The $200 Ride

         I had just cashed in on a birthday check.  Two hundred dollars burning a hole in my back pocket!  I had spent a week planning what I would spend it on and couldn’t bear the thought of losing it, so it went into the red and black canvas wallet and in my back pocket.  I pulled out the wallet throughout the day to count the ten $20 bills and make sure they were all there.

         It happened the day before I went shopping.  I went to the ranch to round up cattle at the Garcia East Pasture.  The pasture was several square miles in area and full of interesting landscape. Deer, antelope, coyotes, rabbits, and prairie dogs were plentiful.  It also took all day to ride, and I covered a lot of ground.

         Unfortunately, I drew Red Rocket for the day.  Actually, no one else would ride the horse, so I was given the honor.  This horse was something else.  He belonged on a race track, not a cattle ranch.  He was deathly afraid of cattle and had two speeds, jittery and breakneck.  Once he hit the afterburners, there was no turning and no stopping.  With most of the horses I rode, I spent the whole day trying to get them to run. Not Red Rocket.  The entire day was spent keeping him at a walk.  If I had a momentary lapse and allowed my heels to gently tap his flanks, he was transported through time and space to a round dirt track and a starting gate.  Without warning, the horse would fire off the line, ramming the rider into the back of the saddle, and reaching a full run in mere seconds.  If the leap forward was not enough to wake me, the contact of my tailbone with the saddle sure did.  Red Rocket would transport a rider a good mile from the herd before a person could stop him and fight a tired horse back to the herd.

         I spent the entire day fighting this horse and absolutely forgot about my wallet in the back pocket of my Wrangler jeans.  After returning dirty and exhausted, I arose the next morning to find my wallet gone.  After a few hours of agonizing torture, I realized what must have happened.  During one of the many racetrack starts, my wallet had worked loose and slipped out of my pocket. Rich to bankrupt faster than a game of Monopoly!

         Someday, someone will find my old decayed wallet containing old bills, a driver’s license and what used to be pictures of a few pretty girls and never know that I went without a few choice items because of an idiot kid protecting his wallet and horse named Red Rocket.