The Saddle Shed

For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by anything made with leather.

As a young child living on a ranch in West Texas, I was completely captivated by the tack room. The saddles hung from the rafters in that dimly lit shed like they were rebel outlaws that had met their ends on a hangman's noose. These saddles hung on pieces of rope that had a small loop tied on the end. The rope was run through the gullet of the saddle and then the loop went over the saddle horn. The saddles lined up in rows under each rafter but they swung and swayed as you walked among them as if the life that they had once known had not quite left their bodies. The walls had lines of tin cans that were screwed in through the bottom of the can. Bridles were hung on these protruding cans. I imagined that the bridles were soldiers that stood vigil over the macabre saddle tomb.

I loved the smell, a combination of neatsfoot oil and equine sweat. I loved the feel and I loved the romance of that tack room. I remember wishing that the saddles could tell me all their stories.

My uncle and his father before him worked for the Swenson's SMS ranch before they ranched on their own. Their "home place' was west of Stamford on the way to the famed 'King Mountain" Division of the Swenson outfit. The "Home Place" tack room also had a lot of old harness hanging in it, My cousin told me that they used draft horses and mules on that place until WWII. Most likely that harness hung there in that tack room until it dry rotted and turned to dust. I could only imagine what it was like to shoe those big draft horses and break them to pull a plow.

The Swenson SMS ranch was a traditional outfit until it was broken up and sold by the heirs in the early 80s. They ran a wagon and they drug calves to the fire to mark them. That part of Texas produced a lot of good hands and I somehow knew that the saddles hanging there in that tack room had seen a lot of hard days horse back. If they could have talked they would have told me stories of weather heartbreaks, and painful bone breaks. Nothing smells as good as a new saddle but it has no soul, no experience. No inanimate object could know more about a cowboy's victories and disappointments than his saddle. Each and every mark in the saddle had a story to tell. If only they could speak.

Before the screw worm was eradicated, it was an unbelievable scourge for the ranching economy. A cut or scrape on any animal would soon be infested with the screw worm maggots and proper healing of the wound would become almost impossible. The problem was widespread throughout the brush covered cattle country of the Southwest. The cattle, sheep, goats and horses in this area had to be roped and doctored for every scratch or scrape they might encounter. Saddles got a lot of use during that time and my uncle used to say that the screw worm made more good horses and cowboys during that era than were ever made before or since. Every horse during that time was ridden through stock and roped off of daily, every one of them. Every saddle had a purple stain on it somewhere from carrying the worm medicine in a bag tied to the saddle strings.

Both my uncle and my father-in law smoked while they worked horseback. My uncle could roll a cigarette in one hand and hold bridle reins in the other. Both men had a burned spot on their saddles on the off side by the cantle. They put their butts out there and made sure that they never let a visible glowing ember from a cigarette hit the ground where it might start a fire.

Those old saddles hanging in that shed were al lot like the cowboys that rode in them. They were marked with experience, every wreck a visible scar.