Neither Jim nor the Laredo Kid were paying much attention when the big sidewinder, coiled beside the rocky trail, showered- down on his fourteen dry rattles. An alarming noise upon the quiet desert air.
The Laredo Kid is slouched over his horse and best friend, Jim. The Kid wears his usual dark stained vaquero clothing and a hat is big enough to hold five gallons of La Mota tequila. Strapped around his narrow waist are two well-used pistols, tied down. Jim is a rangy, black mustang reared in the rocky, heat blasted land of West Texas. Jim and the Kid are a pair of fast friends.
To the Kid's great surprise, Jim reacted to the whirring rattles by swiftly stretching out with his long neck and snapping the head and first six inches off the snake with his sharp yellow teeth. A quick gulp left the Kid in a state of shock, fearing for his friend.
Leaning in the saddle, almost parallel with the ground, the Kid watched Jim's face, fearing the worse. The only reaction he could see was a contented look and a little tendril of light green smoke, snaking up into the clear West Texas air from Jim's right nostril. Jim's eye took on a far away peaceful look as he drew in a full barrel of that clear West Texas air and blew out a long sigh of relief.
The Laredo Kid straightens in the saddle. Sitting there he feels a tremor run the length of Jim's long back, terminating in the trembling hairs of his coarse tail. It left the brawny horse's muscles quivering slightly. Dan Shots, a gambler the Kid knew from San Ysidro, described an incident similar to Jim's next reaction.
The Kid and Dan sat one night on the wide veranda of the big Guadalupe Saloon. Jim, at the rail out front and the Kid listened to Dan's tales from his days aboard the river boats of the wide Mississippi:
"I was a standing at the rail on the third deck of the 'Delta River Star'," Dan related. "We were beating down river in the late twilight making for Natches. I was staring across a strip of the river at a northbound boat, her stacks belching thick columns of black smoke, hurried along the way by the flames reaching up from the boilers. Yes sir, that captain was pushing his boat."
"Ah, Kid," Dan continued, "she was a pretty sight coursing up the river, her lights reflecting across the water and those twin ropes of black smoke."
"Then...well, there was just a bright flash of white light and it felt like somebody reached down inside me and pulled every bit of my air out. Wasn't much sound, kinda like a deep sudden thunder clap. An echo rolled back along the woods lining the shore."
Dan sat quiet, looking into the night until the Kid gently prodded him, "An' then? What happened Dan?"
Dan shook himself back and went on, "And then, well...then, there was just...nothin'. That big pretty side wheeler was gone. After a bit, the River seemed to come alive with splashes, the little pieces raining down, you see. But, that boat had disappeared, forever. Blowed by her boilers."
That's the way of it...Jim exploded. Jim blew-out in a frenzy of speed and power. It was all the Kid could do simply to hold onto the flying horse with both hands and tightly closed eyes.
When Jim stops, they are sitting on a little rise, the dust and pieces of mesquite bushes and sage brush falling in a maelstrom about them. Jim's tongue hangs from his mouth and he stands taking huge gulps of air. The Kid's boot is studded with cactus needles. Glancing off into the distance, reaching to the far horizon, drifts a trail of dust hanging in the quiet air.
"Well, Jim, you did uncork it that time, eh?" The Kid said. He piled off. Slipping the bridle and saddle, he stroked his friend's lathered neck and heaving sides.
The Kid rustles some dry twigs and unlimbers the little tin skillet. He cooks up a mess of salt pork and beans which soon rejuvenates Jim and they determine to amble on down the road.
Thereafter, Jim finds himself unable to control his urge to snap up any sidewinder crossing their path. An inner demon drives his reaction on hearing a dry rattle arise from a sandy desert path or the rocky trails he and the Kid roam. The events become a source of embarrassment. But, try as he might, Jim could not conquer the passion.
Working a roundup down on the Concho, Jim blasts out through the country, northward. They are not able to return for nearly two weeks. The work long finished and crews dispersed. It was rumored the Apaches had scooped them up in a random raid.
The next occasion the Kid was kicking up a little fire to cook over when Jim snapped a snake, minding its own business. The big black ball of fury blew out of the country while the Kid watched helplessly. The Kid knowing from experience it would be fruitless to attempt to follow up the trail through the broken, wasted land, settled back waiting on Jim to return.
Several long, hot, boring days later, Jim wanders back into camp. With hanging head, he is obviously ashamed of his behavior. Jim draws embarrassed circles in the sand with the hoof of his left forefoot. Of course the Kid forgives him. Friends forgive little foibles and stand by their friends. And, Jim and the Laredo Kid were first and foremost friends.
"Partner, we all got our little problems," the Kid said. Jim is deeply grateful.
The worst affair occurrs down at the Nueces County Rodeo. To the Kid's undying chagrin, he has instigated the miserable, embarrassing thing. Jim and the Kid have always entered the annual roping contest down there. The Kid had pondered, plotting long into the night. He figures he could use Jim's strange new behavior to their advantage.
Heading for the Nueces County Fairgrounds, down through the rocky hills, the Kid scrounges up a four-foot Timber rattler. Loading the snake in a burlap sack, he tightly rolls the scaled beast so it cannot use it's rattles alerting Jim.
Waiting for their turn to rope, the Kid sneaks the bagged snake out in preparation. At the head of the line, he unrolls the sack and drops the mad snake to the ground in front of Jim's nose. What follows is predictable, though not exactly as the Kid planned it.
Jime did snap the snake. Then, stepping into the chute, Jim felt the old familiar, contented feeling settle over him. The Kid stalled a bit, fooling with his rope, until he felt the tremor run down Jim. Quickly, he tugged his hat and nodded to release the calf. The calf cleared the slamming gate as Jim exploded into the arena.
The Kid, thinking he could at least manage to pitch the rope over the little calf as they blew by it, didn't fully realize the extent of his mistake.
Returning to town, days later, the angry townspeople relate this chain of events to the abashed Laredo Kid:
They had left the calf lying on his back, pawing the air with his tiny hoofs in a cloud of dust the crowd could not penetrate with their eyes.
Blasting through the wooden gate at the far end of the arena, they showered everyone with pieces of wood the size of toothpicks.
The festive crowd was made even more festive by the addition of a big-humped, wild-eyed, motley black Brahman bull shouldering through the corral splintered by the barreling ball of fury, which was Jim.
The truly horrible thing occurred out back of the arena where the Nueces Women's Society had their outdoor exhibit of sewing and cooking crafts set up. Folks stated for a fact that jelly and meringue fell from the sky for a full forty-five minutes.
"Fresh pickles were found within a circle of almost a quarter mile," they said.
A story, going down to fact in later years, was that Mrs. Lem Porter's angel food cake floated, gently swirling, over the town for almost two hours. Floating, until J. D. Early got enough bird shot into it with his old greener bird gun to settle it to earth again.
Jim and the Laredo Kid, needless to say, had their Nueces County Rodeo Courtesy and Hospitality Card invalidated for some time to come. Sheriff Josh Pottem slowly shredded the cards as he threatened, "Don't you boys even think of showing yore faces here next year. My wife had that pie contest in the bag 'till..." he splutters off in anger.
After this fiasco, the Kid becomes adept at looking far down the trail spotting the sneaky, buzzing critters and hazing Jim a long way around them. The Laredo Kid tries his best to separate Jim from what is becoming an abiding passion for snakes.
Yet, time has a way of easing bad memories. Two years later, the Kid thought he'd found the ideal way to harness the boundless energy of Jim's regretful affliction in a highly profitable manner. The occasion was the introduction of the Adano Racing Horse to the racing circles of West Texas.
The Adano horse belonged to and was raced by Judge Buck Henderson. Buying the horse back in Kentucky and bringing him west for the explicit purpose of racing and winning money from the resulting bets, the Judge is enjoying a grand success of his plans. Traveling the circuit of County Fairs and roundups, the Adano horse beats all comers. Judge Henderson is now offering a thousand dollars in prize money and demanding a twenty-dollar entry fee.
The not-so-well-kept secret is that the Judge runs only over long courses, which put the quick cow ponies to a disadvantage. The two-mile course is beyond their sprinting endurance, if not their owner's own false pride and, therefore, their willingness to bet heavily on the races.
Watching one such long, looping race, it dawned upon the Kid that here was the perfect, perhaps the only use for Jim's affliction. The race was conducted over a nearly smooth coarse which slowly curved around the town.
"Jim, you could surely keep to that well-marked path and nothin' short of a bullet could ketch you once the explosion comes off," mused the Kid to his friend.
"Ahuh," thinks Jim, "an' I'd rather try to catch a fish with a lariat rope in the flooded Rio Bravo, too."
Never-the-less, the Laredo Kid forges ahead with the idea. Pushing a twenty dollar gold piece on the Judge, he murmurs to Jim, "Our last Double Eagle, ol' Pard."
The Kid hires a Mexican kid, on credit, to round up the biggest, meanest, ugliest sidewinder he can find. At dark, the kid returns with the specimen. Between the Kid and the dark-eyed little kid, who was forking the snake to the ground with a stick, they managed to tie the ugly, venom-filled mouth tightly shut. After poking the monster into the saddle bags, the Kid and Jim settle back to a good night's sleep.
A growing throng of people attend the race. Jim was a horse known to be a fast runner and the rumors flying around of his strange behavior of the last few years added to the excitement and betting. Money flows through the crowd from hand to hand.
Jim, the prancing Adano racer, and seven more horses are entered in the race. At the opening shot, they all roar off across country. Jim, pacing himself, fell back to the rear of the herd. A half-mile into the course, hidden by a small group of mesquite bushes, the Kid reaches into the bag and pulls forth the writhing snake.
The enraged monster shakes the long row of rattles in a roar of sound, throwing his helplessly tied head in a vain attempt to strike the big black nemesis which now beholds him. Extending the snake up near Jim's flaring nostrils, the Kid invites, "Here, Jim, have a snack!"
Yellow teeth flash in the bright sunlight and the first six or eight inches of the snake disappear. The Kid throws the writhing carcass into the dry bushes lining the road.
The Laredo Kid sucks his eyeballs as far back into his head as he can and tightly shuts the lids. The last glance at the other horses show they are leaving he and Jim rapidly behind. The race seems lost.
Feeling the familiar tremor run down Jim's long back, the Kid grabbed up a double handful of the long hair in Jim's mane. Together, they waited what Jim and the Laredo Kid now referred to as the "Explosion of Green Smoke and Rattlesnake."
Thinking of the many ways to spend a thousand pesos, the Kid, peeking, noticed one small thing he'd left to chance.. Jim was plodding along directly behind another previously unseen slow horse as the explosion propelled them forward.
Later, after the race, seven distinct hoof prints were counted, back to front, down that leading horse.
"Gol'darn if 'ol Jim didn't put one smack in the middle of mah brand new, $9.65, gin'uine beaver-felt Stetson," declared the rider!
Big, dark clouds have formed over the Sebastian Peaks out west of town. The riders of the other six horses thought it a stiff breeze off the storm which blasted around them that day. It wasn't...it was Jim and the Laredo Kid.
Swollen clouds of dust and swirling piles of broken limbs and leaves covered the road behind them as they plowed along. "Watch thet road Jim..." yells the Kid as he wraps his long arms around Jim's outstretched neck and laces his fingers in a death-like clutch.
They catch the Adano horse and the Judge on a rickety little bridge crossing a dry creek bed. Like a cannon ball careening through a tar paper wall, Jim rolls the Adano race horse into the dusty creek bed.
Coughing and spluttering, the Judge later told the town it was then he decided to, "Send that fool horse back to Kain-tuck. He just ain't up to standing' his ground with these wild West Texas mustangs!"
Unknown to Jim, he had just eaten the most powerfully poisonous snake west of the Pecos. Jim is now covering ground faster than any living thing, in the history of West Texas. With ever increasing speed, he plummets over the dirt track. He knows he can't keep on the road, eyes squinting in the wind, all he can now see is a bleared blur of the country ahead. Jim veers off and into Red Devil Canyon climbing up towards Coyote peak.
Blasting up the ragged canyon, they are consumed in the black raging storm flowing down from the peak above. Completely unknown they crash through the outer shell, and into the biggest, darkest, most powerful twister to ever blast into West Texas. This storm is to set, for many years to come, the benchmark for measuring all tornadoes.
" 'Bout a quarter of the one that ate Jim and the Laredo Kid, that day," the old timers would say, comparing it with some of its lesser cousins.
This storm is born in the Badlands out in New Mexico. It grew up consuming the blasted lava rock and picking its teeth on cholla cactus needles. It's spine reaches high into the sky and carries it's own sprawling thunderstorm. Bright sheet lightening plays along the edges and thunder growls up the center.
Sniffing a change in the air, the Kid squints through one eye and observes their trail leading up a long, dark tunnel. "Aw, no, Jim...where have you taken' us?"
They pass among some good sized boulders littering the tunnel wall which is the twisters spinning core. Remains of bushes and even churning pine trees from over in the Sacramento Mountains, east of Alamogordo, litter the whirling walls.
Jim glides past the splintered, but recognizable remains of an old hay barn, golden straw wafting from the loft. Suspended in the air browses a spindly milch cow, contentedly chewing hay while her bloated udders dribbling milk which gently hangs in droplets in the air about her.
A dawning fear is born in the Kid for Jim. The strength of the big horse is unequaled, but, such a race has never been run. Jim's breath now comes in rasping heaves. His bellows-like lungs start to wheeze. Unconscious of all in the world, Jim lunges on in his lonely quest. But neither powder nor lead can dislodge the Kid from his flying friend. They would share a common fate!
Spiraling ever upward, Jim soars through the roaring maelstrom. The Kid's stomach at first felt like retching from the constantly twisting motion of the inner workings of the twister. He eventually gets used to the sensations and he opens his eyes to watch the unfolding storm-scape.
Jim rockets onward up the unfathomable heights for some distance when, rounding a corner, they fly past a sign stating in bold letters, "The Magdalena Gentleman's Club and Bar". The Kid observed what he thought, at first glance, was an red-headed angel dressed in a gauzy robe, sitting astride the sign. Passing closer he notices the strong scent of Lilac Water. But, what dissuaded him from the angel idea was the bottle of Albuquerque red-eye whiskey she held in her free hand.
"Howdy Ma'am," he calls tipping his wind-blown hat to her.
Smiling broadly in return, "Pleased, I'm shore," she replied.
Plunging out the top of the twister into the clear, bright sunlight, in the last throes of the seizure, Jim gave one last prodigious leap and cleared them of the groping fingers of the storm attempting vainly to pull them back.
Briefly falling free, Jim and the Laredo Kid feel the solid thunk of hooves returning to stable earth. The Kid slides slowly around Jim's neck and flops to the ground in a crumpled limp form.
Some minutes later, the Kid rouses from the stupor. Jim, standing with legs sprawled wide and panting with his long tongue lolling forth, is dribbling slobbers into the Kid's right eye and it has begun to run down his cheek.
"Aw, Jim," drawled the Kid as he swiped the mucous from his face. He stands and leans against Jim's still laboring, heaving chest.
"Wal," said the Kid! "Look at that, Jim, my friend," the Kid makes a sweeping gesture with his arm across the vast horizon. "That..is the Big Bend. An' this right here is Hen Egg Mountain, sure as you and me is standin' here!"
As Jim regains control of his spent body, the Kid rustles some salt pork and brews cowpoke coffee. The meal puts them in a contented, if exhausted, state of mind. Thus, they collapse into sleep while the Rio Bravo flows steadily far below.
Easing into the little village of Lajitas early next morning, the Kid finds a worn, torn, two week old paper. Prominently displayed across the front page is a story of the race from which he and Jim had mysteriously disappeared...two weeks earlier. Rubbing his still tired eyes, the Kid read the story to Jim, who can only wag his head from side to side in disbelief.
"It seems, Jim, when the rest of the boys and the Judge seen us come by, well, they just give it up as a bad job. They turn 'round an' headed back to town. We won, ol' hoss! When we didn't show, they give the prize money to the orphanage kids," the Kid summarized. "Do it not beat all?"
Jim and the Laredo Kid, having started life as orphans themselves, thought it a fine idea to help the kids get a little better start. So, they decide to leave the matter as it stood and head off towards San Ysidro and the big Guadalupe Saloon.
The Laredo Kid figured it was about time to pay a visit to his best girl, Rosalita. And Jim would like to see her little bay filly with the big, soft brown Spanish eyes.
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Hat history is something you don't think about every day. That fedora on your head, it had to come from somewhere, but how or why? We've gathered a collection of the most popular hat fashions today, and placed them in order from oldest to newest. So without further adieu, we present to you the history of hats: HAT HIST Shop All Stetson Hats! New Arrivals, Western Hats, JBS Heritage Hats, Dallas Cowboys, and more! The Telescope Crease, or the Gambler Cowboy Hat, derives from the Mexican Cowboys or “Charros” who traveled from South America and Mexico to Nevada for work. The Lower crown height stops hot air from accumulating making it a cooler hat, and the flat wide brim provides excellent Sun Protection. The Telescope Gambler is similar to the Bolero and is most commonly made out of fur or wool felt. Many other styles of hats have derived from the Telescope Gambler, one of the more well-known hats Premium hats crafted with the impeccable detail that made Stetson legendary. From fedoras to cowboy hats, every style is timeless. ITEMS () Pure Stratoliner. $395.00. Pure Stratoliner. $395.00. Dune 5X Gun Club Hat. $215.00. Dune 5X Gun Club Hat . $215.00. Stratoliner Milan Fedora. $93.00. Stratoliner Milan Fedora. $93.00. Stratoliner Milan Fedora. $93.00. Stratoliner Milan Fedora. $93.00 The name "Stetson" remains synonymous with cowboy hats to this day. THE GAMBLER. The Gambler is a traditional western dress hat. The crown of a Gambler resembles a round pork pie crown, but the brim is wider than most dress hats but smaller than most cowboy hats and the edge is curled up in a tight “pencil” curl. The Gambler may be most widely recognized as the hat worn by Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. It’s smaller brim and lower crown make it ideal for those who look out of Very early in Stetson’s history (like between 1870 and 1920) Stetson used model names for hats a lot more instead of quality designations. This was common in the industry in the early days but began to change when the first $20 hat was marketed in 1915. After that, hat makers wanted an easy and quick way to impress customers that they had a range of quality and price points to go along with its quality levels. This is when the “Stetson Fifteen” or the “Stetson Twentyfive Gambler (3) Gambler - 3 3/4" (1) Each Stetson hat must pass a stringent inspection stage before being shipped out to their devoted customers. An essential part of Western culture, Stetsons are more than just a fashion statement - they are still relied upon by ranchers across the US and North America to protect them from the elements. Stetson hats are made with only the highest quality
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