Behind The Bucking Chutes

"Oh, sure" says the Rodeo Director, "no problem. You can shoot from the bucking gates. Hell, you can go ahead and shoot from the arena if you want, as long as you know how to stay out of the way."

I think, but do not say, that I normally ‘stay out of the way’ by being on the other side of the fence. And even there I’ve almost had my camera jammed into my face when the pickup men galloped by too close. "No worries, I’ll be fine. I can climb the fence with the best of them." Later, when the need arises, I will remember how casually I said this. Things happen fast in the rodeo arena and you better have a plan.

I check into the Golden Spur Motor Inn, twenty miles from the rodeo grounds. It was probably built in the late 1940s and shows its age. Tiny rooms open onto the blazing asphalt parking lot and it promises little more than a place to get a few fitful hours rest between performances. I ask the proprietress about local food. "Well, the restaurant is breakfast only, but we do have room service here for guests." She hands me a typed menu. "It is just normal food like samoza, naan, homemade paneers, different vegetable dishes, chicken, lamb, beef. We can do masala, vindaloo, whatever sauce you like. You order from me and then my husband will cook it for you in the kitchen and bring it ‘round. It’s from scratch, so it takes a few minutes." Oh, YES! I will shoot the night rodeo on a happy stomach.

The next morning the Golden Spur Restaurant opens at 7:00 AM for breakfast and I meet the husband/waiter/cook again in the dining room. Waiting for my pancakes I see the labeled antique barbed wire collection displayed on the wall. Immediately next to it is Ganesh in brilliant hues of scarlet, turquoise and cobalt green. Fierce Ashoka stares down at me with furrowed brow from across the room.

The Pend Oreille County Fair is small and charming. The fair barns are all Quonset huts and each one is full of animal, horticulture or craft exhibits. The poultry barn has chickens, ducks, geese and unaccountably, rabbits. Each little cage is attended by a loving and concerned 4H kid. When the ducks seem hot – the temperature outside is nearly 100F – the owner spritzes them with a plant mister. Electric fans cool the bovine barn, but it is not enough to relieve the extra heat generated by the bulky flatulent beasts. A young girl gently pets her colossal brown cow, she sitting on the straw, the animal laying on its side, mighty head in her small lap.

I hunt for my spot behind the bucking chutes as the rodeo begins to churn. The back of the chute provides a wooden platform about three feet off the ground. There is no ladder. I think to raise myself butt first, using my arms for the lift. Concerned that this might appear unmanly, I choose instead to climb the bracket, but when I reach for a handhold there is nothing to grab so I fall backwards, heavy camera flopping, and look merely foolish instead. Cowboys filter into the narrow defile between the bucking chutes and the stock pens. This is their dressing room and their stretching area. Young, wiry and tough as hell, they begin their physical and mental preparations for the contest. Nos morituri te salutamus.

I am impressed by the cowboys’ athletic contortions, legs above heads for long stretches, they look like marathoners warming up. They hop, they squat, they explode in jumps. One mustachioed, sideburned, snuff-dipping cowboy enthusiastically engages in a series of pornographic pelvic thrusts, which I suppose might have a preparatory purpose, or maybe he is just showing off for the ladies, since by now the gate area is full of tattooed girlfriends and groupies. Ladies or not, every man and boy has a chaw, and every person with a chaw has to spit regularly. In the confined space this can be troublesome.

In the end there really is no place in the bucking gates for a stranger with a camera, permission notwithstanding. This is the cowboys’ office, and strangers are in the way. My lens is too long to shoot in such a confined space anyway, so there’s not much for me there. "That’s it then," I say, and expectantly push open the heavy white wooden gate into the freshly-ploughed arena. It feels almost holy, like I am invading the nave of an ancient cathedral.

I need time to find the angles and stations in the big, dusty space, and I flail a bit at first. I don’t know all the arena rules, but the flaggers and judges try to keep me in line, or at least try not to run over me. The gate handlers tell me where NOT to be. Up in the wooden grandstands the prodigious crowd is excited, raucous and lusty. The beer garden on the non-family side of the arena is packed with families and groups of well-lubricated adults. I settle in to most of the events pretty well and take advice from the rodeo hands. Some of the photos are going to be good, most worthless, but that’s always the way.

I know exactly where I want to be to shoot the bareback bronc riders. The photos of the first contestant seem hopefully workmanlike, and I look down briefly to check the settings on the camera. Looking up again, I am startled to see both pickup men and the wild bronc racing toward me three abreast at a fast gallop and very close. It is a wall of meat, bones and leather ten feet wide, closing on me at forty miles an hour. I am too far from the fence and getting there would cross their path. I sprint away toward the center of the arena and miss being trampled by maybe ten inches. Later, during the bull riding, an angry Simmental picks me out from the crowd. His menacing eyes challenge mine. This time I am close enough to reach the fence, but when I try to climb it the seventy-year-old rusty nails in my handhold come loose and I fall into the soft dirt. The bullfighter easily handles the bull and I dust myself off to shoot the next rider.

When I leave the arena I feel elevated to a sublime ecstasy. This is real life. This matters.

The beautiful and sophisticated young woman with flaming orange hair and penetrating emerald eyes has come into my tent at the art fair in Bellevue. She looks at my rodeo pictures and judges them on the merits. In her thick Irish accent she says "You can’t save it, you know. The cowboy way is dead. It doesn’t exist anymore."

Biffle French is a Vashon artist and writer. He is the National Rodeo Correspondent for the Vashon Loop. Look for his new book "American Rodeo" available now.

I think, but do not say, that I normally ‘stay out of the way’ by being on the other side of the fence. And even there I’ve almost had my camera jammed into my face when the pickup men galloped by too close. "No worries, I’ll be fine. I can climb the fence with the best of them." Later, when the need arises, I will remember how casually I said this. Things happen fast in the rodeo arena and you better have a plan.

I check into the Golden Spur Motor Inn, twenty miles from the rodeo grounds. It was probably built in the late 1940s and shows its age. Tiny rooms open onto the blazing asphalt parking lot and it promises little more than a place to get a few fitful hours rest between performances. I ask the proprietress about local food. "Well, the restaurant is breakfast only, but we do have room service here for guests." She hands me a typed menu. "It is just normal food like samoza, naan, homemade paneers, different vegetable dishes, chicken, lamb, beef. We can do masala, vindaloo, whatever sauce you like. You order from me and then my husband will cook it for you in the kitchen and bring it ‘round. It’s from scratch, so it takes a few minutes." Oh, YES! I will shoot the night rodeo on a happy stomach.

The next morning the Golden Spur Restaurant opens at 7:00 AM for breakfast and I meet the husband/waiter/cook again in the dining room. Waiting for my pancakes I see the labeled antique barbed wire collection displayed on the wall. Immediately next to it is Ganesh in brilliant hues of scarlet, turquoise and cobalt green. Fierce Ashoka stares down at me with furrowed brow from across the room.

The Pend Oreille County Fair is small and charming. The fair barns are all Quonset huts and each one is full of animal, horticulture or craft exhibits. The poultry barn has chickens, ducks, geese and unaccountably, rabbits. Each little cage is attended by a loving and concerned 4H kid. When the ducks seem hot – the temperature outside is nearly 100F – the owner spritzes them with a plant mister. Electric fans cool the bovine barn, but it is not enough to relieve the extra heat generated by the bulky flatulent beasts. A young girl gently pets her colossal brown cow, she sitting on the straw, the animal laying on its side, mighty head in her small lap.

I hunt for my spot behind the bucking chutes as the rodeo begins to churn. The back of the chute provides a wooden platform about three feet off the ground. There is no ladder. I think to raise myself butt first, using my arms for the lift. Concerned that this might appear unmanly, I choose instead to climb the bracket, but when I reach for a handhold there is nothing to grab so I fall backwards, heavy camera flopping, and look merely foolish instead. Cowboys filter into the narrow defile between the bucking chutes and the stock pens. This is their dressing room and their stretching area. Young, wiry and tough as hell, they begin their physical and mental preparations for the contest. Nos morituri te salutamus.

I am impressed by the cowboys’ athletic contortions, legs above heads for long stretches, they look like marathoners warming up. They hop, they squat, they explode in jumps. One mustachioed, sideburned, snuff-dipping cowboy enthusiastically engages in a series of pornographic pelvic thrusts, which I suppose might have a preparatory purpose, or maybe he is just showing off for the ladies, since by now the gate area is full of tattooed girlfriends and groupies. Ladies or not, every man and boy has a chaw, and every person with a chaw has to spit regularly. In the confined space this can be troublesome.

In the end there really is no place in the bucking gates for a stranger with a camera, permission notwithstanding. This is the cowboys’ office, and strangers are in the way. My lens is too long to shoot in such a confined space anyway, so there’s not much for me there. "That’s it then," I say, and expectantly push open the heavy white wooden gate into the freshly-ploughed arena. It feels almost holy, like I am invading the nave of an ancient cathedral.

I need time to find the angles and stations in the big, dusty space, and I flail a bit at first. I don’t know all the arena rules, but the flaggers and judges try to keep me in line, or at least try not to run over me. The gate handlers tell me where NOT to be. Up in the wooden grandstands the prodigious crowd is excited, raucous and lusty. The beer garden on the non-family side of the arena is packed with families and groups of well-lubricated adults. I settle in to most of the events pretty well and take advice from the rodeo hands. Some of the photos are going to be good, most worthless, but that’s always the way.

I know exactly where I want to be to shoot the bareback bronc riders. The photos of the first contestant seem hopefully workmanlike, and I look down briefly to check the settings on the camera. Looking up again, I am startled to see both pickup men and the wild bronc racing toward me three abreast at a fast gallop and very close. It is a wall of meat, bones and leather ten feet wide, closing on me at forty miles an hour. I am too far from the fence and getting there would cross their path. I sprint away toward the center of the arena and miss being trampled by maybe ten inches. Later, during the bull riding, an angry Simmental picks me out from the crowd. His menacing eyes challenge mine. This time I am close enough to reach the fence, but when I try to climb it the seventy-year-old rusty nails in my handhold come loose and I fall into the soft dirt. The bullfighter easily handles the bull and I dust myself off to shoot the next rider.

When I leave the arena I feel elevated to a sublime ecstasy. This is real life. This matters.

The beautiful and sophisticated young woman with flaming orange hair and penetrating emerald eyes has come into my tent at the art fair in Bellevue. She looks at my rodeo pictures and judges them on the merits. In her thick Irish accent she says "You can’t save it, you know. The cowboy way is dead. It doesn’t exist anymore."

Biffle French is a Vashon artist and writer. He is the National Rodeo Correspondent for the Vashon Loop. Look for his new book "American Rodeo" available now.