Now, I ain’t one to go preachin’ about heroes, but every now and then the Lord drops a real article into this old cow country, and when He does, you’d best take notice. Fellers like that don’t come along every roundup.
His name was Roger Miller, and he was born in Azusa, California, back when that town still smelled more of orange blossoms than pavement. But Roger never had much use for towns. By the time he was barely old enough to fork a saddle he was ridin’ for the Vail and Vickers outfit on Santa Rosa Island, off Santa Barbara. That was real cow work—wild stuff, the kind the old California vaqueros still remembered. Later he punched cows on Rancho California down by Temecula. He always said the prettiest thing God ever made was a wet, wobbly newborn calf standin’ in the morning sun. I reckon he was right.
But Roger wasn’t the kind to stay in one brand forever. Time came when he traded his chaps for a paintbrush and a set of silver-casting tools. He could carve wood that looked like it grew that way, paint a scene so real you could smell the dust, and turn out cast-silver cowboy jewelry that made a man’s belt look like it belonged on a king. He made his livin’ doin’ what he liked, just like old Charlie Russell used to say, and he figured that made him lucky from the start.
I met him one fine day in the late ’80s at a cowboy antique show in Phoenix. We shook hands and it was like two old saddle pals who’d just been separated by a stampede. Same dry humor, same love of good horses, same notion that life was too short to waste on anything that didn’t smell like leather or sage. Over the next few years we rode together in Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, camped at a gentleman’s spread near Tucson, and raised more dust than the law allowed.
One year Roger sold his place in Glorieta, New Mexico—government wanted it for some Civil War battlefield—and suddenly he was cowboy rich. Did he buy himself a mansion? No sir. He bought a new pickup, headed straight for Cody, Wyoming, and picked up a little eight-acre slice of heaven on the edge of town. Dug a well, threw up a corral, parked a 40-foot horse trailer for a bunkhouse, and started buildin’ his cabin with his own two hands. I helped him set the foundation and floor one summer. Wasn’t fancy, but it was the perfect cowboy artist’s camp.
That’s when he talked me into buyin’ a horse. We drove up the North Fork of the Shoshone with a fifth of good Canadian whiskey, found a horse trader, and sized up a string of broomtails. Roger pointed at a sorrel paint mare and said, “I like that one.” I tried her, liked her, and bought her on the spot. We rode home, built fence till our hands bled, and turned her out with Roger’s little mustang Star in knee-deep alfalfa.
Roger was my teacher in those days. He’d been a real brush-poppin’ cowboy when I was still readin’ about ’em in books. One mornin’ while I was kickin’ manure in the pasture he looked over and drawled, “The most dangerous horse in the world is somebody’s pet.” I laughed at the time. Few years later my own “bomb-proof” gelding pinned me against a fence tryin’ to get away from the alpha mare, and I heard Roger’s voice floatin’ down from somewhere up above. I still smile when I think of it.
Another time we were ridin’ high in the Rockies with some outfit. Feller named Josh had ground-tied his pack mule while he worked on a squaw hitch. That mule decided he’d had enough of polite society and lit out for a 500-foot cliff, buckin’ and rattlin’ pans like a runaway freight. Josh was hangin’ on the lash rope for dear life. Roger never said a word—just spurred that little mustang Star and headed the mule off before it could commit suicide. I tried to follow on a string horse that didn’t cotton to spurs and got my own private rodeo. Roger just grinned, handed the lead rope back to Josh, and said, “Never trust a ground-tied pack mule.” We laughed about it all the way to the cantina that night.
Roger kept a little sign in his cabin. It had Charlie Russell’s silhouette on it and the words:
“Any man that can make a livin’ doin’ what he likes is lucky, and I am that. Any time I cash in now, I win!”
He lived by that. When he knew the final gather was comin’, he had some little elk-skin medicine bags made up. Each one held a pinch of sweet grass and a pellet of his own ashes, fastened with one of his silver conchos. He sent one to me. No note—just the bag. I knew what it meant. My old pard wasn’t really gone; he was just ridin’ a different range, close enough to keep an eye on things.
Roger crossed the Great Divide in September of ’98. The same year the last cows left Santa Rosa Island and the old Vail and Vickers cowboys were turned loose. Two good outfits gone in the same season. But the memories didn’t go nowhere.
So here’s to Roger Miller—working cowboy, fine artist, silver caster, and the best pard a man could ask for. He punched cows on islands and painted pictures of the life he loved. He built a cabin in Cody with his own hands, rode good horses, told better stories, and left a little piece of himself in an elk-skin bag so the rest of us would never ride alone.
Any time he cashed in, boys… he won.
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