The Cowboy Way
In the heart of Texas and Louisiana Creole Country, a deeprooted tradition of horseback trail rides and backwoods parties is the glue that holds a culture together.
© CHRIS CURRY
IN A COOL Saturday after noon in rural, backwoods , wheretheheckamI southeast Texas, a procession of cowboys and cowgirls on horseback trots down Farm Road 1301 — the sort of road where you might spot lolling cows lounging in the sun, freshly rolled cylinders of hay in an open field or the remains of hapless wild pigs and raccoons decaying along the shoulders. Way out ahead, leading the group, two riders proudly hoist the American and Texan flags, and in front of them, decked out in black denim and rhinestones, Betty Love marshals the oddball parade, her regal, tengallon hat bobbing with her horse's gait.
When Love went on her first trail ride nearly 20 years ago, she didn't know anything about the "cowboy way." She didn't know what a party wagon was. Or a muleskinner. In fact, she was so unprepared that her brothers — who'd dragged her along — had to go out and buy her a pair of jeans. Now, Love is the president of the "Betty Love Ryders" — a small, eightperson riding club that, for the past 11 years, has hosted this annual "trail ride."
Trail rides are a decadesold fixture of southeast Texas and southern Louisiana culture. Hosted by countless local riding groups, some stretch for hundreds of miles and can last for weeks (like the journeys from Hidalgo, TX and Logansport, LA to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo). Most rides, though — like Love's — are only a few miles long and take place on weekend afternoons between two nights of hard partying. Typically, a trail ride leaves from an open field where riders feast on Cajun cuisine and dance to zydeco music. It all culminates when hundreds of men, women and children — some donning Stetsons and spurs — parade down backwoods country roads on horseback to celebrate their heritage as cowboys.
It's just an hour's drive from Houston southeast to the tiny town of Danciger, TX, but it feels like a million miles away from the metropolis. A scattering of ranches and small homes propped up on concrete blocks, it's so remote and scarcely populated that my car's GPS unit doesn't even recognize the name.
The staging ground for my inaugural trail ride — when at last I find it on Friday afternoon — is a 62acre pasture owned by Jack and Lily White, who use it for breeding cattle. The pasture, like many in the area, is partly shadowed by pecan trees, whose Jurassic limbs and bearded branches sway in a wind that carries the sweet, springy smells of fertility that are characteristic of the Gulf Coast. High above the tangreen grass, a turkey vulture swoops through tornadogray skies. Incoming riders park their trucks, RVs and horse trailers in a "wagon circle" near a patch of grass that some wild pigs dug up last night. The riders, who don't bother sidestepping the hardenedclumps of horse manure, gather inside an openwalled pavilion that used to store hay but is, today, party headquarters, complete with a makeshift $2abeer bar and a dancefloor made of pallets and plywood.
I'm wearing the best cowboy outfit I could muster: A neat, blue Oxford and a ragged pair of jeans, which, as an ensemble, make me appear less like a rugged ranchhand and more an outofwork accountant. Being northern and white in a very southern and mostly black crowd, I initially feel out of place, but handshakes and hellos from strangers quickly help me feel at home.
Love, a highenergy, warmhearted AfricanAmerican lady dressed in a red jumpsuit and ball cap, takes a break from directing traffic and doling out orders to her club's riders (who are also dressed in red to mark them as hosts) to give me a hug. Her phone won't stop ringing, she tells me, pausing to catch her breath. By weekday, Love is a corrections officer at a nearby penitentiary, but by weekend, this is her life — dedicated trail rider and occasional bringer together of people.
In the hay pavilion, bedenimed cowboys and cowgirls, some with belt buckles as big as horseshoes, line dance to the "Michael Jackson Shuffle," sway tenderly against one another to a country western number by Chris Young, and shake booties and gyrate hips to hiphop. The DJ — Magic Man Ricky D (real name Ricky Cooper) — has been playing music at trail rides for the past 30 years.
Standing between two speakers as big as refrigerators, he nods his head to the next track, a zydeco song — an upbeat, fastpaced style common in Louisiana that has ingredients of hiphop, R&B and country stirred into the broth of accordion and scrub boardhappy Creole music.
All of this transplanted culture is the direct result of a transfusion that began in the early 1900s when Louisiana Creoles — a term used to describe people of mixed African and European heritage — migrated to Texas to work in oil towns. Today, southeast Texas towns like Danciger and cities like Houston have much in common with Louisiana. Just as the flavors of Louisiana Cajun cuisine — zesty boudin, fried crawfish, chicken and sausage jambalaya — spice up the local cuisine, the accordion wails on either side of the border.
"At first, a lot of people down here didn't get zydeco," says Ricky D. "They didn't know too much about it, or about country western. They heard it, but they wasn't used to listening to it until people started bringing it to trail rides. Before, we were listening to R&B and the blues. Then it started gradually catching on to country. Then it went to the zydeco."
It's 3am before the party finally dies down. As dancers stumble to their RVs, I pitch my tiny, ultralight, oneperson tent. ("We know you ain't gonna have no company in there," property owner Jack White teases, to raucous laughter.) In the late morning, awaking to neighs, the thud of hooves and more booming zydeco, I emerge from my tent to a frolicsome horseland — a Rohan of shinymuscled stallions "lunging" around cavalrymen and women, some of whom are decked out in full cowboy regalia. As a suburbanite from upstate New York, horses are about as familiar to me as zoological wonders of ancient myth, and only slightly less terrifying. But still, I'm determined to at least touch one. When I find an unwitting candidate, I warily extend a finger to the horse's caramelcolored flank. There's a brief moment of connection between man and beast, when its skin twitches involuntarily and I, scared, yank my finger back and beat a hasty retreat, hoping that nobody saw me.
Wandering among the various riding groups, I happen upon Roderick DeVaughnDavid, 35, a softspoken, gentlemannered rider from the "Hard Left" club, who's been riding horses since he was, as he puts it, "knee high to the grasshopper," and who tries to join a trail ride every weekend of the year. "It's a part of my heritage," he says. "My great granddad was a muleskinner. My granddad was a muleskinner. My dad was a muleskinner. Country boys rode horses and roped cows. We're from the country. We didn't want bicycles or toys. We wanted horses."
Reader Comments
- Wonderful article! Trailriding is good, family fun. It's all about preserving our heritage. ~King City Riders (Cleveland, TX)~ (Posted on 10 Feb 2012)
- Thank You so much for Coming OUT to OUR RIDE!!! So exciting for the Country FOLK!!
(Posted on 10 Feb 2012)
- This waz s nice read,itz exactly what happenz on a Trail Ride. I'm very proud 2 say i an a part of this Heritage,along with my girlz in tow they Love,love everything about the Ride. I've been doin it since the 90's,but the country rootz already run deep,its in my Blood. Thank 4 the advertisement iknow otherz who read this will also Enjoy.... (Posted on 10 Feb 2012)
- This was a very nice story. Wish there would have been a picture of Betty or the Betty Love Ryders. Lynn/Mares R Us & Stud Inc. We had a blast!!!! (Posted on 13 Feb 2012)
