not far now, but.

(08:07):
At the time, I hired out to the JAs.
We were living at, I had been raised on a little ranch at Leaf Force,
and that was just 45 or 50 miles, but I didn't have any way to get there,
and the folks was busy and working, and they couldn't take me.

(08:29):
And a friend of mine that was a grade or two ahead of me in high school named Berman Browning,
and he took me to Clarendon and unloaded my bedroll and saddle,
and then you didn't have a suitcase.
They wouldn't let you carry something like that on a wagon.
You had to have any extra clothes rolled up under your mattress,

(08:54):
your extra britches or two and shirt or two and stationery and tobacco and shaving
outfit all in the head of your bed.
And then they unloaded me at the saddle shop in Clarendon, and then the bookkeeper

(09:15):
was going to go to the J.A.
Headquarters the next day in a Jeep. It is 25 miles from town in a dirt road
out there, and it rained that night, and he couldn't go.
And I got a room that cost $3, and I just had $3 or $4 and stayed all night in the hotel.

(09:40):
And he picked me up the following day and took me to the J.A.'s.
And then we stayed there at the headquarters a couple of days.
I just rolled my bed out on an old rock porch out there and stayed a couple
of days till there was a rig going to the wagon. Wow. And they had an old Jeep.

(10:04):
And that gentleman carried me way down there in the Palladur Canyon and stopped
right at the rear. That thing was rolling.
Yeah, the river was. Big logs and brush and white foam on it.
And that old man just unloaded my bed and saddle there and said he's going home,
but they'll come across there in a little bit in a wagon and team and get you.

(10:29):
Really? And he left, and it was an hour or two, I'm thinking 16 years old,
about 40 miles back in there, and that river was rolling.
And that road we went down was just a two-trail road to the river.
I'm thinking I might already stayed with Mom.

(10:49):
Directly, I could see a wagon pulled up over at the water on the other side,
two men horseback, And one of them tied his rope to the end of the tongue and
got out in front of the team.
And the other one put his rope over the wagon box and over the running gear

(11:11):
so that if the water was deep, it couldn't lift that wagon box off the running gear. Wow.
Just to keep that water from flipping you. We had on the upper side,
and they come across and loaded me.
And we went back across and went up the wagon, and they caught me.

(11:33):
And, you know, I can't think of my sister's children's name now sometimes,
but they caught me a little brown horse called Rabbit Steak that night,
and that was my first night there, you know.
That's a pretty Western way to start your career.
See, 77 years ago. Yeah, sir.

(11:54):
But...
At that time, we'd move the wagon every three or four days.
Yes, sir. We'd move over and move over because you just worked as far out as like now.
We might work 25 miles south of here this morning and then go north of here
this evening with our gooseneck trailer, you know.

(12:17):
But then you rode where you was going, and you'd get in at dinner while you
couldn't do nothing that evening, and we'd stand up.
But whatever old kid was on the bottom of the pole drove, we had a hoodlum wagon
that carried to bed. Yes, sir.

(12:37):
And they had the regular hood drove a water wagon, hauled three wooden barrels
of water, and the rope corral and stuff like that.
Yes, sir. And then the chuck wagon was a four-horse hookup, and they'd go in front.
And the chuck wagon in front, and the hood back there, and then whatever old

(13:00):
kid, which was me at the time, would drive these two old horses and haul the beds.
And they were two old bucking horses that had broken to work.
They were pulling the wagon. They weren't gentle.
I remember their names were Scar and High Brown. And we was going right down the bed of the.

(13:26):
Prairie Dog Fork, the Red River, in the bottom of the Palladour Canyon.
Yes, sir. And we'd cross the water every once in a while, and we had to remove
them in front of us, 175 saddle horses. Wow.
And we'd come to a place that didn't look good.
They'd drive them horses across and bring them back and drive them across and

(13:48):
bring them back and drive them back.
And we'd jump in there and follow them across with them wagging.
And they tamped that quicksand down and parked it there to where we could cross.
Oh, that's where they hit the ground harder. Right. Wow.
And wagons had come across then. That's something. And I'm third in the line.

(14:09):
And I was trying to roll a Bull Durham, and I don't smoke now,
but I was trying to roll a Bull Durham cigarette and dropped one of them lines.
And, boy, them old horses left there running. and they passed that four-horse
chuck wagon, it's a big deal.
That cook hollered, jump off, son, jump off.

(14:30):
And I bailed out, and they turned that thing over down there in the river and
tore up some hornets and got the beds wet.
Some of them guys was mad as the devil. I figured that boy running the wagon,
we turned in to be a lifelong friend. and Bud Long was an old bachelor at the time running away.

(14:54):
He was 41. I thought he was an old man when I went to work there,
but he never said he told me that I figured he'd fire me,
but he told me that I needed to be a little more careful when I was going to smoke.
When they told you that smoking cigarettes was going to kill you,

(15:16):
You didn't think we might have been that way, right? Yeah.
And I stayed and worked, and then finally I got up ahead of that where the next
old new kid, well, we have him drive the bedway.
They had to go four or five miles across there to a camp and get two or three

(15:37):
pieces of harness to fix things up and get it back and whiz moving down the river and went on.
But I don't remember them saying anything bad to me about it.
But if I could tell this part that I'm not pulling my chain,

(15:58):
And the next day, which would have been about the third day I was there.
They decided we'd ride Bronx one evening after dinner when we'd come in.
And they roped me a six-year-old Bronk.
He was a 43 model. This is in 49.

(16:19):
Oh, wow. And drug him out on a horse. And he was pretty rank.
We got him haltered and saddled. And I got on him, and that thing bucked all the time I was on him.
But I had been breaking a lot of colts and riding a lot of horses that buck
already, and I slipped by him.

(16:41):
And they've been fellas told, like out in Arizona a few years ago,
an old boy running a ranch happened to be working there at the time.
And he's telling them out there about we thought that when they drug that six-year-old
bronc out to that old kid, that'll send him back to town.

(17:03):
But he tells that I rode him pretty handily, you know.
Never had to ride him again. I don't know what the deal was other than that
wagon boss is just kind of testing me.
Because we'd rode Bronx after that, and we'd come in and have a buddy ride.

(17:23):
Bronx, Bronx, they might be four or five years old because there's four when they broke them.
And that, you know, I think they were probably testing you, and also that's
probably what led to you getting the opportunity to start Colts Forum that winter,
that upcoming winter, yes, sir.
That probably was, because I know then there'd be several guys that would want to break the Bronx,

(17:50):
and they'd usually just start two guys and break the whole bunch,
and they'd be somewhere around 50 every winter. Yeah.
We'd have to gather them Bronx, Ross, out of the pasture there.
He's in the Palo Duro Canyon called Number One.
Mm-hmm. And it was about 75 sections of really rough guts.

(18:13):
There wasn't even a good trail in it. Yeah.
We'd have the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds in there, be around 100.
And we had to have a cowboy crew come, a wagon crew, to help round them and
pin them out on top up our south of Claude. Wow.

(18:33):
At what we call chuck box pins. Okay.
And then we had brands, the year brands on them. We'd cut the figure threes
out and turn them back in the canyon till next year, see?
And then we'd drive them four-year-olds several miles across there to a place

(18:53):
called the Vats where we'd break them broncs that winter.
And then when we got that fall, the studs cut,
the two-year-olds, and them healed up, We'd drive them to number one,
and you'd have them with the three-year-olds and make you a hundred head in that pasture.

(19:15):
And they didn't feed them or winter them or anything. They didn't break ice for them.
I never knew of them gathering them to doctor one or if something got crippled
or something happened to him.
He either got over it or he didn't. You know, they'd run.

(19:36):
When they saw your horseback.
They were pretty much like Mustangs. Yeah, and they were just wild as they could be.
And they had grown up on an unbroken mare that wasn't even halter broke,
and they was never handled at all.
And their only association with a man was being cut and branded.

(19:59):
You know. Yeah, that'll make it pretty wild. They associated you with pain. Yes.
And they'd run. When they saw you down there in the canyon, I ride up on a bunch
of them little devils that'd leave there.
We'd get them held up up there, a bunch of cowboys.

(20:20):
I'd tell you how we worked that canyon then. It's pretty interesting. Sure.
I'd love to hear that. The wagon had moved down there.
See, in the fall, we leaned the caves out on top, and then we'd just trail them
cows, four or five thousand cows and different herds and kick them off in the,

(20:44):
There was a couple of hundred sections in that canyon pasture.
And them cows knew where they wanted to go.
You could see them way down that canyon when we kicked them off in there,
rocking their way down, and they'd go to where they run last year when they were down there.

(21:07):
In the spring, we'd move the wagon down there, and that's where it was when
they come across the river and got me, and this is what we were doing.
We'd make a drive every morning with the crew because we stayed the horse the
night before when we all had a horse.
The horse wrangler would bring the horses to us then, and when we got the drive made and held up,

(21:32):
we'd change horses out there, and then he'd bring the horse back,
And they herd them horses all day and bring them in overnight when we went to
catch our steakhorses for a night.
And then every herd, Ross, we'd have a roundup held up there.

(21:54):
We'd cut the bull calves out on this side and the heifer calves out on this
side that is paired up. And anything that we couldn't pair up, we'd just leave them.
You'd just leave those calves. And we'd take that herd and this herd to two separate little traps.
So that your bull calves were on one side and the heifers were on the other side.

(22:16):
And then it'd take us two or three days, and we'd have enough to go out.
And where this word comes from, I've never known and never heard it on any.
I've worked on big cow at Fitzplum up in Montana. Yes, sir.
They'd tell you when we was catching horses this evening, they'd say,

(22:41):
catch something, we'll windy out in the morning with the bulls. Windy out. Windy out.
And that is trailing any old J.A.
Boy would know that word windy out. And windy out would mean?
You're taking that herd and going to move them to chuck box crawls,
and we'd round that trap.

(23:02):
And the bull caves, we'd drive them out and stop at chuck box corrals and brand the bulls. Okay.
And then kick them into a big pasture there and turn them loose.
Huh. And ride back to the wagon that night. And we usually didn't have any dinner.
We'd eat breakfast and supper and knew that's the way it was going to be.

(23:25):
Now, there's so much handy stuff you could take. But then we didn't have nothing
but a can of tomatoes or something that you could take with you.
And then the next day, we'd take the heifers, and we'd brand them in the canyon. Okay.
Because the old-timers said, if you work the bulls in the canyon, they won't walk out.

(23:49):
Oh, I follow. And if you work the heifers, they'll walk out better.
And so we'd brand the heifers and leave with them and take them to what we call Battle Creek.
And we'd, every two or three days, move the wagon to fresh ground,
and we'd done that same thing for two months, you know.

(24:12):
Interesting. That's interesting the way that worked. And as we got all of them
worked, we'd get them out on top, and that's where they'd summon them.
And, you know, none of these outfits now think they've got time,
I guess, but to separate the.
Steers and the heifers, they separated that fall when you weaned and shipped.

(24:33):
We'd drive them steers to Ashtola. That's on Highway 70 up there right out of Clarendon.
Yes, sir. There was a set of railroad stock pens there.
They're still there, but they converted them to truck pens now,
and they took the tracks up. Okay.

(24:54):
And, you know, another thing we done, that train, was on the north side of the highway. Okay.
And we'd stop traffic, and that train had come across and come right out there to the crows.
And he didn't have but just room for so many cars.

(25:16):
And sometimes we would bring him across and hold the traffic up while we loaded
a couple of car loads, and then he'd back back across, and that had opened.
And if we had six or seven car loads to load there or something,
a lot of times they'd break the train in two there and pull it off,

(25:40):
and that would let the highways stay open while we'd loaded them.
And he could just go straight out to the end, and then they'd have to back,
because there wasn't no turnaround for the train out there.
And we'd load five or six carloads of cattle and then he'd back,
back across and they'd hook it up and back that train back on there and go on.

(26:06):
But I don't ever remember.
Any problem now, if you stop people and hold that up while we're going to load
a couple of carloads, somebody would shoot somebody.
Or end up on some Instagram video.
There's two-lane highways then, and people wasn't in that big hurry. That's true.

(26:28):
I don't ever remember anybody getting mad about it. Wow.
You know, talk about the JA Ranch and just clarifying something real quick.
Like, you know, those cattle would winter down in the bottom of the canyon,
so they'd kind of stay out of that cold north wind.
But after y'all had finished working them, y'all would throw them up on top
where they could summer on a
different country that they could handle the weather at that time of year.

(26:51):
And, you know, that J.A. Ranch, for those who don't know, I mean,
that was established by Charles Goodnight and John Adair. And the J.A.
Stands for John Adair's initials. And what a historic ranch it was.
I mean, were you aware of the incredible history that was associated with the
J.A. Ranch when you started working there at age 16?
Was I aware of what? Were you aware of the history that was surrounding that ranch?

(27:15):
Yeah, and I also knew that when I went to work, Goodnight had just been dead
20 years. Oh, my goodness.
See, Goodnight died in 29.
Wow. Got dirt clawed at Goodnight. Uh-huh.
And I went to work in 49, so he'd just been dead 20 years.
And they still done a lot of things the way Goodnight done it.

(27:40):
Is that right? He's the one that separated the steers and the heifers and stuff
like that. Is he the one that did that?
When you weaned this pasture, well, it was just all heifers or all steers.
That's amazing. We had to drive everything then, and it was a hard all-day drive

(28:01):
from down in there to Aztola.
You bet. We had a shipping trap there where we could drive in there of Eden,
put them in that trap, and then we'd probably load the train the next day.
Yes, sir. The wagon would go with us sometimes and take where we could have
dinner on the way up there with the herds, you know, and trailing them up there.

(28:24):
We'd leave what we call the ground place. That is a J.A.
Camp, and we'd jump off from there, and it'd be late that evening when we got to Ashtola with them.
And the wagon would go, and he'd get up ahead of us sometimes and set up camp and have a good dinner.

(28:45):
And we'd turn the herd loose or let two or three men stay with them if we found a trap.
Or like one time, I remember, and there's three cows died right quick.
A little farm deal there, and we asked that guy if we could turn them things
in that old abandoned-looking field. and had a pretty good fence while we ate

(29:08):
dinner, and he said, yeah.
And there's three of them cows eat. They never had eaten any of that before.
Johnson grass, and he killed them while we was eating. When we got through and
went back out there, there's three cows dead.
They say that Johnson grass can be pretty toxic. Yeah, it got them right quick. Wow.

(29:29):
How many years did you work at the JA? Pardon? How many years did you work?
Just three years. Just three years. And then from the JAs, did you go on to the Wagoners?
No, I went to the Matardors. Oh, okay. And they worked about the same way.
Only they didn't have any crows.
We branded outside. We just held them up and branded. But we had a wagon,

(29:52):
and we pulled a Matardor wagon with four mules, and a J.A.
Wagon with four big perching horses. Yeah.
And they worked about the same way we'd pull out when the grass would carry the horses.
We were the horses on grass. Mm-hmm.
And they had also between 175 and 200 saddle horses in the remover.

(30:17):
Wow. And a horse wrangler that day-harded them and stayed with them all day,
every day, and just bring them in of a night. Wow.
And a trap, if we had a little trap, they wouldn't let them put them in there, but just of a night.
And he'd, when we saddled up and left in the morning, he'd get them out of there
and take them out and day-hard them all day.

(30:40):
Wow. And he'd bring them in that night for us to catch horses out of,
and they'd put them in the trap.
And one spring that I was there at the Matardor's, we kept a nighthawk.
They called him, and it's the man that slept during the day,
and he stayed with the horses of a night.

(31:02):
And I couldn't believe it now, looking back,
that he would take them horses about supper and go in there and stay with them All night,
rain or shine and storms, he had to stay with them horses, and he'd put them
back in the rope corral when we was having breakfast in the morning for daylight.

(31:27):
Did you ever have that job? No, but I used to think of that kid.
We had an old kid, about 18, 19 years old then, and I'm thinking,
now I didn't worry about him, but now there's a lot of nights we had electrical
storms, and everything.

(31:48):
You know, he had to stay with them horses, but he stayed with them.
Once in a while, we'd come up short.
We was in like a 200- or 300-section area that wouldn't be fenced.
If three or four horses got away, it might be several days before we'd get a hold of them again. Wow.
Because they had a lot. See, that Almasitas pasture, the gentleman that owns

(32:14):
the XITs now and is building a ranch out of it.
And he's talked to me several times, and he's fascinated because that Almasitas pasture was the XITs.
The Mitredors bought it from the XITs. Oh, I see.

(32:34):
And so he is fascinated with that.
But they used to claim that that Almasitas pasture was 300 sections.
And I think they told me that after they surveyed it out and was selling it,
that it lacked something.
Being that 200 and something sections is what it was.

(32:55):
That's still, when you think about, do the math for that, if it's just 200 sections,
we're talking about 130,000 acres. Yeah, I see.
Right. 62,000 acres is 100 sections.
Right. So, 128,000 is 200 sections, see? That's a lot of land.

(33:17):
That's a lot of country, you know. Yes, sir.
Scarborough's about 100 sections right out of the middle of Almecetus and still operate it.
They've got a good ranch north of Adrian there, you know, and it's 100 sections there.
So, how many years did you work for Matadors? Well, I was just there.

(33:39):
I never did have a long time.
I'd work through a works and leave and come back over a period of three or four years.
Then, if they had a mount of horses and you was a good hand, they'd hire you.
And if you worked through when they finished up, they didn't like now.

(34:03):
Everybody stays a year around, and they want you to. But then they'd like for
you to leave if you had something else because they didn't need anybody when
the wagon wasn't working. That makes sense.
Because they had camp men that took care of the— Yeah.
Me and a boy stayed there in a bronc camp at the Matredores,

(34:28):
broke 35 three-year-old broncs, and we were getting $110 a month.
Oh, wow. That sounds like a lot of money for back then. Yeah,
and we had a coal cook stove and a coal little lamps and carried water from
a windmill about 50 steps out there.
We didn't have a vehicle there.

(34:50):
We'd ride over there a couple of miles to a camper's camp, and he had an old
car, and we'd borrow his car and go to town. Okay. They'd...
Come by the trucker would come
by and pick up your gross they furnished your grocery
we just make a list of everything right in

(35:12):
eden is for 30 days the grocer
there in channing they give him that list and
it may be for seven or eight counts he'd box
all of them and mark that count okay and
the trucker would pick them up and just bring the box
by and leave we might not even be there at
the house when he'd leave the box but

(35:35):
and they put your grocery list back in
there and that grocer he knew anything the matredores wouldn't pay for you know
and so he'd scratch it okay i was just i had to go register for the army so
i remember i left that bronc and went to the count and went and registered,

(35:57):
so I'd have been 18 at the time.
Okay. And I remember I put cheese on that list five months in a row, and they scratched it.
I ain't bought no cheese yet.
But they just bought staples, stuff like flour and beans and salt and bread

(36:21):
and syrup and that sort of thing, you know. That's it. Yep.
Wow. No hostess Twinkies or anything like that, I guess.
No, but they was good about buying canned good.
They'd buy, and the JAs wouldn't buy these. They'd buy canned peaches,

(36:43):
and you could just open a can of peaches and eat them.
Mm-hmm. Them little peaches out there, and that was really a treat.
Oh, yeah. You know, but the Hayes wouldn't buy peaches, and they wouldn't buy
any kind of jelly or like the breakfast jellies.
We had dried apricots and peanut butter and syrup and that sort of thing all the time.

(37:07):
They didn't buy any of that and wouldn't buy.
And I remember they started giving us the hide. We'd kill a beef at both places,
just run him up close to the wagon, rope him, and the cook come out there and knock him in the head.
And we'd butcher him on the hide right there and carry the full quarters up

(37:29):
there and hang them on the wagon.
And then we'd wrap the mantles up with the hide and run a foot through a slot
or two and tie a horse to them and drag them off so they wouldn't stink and
smell bad right there where we'd camp.
Right. They would let us, the JAs went to letting us have that hide.

(37:51):
And if we'd get a hide or two and get a chance to somebody to go to town,
a little old packing house there in Clarendon would buy the hide for us.
And we'd buy, I remember one time we bought a case of ketchup with that because
they wouldn't buy something like that.

(38:11):
And I remember Monty Ritchie being out there at the wagon eating dinner one
day and forking a bunch of that out. One of the men punching me and said,
look at there, he's eating that ketchup.
But that seems now unreal that they just didn't do that sort of thing,

(38:33):
you know, because now these ranches,
all these, they buy nearly anything. Yeah.
Over here at that mess hall, they buy them girls yogurt and stuff to eat them
at night, you know, and stuff that is unreal.
The matredores at Wagners, see, I worked for them.

(38:56):
We're off from 1955 till 60.
It won like five years. The wagon was out the year around, and we worked seven days a week.
Year around. And that five years, and they wouldn't buy eggs at the wagon.
And they said, boys, we have ham and sauce.

(39:20):
We'd have hams because they had a bunch of hogs and they'd kill them.
And we'd have ham and sausage and bacon.
And then gravy and biscuits every morning. But no eggs.
It was gravy and gravy. And now I can't understand how, but I still really like biscuits and gravy.

(39:40):
When Susie has it about once a month, she'll have just biscuits and gravy.
And I think, you know, back then, five years that we had it every day,
and they wouldn't buy eggs.
Going to the matredores, and the JAs both had cases, eggs, like a case comes,

(40:03):
one of the 12 dozen, I think, in a case of them eggs.
One time I was out there at the OROs in Arizona, and we was going way back in there on pack mules.
It's a long, I'm getting on another story,
and it takes a while to tell it, But we'd pack them things, and we packed a

(40:25):
bunch of eggs and crossed that Piney Canyon and went back in there with eight-packed
mules and 50 saddle horses and never broke eggs.
That's amazing. Huh? That's amazing.
Yeah. I thought it was.
So, yeah, let's track in your career. You were wagoners for five years,

(40:45):
and you were out with a wagon year-round, seven days a week.
After that, after being, because you worked at the Wagoners later for quite
a while and you were... Well, see, I went to work for the Cattle Raisers Association
as brand inspector and I worked right in this area. Yes, sir.
For the... Guthrie and this area. And I really liked it and it was one of the

(41:10):
best periods of my life as far as I, I got to improve my education quite a bit.
And I got a GED and a lot of college hours of just law enforcement and stuff
through the cattle raisers.

(41:30):
Okay. The cattle laws and stuff like that.
And really, it was a good period, but I just wanted to punch cows.
And so I went back to work for Wagner's then. Okay.
And worked 19 years. After that. That time, yeah.

(41:52):
I worked up to the foreman. I was a foreman for several years and had 30 men working for me.
Yeah. I had 300 saddle horses and 13,000 cows on the books when I left.
Wow. That I was keeping up with, and I had about 30 men that worked for me.

(42:13):
And backing up a little bit, you worked for the cattle raisers from like 1960
to 65, something like that. And were you like an inspector for them?
Right. I was a field inspector, what they called a field inspector.
And I still got the badge in there, Texas Ranger badge. Is that right? Ranger.

(42:35):
And then I'm still for the right here. now
i'm certified by the state
of texas as a peace officer and have
my t-close what they call a t-close license
but i don't have to uh what
i've done i got the sheriff to fix it so here

(42:56):
so i don't up until then
and that was just two or three years ago i have to have uh 40 hours classroom
hours every two years to keep certified to keeping you up on the laws that changed
or they've enacted this or something in Austin.

(43:18):
Well, you have all that, but I got him through him certifying the sheriff here
that I don't have to take calls for.
From a dispatcher, and I don't have to go to school, but I've still got my T-Close license,

(43:40):
and I can still wear a gun, but
I can't take calls from a dispatcher or anything now, and I don't have to.
Right. But I worked for the association where all of their inspectors then and

(44:00):
now have a special Texas Ranger Commission.
And that gives them authority as a peace officer anywhere in the state.
You don't have to cross county lines and worry about that.
And you had the Ranger Commission, and I still got the badge they gave me and
all that. I really liked it, and it's something that I spent several years getting.

(44:28):
It says something about maybe about the degree of my intelligence because I
just wanted to punch cows.
I remember stopping at the wagon right here and ate dinner one day.
The chuck wagon was camped out south of town, and them boys wrangled horses

(44:48):
and put them in a rope corral and caught them a fresh horse,
and I went out there and got in my nice car to leave out. Right.
I remember telling myself right down here that, you know, I'd rather be doing
what they're doing than doing this.
Yeah. You know, that was my life, and I went back to work for Wagner's.

(45:09):
They made me a pretty good deal to come back, And I run that bronc count 10 years for them,
and we break 35- or 43-year-old gildings every year, and then took care of the
studs and the mares. We had 200 brood mares.
None of them was even halter broke, so they as wild as an antelope, you know.

(45:34):
But so you did Wagoners from like 65 to 84, something like that?
Yeah, I see. I think I left there, I left Wagoners in 83. In 83.
And I went to work for, I went to Babbitt's.

(45:56):
Just my daughter was finishing high school and wanted to stay in Vernon.
So my wife and she worked at the Wagner Bank, so we rented a little place in town.
And while she was finishing high school, I think it was in March when we went up there.

(46:16):
I went out to Babitz and stayed two months and helped them brand that spring.
And then I come back in May for her graduation.
Yeah. and was going to go back. They had had me a deal, but my wife didn't want

(46:37):
to go out there, and it's pretty tough on women out there.
Yes, sir. They still, a lot of them was using wood cook stoves back then,
you know, and she didn't want to go, so I called Bill Howell,
who was running babbitts, and told him that he wouldn't come back.
And a good friend of mine that was a legend of a cowboy in this country named

(47:02):
Bob Thompson, he used to run the Triangle Ranch for this outfit.
He called me, and he's working for Walter Merrick, and they was going to Rio
Dosa, and they had a ranch out of Rio Dosa, New Mexico,
the 100 sections in them mountains that joined that Mascolera Indian Reservation

(47:23):
and wanted me to go with them, help them brand it.
So I went out there, and then I wound up making a deal with Walter,
went to work for him, and stayed three years.
With Walter Merrick? Walter Merrick. Wow. And then he was going under it that
he come and told me that the banks was taking that stuff from him,

(47:45):
you know, and he couldn't make the payments.
And I told him, I remember telling him, I said, Walter, you got me to run the
wagon for you last year and moved to five or six different branches.
And I went and branded them all and I branded 2,400 caves and we'll sell them this fall.

(48:09):
He said, yeah, but they won't make a dent and he blamed the banks,
for said that he at EasyJet was making so much money then and he'd just tell
them I've got a chance to buy this 65 section ranch here and it's got 400 cows on it.

(48:30):
Had to tell him go ahead he said they'd say go ahead then and it wound up and got over.
Balanced and then couldn't make the payments and so they took it and they were
shutting him down and then easy jet wasn't see at one time walter stood on his
front porch and there was two or three houses an indoor arena a stable.

(48:57):
An office where I had two or three people work in a veterinary clinic there
at Sayre, right there at the headquarters.
And he told me, he said, Boots, Dunnys hammer, EasyJet paid for everything here. Wow.
And they still got it. That's where Joe is his son, lives now,

(49:18):
there at the Merrick headquarters.
But I worked for them three years and then come back to Vernon and was just
piddling around doing a little trading.
And this outfit come down there and they had a thousand steers down there on
wheat on two or three places.
Which place was that? Huh? Who was it that had a thousand steers?

(49:41):
The four six. The four sixes? J.J. Gibson.
Okay. Yep. And they wanted me to take care of them, and I did for two years.
And then the first of the year in 90, well, J.J.
And Ann offered me a job to come up here and live.
And so me and my wife come up here and stayed.

(50:04):
And then in 2006, she passed away here. Uh-huh.
And then they moved me in here, and Ann bought this furniture and put this carpet
down and fixed this and told me I could live here the rest of my life, you know.
And I always eat over there at the big house then, because there's a cook there all the time.

(50:29):
And just for folks who don't know, J.J.
Gibson was the manager here at the time. Yes, sir. And Miss Ann Marion,
who was the owner, until she passed away, you know, what was that, 2020, I think she died?
Yeah, I already know, but I can't think of it.
She had a lot of admiration for you, and she kept her word.

(50:56):
And the four sixes itself, even after her death, is still keeping their word.
And here you are, 92 years old, still living in this apartment.
They've done a good job for you. They gave me a, if we could cut that off,
I'd tell you for a second, but I don't want to put it on there. Okay.

(51:17):
Because they didn't give it to everybody. Okay. She gave me a lot.
Tell me when we're done.
Huh? Tell me this story after we're done with this episode. Yeah.
And Marion, she also really had an incredible appreciation for working cowboys

(51:38):
and the ones that worked for her.
Like cowboys was her working ranch. Cowboys was her favorite thing,
you know, and she is comfortable.
Just like I've got a picture in there of her sitting,
me and her sitting on a wooden bench at the wagon eating dinner,
and she just leaned over and told me, said,

(52:02):
Boats night before last, I sat next to Prince Harry at a dinner in Washington,
D.C., and she was sitting by me on a wooden bench eating behind that wood stove
there at the wagon and just comfortable,
and I was always comfortable with her, and she loved to dance,

(52:22):
and me and her danced a jillion miles.
Cowboy dances stuff, you know.
But she just gave me a million dollars, and I have never spent a penny.
I don't need it, and my daughter's in good shape. She's the only thing,

(52:49):
and good financially, her and her husband, but she tells me she can spend it eventually.
So I never have even spent a penny of it.
But when I was mad at Ann, I'd have liked to have been able to thank her and

(53:10):
tell her I appreciated that, but she is already gone before anybody knew it. Knew anything, yep.
But she loved this ranch, and she liked cowboys.
She liked ranch cowboys, you know.
She is comfortable talking to you and stuff like that. And she just talked me

(53:37):
out just kind of like I was one of the guys, you know, with her, you know.
But she really was a super lady.
But we can get back on now. Okay, we'll get back on to where we were before.
You started working at the Four Sixes in 1990.

(53:58):
You've been here ever since. That means you've been here 35 years. 35 years.
That is, that's the longest stint. Yeah, and you've had a lot of long stints,
but that's a, or I guess Waggoner's was a long stint. Yeah.
But this is even longer than that. In two hitches there at Waggoner's,
I worked 24 years. Mm-hmm.
And then here, I've been here 35. You know, and I feel like it's easy to look

(54:22):
back on those times with the JAs and those golden era of cowboy,
and I think that was interesting times.
But I'm curious what you think about this.
That serious or that severe drought we had in 2011, 2012, you were here at the Sixes for that.
And that was quite a landmark time.

(54:43):
And it got to the point where the four Sixes shipped all the cattle north and
there wasn't a single cow except for, I think, like maybe a bull or something
on this place down here in Guthrie.
And I know you remember that very well. Now, that had to have been a more unique
time in your life and your old career as far as being a cowboy.

(55:05):
Yeah, and it really afforded me a chance.
See, we took the chuck wagon to places like South Dakota and camped and worked
and gathered stuff, you know,
there and had ranches leased and took it to Montana and Wyoming and took it to Nevada.

(55:26):
Twice and stayed on the ranch out there that
we had we had cattle all over that country and the sixes was recognized in all
them places as a we'd move in there with a big remove the horses and 10 or 12
cowboys and set up their teepees and everything and there's a lot of talk about it.

(55:49):
We'd work a lot of cattle and handle them, met a lot of those people out there.
I stayed there. We had some trouble at two or three ranches,
and they sent me out there.
One at Marfa, the old boy and his wife, had owned the ranch.
We had 600 cows on it, and it's right off the Canadian border.

(56:10):
And they went to federal penitentiary over some farm loan things that they misled
them or claimed they planted so much wheat and they didn't plant it. Right.
They sent me out there. That thing wasn't nobody taking care of it. The cattle had got out.
They was all over different people, and the fences was down and nothing.

(56:34):
And I got Dusty Burson. Dusty Burson. He was a young single boy then.
He went with me, and we took our horses and went out there and stayed two and a half months.
And we put all them cattle back
together and gathered, had a bunch of replacement heifers in the cows.
We got them cut out and branded, and they had a bunch of bulls that never had been branded.

(56:59):
We didn't have no crawls, and I made a trade with a neighbor that had good crawls
three or four miles off of us.
And me and Dusty would drive them bulls up
there and use his hydraulic chute and branded
them and everything and bring them back and
then the keeping heifers hadn't had

(57:19):
the date brand put on them and had to get them
a kev hood vaccinated and we took all of them up to this guy's crew so if I
understand right y'all had shipped cattle up there four sixes cattle but it
had just been grossly mismanaged and you and Dusty just the two of y'all alone
had to go up there and kind of straighten things out. It was just the two of

(57:39):
y'all working there for two and a half months.
Yeah, it was, this place was a,
The people just unloaded them, and they were in trouble.
And it's one of them deals Joe didn't know about, or he didn't,
you know, have any way of knowing that them people were in that kind of trouble. Right.
The cattle, the fences were down, and cattle were on the neighbors,

(58:04):
and neighbors' cattle was on us.
And when Dusty and I got up there, we didn't know for sure whether that place
over there was ours or not. And we got a map, and it was showing that country.
And Dusty was college-educated.
He'd done a little better than I did on the map. And we'd figure out that that

(58:29):
thing, the other side of that little pasture over there belonged to us.
And we'd get to ride the fence, and we'd have to—we didn't build fence,
but we'd hang it up and put a few posts in and hang the fence up and move some
over there on it and get them back off the neighbors.

(58:49):
And two and a half months later, we had the thing together, and they come up
and brought the wagon, Joe did, and the crews, and we set up camp and branded
all the cows and shipped some old cows, Right.
Stuff, and then I come home, and then we had about the same thing.

(59:10):
We had a ranch in Nebraska.
It was in a jam up there. Things just, the old boy taking care of them wasn't,
we went up there to do some work, and the cows were poor and weak,
and Joe asked me if I'd go up there and stay,
and I went up there and stayed a little over two months with them and got them

(59:33):
straightened out and got them together and got them on good country.
They had a lot of country.
These people just hadn't moved up on it. I trailed them up on the mountains
up there to some really good country,
and Joe come up there after that and told me that I hadn't got it yet, But he said,

(59:55):
I ought to get the cowboy of the month.
You know, I think it's interesting to point out that during this time period
that you were going up there, you were staying up there.
It was just whether it was you and Dusty working alone or you by yourself in
Nebraska, that you were late 70s, early 80s. Yeah.

(01:00:15):
Yeah. And still putting in full days. Long hours and staying up there.
In there, and it, you know, it had a lot of mornings there, and I see in Nebraska, I stayed in the.
Torrington wyoming yes sir it's right on
the line and torrington's right i just go
out of there and cross the cattle guard

(01:00:37):
onto the ranch and i went into nebraska
there and that's where the rights was but
yeah i was fortunate to to be
with an outfit that like like this that
would would back me and i knew that what
we had to do to get you know to get
the cattle straightened out and we go to feeding them they

(01:00:59):
brought me one of these feeders from down here to
up there had one of the men bring one up
there and i i didn't have feed out there
at that ranch that i could fill it but i could go into a little town over there
and they had a feed door and they had a mount that they could fill that trailer

(01:01:19):
yes sir with loose cake yeah and i i got a question for you if you don't mind me interjecting here.
We're talking about this time period and all this moving cattle up to the north
was because there was no grass here.
It was just a horrible drought going on in this part of the world in Texas and Oklahoma.
And it was pretty rough time that lasted, if I remember right,

(01:01:41):
roughly from 2011 through 2013, pretty historic drought.
You're one of the few people in this world that have lived through that drought,
as well as a pretty severe drought during the 1950s. Yeah. That was another pretty legendary one.
The 50s was the toughest one. That's why I was going to ask you,
which one was the toughest, in your opinion? Was it the 1950s? Yeah.

(01:02:02):
That thing was—I was at Wagner's, and it was tailing out there,
and it was a pretty sad deal.
Wagner's had—.
100 sections there that would just eat off.
See, there's 800 sections in that
Wagner Ranch right now that lays in six counties there in one block. Wow.

(01:02:28):
It was in pretty bad shape.
And another thing I've done, they sent me four times to Dixon Creek to run that
ranch between monuments.
Something had happened in the matter. This one time I was walking to the barn
and they hollered from the house, boots, we're in a jam.

(01:02:51):
They've got that manager up there in jail.
Can you get your horses and some stuff and go up there and run that rights till
we find out what happened?
And that's the division of the four sixes that's up in the Texas panhandle.
They call it the Dixon Creek. Panhandle up there.
And it's a 200-section rights, and, you know, got three good houses there at

(01:03:15):
headquarters, besides the headquarters and bunkhouse and three cowboys.
And then they've got that west camp and south camp where they've got campers and cowboys.
And you had mentioned Dusty Burstyn a little bit earlier. He's the manager of
that division right now. He's the manager up there now.

(01:03:36):
Yes, sir. his wife are there and i went
up there and like one time
they had fired the manager over
a deal and i went up there and gathered
2 000 steers and shipped them and got
rid of a couple of men they wanted to get rid of
and hired another boy to come

(01:03:59):
there and go to work and i told ann one
time sitting over here at the dinner table i said
ann i don't know if you remember this but you told me one time we was up there
at dixon creek and i was running the ranch and you told me said you know boots
if it wasn't for your age we wouldn't be looking for somebody to run this right.

(01:04:23):
And I said, this is four or five years later, I'm telling her this.
I said, have you ever give any thought to that, that I'm still a-going and you're
having trouble up there now?
She said, smart, Ellie.
Did you, you know, you've been, you've demonstrated many times during your career

(01:04:49):
that you are able to manage.
I mean, you were a manager or a foreman at Wagners, and since you've been here,
you've had situations where you managed for a short period of time.
Was that something that you ever really wanted to do a lot, or have you always
just been content just to kind of... I think that just like at Wagners,

(01:05:11):
the trouble I had, and I was a manager eight years there,
And the trouble I had with the people above me and fussed at me about being
out there with the cowboys that say, we need you in a car.
Yeah. And for your sin about things.

(01:05:31):
And I was the same way with the association. I'd rather be the cowboy than doing that.
Yes, sir. You know? And see, today,
just like last week, we was going to have a big day working cattle all day,
a big day of shipping a bunch to us from up north, and we was going to have

(01:05:52):
to do several things and cut them three or four ways and drive them off.
I knew it'd be an all-day deal, and I go to bed thinking how much fun I'm going
to have tomorrow doing that. And that sounds a little melodramatic for an old man.
I never have got tired of punching cows horseback.

(01:06:17):
I don't like to do nester stuff, and I don't like for them to do little things.
It's not orthodox cowboy ranch stuff.
But as long as when we're punching cows and working cattle horseback.
I go to bed at night thinking I wish we had already started in the morning.

(01:06:41):
And it amazes me that I still enjoy that.
And you'd think a man my age, it's been working for 77, 78 years now straight.
Right. that you'd be getting tired of that.
You're 92 years old, and this morning when you got up, it was 27 degrees,

(01:07:06):
I think, and you still saddled up this morning early and went and checked your cows.
Was it the first calf heifers you were checking on? Yeah.
And they had some calves, but you still spent a good portion of this morning horseback. Yeah.
I'm having a little trouble now with the cold.
I used to, I didn't pay any attention to where it was cold, and I slept outside

(01:07:31):
with a wagon when we'd get up and shake that tarp and shake frost off from it and get up, you know.
But that was the way it was. But now I have a little trouble with the cold.
I can't stand the cold as good. I need cold mornings.
It's really testing me now. It's like next week, they said, one morning it's

(01:07:58):
supposed to be eight here and another and it's supposed to be ten.
That's going to be something. That'll get your attention when you're catching the horse. Yes, sir.
But they're good here about helping me.
There's two or three of them young boys that really helped me get started,

(01:08:18):
and then they let me have the short side of a drive when we're making a drive and stuff,
and it's a little easier.
Right. You know, and that's cool that they do that, and I've been told stories
about how they make sure you've got yourself a good horse that's not going to be a bronc or anything.

(01:08:41):
And I can't remember how this all happened. You might have to remind me of this story.
But when you talk about being 92 or late 80s or whatever, was it just a couple
years ago you were laid up in the hospital from an injury?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I had it. Can you tell me about that? Twice in the last 10 years.
One time the helicopter come in, a horse bucked me off out there in the pasture

(01:09:06):
and really drove me in the ground.
Joe had told me he didn't think I ought to be riding that horse,
and I told him that I thought it would be an accident if he could buck me off.
And they couldn't load me in the pickup, and they got the ambulance out there

(01:09:26):
in the pasture, and they was having trouble.
So they called a helivac out of Lubbock, and they come down here and got me, and I heard them.
Talking to the doctors going up, I'd passed out and come in,
coming to and come and go.
They'd done that down there when they found me, because Dusty found me.

(01:09:50):
And he said I had my right glove off, and it was laying on the ground,
and my phone was laying there on the ground, but I was out.
But he knew that I had come to and got that out, going to call and pass back out again. Yeah.
And he didn't tell me this, but his mother did.

(01:10:14):
His mother told me that he called her and told her, he's dying right here in
front of me, mother. Oh, wow.
And she told him to get hold of himself and do what he could.
You've had first aid training and do what you can.
And he stayed there until when Joe and Reggie was the wagon boss got there.

(01:10:38):
And I asked Joe, and he'll tell you right out there today.
I told him I was hurting. I was really hurting, and I don't think you can move me.
And Joe, I've had a pretty good run. I wish y'all would leave me here.
And he said, well, we ain't going to leave you here.

(01:11:00):
And then when that helibad got there and got me, and they put some pain medicine
in me, and then I heard them tell the doctors that they're going in,
that they're bringing one that may not make it.
But I had a rib sticking in my lung that was causing the trouble.

(01:11:21):
A girl, I don't know if you'd know her, but I think you'd know this guy, but it's his wife.
And he was president at the time of the Ranching Heritage Center, Matt Brockman.
Matt Brockman, I know Matt Brockman. You probably know Matt because he used
to run the Cattle Raising Association.
Good friend of mine, yes, sir. And we're good friends. and his wife and I have

(01:11:44):
been just like, we're just super friends, and I love to dance with her.
But she was a registered nurse in the trauma department up there and was fixing to go home.
And she said she heard them say, we're bringing a cowboy in named Boots.

(01:12:05):
So she just stayed and come out the plane, and I remember her being out there
helping me get me to go in and I got in there.
A day or two later, I had 12 ribs broken, and the one sticking in my lungs was a problem.

(01:12:28):
I had a vertebrae in my back broke, and my brain was bruised,
and it bled a little on this right lobe.
They come in that room the second day.
I was in the intensive care laying there, and there's two large lady nurses.
And they said, now, Mr. O'Neill, we're going to take an arm on each side and

(01:12:54):
you prepare yourself, and when you're ready, we're going to set you up. Well, I just set up.
She stepped back and said, I've seen people in here two ribs broke and couldn't
set up, but they've talked about how, you know, I'm not now.

(01:13:14):
But, see, I was just 81 then. You were only 81. I was in really good shape.
And they talked about how good a shape I was in for that.
Yeah, you bet. Now, this deal, three years ago, a horse bumped me off over here and broke his leg.
And he broke that femur bone, plumbing too, and he broke it behind this,

(01:13:41):
at the artificial knee. and it broke behind that cap, and they couldn't get to it.
And it's a horse I'd been riding a lot, and that was another one of them deals.
Joe had told me, said, I don't think you ought to be riding that horse, Boots.
And I said, well, Joe, I think it'd be an accident if he could throw me off.

(01:14:03):
And he did and broke that leg. And what I had done, I had trotting along down
on the river away from everybody.
Nobody knew where I was. And I remembered that I was supposed to tell some of
them when I was off like that.
So I got my phone out.

(01:14:25):
And was fixed and caught, and that scamp blowed up and bucked me off.
I lost the phone, and it broke that leg.
I could see him standing right down the creek there and think,
if I can get up and get down there
and get a hold of him, I'd probably get back on him and ride in there.
But I couldn't get up. This leg was really bad.

(01:14:48):
And then I realized I didn't have the phone, and I thought, Well,
if I'm not there at dinner, they'll start hunting me.
And so, and I seen that sun reflecting off of that phone. No kidding.
The forest from here at that window up there from me where it happened.
And I crawled up there and got the phone and called Joe and told him where I was.

(01:15:13):
And they come over and got me.
And he could see the little horse there who was down there and got him caught
and tied him to a tree. and called one of the boys to come and get him,
and they got me in the hospital at Childress, and my daughter come up.
I remember she said these two doctors had a bone specialist and my family doctor,

(01:15:36):
and they was out in the hall.
Talking, she stepped out there and asked him, said, how long do you think it'll
be till he can ride a horse?
And he said, we're not thinking about it.
No, she said, you don't understand. That's going to be the first thing he asks

(01:15:59):
you when he comes to, is how long will it be like that?
And I got it. I'm not even aware of it now.
I never do. I didn't even think about that. And see, so many things like that,
so many accidents like that will sideline a 75-year-old for the rest of their life.
But not you. I don't know about that. I broke his leg up here in 91.

(01:16:28):
A steer ran into my horse and caught my toe until I heard it crack.
Wow. It went around, and we got them things loaded. I told the boy with me,
I said, I think that broke my leg. It's really hurting.
And they got me off my horse. Well, they carried me to Wichita,
was it Vernon, loading some cattle we had on wheat.

(01:16:51):
And they x-rayed it and did surgery the next morning on it and put pens in it from both sides.
A few months ago, I was out here at the clinic. They x-rayed us all the time
out there when something happened. Oh, really? Dr. Kennedy does.
And I told him I had this, hurt this ankle.

(01:17:13):
Would he register that, x-ray it and see if it's fractured or anything?
And he turned around and said, Booth, look. I didn't tell. I'd forgot.
It's been 20 years, see, 25 years.
All them pens look brand new, and there's five pens in it. He said, look at the pens in it.

(01:17:34):
I said, oh, I broke that leg several years ago, and they did surgery on it from both sides,
and they put them pens in and said they'd stay the rest of my life,
and I'd forgot about them.
They look brand new, and that x-ray out there is plenty.

(01:17:55):
So they're working i guess so he
did a good job back then yeah just a few more questions and i think we'll wrap
this up but um you know it was everybody's kind of aware of how the four sixes
was sold uh about well let's see it's probably been three or four years ago

(01:18:16):
now yeah and i'm not Sure, I bet.
Yeah, Taylor Sheridan and a group of people got together, partnered up,
and bought the four sixes.
And, you know, having been here since 1990 and seeing that change,
has there been any major changes, or how have things changed since that ownership?

(01:18:36):
They've been good. Taylor and the people have been good to us.
And I really couldn't say anything bad other than, like, Ann,
when she knew the man in the south camp, if he had a tooth that was bad,
she'd tell the foreman, you need to see about that and have it fixed,

(01:19:00):
you know, something like that. And they don't.
We don't have that connection. I used to could call the Fort Worth office and
just I knew two or three of them girls in there.
I called and said, let me talk to Laura and tell her I got a deal back.
My insurance wasn't going to pay so-and-so for something that I done at the hospital or something.

(01:19:23):
And she'd say, we'll take care of it. Let me have it. And then that's the last I'd hear about it.
But we don't have somebody. I talked to a girl here about a deal here not too
long ago, and I asked her, I thought it sounded, I said, where are you at?
And she said, Los Angeles, California.
Wow. You know, she don't have any idea what my problem is here.

(01:19:48):
But they've been, Taylor has really been good to me as an individual.
I was worried that they'd get rid of me on account of my age.
As you know, and a lot of places would.
But he's been, just like he had a tent set up out there and a dance floor built

(01:20:12):
and hard Jake Hooker to come up here and play for my 90th birthday and have a party. That's right.
Stuff that I was really surprised that he'd do.
And then I've got a brand new flower stamp saddle down there in the barn.
That I ain't no telling what.
The boy in Phoenix, Arizona made it that I don't even know, but it's flower

(01:20:37):
stamped with four sixes on the
candle and a metal thing on the top of the horn says for Boots O'Neill.
That's cool. And give me that saddle for my 91st birthday. Oh, wow.
And stuff like that. And he's been really good. It's a...

(01:20:57):
I don't know how to say that we don't have the connection that we had.
Like anybody from the ranch that had a problem, you just call Fort Worth. Right.
Ann would tell them, you know, to take care of that.
They knew that she'd want this scene about out there, you know.

(01:21:20):
Now it's not that a way.
And they've got insurance and everything is good. And there's probably some
times when there's been a lot more, a lot more people around when they're filming,
filming shows around here.
One of the biggest things. Can you describe that? We've got about 250 adults in the county.

(01:21:46):
But they have, like we said, talking about, we had, there's a time or two here
when they'd be here filming. and they'd have 300 adults with them. Just for the film crew.
They have, at one time here, we had three mess halls set up,
and they had three, them utility trailers, for 50 or 75 of them.

(01:22:12):
And they'd eat in a tent there, and there's 50 or 75 of them at this other pasture
over here, and they had a mess hall, a bunch down here.
And they use so many people, and it amazes me that, like, I was filming some

(01:22:33):
of that Yellowstone here.
At one time, they said there's 300 people here.
Well, the county's not set up to handle that or anything, and it was the total deal.
The sheriff's office or nothing, they don't know.

(01:22:53):
How to deal with it, you know, because he's just got a part-time deputy in me,
and that many people comes in, but we haven't had any trouble,
and most of them have been real.
I think that maybe Taylor and them have told them that they've got to get along

(01:23:14):
with us because they've been real good for us to get along with, And to my knowledge,
I haven't known of any problems.
And what I've done for them has been help them with something, and they pay me.
I told the girl at the little office down there, you don't have to send me a

(01:23:38):
check for helping them move them cattle across there.
And she said, if you're in that film, we've got to pay you for it. Oh, really? Yeah.
One time we went down here, and they didn't film this. They just wanted to see.
They was going to have their actors do it later, but we just took a bunch of steers.

(01:24:02):
They wanted to see if we could drive them across the river, and it was up and
running, and we'd swim them and the horses ride along with them,
with us on them, And we took a bunch down there and crossed it and turned them
around and brought them back across.
And I never did know if they filmed it later or what.

(01:24:24):
They wanted to find out if it could be done that way.
And, of course, all of us have crossed cattle across the river before.
You know, it's been kind of cool. But it's been kind of cool those times watching
Yellowstone when Taylor's worked in, you know, some real guys,
you know, like there was a part that Dusty Burstyn had.

(01:24:45):
And I've seen Boyd Rice and Corey Pounds and so forth. And I think you've been
filmed some, too, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I've been with them several times.
And I am bad at not paying attention.
You know, I meet one of those guys that's on the show, and he said,
I ought to remember him. But, you know, I don't.

(01:25:09):
To me, that's just foreign to me.
A good example of that, and I can't think of that boy's name,
but he's an older fellow with a beard, and he's a cowboy, and he's been on Yellowstone
ever since it's been going on.
Everybody knew him but me. Yeah, he plays the character of Lloyd.

(01:25:32):
Huh? He plays the character of Lloyd on Yellowstone. I was in the... 40-something.
His first name's Forrey, that's all I can remember. Well, everybody knows him.
It's like, well, I was in Amarillo and was a judge for the world's champion
cowboy rodeo, and they had me to pick the top horse.

(01:25:54):
And I picked this horse, and then when it was over, they had the cameras on
it and gave me the bits to take out there and give to the man on the horse.
And there's a guy standing there by me with a beard and all on.
And he said, could I walk out there with you?
And I said, yeah, I don't mind at all.

(01:26:16):
And, well, my daughter said a bunch of people in Vernon, that's where I called home, saw that.
And they was all telling boots and so-and-so walked out there and gave them the email.
And Laurie said, I'm going to bet y'all. And I'll call Dad and talk to him.
And he didn't know who that guy was.
And she called me, and I said, no, I thought he was just somebody standing there

(01:26:41):
wanting to walk out there with me to present them bits to them.
Yeah, the actor's name is Forrey Smith.
Yeah. Yeah. He's kind of a popular guy. He's popular, yeah.
I didn't recognize him like that. And he didn't, he just asked me,
I didn't know what he was doing.

(01:27:01):
We're standing out on the edge of the arena, you know?
And I thought, what's, then he said, do you care if I walk out there with you?
Well, if I'd have known who he was, I'd have let him put the bits up and hand them up.
But I didn't know, have no idea who he was.
And Laura said she told all them people later.
I knew he wouldn't have no idea who that was.

(01:27:25):
But I just don't connect with people like that, as good as I work to.
Are you a dedicated viewer of Yellowstone or 1923, or do you watch many of those shows?
No, I would enjoy them and would, but they come always was too late for me.

(01:27:46):
See, I go to bed about seven and get up at five. So have you watched Yellowstone?
Huh? Have you ever watched Yellowstone? Just once or twice I've seen parts of
it, but I've never seen the whole thing.
And I'm not above anything that the most unrealistic thing that I've seen them do is they have a,

(01:28:13):
and you just couldn't do this, and it's a no-no on any ranch I've ever been on.
But they have two or three really good-looking girls living in the bunkhouse with some more.
And their bunk's over here and here. You know, you just couldn't do that.
And you'd have some shootings going on.

(01:28:35):
But I would watch it, especially if it'd come a little earlier.
But just, you know, about 6, 37 o'clock, I must nearly fall over here.
And I used to go to bed last night.
See, I was going to stay up and watch our boys on the rodeo at San Antonio. Yes, sir.

(01:28:58):
And they said it's coming on at 7.30, but about 7, I just throwed in the towel and went to bed.
And one of these guys told me about it this morning.
Did they do good? No, they didn't do it. The boy got bucked off in the bronc
riding, and they got a zero in the team pinning.

(01:29:19):
And so I think they wound up fourth or something like that out of 12 teams,
you know. So it wasn't plum bad.
I imagine they're on their way in. They said they'd be here about 4 o'clock
today. I don't know what time it is now. Okay.
It's about 2.30. Pardon? It's about 2.30.

(01:29:41):
Yeah. You know, last question I was going to ask you is, you know,
just kind of reflecting on, you
know, a career that's spanned 77 years and being just a lifelong cowboy.
What would you say has been the most important lesson that you've learned if
you're going to pass something on to somebody else, you know,
someone young starting their career, what would be your advice for them?

(01:30:04):
Well, I think I'd tell them to be devoted to the cause if whatever they're doing,
if they choose to be a pilot or a cowboy or whatever,
devote everything to it and really try to get good at what you're doing.

(01:30:28):
And you don't necessarily have to be a cowboy, but if you're a painter,
just be a good painter and work and be honorable to the people that pay you.
Maybe don't...
Be one of these guys that talks about the people you're working for and take their check.

(01:30:53):
You know that I would frown on that and try to, like on the ranch,
be up and ready of the morning.
Don't let them wait on you or don't have to come in there and wake you up. Time to go.
Be up and ready to go and be, I don't know if those are good answers to you.

(01:31:15):
Question, but I would want a body to just be devoted to their cause.
Well, I'd say you're an example of someone who has lived that.
You've had opportunities to do other types of work and other types of roles,
but you've always, seems like you've always known, at least since 1965,

(01:31:37):
you've always known what you wanted to do, and you've pursued that. Yeah.
Yeah. Now, since I was a little kid, I can remember at home as a little kid,
that's what I wanted to do was punch cows.
But now we've got a lot of boys that are a lot better used to.

(01:32:02):
I can remember Ross went in a crew of cowboys, like a Wagner crew there.
We usually have 10 or 12 men in that wagon crew.
I don't ever remember one of them having a college education.

(01:32:25):
But now, over 90% of our boys working here right now, the cowboys,
the crew, have got a college education.
So that there's more people gets better educations now.
And then another thing that there's used to when I was a young man in a crew,

(01:32:53):
nearly everybody smoked.
It'd be a rare deal, some old boy that didn't smoke.
But now it's the other way around. A guy that smokes is kind of the oddity and
the one that want him to be on the outside and roll the window down if he's

(01:33:13):
going to smoke driving down the road.
And back then, like every house where you're sitting and you come in here,
there'd be an ashtray there by that room, by that chair.
That big chair would have an ashtray there by it in nice homes.

(01:33:33):
But no place now has one you know and there's no place and people just don't smoke.
I'd want a young man to, and he'd really need to study the cowboy,
and it's a hard way to make a living.

(01:33:55):
You're going to get hurt from time to time.
Yes, sir. Regardless of how careful you are, if the work is inadvertently,
you're going to get hurt, and you've got to be able to deal with that if that's what you want to do.
But it's not like you went going to work somewhere and you've got a last deal there.

(01:34:24):
It's more of a way of life, cowboying on a big ranch.
It's just something you devote everything to it And you're willing to make all
kinds of sacrifices for the job.
Instead of it being something you do, it's something you are, really.

(01:34:47):
Right, right. And you need to be willing to do it.
And it may not fit right in right with what you had in plans then,
but you got to try to do what the outfit wants to do, how they want it done.
If you don't want to do it.

(01:35:09):
They want to do it, and you need to change jobs somewhere and not be causing trouble or doing,
you know, there's always some guy telling us we'd do so-and-so,
this would work or something, but you've got to do what the ranch wants to do.
Yes. The people above you, it tells you to do.

(01:35:33):
Yeah. Well, I think you've always been that way. You've never been someone that
talks bad about your employees, and you've always had this just a very positive, upbeat outlook on life.
And I think that's probably one of the reasons you've been able to keep working
for so many years. Don't know, but I've wondered, because I've never worked

(01:35:56):
with anybody in all of these years.
I've just known one other man that was still riding at 92, and that is Tom Blassingen. Yes, sir.
I grew up under Tom, and we spoke reverently in the home when I was a kid. My dad worked for him.
Oh, wow. Now, before he ever married, Tom was running the Matredor wagon,

(01:36:20):
and my dad worked there in the 20s.
And he always spoke highly of Tom, and so that's the way I grew up.
He was just above reproach. But he never done nothing in his life but ride a
horse for a living, you know. He left home.

(01:36:42):
His folks were homesteaded up there in that corner of Oklahoma.
Now, it's right up here. It was kind of an outlaw country then.
It wasn't part of the state.
It wasn't part of Texas or Oklahoma.
But his folks were homesteaded in there. And he told me in 1915,

(01:37:03):
he was 17 years old, he saddled a horse and rode out. and his dad was working
on a windmill there at the house.
And I stopped at the windmill, he said, and told him, I wanted to make my life
and live in the horseback.
Looking through a horse's ears, he said, and rode off.

(01:37:26):
And then he sat there a minute and said, I have.
And, you know, he died there in the Paladour Canyon.
He did. He got off his horse and laid down fold in his hands like that there and died there.
The horse went back to the camp, and they come down there and found him that
evening outside the horse pasture fence trying to get back to the house. Yes, sir.

(01:37:51):
And went hunting and found Tom up that trail. Yep. Do you remember how old he
was? He's two. Ninety-two.
And how ironic that where your career started is, and of course,
he lived until, was it 89 or something like that? I can't think.
It was in the 90s that he died. But yeah, to think that you started out,

(01:38:13):
you know, where he was for so many years.
Did you ever think that you, you know, knowing him and knowing and having grown
up around him and knowing who he was, did you ever think that you would be kind
of another version of Tom Blassingame?
No, I don't think so, but I remember thinking, I was always amazed at how good

(01:38:34):
that he could do and what he was doing.
I remember when I was 17, 18 years old, he was in his 50s, and I thought he
still done everything good, and that's all he wanted to do was ride, you know.
And he lived in the Paladour Canyon the last 40 years of his life.

(01:38:58):
There was a funny story on him. There was five wire gates between JA headquarters
and that Camel Creek camp, and there's a rider out of Amarillo.
Had made a deal to come down there and interview him on a deal.
And that writer was telling him that he had no idea there's all them gates to go through to get down.

(01:39:26):
And Tom told him that he should have told him that he lived in a gated community.
And I don't know if that guy really understood that or not.
Tom's son is... 89, he's three years younger than I am. He lives in Hereford. Wow.

(01:39:48):
And I talk to him occasionally on the phone. Yeah.
And his wife passed away here a year or two ago.
He's there by himself now, but he punched cows all of his life out in New Mexico
and Arizona and around. Yeah.
Tommy Blessing game. Hmm. Well, very good.

(01:40:09):
Well, I tell you what, I really appreciate you taking the time with us,
boots and uh it's always an honor to just
talk to someone like you and it's it's it's an honor to even just know
you and i just appreciate uh you know what you've
done you've made a major contribution i know maybe wasn't
intentional but you've made a pretty cool contribution to
you know the legacy that we know as far as what ranching is about and cowboy

(01:40:31):
life and uh appreciate what you've done appreciate you saying that and if i
could add one one thing we didn't And I've got it here somewhere.
It'd take me a minute to find it.
But I got a deal in the last year or two from the state of Texas and an official seal with it.

(01:40:52):
And it said, and I have no idea how they would know this or what this base stole.
But it's an official with a Texas seal on it saying that I was recognized by
the House of Representatives when a certain session was on meeting in Austin, Texas.

(01:41:16):
And I was recognized as an outstanding citizen in the state of Texas.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, it really is. I've got it in there somewhere,
but I had no idea, and I don't know what they based it on or how they knew.
But it is an honor.

(01:41:39):
I said that when a certain number session so-and-so was in session on the floor
is recognized as an outstanding citizen in the state of Texas.
That's cool. Well, thanks again. Appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. I hope we helped you.

(01:42:00):
Usually I'm not too good at these things.