Roping the bear

While working as a wrangler on a 137,000 acre Northern New Mexico ranch (you know, the typical I-don’t-know-what-in-the-hell-to-do-with-my-life phase) my first ranch station was at Clark’s Fork where it was me and four boys in a barn. We took care of the 30+ head of horses there in addition to whatever cattle was there at the time. (Cattle were moved from pasture to pasture throughout the ranch much more often than the horses or burros.) We also repaired fences, did minor veterinary procedures, re-shod horses when needed and even gave dude rides to backpacking and/or camping groups in the area – almost always Boy Scout Troops.

This area of New Mexico was flush with Black Bears. Occasionally we’d have to scare one away from trying to break into our grain bin or reroute a job through the woods, but really the bears mostly wanted to avoid us. A sentiment we wranglers shared with the bears although over the years the bears had gotten more and more comfortable with human "things."

One lazy, sunny day in June, though, the boys changed their minds. We were all cleaning tack or whittling or grooming our personal horses in front of the barn when a bear neared one of our corrals which fortunately were empty since it was late afternoon – being in the middle of frightened, trapped horses has always been a bad plan.

I reckon that bear had gotten into the boys’ whiskey stash in the creek bed. The bear stunk and the whiskey bottle was all busted to pieces. The boys and their collective thinking… all it took was for one of them to turn off their brain, and the others jumped on the absurd idea of “roping the bear.”

“I’m gonna get that bear,” Mike said.

“Yeh!” “Yeah – let’s get him!” The other boys all pitched in various shouts of support. Before I knew it, all four of ‘em had mounted up and were chasing that bear. Even in the thick woods, the brainless boys were swirling their lassos overhead.

Calmly, methodically, I mounted my horse Questa, the fastest mustang (wild horse) in New Mexico. Questa and I caught up to the boys easily. They had surrounded a very angry 6+ foot tall… 200+ pound… Black… Bear.

As the bear roared to standing full height and arms stretched out, Questa and I eased up behind a couple of the guys and said, “Boys… I’ve just got one question for y’all.”

“What?” “We’re busy!” “We got him!” These were the responses shouted in my direction.

“Well,” I said. “What exactly do y’all plan to do with that big ol’ angry bear once y’all rope it?”

Silence.

Then the lassos began to go limp, and the bear went back to all fours as the boys withdrew their horses. As they cleared out from around it, the bear slowly and cautiously headed back into the forest. We, too, turned around and slowly made our way back to the barn in silence – that is, until the last clearing before the barn. That's when I heard Big Mike mutter, "Well, I coulda had him."