It’s about hope
Rodeo cowboy finds satisfaction in his work
By Johna Strickland
Argus Observer
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:09 AM PDT
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| Johna Strickland | Argus Observer
Kevin Allender (left) and Drew Pearson fight a bull and rescue a cowboy at the Adams County Fair and Rodeo Thursday in Council. Pearson and Allender face 15 to 20 bulls each night at a rodeo and bullfight at about 18 rodeos each year, Pearson said. Earning less than $150 a night, Pearson said it’s probably the adrenaline rush that has kept him fighting for 15 years. |
Council — Standing in the plowed, lumpy dirt of the arena, Drew Pearson watched the bulls he said he knows like old friends Thursday.
A cowboy climbed aboard and wedged his hand into the rope, tying himself to the bull.
Pearson met them at the chute where he scanned the big animal and its rider. Fifteen years of bullfighting experience tell Pearson whether the rider will get hurt.
Then, as the chutes jerked open, Pearson and his partner, Kevin Allender, dodged the bucking bull and positioned themselves for the cowboy’s dismount.
When the bull bucked the rider off, Pearson and Allender accelerated to reach the animal as it twisted and turned, its hooves a deadly combination that could crush the cowboy. For Allender and Pearson the whole process is a split-second decision. It is about attracting the bull’s attention and drawing him from the fallen rider. It’s about escaping more than 1,200 pounds of angry muscle.
And, perhaps more than anything, it is about hope. Hope that if the bull slams Pearson it will be on his butt, propelling him away from the animal.
“You learn you’re pretty fast,” Pearson, 30, Fruitland, said. “Anymore I’m not real fast. I just try to get away from them any way I can. You try not to get in a foot race with them because they’ll beat you everytime.”
The adrenaline rush from facing a bull first jolted through Pearson 15 years ago. A bull rider from age 12, a friend’s family who owned bulls sent Pearson to a bullfighting school in Twin Falls after he was injured. Only three days long, Pearson left the school with basic knowledge.
“They kinda show you what to do, then they tell you to go get in front of a bull and get runover,” Pearson said. “There’s a lot of young kids who wanna fight bulls but the minute they get runover, they don’t want to no more. They don’t realize what it takes to fight bulls.” From experience, Peasron said he learned how to move — faking turns, throwing his cowboy hat, running between the bull and rider to attempt to bring the bull’s head with Pearson. Often, the bulls can be fooled.
Others can’t.
“They’re not real smart,” Pearson said. “After a while, they’ll get smart and beat you to where you’re going.”
From 15 years working about 18 rodeos a year now and around 33 in the past, Pearson has learned to know the bulls. He met some that are gentle and will allow someone to lay on them in the pens, but when they get in the chute, they know it’s time to work, Pearson said.
“Some bulls are docile enough to pet and scratch in the arena, others are gonna run you up a fence. If we don’t know (a bull), we’ll ask the bull riders. We know how quick we have to move,” Pearson said, adding he knows which bulls are “gonna cause trouble and make you earn your money.”
Working for an Ontario rodeo stock provider, Pearson and Allender come as a packaged deal with the stock. Thus, they may fight the same animals each weekend. During the Idaho Cowboys Association finals rodeo — slated this year for October in Nampa — where Allender and Pearson have fought for eight consecutive years, though, the bulls are strangers.
Even with knowing the bulls, Pearson has been bruised, stomped on, knocked out and sliced up. His first bull smacked him across the face with a horn. Still, he prefers a bull with horns because if he is hooked, the bull will likely toss the man out of his way — the same goal in any contact.
“I like to get hit in the butt ’cause it throws you out,” Pearson, adding this hit lets him land on his feet and get away.
The scariest part of a bull? The hooves, Pearson said. One bull at a rodeo in Jordan Valley threw him up and “I was kinda walking in the air” when the bull hit him again. Pearson rolled himself into a ball on the ground, but the bull stepped on his unprotected head.
“You can ball up all you want, but when one hits you, it doesn’t give,” he said. “I think my head’s been stitched up every where it can. About four hours after you get runover, you can feel it. The next morning you’re stiff and sore.
“You get knocked out a couple times ... I’m hardheaded. I got knocked out once and went in to finish the next set ... It’s kinda like your job. They can’t bring someone else into finish your job.”
Pearson, who works weekdays as a painter for a contractor in Fruitland, paints his face and swathes his body with padding for each fight.
Shin guards to avoid a cowboy’s spurs and bells when he’s spinning with a bull. Hockey pants with shorts over top.
A padded vest with a tailbone protector.
“It still hurts, but it kinda cushions the blows. It knocks the wind outta you or it aches, but you keep going,” Pearson said, noting in earlier years he didn’t wear any padding. “The older I got, the smarter I got. It’s hard on your body. Your knees get really bad.”
His gear-laden duffle bag includes new long-sleeved, button up shirts and his “baggies,” jeans split to make a skirt and held up by suspenders. Pearson carries several pairs of suspenders, adding to his reputation as the “pretty boy.” The guy who washes his costumes after each rodeo and color coordinates his suspenders with his shirts.
Like the bulls, Pearson sees many of the same people each weekend. He doesn’t really have friends from high school, just rodeo people, he said.
“We just have a little camp spot with everyone circled around,” Pearson said. “Kinda like a bunch of hippies, I guess, but we’re cowboys ... A big family is what it is.”
When Pearson first began chasing his passion, or rather it chasing him, he earned $75 a night. Now he’s up to $125 to $150, depending on the rodeo.
He fought alone for six years before teaming with Allender. Now he enjoys the companionship and help.
“You’re always chattin’. We just always crack jokes. If there was a real bad wreck it’s hard for one guy to get the guy out ... You’ve always got somebody you know there if you get knocked down,” Pearson said.
“If they’re spinning and you go in, you’re gonna get hurt.”
With danger lurking at each swinging chute door, Pearson doesn’t know what it takes to face a bull or why he sticks around. Probably the adrenaline rush, he said.
“I don’t know what ’cause I can’t quit. My wife’s so mad at me. She’d love for me to retire,” the father of three daughters said.
“You don’t make no money at it. I just don’t know what I’d on the weekends, that’s what I tell my wife. ... I guess I could stay home and do honey-dos, but that’s no fun.”
Even if he did give up bullfighting, he wouldn’t leave rodeo totally.
“I’d have to keep doing it. I can’t get away from it. It’s like a drug, I guess,” Pearson said.
