RAY ON HIS TALL ROAN - Song Page
© words & music by Annie Wilson
from CD Sky & Water, Wind & Grass
Album Note: This describes an actual experience I had working with neighbors: straightening out a big cattle mix-up - in a remote pasture without any sorting pens. This cowboy and his horse had such an uncanny ability to work with those animals that if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
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Lyrics:
We were far up in the pastures
No road for miles away
The dawn sky gray and misted
On this day in early May
Spring fires-had burned the hedge posts
& the steers had crossed the fence
So now we had to check and sort
Through several hundred head
We rode the heifers’ pasture first
To gather up stray steers
Some heifers tagged along
although we tried to keep ‘em clear
We brought the whole bunch thru the gate
Where-the steers all should've been
And took em to the corner
Where the sorting would begin
My heart sank at the prospect
This job could take us days
There-might be two hundred head here
I thought: there’s just no way
Us riders cannot do this
With no holding pens or gates
But then our neighbor Ray began
To cut out his first stray
Tall and calm on his roan gelding
He’d separate a few
His steps were slow and measured
Man and horse knew what to do
They’d guide the steers on down the fence
And push the heifers in
He was getting all these half-wild yearlings
organized again
Our job was just to hold ‘em
For if they got away
We’d have to start all over
surely try another day
We watched their moves so closely
In-case one would escape
In our stirrups tense and ready
if we had to catch a stray
I chased a few wild heifers
And my horse he loved the rush
We’d guide ‘em in a big U-turn
And back into the bunch
The roan and Ray kept working
It was a privilege to watch
Every second of their patient pace
Saved hours of work for us
At the end it seemed a miracle
When the sorting all was through
I felt just plain exhausted
But Ray was calm and cool
We ran the sorted heifers back
And then all headed home
And I knew I’d seen true skill that day
Of Ray on his tall roan