Aloha Rodeo

by David Wolman

  THAT EVENING A MERRY mass of humanity packed the streets and sidewalks of Cheyenne. The air was filled with catcalls and cowboy yells, and strings of red, white, and blue lights shone like stars.

  Visitors who succumbed to the temptation to try to dress like a cowboy could buy a silk shirt for $5. (“Cowhands could have more pleasure out of five dollars in many ways,” one real cowboy grumbled.) The “dude cowpoke” look didn’t work for everyone, reported one paper: “Generally the effect of the resulting combination of extremes in styles is incongruous almost to grotesqueness and the victim of the delusion that a shirt and a hat make a westerner becomes a target for jibes.”

  For entertainment, there was Dyer’s Hotel and Bar, “a place where a gentleman gets a gentleman’s drink,” or the Atlas Theatre, showing the latest moving pictures from Edison Studios and the French studio Pathé Frères. Mischief-makers of all ages used feather-ended ticklers, tin noisemakers, and “sparking electric sticks” to amuse and annoy.

  Visitors who made their way to a mammoth tent at 24th and Bent Streets found it packed with people gazing upward. On top of a forty-foot tower, a girl in a red dress sat bareback astride a horse. Below them was a tank of water nine feet deep. After the announcer had whipped up the crowd for the “Fugacious Frolic with Fate” it was about to witness, the horse and girl leapt into the air.

  In the days leading up to the rodeo, the Cheyenne papers were filled with full-page ads for the Great Carver Diving Horse Combination, promising “The Niagara of Sensations, Whirlpool of Realism, A Fascinating, Fearful, Flirting Incarnation of Ingenuity.” F. W. Carver, a dentist, exhibition shooter, and former partner of Buffalo Bill’s, had come up with a zinger of an act: a young woman diving into a water tank on horseback. Carver’s daughter Lorena became famous for performing the trick as “The Girl in Red,” and insisted that trained horses were often so eager to jump that it was hard to hold them back.

  Every night during Frontier Days, Carver stood before the packed house and offered $100 in gold to anyone who would take the plunge and stay on the horse until it surfaced. No one ever did. Then Lorena rode her father’s horse Silver King to the edge of the tower platform and into space. Girl and horse landed in an explosion of water. After five seconds of breathless silence, the horse’s muzzle broke the surface, followed by Lorena. She rode the horse up a ramp and out of the tank, looking, as one paper reported, “a picture of fairyland.”*

  If the Hawaiians were out and about during that evening in Cheyenne, they kept to themselves. Meanwhile, at the theater performances and cowboy dances, inside saloons and boardinghouses, on front porches and boardwalks, people were comparing impressions of the day’s events, especially the showing by the first island cowboy. Maybe all that fuss about the Hawaiian riders had been for nothing.

  ON DAY TWO, THE stands and bleachers of Frontier Park were filled to capacity. Cars, carriages, and riders on horseback crowded against the fence around the track. Ikua and Archie were scheduled to rope, and nobody wanted to miss seeing if the Hawaiian champion could live up to his billing.

  The rodeo started at one P.M. under a cloudless sky. Marie Danks, Clayton’s wife, won the ladies’ relay race, even though the audience clearly backed Lillie Nicholson of Colorado. Nicholson received an ovation for her second-place finish. As The Denver Post put it, “When a young lady is gritty, as well as pretty, she wins the crowd.”

  The wolf-roping event was advertised as a fun free-for-all at the expense of one of the most feared and hated animals in the West. But watching cowboys chase down two terrified, half-grown canines didn’t go over well. One young wolf immediately tried to hide in the grass, trembling, until it was “nearly smothered under a cloud of ropes.” The other wolf made it fifty yards before being lassoed and dragged down the field behind a galloping horse. One paper noted that “the crowd’s resentment of this barbarous and unexpected cruelty was instantaneous.” Wolf roping never appeared on the schedule again.

  Every day of Frontier Days, hundreds of agitated animals had to be led between the arena and corrals. Every so often a horse or steer escaped and ran amok. If it ended up in the tightly packed crowd, someone could be hurt badly, or worse. During the second day of the 1908 competition, two horses broke loose. The first was headed straight for the stands when the loop of a lasso settled around its neck, bringing it to a quick halt. Holding the other end was Archie Ka‘au‘a.

  The second runaway was also caught by a paniolo. Ikua made a difficult throw from horseback. There was another horse between him and the fugitive, so he had to throw his lariat up and over the other animal. The loop landed “just in time to drop the festival trouble-maker in his tracks.” It wasn’t technically part of the rodeo, but anyone who saw the scene and knew a thing or two about cowboy craft had to have been impressed.

  Finally it was time for steer roping. Jack may have been the first paniolo to compete, but Ikua and Archie were the ones with the winning records. It was time for the “dusky wizards of the rawhide” to prove their mastery.

  There were eight other contestants on the roster for the second day of competition; the best two would compete tomorrow against Dickerson and Clark, the first day’s winners.

  Half a dozen locals went first. C.B. Irwin made a textbook bust, and when he sprang up from making the tie, the clock read 58 seconds. The crowd whooped and hollered, thinking the Hawaiians had been beat before they even began. But just then, the steer slipped one foot loose. Time ran out before Irwin could retie the animal, and he was out of the competition. The next three contestants also failed to complete their ties.

  Archie rode into position under a sky darkening with clouds. Dickerson’s 1 minute 11 seconds remained the time to beat.

  Archie’s steer took a flying start. The red flag flashed, and Archie spurred his white horse forward, whirling his lasso overhead.

  He closed in on the steer at full speed and snapped his loop over the animal’s head. But unlike the other ropers, he waited until the rope worked its way to the steer’s midsection before cinching it with a tug.

  The steer kept running, and the loop slipped over its narrow hips and down its back legs. When the rope reached its heels, Archie made another quick jerk and the loop tightened. This was a classic paniolo move: a solid heel catch was safer than roping an animal by the horns. It laid a steer out, knocking the wind out of it, but rarely caused injury.

  A moment later, though, the downed steer twisted to its feet and bolted for the low fence bordering the racetrack. Archie tried to run his horse around the animal, but it kept dodging in the same direction, twice, then three times. He threw again just as the steer tried to leap over the fence, catching it straight on the heels this time.

  The steer was in midair as Archie dallied, then reined in his horse so hard it heaved back on its haunches.

  The rope snapped tight and the steer turned a complete somersault, landing half over the fence with its head off the ground. Archie was on it instantly to make the tie.

  It was a fantastic bust. When Archie’s time was announced—1 minute 9 seconds, the fastest yet—the grandstand burst into applause.

  Two other competitors followed Archie, but their times didn’t even come close.

  Then it was Ikua’s turn. He wore a striped sweater and tight white breeches. Twenty thousand pairs of eyes watched as the famous Hawaiian cowboy rode out on a huge buckskin gelding.

  Ikua’s steer took off so quickly he didn’t have a chance to throw until they had both sprinted more than halfway down the field. Worse, he found his horse wouldn’t respond instantly to the reins. So Ikua made a fast side throw, opening a loop big enough for the steer to run through.

  He took one turn of rope around the saddle horn to slow its run. The loop cinched around the steer’s midsection and a cry went up from the audience. Roping an animal by the feet, as Jack and Archie had, was strange enough. But lassoing a steer around the waist was lunacy.

  “That settles HIM,” a man in the press box said.
“He’ll never bust that steer in a thousand years.”

  But the spectators didn’t know how many times Ikua had made exactly that kind of throw on the slopes of Mauna Kea. His horse darted around the steer, and when the loop was around its hind feet, Ikua finished his dally. The rawhide twanged like a harp string and the steer hit the ground with a noise that carried to the back row of the grandstand.

  Ikua leapt off his horse and bent over the stunned animal. He would later say of the crowd: “I could not hear myself tie up the steer.” He finished the tie and jumped to his feet with his hands in the air. There was a breathless moment before the judges announced his time: 1 minute 3 seconds. Frontier Park erupted.

  Fans had gotten their money’s worth, and there was still one more day to go.

  14

  A Lesson in How to Handle Steers

  THAT NIGHT, RAIN AND mud drove visitors indoors. One cowboy ball had a full orchestra, but instead of a symphony it performed “the good breezy ragtime, two step and quadrilles full of ginger the cowboy loves.” The papers assured visitors that “the cowboys, though dressed after the manner of the range, are all gentlemen, and some of them fancy dancers,” and that any ladies who attended would “be guaranteed the utmost courtesy and a real good time.”

  Emily and the paniolo drew lots of attention, but they weren’t the only Pacific Islanders in Cheyenne. That night, lilting Hawaiian melodies and the twang of steel guitar filled the Atlas Theatre when the groundbreaking musical trio of July, “Toots” Paka, and Joseph Kekuku took the stage. The baritone singer and guitarist Iolai (“July”) Kealoha Paka was a favorite of Queen Lili‘uokalani. He traveled to San Francisco to launch his career, and eventually made one of the first known recordings of Hawaiian music.

  July married Hannah Jones, a Broadway actress from Michigan who reinvented herself as “Toots” Paka. The couple toured vaudeville theaters across the country, with July playing guitar and singing and Toots performing the hula, dressed as a South Seas princess. (Even though she had studied hula in the islands, Hawaiians weren’t always won over; one critic called her performance “as piquant as a picnic in the rain.”) The trio was completed by guitarist Joseph Kekuku. As a boy, Kekuku laid a guitar flat in his lap and experimented sliding a metal bar up and down the strings. In doing so, he invented the swooping sound of Hawaiian steel guitar.

  Together, Kekuku and the Pakas were the first supergroup of Hawaiian music, eventually playing some of the largest venues in the country. In Cheyenne, the paniolo may have attended the show—there’s no record either way—but it’s hard to imagine they were unaware the musicians were in town.

  Meanwhile, some evening celebrations took on a rougher edge. A drunk and belligerent cowboy had to be ejected from a theater; a visitor from Kansas who had also tipped back a few too many fell through the plate glass window of a pharmacy; downtown, a quarreling couple “found their quarters too small for free action and went into the street to settle their domestic difficulties in primitive tooth and nail fashion.”

  Local cowboys had good reason to hit the bottle: their world had just been shaken. “Hawaiians Beat Westerners Roping Steers,” blared one headline—“They Are Dangerously Quick.” Another account described Ikua’s performance as “one of the prettiest busts of the tournament.” As the Daily Leader put it, the Hawaiians had “invaded the heart of the American cow country and taught the white ropers a lesson in how to handle steers.” At least one bartender had had enough. When Ikua and the others ordered drinks in his saloon, he refused to serve them.

  NOT EVEN TERRIBLE WEATHER could demoralize rodeo-goers on the third and final day. A cold drizzle “chilled the bleacherites to the bone and sent the umbrellas up like hundreds of black mushrooms.” Fans had come to see champions crowned, and they were staying.

  Five men had made it to the bronco-busting finals, including Clayton Danks and Dick Stanley. Stanley had a strong first ride. The next three competitors all failed to impress the judges, and then it was Danks’s turn. The defending champion’s horse had drawn as many spectators as any of the riders: Steamboat.

  Danks and Steamboat had met at Frontier Days the previous year. “There are other outlaws that do more fancy steps when they’re bucking,” the cowboy said, “but they don’t jar a man like Steamboat . . . he gives sort of peculiar, side twisting jumps, and when he hits the ground you think you’ve fell off one of those twenty-story teepees.” That year both had come away winners: Danks was crowned world champion bronco rider, and Steamboat was awarded worst bucking horse.

  This particular day Danks stayed on the infamous bronco, but he didn’t use his spurs, which made for a comparatively bland ride. Spectators wondered if Steamboat’s best days were behind him; after all, the horse was fourteen years old. But old hands in the audience knew that no man had ever spurred Steamboat and ridden him to a finish.

  The judges decided that Stanley and Danks would have a one-on-one final matchup to determine the winner. Stanley hadn’t expected to make it to the finals at all and had already taken a considerable beating. Now he was just one ride away from the title.

  Cold wet wind swept across the arena as Stanley brushed off his purple shirt and climbed into the saddle. The second the blindfold was pulled off, Stanley raised his right boot and raked his spurs down Steamboat’s flank.

  The horse went mad with fury. He whirled and plunged, leaping straight up and landing with a crash. Horse and rider zigzagged across the field and jumped the fence onto the track, which had been churned into deep mud by the day’s races. Stanley’s right foot kept moving up and down like a piston.

  The crowd realized what was happening and broke into a roar, chanting “Stanley! Stanley! Stanley!” The furious animal gradually slowed and then stopped. Stanley, battered but smiling, waved his free arm overhead. Steamboat gave one final surprise leap sideways, but the Oregon cowboy stayed on, still spurring as the horse came to a standstill once more.

  It was over. An assistant caught the horse’s head and Stanley dismounted, stumbled a few steps, and fell into the waiting arms of supporters. He had done the impossible: spur Steamboat and survive. In the words of one reporter, it was “the greatest and the gamest exhibition” of bronco riding that Cheyenne, if not the world, had ever seen.

  Danks, a Frontier Days legend, delivered a technically flawless but uninspiring ride, and Stanley seemed like the clear winner. Yet the judges, inexplicably, wouldn’t declare a champion. There were grumbles of hometown bias. When it was announced the men would have to ride once more, the air filled with hisses and howls of objection.

  Stanley somehow mustered the energy to mount up one more time. He and Danks each rode new horses, spurring throughout. When it was over, Stanley was barely able to walk, but Danks was there to offer his rival a hand. “Old man,” he said, “you’re the toughest proposition I ever rode against. Shake.”

  Inexplicably, it took the judges another three hours to reach a decision: Stanley was the champion. He was the first cowboy from outside Wyoming to win the Frontier Days bucking title—but when it was time to claim his prize, he was nowhere to been seen.

  AS IF ON CUE, the sun came out just in time for the steer-roping finals. Umbrellas were folded and dripping hats shaken dry. The stands were buzzing. Two impossible things had just happened: Steamboat had been spurred to a standstill, and an outsider had won the bronco-bucking title. Now the steer-roping championship was in the balance. Four men were slated to compete in the finals: Ikua, Archie, Dickerson, and Hugh Clark, who a week earlier had taken second place at a rodeo in Encampment, Wyoming.

  The Hawaiians had the fastest roping times so far, of 63 and 69 seconds. Dickerson was next with 71 seconds, and Clark in fourth place at 78 seconds. Any one of them could take the title with an outstanding showing in the final round.

  Ikua went first. His peers would later say that as he stood perfectly still, waiting for the signal to ride, he looked like a statue of Kamehameha the Great. It was almost ten years to the day s
ince the Hawaiian flag had been lowered over ‘Iolani Palace and Hawaii had lost its independence. Now a paniolo had a shot at winning a contest that had become quintessentially American.

  In that moment, the taciturn cowboy was an ocean away from the world he knew. The windswept prairie of Cheyenne, with its sense of endless space, must have been dizzyingly foreign to the islander. Yet he was also in his element. Chasing a steer—whether here, across the plains of Waimea, or down to the beach at Kawaihae—this was what he was born to do.

  According to Purdy family lore, a rainbow appeared over the arena in Cheyenne just before Ikua’s final ride. The rainbow, along with the shark and the wind, was an aumakua of the Purdys, a deified ancestor that watches over the family like a guardian angel. When Ikua saw it, he felt the calming presence of his forebears.

  As the flag fell, Ikua launched his horse after the steer that was already tearing down the field, throwing its head to either side. He swung his lariat twice overhead and threw.

  The loop took the steer around the horns. Ikua spurred his horse ahead, whipped the end of the rope around his saddle horn, and veered sharply to one side, snapping the noose tight. The thousand-pound steer slammed to the ground and lay stunned for a few seconds, its legs waving in the air.

  As Ikua dismounted, one of his feet caught briefly in a stirrup, costing him valuable seconds. But his horse kept the rope tight as he sprinted to the prostrate animal. Six seconds after making the cast he had busted the steer to the ground. He whipped the piggin’ string around its feet, tied the knot, and stepped back with his hands raised.

  His time elicited gasps around the arena: 56 seconds flat, the fastest of the competition by more than 7 seconds. Ikua’s average of less than a minute per steer made him the man to beat. In the words of one reporter, it would take “a sensational record performance” to overtake him.

  Dickerson was next. His first cast slipped off the steer’s horn. He busted the animal but it leapt up, then leapt up again, and soon “America’s Hope” was out of the running.