S T O R I E S

On the way to an all-girl ranch rodeo, the rig, fully loaded with horses and people, pulled in the yard just before dark. The resident ropers, champions in their own right (or mind) were at the arena spinning a few practice steers.

As all good hospitality demands, the gals were invited to come rope and the cowboys made every effort to be gentlemanly in their efforts to allow the damsels to have a turn at the roping cattle.

The first steer set the scene, scared the cowboys, and reminded them "cowboy" comes in two genders.

These gals had been on the road all day, starting the trip and the beer drinking at 9 a.m., with a designated driver also called "boyfriend."

They rolled in, backed their horses out of the trailer, backed in the roping box, and more than handily roped the fastest, dirtiest steer on the place before it got a third of the way down the arena. It is important to note that this particular steer had been diabolically selected by the ropers to "impress" the cowgirls as part of their hospitality.

They turned him, stretched him out, let him up, dusted off their hands and got another beer. Just a routine moment in another day in time with no extra effort involved.

The cowboys stood in stunned amazement, appropriate reverence and, quite possibly, a little fear. A priceless moment for the cowgirl world.

Delicate and dainty aren't always descriptions given to such top hands, but beneath the chaps, dust and skill, lies the heart of a female who often struggles to maintain a thread of femininity.

For me, it was having nice nails - the kind you buy at the manicurist, which was the only kind I could claim for my own. My cowgirl friend and I were spending the summer trailing yearlings around the mesas of northern New Mexico at the direction of the boss, who also happened to be her husband.

We spent long days in the saddle, and did our best to "make a hand," but would also schedule a nail appointment every two weeks. It became a joke about "having the nicest nails in the cowboy crowd," not that you could ever see them under our gloves.

We knew we looked pretty rough and certainly were punchy enough to qualify our presence on most outfits. That was verified one morning just after daylight when we had gone to help a neighboring ranch ship a few semi-trucks of yearlings.

We unloaded our horses and headed to the backside of the shipping pasture along with a dozen other cowboys. When one puncher rode up next to me asked what outfit I was hired onto, I knew I had made the crossing from a get-in-the-way female to a qualified rag-tag cowboy.

The real marker of status that summer arrived when a call for help came to provide a couple of cowboys to help a big outfit gather their cattle for shipping. Frank, the boss, took the call and was heard explaining he was already committed somewhere else that day, but he would send a couple of capable cowgirls to help.

The next words on the phone left the ranch foreman on the other end of the line laughing hard, and was likely a historical moment in time for the cowboy/cowgirl movement.

There was a pause in the conversation when Frank said, "Wait a minute, first I'd better check and see if they have a nail appointment that day."

Julie is a recovering can-chaser in a 12-step program. Visit Julie's Web site at www.julie-carter.com.