Reba: My Story (13 page)

D
ADDY DIDN
’
T WANT ANY OF US KIDS TO RODEO
, yet three out of four of us did. He didn’t want his kids to suffer the financial insecurity that rodeo cowboys had back then, when most of them couldn’t get by on their own earnings. And only a few of those who could, saved or invested their money, like Daddy did, instead of wasting it on women and whiskey. Daddy didn’t want us exposed to that rough behavior.

That’s the dark side of rodeo life—but the brighter and better side is that you’ll hardly ever see a kid in trouble with the law if he has a horse. That’s been an old rodeo saying for years, and I believe it.

If a child has a horse, he has a buddy, a friend, and a companion. For years, I kept a horse in shape and rode for long hours. There were times when my horse and God were the only ones for me to talk to. I got very close to both.

Still, I can’t think of anything associated with rodeo that isn’t dangerous, including riding in the Grand Entry, which is the opening ceremony featuring a parade of every rider and horse. I’ve seen a horse break loose and run through the rest of the horses. Then maybe a rider is knocked off and somebody else’s horse steps on him.

I’m sorry to say that, when I was young, I didn’t always recognize those dangers. One time Brenda Lee Turney and I went to a rodeo at Stratford, Oklahoma. Brenda was not a very good rider, so I got her on one of my family’s most gentle horses, then led her into a big bunch of people on horseback. Riders were milling in every direction, and I could see that Brenda was confused.

Then, being the mischievous young person I was, I told her, “Just keep on going, we’ll get through here.” So she went with the flow of riders and didn’t know I had put her in the Grand Entry. She ran into the pivot horses and like to fell off her own horse because she was so mixed up and scared.

Luckily, she got through it okay, and we even laugh about it now. But at the time I was too immature to think about the fact that she could have been seriously hurt or killed. Rodeoing was so much my world that I couldn’t imagine what it could be like for someone who hadn’t been around it like I had.

I
T WAS THROUGH RODEOING THAT I MET THE MAN WHO BECAME
the first great love of my life, Charlie Battles.

Although I didn’t know Charlie personally, I knew about him long before we ever spoke. Charlie was a rodeo star, the world-champion steer wrestler in the International Rodeo Association in 1970, 1971, and 1972. He was ruggedly handsome, with a big build like Daddy’s, while I was a wide-eyed barrel racer who was taken with the stature that Charlie held among the cowboys and cowgirls on the
rodeo circuit. I never even considered that he could ever have a romantic interest in me.

I remember that our first encounter was something less than dramatic. I was at a rodeo with Alice, who was competing that night in the barrel racing. Everybody was out in the arena before the rodeo began, just walking around on their horses, warming them up. Charlie was riding his hazing horse and leading his bulldogging horse.

I walked down to the fence just to say, “Hi, Charlie.”

He waved at me.

I thought he would be a great catch for Alice.

“Lord, Reba,” she said. “He’s married and has two kids.”

I instantly forgot about matching him with Alice.

That was in 1971.

Then came that fateful National Finals Rodeo in December 1974, where I sang the National Anthem and met Red Steagall. After one performance, Mama and I went to Denny’s in Oklahoma City. We were sitting at the counter as Charlie and his wife, Sherrie, walked by. They had just finished eating. We all began to talk, because Mama knew Sherrie from all of her rodeoing with Alice. Sherrie showed Mama pictures of Coty and Lance, Charlie’s two boys, and Charlie and I struck up a conversation. I don’t even remember what was said. I know Charlie didn’t say a lot.

Three months later, I went with Pake to a rodeo in San Angelo, Texas. Charlie was there, but I barely spoke to him. In fact, I remember more about a stunt that Pake and I pulled than I do about being around Charlie.

It all started one afternoon during “slack.” Slack is the time when the contestants who didn’t get to compete during the scheduled event get to perform. Usually there are only ten contestants for a performance, and any extras perform during the slack.

I was dressed in jeans and was wearing a bandanna, with my hair pulled back, very casual-looking. I was walking back from the pickup and camper where Pake and I
were staying at the coliseum. We didn’t have a motel room and took our showers there.

“Hey, Reba, did you get our hotel room?”

The voice belonged to Pax Irvine, a calf roper from Wyoming. He was teasing me in front of a bunch of cowboys, and I was embarrassed. I have never liked sexual joking, and I’m not real comfortable about flirting.

“No, Pax,” I said, “I sure didn’t get our room,” and I kept walking.

“Now, honey,” he kept on, “I told you when you got here first to get our hotel room.”

All the cowboys could see my embarrassment, and they died laughing.

I told Pake about the remarks, and he got real mad.

I won that night’s barrel race, and Pake and I went to the Blue Diamond Bar to celebrate. We had a few beers, and I guess the thought of what Pax had said to me was burning a hole in Pake’s gut.

We got back to the rodeo grounds and we were walking to our camper when we passed Pax’s trailer. There, standing quietly in the moonlight and tied securely, was Pax Irvine’s horse.

Pake cut off his tail.

Now, a horse’s tail has a hard core and hair grows out of the core. Pake cut the hair off up to the core—and horse hair is tough; it’s used to make fiddle bows. So Pake, using only a pocketknife, had to saw and saw on the tail. Pax’s horse became a bobbed-tail nag.

The next day, Pax was furious.

I’ve never told that story until now. But Pax, nineteen years ago, you embarrassed me in the light, and my brother barbered your horse in the dark. And anyway, I couldn’t have talked Pake out of it if I had tried, but I confess I didn’t try.

The cowboys had laughed at me because Pax had suggested that he and I were shacking up. But they laughed
harder when it was Pax’s time to rope on his horse with a tail shorter than a cocker spaniel’s.

T
HE WEEKEND FOLLOWING SAN ANGELO I WENT WITH BETH
Crump, my college rodeo-team buddy and roommate, to the PRCA rodeo in Lubbock, Texas. Charlie and Pake were there as well. They often rodeoed together, Pake roping calves and Charlie bulldogging. Silky, Pake’s roping horse, wasn’t doing so well, so Pake let me run barrels on him. I had a permit in the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) and was traveling the circuit that March hoping to qualify for full membership. To do that you had to win $200 in accumulated prize money.

That night at the rodeo I finished with the evening’s fastest time. And by the time the competition was over two nights later, I was in third place overall. I was so happy! With my third-place finish at San Angelo the weekend before, I had more than filled my permit. I was now a professional cowgirl.

That night, after we put the horses up, we wound up celebrating at the Cow Palace, a dance hall well known for country music and dancing. We were drinking lots of beer and having a real good time, when Pake pulled Beth into the men’s room just to be funny. As things had played out, I’d been around Charlie all day.

The houselights came on, the signal for everybody to leave because the place was closing. As I walked by Charlie’s table, he pulled me onto his lap.

We were all laughing, and I turned around and kissed him—full on the mouth. Mike Saltzman, a bulldogger from Eufaula, Oklahoma, was sitting at the table, and I’ll never forget how his jaw dropped. I don’t know why I did it—I was swept up by the excitement of the rodeo, and the music and the beer. It was impulsive, but kissing Charlie just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

One of the next rodeos that I went to was at Fort
Smith, Arkansas, and I once again went with Pake, who was once again around Charlie. I remember the rodeo because Pake did something there I’d never seen him do.

We had gone to a bar and were playing pool and eating beans, when Pake got to drinking beer—and he was scheduled to rope that night. He never drank before he roped.

“This will be good, to see what Pake does because he’s relaxed,” I thought to myself, as I climbed on the back of the chutes to watch Pake rope his calf. And Pake made one of the best runs I’d seen him make in a long time. Usually he got real tense.

A week later, I was back at Chockie practicing with Pake out at the roping pen.

“Reba,” Pake said, “Charlie left his wife.”

I was shocked. Flabbergasted. Astonished.

Eventually, I would decide that he had left his wife for me, but I honestly had no such thoughts at the time. I just hadn’t been around Charlie enough even to think he’d be interested in me. I’d heard that he was unhappily married, but there had been no talk about him getting a divorce.

Sherrie, Charlie’s wife, was a hardworking gal from a big family who was a good housewife. But I couldn’t have lived with her myself. Sherrie and I were as different as night and day!

It was a while before Charlie and I really got together. In June, Patti Prather, a barrel racer and horse trainer from Texas whom I’ve known for years, and I took off on the rodeo trail, going up around Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. I saw Charlie at almost every rodeo. We went to a dance together in Greeley, Colorado, where David Houston was performing. After we got home in July, I flew with Susie to meet Pake in Cheyenne to sing for the Christian Athletes Association and continued to see Charlie at the rodeos.

Then Charlie started coming down to Durant pretty often to visit me at college. I finally told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. Charlie is a very persistent man and
wanted to know why. I said, “Mark Thompkins,” who I liked but hadn’t really dated. That same night, we were all at a party together. Charlie confronted Mark about his intentions.

Mark told Charlie he was planning to marry soon—but the girl in question wasn’t me. He had no claims on me whatsoever. I could have killed him: Mark was my out. If I’d had any backbone at all, my relationship with Charlie would have ended right then and there. But it didn’t.

By the end of July, we were an item.

Despite the ten-year age difference between us, Charlie and I had a lot in common. Like Daddy, he rodeoed but also bought and handled cattle. Like me, he had a funny, lighthearted side but could also be serious. And I think another part of his appeal was that Charlie was so protective.

We were at a dance one night, for instance, after a performance at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. Bobby Shillings, my old college boyfriend, was there with another girl.

We were all on the dance floor when Bobby and I happened to make eye contact. He shot me the “bird.”

“Charlie, let’s just leave,” I said from out of nowhere. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What for?” Charlie said. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

I wouldn’t tell him, but Charlie was never one to let anything lie.

He kept pushing. “You’d better tell me. Something is upsetting you. I want to know what it is. Did Bobby Shillings do something to you?”

I said nothing until Charlie and I reached the pickup. Then I thought there would be no harm in telling Charlie there what had happened inside.

“Bobby flipped me off,” I said.

That did it! He slammed the pickup door and stormed
back into the dance. But the dance had ended and Bobby was gone.

A few minutes later, Charlie and I walked into the lobby of the Holiday Inn. There stood Bobby Shillings. Without a word, Charlie just went for Bobby like a little bulldog and threw him through a double plate-glass window. The glass shattered and then the lobby fell quiet.

I looked out the window, and Bobby stood up and quietly walked away. No security personnel or police came. No one said anything to Charlie, and he and I left the lobby.

I was a little shocked and embarrassed by Charlie’s actions, but kind of impressed too. No one had ever fought for me before.