by Jewel
• • •
I LIVED LIKE AN EXILE on the road, exhausted and in desperate need of a break. Then I met a cowboy. And I decided to take one.
Early into 1999, I did a fund-raising concert in Aspen for my charity, Project Clean Water. I had a day to kill in Denver before my next show and I heard the rodeo was in town. I grew up rodeoing a little—just a barrel or keyhole race, or pole bending when there was one in town. They were outdoors, muddy, and small by any standard, but fun. My dad had been the all-around local champ on a horse he’d trained himself as a kid. I asked my label if they could get me tickets to the sold-out show and it turned out they used a car company that sponsored a rodeo cowboy and they were able to get me tickets through him. I showed up and got to my seat and enjoyed the show. The event organizers asked if I would ride the stagecoach and let them announce that I was there. I felt embarrassed but conceded. When the coach did its lap and exited into the backstage area where all the rough stock was kept, I was greeted by a quiet but enigmatic cowboy who introduced himself as Ty Murray. He had helped get the tickets and wanted to be sure I was being looked after. I had heard of Ty Murray. He was known as the Michael Jordan of rodeo, though I had never seen him ride. I asked if he would send an autograph to my dad, who, I knew, would flip. We exchanged numbers so we could work out the details. No sparks flew. I was headed to New York City the next morning and on to a world tour from there.
I toured Europe, Asia, and Australia for the next year. I was single the whole time and very lonely. My fame had grown to heights I had never imagined. My single “Hands” from my second album, Spirit, did well for me, which I was very happy about, but still I was unprepared for the lifestyle of success. It wasn’t the fantasy some people imagine, at least not for a sober female. I was unable to have casual sex with groupies or fans the way my male counterparts seemed to be able to enjoy. I found fame fantastically isolating. You wake up in a hotel, your tour manager shuttles you to an airport, you travel all day, you get to a new hotel room, try to catch a nap if you have time, though I usually had just enough time to shower and put on makeup for back-to-back interviews that backed right up to show time. I would hang with the band to try to unwind from the interviews and assault of questions as people tried to find the “real” you or get a scoop or a rise out of you for a story. Then I would walk onstage where I could let everything go. I would be absolutely spent by the time I walked off. I rarely got out to sightsee like the band did. I was cut off from nature, with no friends other than my band.
I felt like an astronaut drifting in space, able to see people only from the darkness of the stage, like looking at Earth from a great and beautiful distance. I began to carry Tupperware containers of Alaskan dirt and cottonwood balm my aunt would send me, so I could smell something natural and familiar that reminded me of home. I had no opportunity to even make friends, as I never went anywhere like normal people did and I wasn’t a partier. When I did go out in public I was shocked to be recognized by so many people. While I could see my album sales on paper and I was playing larger venues, my experience of day-to-day life hadn’t changed. I did not drive fancy cars or go on fancy vacations or hang out with fancy people. My mom did those things. I traveled and worked in a very insulated world with a band and crew that did not change. It wasn’t until I went home to San Diego after the first few tours and went to the store to get groceries that I was suddenly confronted with just how surreal my life had become. I would wait in line and someone next to me would start crying. People would watch to see what I put in my basket and I would see them whisper to a friend immediately to tell them I ate Grape-Nuts, I supposed. I was followed to my car by shy fans who wanted to see what I drove. It was the same used Volvo I’d gotten when I was signed. I had no need for a new car as I was never home to drive it. One man came up to me at a taco stand and said, “I have no idea who you are, but I can see everyone is staring at you, so you must be somebody. I just wanted to be the one to tell you that you are not that special. You’re no more special than me.” I looked at him with a mouth full of food and managed to say, “Thanks. I agree,” and promptly asked the waitress for a to-go box.
I had been a voyeur my whole life, studying and watching people, but now people were watching me. I often felt like an exotic animal in a zoo. People would walk by, gawk, and sometimes even reach out to touch me as if they could not believe I was there. I would run a commentary in my head like a narrator from a nature channel. Look, here is the folk singer in her natural habitat, eating a taco. Here is the elusive folk singer blowing her nose. Look at how she turns her head slightly to shade her eyes from the sun. Being that famous felt like being screamed at all the time, even when no one was talking to you. You could feel the focus even when they said nothing. Being idolized and being torn down felt oddly similar. They both made me feel alone. Friendship and trust should be earned, and when you’re famous, people seem to want to give them to you whether you’ve earned them or not, and it felt dishonest to me. Fame was not real. It was all a projection—fame made me a blank canvas that people projected their love, lust, troubles, self-worth, and desire upon. Fame and power do not change us; they amplify us. If we are insecure, we grow more so. If we are addictive, we become a greater addict and insatiable. If we are desirous of truth, we seek it more. If we are generous, we become more so. If we seek to fill holes through dishonest means, we have greater access to do so. Fame and power are masterful teachers. This made me double down on my commitment to be sure I was creating a genuine and honest connection to my fan base. It helped me feel I could show up authentically in the spotlight.
Ty and I spoke a few times as I traveled. When I came back from Australia, I left him a voicemail. He called while I was in Asia. A year after our first meeting we decided to try to meet up on the road somewhere. I had a day off near a rodeo he would be riding at in Livermore, California. We lived parallel lives, in vehicles and on the road performing for large crowds. I would sing in the same stadium that he would ride in a week later. Cowboys and rock stars both starve for the chance to do what they love, and a very few make it big. Ty was one of the few who made it big, and he revolutionized the business of rodeo. When he was in third grade he said his goal in life was to break Larry Mahan’s record of six all-around wins. He went on to break the record with seven. He broke the all-around record on the rough stock events, which are considered much harder than the timed events like calf and team roping and steer wrestling. He also won two world championships in bull riding.
Ty was a perfect fit for me because he loved the outdoors and had values we shared. He was down-to-earth. He was not a fame-monger. He was passionate about his craft and liked to challenge himself. He was raised poor and was self-made. He knew what it took to build a career and what it meant to work hard. He knew what it meant to be in the public eye.
We were both at the height of our careers. Ty had just broken the all-around record and was the darling of the rodeo industry and western culture. Pieces of You had won a diamond award for selling more than ten million copies and my current record was burning up the airwaves. We were young, rich, and at the top of our game. I flew to Livermore and watched him ride broncs. I never traveled with an entourage or friends, so I sat in the outdoor stands by myself, mostly unrecognized. The first event Ty was up in was the saddle bronc. The horse reared wildly in the chute. Ty nodded his head for the gate to open, and the animal pivoted on its hind legs and surged out of the chute in a cresting wave of muscle. Once the animal got out of the gate and into the arena, Ty’s free arm moved forward and back in time with the bronc’s bucking, as his feet whipped from flank to neck with crisp, precise movements. Chin tucked in, hat never moving an inch. When the whistle blew he timed his exit and, capitalizing on the momentum and force of the animal, let go of the rein on the next buck and catapulted into the air, landing on his feet like a cat. He stared down at the dirt and walked out of the arena in his trademark baby blue and tan chaps with a det
ermined gate, without so much as looking up. He was all business.
Next up was the bareback event. Ty combed his horse with what I would learn was perfect form. He wore the customary foam neck brace to prevent whiplash, and his legs fanned open, bending back by his ears, then snapped closed, the dull spurs neatly grazing high on the horse’s neck. When the whistle blew, he used his free arm to pull himself up to sitting position and waited for the pick-up man while the horse continued to buck. He jumped from his horse to the pick-up man’s and then slid to the ground. Again he walked out of the arena looking down at his feet, almost as if he were angry with himself. Already thinking about his next ride. All business.
The final event was bull riding. When Ty’s turn came around, he crawled over the fencing in the back of the chute, straddled the bull, and prepared his rope. The bull lay down in the chute but Ty nodded anyway. When the bull saw the gate open, there was a blur of spinning and kicking in the blink of an eye. Ty’s body bent forward at the hips, waiting for the bull to leap forward and buck before he started his series of countermoves like playing a game of chess with body and life. Each move the bull made, Ty had to have an exact countermove. He had to absorb the bull’s momentum by putting his body in a position to neutralize the force of the bull. He could not anticipate what the bull would do, nor could he be late in responding. Everything had to be in perfect time.
Hearing Ty describe riding bulls later sounded almost Zen, though he had never read any Buddhist texts. When he rode, time slowed down enough so that he could turn what would feel like a car crash to the average person into a slow-motion give-and-take, where he responded in perfect time with the animal, feeling for every move it would make. He was entirely in the moment, focused only on the now. Living with fear and danger, but being able to remain fluid within it. He liked the stakes to be that high. He liked having to perform with that kind of pressure and consequence. It was truly beautiful to watch. When the whistle blew, he made sure not to get off in the well (the inside of the bull’s spinning, where he could be trapped), and walked stoically back to the locker room, but this time he nodded to the crowd, without really lifting his head, only giving them his eyes as he looked up at the audience. The place erupted.
We rode in his limo back to San Francisco and talked about life. Hours passed before we knew it. I would stay the night in San Francisco then fly to a show the next day. He wasn’t even spending a night before leaving for another show elsewhere. When it was time for his flight he hugged me goodbye. It was a sober and conservative hug. We were standing by the door, my unpacked bag holding it open. He wore a loose T-shirt and my hand accidentally landed on bare skin. There was an electrical charge and transference of energy that’s hard to explain. I had met guys on the road and never so much as a spark flew. When I hugged Ty, I suddenly felt I knew everything about him. I sensed that beneath his tough persona he was boyish and naive in a way, that his body had been battered and beaten and educated, but that he had made it through his life without his heart ever being hurt.
twenty-three
so. she can ride.
Our next date spanned a four-day break we found in our schedules. We went camping in the mountains of Northern California with an old cowboy friend of Ty’s named Pat Russell. I met Ty in Reno, where he was up that night in all three events again. I went to find Pat’s truck after being given some vague directions via text like, gray flatbed diesel with ball hitch and dent on left fender, back right of parking lot. I found the truck and with it Pat, whom I had never met until that moment. He was in his sixties with gray stubble on his unshaved face and a grimace that must have been the original Clint Eastwood aspired to. We stood beneath the hum of fluorescent bulbs in the parking lot taking each other in. Other than removing his hat briefly when I arrived, he kept busy packing the truck and asked me nothing about myself, choosing instead to bark orders at me. “Grab that rope, would ya? Throw it over here. You need a bedroll, I suppose. I don’t see that you have one on you. Here, roll this one up.”
I had flown in on a private plane right after my show and had not taken the time to change. I wore black leather pants, biker boots, a white T-shirt, and a jean jacket, and I was beginning to feel a chill as night closed in, leaving visible only the pinprick formation of stars.
The silence was unceremoniously broken as Pat was attacked from behind. A figure leapt through the air and put him in a choke hold, knocking off both their hats. Pat stood his ground and without so much as moving swatted Ty off as if he were no more bothersome than a gnat. “’Bout time you showed up, Pud.” Cowboys have a habit of nicknaming each other with handles that summarize their worst fear or trait. There was a cowboy named Jim Sharp, who, while a world-champ bull rider, was not known to be the sharpest of guys, so they called him Razor. Another had teeth with such wide gaps between them that they called him Rake. To Ty, the worst insult was to call him a Puss. In cowboy terms, if you pussed out on a ride, that meant you hunted for the ground instead of hanging tough and gutting it out to the whistle. Ty despised cowboys who did this. He’d heard that Walt Garrison would call other players Pudding when in front of the press, since he could not use the other word in public. Ty decided to try it out on a cowboy the next day, and told everyone that when he was calling them “pudding,” he really was calling them a puss. It backfired on him and he was stuck with the nickname for life.
At the truck, Ty said, “Pat, you old bastard, how the hell are you? Did you meet Jewel?” At this, Pat looked over and considered me directly for the first time. He looked back at his bag and said, “Yeah. A bit lean in the flank and poorly dressed for the task at hand. I guess there is no accounting for taste.” Pat had a rare talent for saying something mean and making you feel liked. He threw a thick coat at me as we got in the truck, saying, “She didn’t even have the good sense to bring a proper coat.”
We drove without talking for a ways, watching the road open up beneath our headlights and fly by into darkness again. Pat broke the silence to keep himself awake as much as anything, I suppose: “Ty tells me you got a book of poems out. Recite us something.”
A Night Without Armor had recently come out and was exceeding everyone’s expectations—poetry was finding a mass audience in spite of an industry’s skepticism. I was unprepared to recite some, though, and had none committed to memory except one called “Wild Horse.” Pat would accept no excuses, and suddenly I found myself reciting for a crowd of two. It was a love poem I had written years earlier.
I’d like to call you my wild horse
and feed you silver sage
I’d like to paint my poems
With desert tongued clay
across
your back
and ride you savagely
as the sweet and southern wind
through a green and wild Kentucky.
Pat interrupted. “Goddamn. This isn’t poetry. This is horny prose!” he exclaimed, and we all fell into laughter. It turned out Pat was fluent in Latin and he spent the rest of the ride reciting to me his favorite rhymes, limericks, and sonnets while Ty slept.
We arrived at Pat’s ranch in the middle of the night. He showed us to a single room. I was mortified. Ty could tell I was uncomfortable and we both went to bed fully clothed and he promised not to touch me. And true to his word, he slept. Instantly. I lay awake, unable to relax. It was strange to be sleeping next to a strange man, in a strange house. Around 3 a.m. I finally had to pee. I stumbled to the bathroom only to realize there was no bathroom door. In bare feet I felt my way downstairs and outside with tissue in hand. It was about that time the dogs began barking. All of them. A chorus of bird dogs let loose a mournful wail and the whole place had to wake up. I cursed under my breath and headed back upstairs to see Ty was undisturbed. I would lie awake, thankful to finally see daylight slowly blush on the horizon.
I hadn’t told Ty much about how I was raised, other than mentioning I’d lived on a ho
mestead as a child. He knew I had ridden horses, but I was not eager to overshare, because as a kid giving tourists rides, I had learned that when dealing with novice riders, they always seemed to brag about what great riders they were. The next morning I could see they had set aside the oldest, slowest gelding for me. That did not stop Pat from telling Ty to grab an ear on the old horse, while he mugged down his neck like one would to keep a bronc still enough for a good hand to climb on. “Very funny,” I said, and waited for the games to be over before I put a foot in the stirrup and swung a leg over.
“So. She can ride,” Pat said, unimpressed. Enjoying razzing me still. Those men razzed me the entire trip. “We need a fire. This is how you build one. It will be hot.” They “taught” me how to catch a fish, clean it, and cook it. They showed me how to find water and warned me I would have to use the facilities outdoors at night. I kept wondering what kind of person they thought I was, and more important, what kind of girls they had been hanging around with. I resigned myself to nod along, knowing that if Ty ever came to Alaska, the last laugh would be on him. (This eventually did happen, and my patience was rewarded. After seeing the place where I was raised, he said, “Do you remember when we first met? And how I assumed you knew nothing about camping? Your childhood was camping!”)
Ty showed off some fancy roping for me—he had competed in a phenomenal six events in college rodeo before he decided to focus on rough stock events as a professional. He did ocean waves and hoolihans and figure eights and other fancy tricks. He had a makeshift roping dummy and when he set the rope down I picked it up and daubed it on the dummy, clean around the horns. I wasn’t sure I would nail it, but once I had, I was pretty cool about it. He sat up and said, “Well, where did you learn that?” “On a movie set, actually,” I confessed. “Here,” he offered, “Let me show you how to turn your wrist over so the loop won’t change planes when you release.” He came behind me and stood close. His body fitting the form of mine as he bent down and helped twirl my arm, both of us standing under the spinning canopy of the lariat loop. I was sure it was a tactic he’d used before but I didn’t mind. The closeness of his body felt electric. And my roping improved significantly. He taught me about heeling calves, walking in front of me so I could practice roping his feet. Eventually we sat in the shade of a tall pine and sipped fresh spring water. “So, you shot a film? Is it out yet? Was it a western, I guess, if you learned to rope for it?”