Best Independence Day? On a horse competing in the middle of nowhere

History buffs will recall William F. Cody became known as Buffalo Bill Cody not because of his exploits as a carnival barker but because he and his horse Brigham had a knack for killing buffalo — which, not to put too fine of point on it, were actually bison.

In this capacity Buffalo Bill was not an outlaw but a Civil War soldier mustered out of the Army looking for a day's work for a day's pay.

Buffalo Bill's assignment was to procure one bison a day for crews laying track on behalf of the Kansas Pacific Railway, and along with his trusty .50 caliber Springfield trapdoor needle gun, and Brigham the horse, Buffalo Bill accommodated his employer. He skidded 4,282 animals to the ground before moving on to a gig that suited him even better, founding Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on July 4, 1883.

This was in North Platte, Neb., a town that today claims the event — originally titled the Old Glory Blowout — as the nation's first rodeo.

Everyone loves a parade, but for my money, the best way to celebrate July 4th and the days approximate to it is horseback, either as rider or spectator.

After all, Buffalo Bill's selection of Independence Day for the nation's first rodeo wasn't random, and neither was the scheduling on July 4 the following year of the Pecos Rodeo in Texas, and a few years after that, also on July 4, the Frontier Rodeo in Prescott, Ariz. Even today on Independence Day you've got the Cody Stampede in Wyoming, the St. Paul Rodeo in Oregon, the Greeley Stampede in Colorado, the Ponoka Stampede in Alberta, and countless other rodeos also on July 4th or thereabouts — the big Hamel Rodeo and Bull Ridin' Bonanza, for example, is this weekend in suburban Minneapolis.

I was thinking about this last weekend while lying on a concave bed in a sort-of bunkhouse. The room was outfitted with what its website described as a "half bath,'' but prospective tenants were left to guess which half. Clearing matters up, the young woman at the front desk told me a shower was "outside the room behind an unmarked door down the way.''

In anticipation of the holiday weekend, I had hauled my horse to a cutting in a locale that charitably could be described as in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of others had done likewise and the grounds were scattered with trucks and trailers when I pulled in late Friday afternoon. Sorrel and bay horses, and chestnut and black, some with faces ablaze in snips, stars, and stripes, milled about in outdoor pens, some chewing hay, others gazing into the distance indifferently.

Anyone who tosses a hat into a ring in a horse event wants to do well. In cutting, which involves a type of dance between a horse and rider and a "cut,'' or separated, cow attempting to return to its herd, this means keeping your money together, or trying to.

The great cowboy Buster Welch once told a New York financier, "Horses have busted people with a lot more money than you have,'' and it's a good reminder to tape to a dashboard. As an addendum you want decisions leading to the moment you ride to the herd to make sense: You bought the right horse. You prepared correctly. Now get on with it.

Lying in the concave bed, having already strolled outside to the shower behind the unmarked door, I watched on my laptop what amounted to a self-help video for cutting horse competitors.

In one corner of the room were my boots and spurs, and swinging from a hangar were my chaps. From each wafted the faint odor of cows and horses, providing an accommodating backdrop to the video, on which world champion cutting horse trainer and rider Matt Gaines stressed the importance of mind control, especially positive thinking.

Gaines's advice, paraphrased, is that if someone says, "I hope you do well,'' don't say, "I hope so, too.'' Say, "I will.''

That guidance was welcome because earlier that day I had stunk up the arena. In the hours since I had applied the usual balm, stammering to myself that cutting isn't easy, and amid the hard strops and quick turns a hundred things can go wrong, many of them out of the rider's control.

By phone my wife had taken a crack at backing me away from the ledge.

"Tomorrow will be better,'' she said. "Or could be.''

The next morning I saddled Pepper beneath persistent light rain. Then I loped the fresh off of her before brightening her up on a "flag,'' or simulated cow that moves back and forth on a cable, remotely operated by a gizmo on my wrist.

The older you get, the fewer opportunities there are to dial in all of your senses at once. To be, as the new agers say, present. Competition gives me a shot at this, which seems, ultimately, to be the point, or part of it.

To start the cutting, the national anthem was played and a flag fluttering in the breeze gained everyone's attention. Perhaps Buffalo Bill Cody, who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his darings as an Army scout, similarly christened his Old Glory Blowout on July 4, 1883. I hoped so.

When my name was announced and also Pepper's we rode to the herd. Matt Gaines said you can't win if you're afraid to lose, and by the time, as required, I dropped my rein hand onto Pepper's neck, guiding her with only my legs and spurs, I was a believer.

I don't show up regularly at pay windows.

But I've won enough to know that the return trip from a cutting is sweeter with a check in my pocket.

Headed home, I cruised by the bunkhouse with the shower behind the unmarked door. Pepper was in the trailer behind, and I figured she was thinking how lucky she was to be with me and not some sorry, negative-thinking cowpuncher.

Ahead, two-lane blacktop stretched to forever and beyond.

I put the hammer down.

This was July 4^th Weekend, in America.