Mutton Busting

A Florida Boy Adventure

Artwork: Cowboy riding bucking bronco from Indians and Western Historical Scenes series (W417)

I’ve only been to Colorado three times in my life. Most recently for a funeral, and the second time was for a wedding. But the first time I went I was eight years old and a proud 72 pounds. I was scared and excited. We drove out to visit my grandparents, Grammy and Pappy, who lived about an hour outside of Denver.

The Rockies did not impress me from a distance. I think, like most children, things of that size or presence were simply beyond my comprehension. Growing up on the Gulf coast, I was never overcome by the immensity of water that filled my vision. That is simply the way it was. I felt the same way about the mountains. Sometimes they were the size of my thumb on the van window, then they were the size of my hand, and then they loomed up so big that it wasn’t a mountain range anymore; it was just stones and cacti and hills and cliffs. I could understand all those things, and so they didn’t impress me.

The stones and cacti, or cactuses as we called them, now those were impressive. There was no resisting these strange plants and minerals. Our family had just watched The Long, Long Trailer, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and four of the five Harned children were now enamored with rock collecting. Florida doesn’t have a lot of rocks, not ones worth collecting anyways. But the Rocky Mountains of Colorado had so many rocks, good rocks, that my dad, just like Desi Arnaz, had to take some drastic steps to reclaim the inside of the van.

We stopped once or twice in the mountains, and then we went into the valley where Grammy and Pappy lived. We got out of the van, and Hannah, Caleb, Blaise, and I were incredibly shy. Barak was a baby, and cared only about nursing and being held. Grammy and Pappy were welcoming and had gifts for everyone. We were soon all decked out in cowboy hats, boots, and cap-guns. But they had a special gift for me, being the eldest: a real cattle rope, and a plastic steer head that could be put on a hay-bale, for roping.

I was a real, honest-to-goodness, cowboy.

I don’t know how long we stayed with them, probably only a week or so, but it felt like a very long time and a very short time. Grammy and Pappy lived in a magical place. For starters, they had a huge yard, but the grass was lush, soft, and there were no thorns, sand patches, crab-grass, travellers, or stickers. You could just roll around in the stuff, and nothing hurt you. Then, passing over the rope swings and trees to climb, there was the back field. Cow dogs and horses ran and played there. Grammy was a barrel racer, and she had some gorgeous horses. There was grilling, and swimming, and fishing, and lots of playing cowboys. Peak living, as far as I was concerned.

Inside their house was a wonderland too. Split level, two stories and a basement, it was huge. There was a bar that stretched so far it had two angled turns in it. The kitchen was so clean that I didn’t think we were allowed to cook there. Then there were these huge, glass cupboards, filled with pretty, breakable things. I stayed clear of those. Then there was the gun rack, filled with firearms and knives. I went as close to that as I was allowed.

When indoors, I spent most of my time in the living room with my father and grandfather. It smelled like leather, cigars, and whiskey. The TV was taller than Pappy, and wider than his whole wingspan. It was spring, and I saw more Colorado Rockie baseball games than I knew was possible.

There was a real, black bear rug on the floor, with the head and claws still attached. I wasn’t allowed to walk on it, but I was allowed to lay on it or crawl on it. A grizzly skin was on the wall, next to elk, moose, and mule deer mounts. A coffee table with a sheet of thick glass was in the middle of the room, propped up by plaster and ceramic salmon, who swam amid fallen tree branches over a river stone bed. There were two ottomans that were the same shape and size as bear cubs, one black and one brown. If you squinted, while sitting in the middle of the living room, it looked like all the North American animals were at a movie theater.

The black bear cub ottoman was my preferred perch, for three reasons. First, it was a life-sized bear cub toy. Second, Pappy took up the huge leather armchair, and Dad would stretch out on the couch. The loveseat was reserved for Grammy and Mom, whenever they would come in for a bit. But the most important reason I sat on that bear is because I used it for training.

Grammy and Pappy were taking us to a rodeo. I love rodeos. I love rodeos. And this was supposed to be one of the best rodeos in the state. My Dad had been a bronc buster, and even tried bull riding once. Grammy, as I said before, was a barrel racer, and a good one. But this time, at this rodeo, I was going to participate. I was going to be a mutton buster.

Mutton busting is sheep riding. Little kids lay on the back of the sheep, and hang on for dear life when the sheep is let out of the chute. It’s just as insane as it sounds. I had never seen it happen before (not a lot of sheep at Florida rodeos), but I couldn’t wait to be a real contestant in a real rodeo.

I would lay on the bear cub, and squeeze with my knees and grip with my arms as hard as I could, while my father and grandfather offered helpful tips.

“Don’t just hold on with your hands. Press your whole arm into it!”

“Stick your feet under its belly, and try and lock them together.”

“Don’t do that! His legs aren’t long enough, you’ll lose your grip!”

“Hey, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Stick your feet under.”

“The hell I don’t! Squeeze with your knees!”

I tried to please both parties, but in the end I opted for my own leg-gripping strategies. I squeezed with my knees, and pushed my toes under the bear’s belly. Then they would time me, seeing how long I could squeeze with all my strength. I got about 8 seconds, almost every time.

“That’s long enough to ride a bull!”

“You hear that, Joan? Zac’s gonna ride a bull!”

“Yup! Get ready son, you’re moving up from the sheep!”

Then they would laugh, and I didn’t know if I was really riding a sheep or a bull, but I was happy to be in the conversation.

The day of the rodeo I was so nervous I thought I would be sick. We all piled out of the van and my siblings were running around in total glee. I wanted to go home. Not just back to Grammy and Pappy’s, but home.

I asked my Dad to show me where the sheep were, and he took me out of the stands all the way around the corral to the animal pens, which were on the far side. Rodeo corrals, if you don’t know, are big, fenced in, oval shaped dirt areas. All the rodeos I had been to at that point were travelling rodeos. They used portable, lightweight, metal corral fences that could be put up or taken down quickly. This one was different; this was a permanent installation with huge, high wooden fences, and thick fence posts every so often that the wide boards slid into. The announcer’s booth was a large, two-story affair, and the animal pens ran along both sides of the booth.

We passed the bulls, then the steers, and then we saw the sheep. They all were crowding back and forth in the pen, like a herd of sheep usually do. They were a lot bigger than the ottoman bear, and I told my dad so. He agreed with me. We walked closer to the fence, then one of the sheep broke from the herd and ran towards us, scaring me considerably. It was a big, black-headed brute, with a long smear of manure running from the top left-shoulder to its elbow. It was not afraid of us at all, and he charged the fence several times.

“I hope I don’t ride that one.”

I don’t know if my dad heard me. He was looking at the trophy table. I hadn’t known there would be trophies. There was a first, second, and third place award for every event. The mutton busting trophies were huge. I tried to get a better hold on my fear. Riding a sheep was one thing, but doing it for a trophy was another.

“How do you win?” I asked.

“It’s the longest ride. If you hold on for longer than everyone else, you win.” My dad slapped me on the back. “Just hang on buddy, just like you’ve been practicing, and you’ll do fine.”

Back in the stands, Grammy and Pappy bought us popcorn, cotton candy, and I think peanuts, but I was too nervous to eat, too nervous to even enjoy the rodeo. I have no memory of the events that happened before the mutton busting call. There probably weren’t many, since the kid’s events are usually early, but I remember staring at my boots while people cheered around me. I was trying not to cry.

Crying at a rodeo in the 90’s was not an option for an eight year old boy. It certainly wasn’t an option for a genuine cowboy who was about to compete in front of his father and grandfather. Somehow thinking about this made it even harder to hold back tears. I started to get angry at how scared I was, but then I wanted to cry because I was angry. The call for mutton busters to come to the announcer’s stand shocked me out of my wallowing.

After Dad and I had checked in, which meant telling a cowboy who had a list of names in his hand that we were there, we stood by the sheep pen and I said, “I don’t want to go first. I want to watch a few.”

“You’re not gonna go first, buddy. There’s a buncha kids over here already.”

To this day I do not know how this happened, since my first name starts with a “Z,” and my last name starts with an “H,” so it makes zero sense that I would be first on any list. But, at the very moment my father stopped speaking, hand-on-my-heart, honest-to-goodness, the announcer said, “Alright folks, our first rider today is Mr. Zachary Harned!”

A couple of tears squeaked out.

I was saved by momentum though, as I got pushed forward and into a real bronc bust’in chute, by the same cowboy who had had the list of names. The list now gone, he was talking to a woman in the chute with us. She took my hat and handed me a plastic army helmet with a frayed elastic strap. It said “THIS IS A TOY” on the inside. Then I saw the cowboy step into the sheep pen to grab my ride.

All the sheep herded away from the cowboy when he came in. All except one.

Ol’shit shoulder.

He charged straight at the cowboy, busting out of the ranks like he had something to prove. The cowboy grabbed him, and hauled him into the chute. The next few seconds were a blur of movement, short-wool, grimy Levis, and the sound of the gate clicking shut behind me.

I was on the sheep, instantly forgetting all my training and the sound advice of my forebears. I squeezed with my hands only, and just laid my sternum on the back of the sheep’s spine. I could feel him tensing. I suddenly realized that this animal was bigger and stronger than me. I was in a contest that I was guaranteed to lose. I tried to angle my arm so that I wasn’t rubbing against the excrement on his side, but that hurt my shoulder. I gave up and just held on.

Then the helmet, with the scratchy, crusted elastic, slipped over my eyes. The woman laughed and tipped it back. Then it slid all the way back and tugged at my throat. Then she squashed it firmly onto my head.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

Then the chute opened, and the hell-demon I was riding took off like a shot, straight into the middle of the corral.

At that moment, I remembered most of the things I was supposed to do, but it was mostly too late. I squeezed with my whole arms, like a bear hug, but my belly bounced off the centerline of the sheep’s back, and my lower-body shifted to the right. My sternum was still lined up with its spine, but I knew it was only a matter of time before my own weight dragged me off.

I tried to grip with my legs, but the sheep’s running was so strong that it was everything I could do to stay in contact with the creature.

Abruptly, probably because my weight was pulling hard to its right, the sheep veered hard towards the edge of the corral. I just caught a glimpse of the white-boarded fence, and had time to hope that he wouldn’t drag me off on the fence, before he slammed me into it. He ran down the length of it, dragging me along the fence with him.

The first fence-post knocked the helmet off my head, the elastic snapping. The second post turned me into a pez dispenser. The third post caught me in the bottom of my neck and top of my chest, and fully removed me from the sheep.

One of my boots was knocked halfway off, and when the rodeo clown hauled me up the bent boot-top scooped dirt down around my ankle. Then Dad was there, and I was being congratulated and jostled, and the world stopped spinning and I could see again. People were cheering.

“Wave it! Wave it!” My dad jammed my hat into my hand.

I waved my hat, and people cheered louder. The loud-speaker came on and said, “That’s Zac Harned, folks, waving to you! With a time of 18 seconds, that is the longest ride of the season!”

Dad was over the moon, and so were Grammy and Pappy. My mom looked upset, but she also told me ‘good job.’ My head hurt, and there was a lot of sand in my boot, but I was the happiest kid in the world.

A few other kids had gone already, when we got back to sit with the family. None of them broke 12 seconds. None of them had been dragged off on the fence either. I felt like a king. I turned and asked Mom if we could display the trophy in the living room, and she said maybe.

I wondered if they would mention me at the next rodeo. Maybe I held some sort of state record. Maybe that sheep was carnivorous, and I was the only kid who would ever ride him. I was fully convinced of my victory and lost in my imagination when it happened.

One of the sheep trotted out of the chute, its rider firmly attached. It paced around a bit, not running much, then moved into the center of the corral, and laid down.

19 seconds later, the longest ride of the season title moved to a new rider. But the sheep kept sitting there, and the kid kept holding on.

When the clown finally went over and lifted the kid off the reclining sheep, the announcer revealed that it was, in fact, a 40 second ride.

“It’s alright, Zac.”

“Don’t worry about it, buddy.”

“That kid didn’t even get dragged off on a fence!”

“Hey, second place isn’t so bad.”

I felt sad, but I brightened up at second place. I remained bright until it happened again.

This sheep didn’t lay down, but it didn’t run either. It just stood in the dirt, waiting for a friendly clown to come and remove its passenger. 36 seconds.

No one could comfort me when it happened a third time. At this point the clowns were watching out for these ringer sheep, and pulling kids off if the sheep didn’t run. This third one, to be fair, was a fine ride. It trotted all the way around the coral, not fast but steady, and dumped its passenger onto the sand after 28 seconds.

There was no trophy for fourth place, which is probably for the best because we didn’t have a lot of space in the van for a trophy.

Pappy and Dad were pretty great about it. “I’d rather you lose with the ride you had than win the way they did.”

“You can’t win’em all, son. I’m proud of you nonetheless.”

They didn’t even mention my crying.