The Cowboy Way

What does "the cowboy way" actually mean, anyway?

Having spent years observing, my assessment is the cowboy way is hard, tough, relentlessly committed to get the job done, sometimes impatient, often quiet, humble, strong, resilient, rough on the outside yet soft in the heart.  

The cowboy hates to see living things die, yet knows death well.  The hole on the ranch where the dead are drug is full of bones, scrambled together in a nonsensicle manner.  Along with death comes much birth.  Spring time is busy with new critters dropping on the cold, spring ground or getting hung up in their mother's birth canal and being pulled to life by The Cowboy. 

This last weekend, Mike and I enjoyed watching life-long cowboy Tom Breen be inducted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame (WYCHF).  He and 22 of his peers stood before men, women and a few children decked out in their best western attire.  Felt cowboy hats topped the gentlemen wearing their western yolked snap down shirts.  Silver and tourquise embraced the necks of women glittering, bedazzled and beautified in makeup and blouses and skirts.  Everyone wore a shiny pair of pointed cowboy boots.  

Each Inductee and the audiance watched a video interview which was displayed for all to enjoy.  Many of the Inductees could not attend, as they have long been gone from the Wyoming landscape.  Their family - sisters, daughters, sons, and widowed wives accepted the honor in their absence.  

Below is the letter Mike wrote (and I shined up a bit) to the WYCHF for consideration of Mike's nomination of Cowboy Tom Breen.  In reading this tribute, you will see the admiration Mike has for his friend, Tom.  I think it is beautiful. 

How wonderful to celebrate achievements while those we recognize are still among the living.  Tom Breen has earned this recognition and it is my observation that he is a bit overwhelmed, speachless, and around the edges - proud.  

Congratulations, Tom Breen!  You should  us all what the Cowboy Way really means!  We are so proud of everything you are and all you do! 

Tom Breen Story- Section 1

Tom Breen grew up on the Triangle X Ranch and lived there until he graduated from the Jackson Hole high school.  His parents, Ike and Phillis Breen, both worked at the ranch.  At that time, Triangle X was primarily a dude ranch having about 150 horses and mules as well as a herd of cattle until around 1970.  Tom went to work, mounted on a horse, at the age of 11, working as a camp jack on pack trips into the wilderness.  He worked with several old-time packers including Bill Daniels and Jack Davis.  Tom learned from the best and learned well.  He was leading pack strings and pack trips while still in high school.  He broke colts and mules - for the ranch as well as his own - learned to be a horseshoer and became a fine leather worker.  He was involved in the high school rodeo as a team and calf roper.  After Tom’s 1969 high school graduation, he attended Wyoming Tech where he learned diesel mechanics and hydraulics.  With this education under his belt, Tom hired on at the Jackson Hole Mountain resort as a mechanic and snow groomer.  He also spent some time driving snow coaches in Yellowstone National Park.  As winter waned into summer, Tom returned to Triangle X to lead pack trips, shoe horses, pack mules, and guide elk hunters into the fall season.  He managed the Turner’s most remote camp in Falcon Creek for numerous years.  With limited resources in the backcountry, Tom oversaw the care of a herd of horses and mules, was accountable for packing needed food and equipment for the wilderness trips, and watched over the welfare of his help and the many guests that enjoyed a safe and successful experience in the mountains.

He married Susie in 1979 and she joined him at Triangle X.  The backcountry life suited Tom’s new bride and she joined him as camp cook for six years.  

In 1985, the couple moved to the Walton Ranch just west of Jackson Hole, to return to tending the cattle herd, where Tom still works.  When Tom arrived, the Walton Ranch had almost 600 head of cattle.  As summer set in, the cattle went out the gate of the ranch in June and walked to the mountains for the summer, down asphalt and gravel roads, through Grand Teton National Park, and up into the Togowotee Mountains.   It took two weeks to get the cattle to their summer range and most of October to get them back to the ranch.

Tom is involved in all aspects of ranching, but doctoring calves is one of his keenest skills.  Over the years, he has trained a steady string of roping horses to help him do this important job.  He is out at dawn and all hours of the day and night during calving season.

 When Tom hired on at the Walton Ranch, feeding was done with a team of horses.  He took this talent to the hill and worked as a teamster for dinner sleigh rides at Teton Village for several winters in his spare time. 

Tom has made hundreds of chaps and chinks over the years, keeping the pair he built when he was a teenager until they were falling apart just a few years ago.  He finally built himself a new set and his ivory handled knife is safely pocketed in a new leather pouch.  

When branding time comes at the Walton Ranch, Tom can be found running the 4W branding iron, smoke from burning calf hair stinging his eyes and sweat dripping off his face.  For most of the last 40 years, he has tended his own herd of cattle at the ranch, sporting Tom’s Buzzard Cross brand. 

Today, Tom celebrates 72 years of a full life doing the things he does best and the things he loves.  He recently bought a new colt to train and ride, he will be doctoring calves this spring, helping hay, fixing the broken equipment and fence; ready to do whatever needs to be done.  Tom still shoes his own horses, continues to work leather to make useful gear for himself and others.  As a friend of this western character, I can personally attest to Tom’s generosity with his time and his knowledge.  As his friend, I have benefited greatly from Tom’s willingness to help me fix something, figure something out, and generally trying to solve the myriad of puzzles that pop up on a ranch.  Tom is always willing to lend a hand. 

Tom embodies many of the character traits viewed as The Cowboy Way.  He is loyal to the brand, hard working, filled with a sense of responsibility for all things broken (mechanical or living), fiercely independent, sometimes stubborn, talented in a vast array of skills, surprisingly patient, unrelentingly persistent, and maintains a brain like an elephant, remembering every trail he has ridden, ever camp he has set up and tore down, every horse he has ridden, and a whole bunch of other things I wish I knew. 

Tom started working on a riding horse at the young age of eleven.  This year, Tom turns 73 in December, celebrating 61-plus years of working atop a horse under a blue Wyoming sky thinking about what next needs to get done and how he will do it.