Читать книгу Real Cowboys - Roz Denny Fox - Страница 3

Dear Reader,

This story came about after I chanced to meet a man in Tucson. He wore knee-high boots, a flat-crowned hat and an interesting bolo tie. I asked if he was a vaquero, because there’s a ranch down south that hires Argentinian cowboys. He said no, that he was a buckaroo from southern Idaho, in town for a mustang auction.

I’m sure he saw how interested I was, so he went on to explain more about ION country—where Idaho, Oregon and Nevada meet. He said it was one of the few places left where ranchers still run cattle on leased land and buckaroos live three-fourths of the year with those cattle. He said I should visit when they had their Rope and Ride, because it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill rodeo. Prizes were handmade items the buckaroos use in daily life. He did lament that theirs was a dying way of ranching, because they had to fend off people who’d petitioned the state government to take the land for recreational use. And that group had banded with strict preservationists. He said the mining companies had gone, and it was only a matter of time until ranchers would be forced out, too.

That’s really all it takes for the writer in me to be intrigued enough to visit the place and weave a story. Ben Trueblood and Kate Steele are the fictional couple I elected to put in this very real corner of the world. I hope the ranchers win their battle. In my book, that would be Ben. I hope you want him to win, too.

Roz Denny Fox

P.S. I like hearing from readers—P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, AZ 85731 or e-mail rdfox@worldnet.att.net.