Cowboys

What is it about a guy in jeans and a cowboy hat that turns our innards to mush? A guy who's all sweaty and grungy because he's been mucking out horse stalls or hauling hay... How did these hard-working men get to be so romanticized?

Let's look back in history for a minute or two. In most Western towns, you had two types of people: townfolk and cowboys. Townspeople made their living in the towns (usually from cowboys, miners, etc.). Cowboys made their living with cows. (Duh.)

Most cowboys were paid badly and made only one trail ride before they decided the cowboy life wasn't for them. Roughly 25% of cowboys were African American, 12% Mexican. The rest were white, Anglo Saxon. The average age of the cowboy was 24. He owned his saddle, but not the horse he rode--and he rode that horse day and night.

After up to four months in the saddle, often wearing the same clothes day after day, eating at the chuckwagon and drinking nothing but coffee and water, the cowboy's job was finally done. He got paid, made his way into town and whooped it up.

Businesses profited when cowboys came into town, but all the cowtowns soon became wilder than their residents liked. Most towns had ordinances against wearing/carrying guns in town. Cowboys who insisted on carrying weapons faced fines or imprisonment. Some towns resorted to hiring gunslingers to make sure laws were enforced--think Tombstone and the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

One newspaper of the time, the Cheyenne Daily Leader, reported, "Morally, as a class, cowboys are foulmouthed, blasphemous, drunken, lecherous, utterly corrupt. Usually harmless on the plains when sober, they are dreaded in towns, for then liquor has an ascendency over them." Oh, and most of them were medium-height and wiry. One newspaper account, describing an 1875 Wyoming roundup, described the cowboys as "rough men with shaggy hair and wild staring eyes in butternut trousers stuffed into great rough boots."

Ooh. Sexy.

Not.

It's amazing what 150 years will do for an image, ain't it?

Course, it might have something to do with big, calloused hands and strong, muscled thighs from riding horses and working all day. Unfortunately, I don't actually know too many cowboys. But just like millions of other North American women (I don't know about other countries, but I know that U.S. and Canadian women sure do love their cowboys!), I am infatuated with them.

For erotic Western romance, check out the Westerns at my new publishers. Liquid Silver Books has Beth Williamson, Charlene Leonard, Sable Grey and Pepper Espinoza. Whiskey Creek Press Torrid has Shawna Moore, Sarah Winn and Chancie Moore. You can also try Cheyenne McCray's Wild series, Sarah McCarty's Promises series, and Patrice Michelle's Bad In Boots series, all at Ellora's Cave.

As far as television shows, I confess to watching reruns of Bonanza week after week and lusting after Pernell Roberts, who played Adam. Alias Smith & Jones was also a huge favorite of mine (I'm still sad about Pete Duel, even after all these years). I liked all the Mavericks; Bret (James Garner) and Bart (Jack Kelly) better than Beau (Roger Moore). High Chaparral--I was totally in love with Manolito. And let's not forget Big Valley. My favorite character? Rough, tough oldest brother Nick (played by actor Peter Breck).

Do you like cowboys? Why? What is it about these bad boys that strikes such a chord?


P.S. I finished the first draft of my futuristic vampire at 3 a.m. this morning. Went to bed at 10:30, still awake at midnight, so I got back up and finished the damned thing. Now I have about 500 words to play with to go back in and add more sensory details, then send it off to my critique partner. Woo-hoo. Another one almost ready for submission.