The pasture where Monty's horse, Buck, stayed was next to the barn. With the curiosity common to domestic animals, Buck had come to the gate when he heard the commotion around the truck and trailer. He had his head over the gate, watching as the truck started, lurched ahead, stopped, and finally started up and drove out of the yard. He was starting to lose interest and had turned to go back to grazing, when Monty ran from the barn, a hackamore in his hand.
Monty unlatched the gate, slipped the braided rawhide nosepiece over Buck's nose and the earpiece over his ears, then ran back to the barn, pulling his horse along by the reins. Buck came willingly, but he couldn't understand why he was being taken from his pasture in the middle of the night. He was even more surprised when Monty tossed a Navajo-pattern saddle blanket on his back.
Normally, Monty was very careful about every step in saddling his horse. The saddle blanket would be smoothed down so that it had no wrinkles, then slid an inch toward the tail in the direction in which the hair lay on the horse's back. Any roughness under the 50-pound Western saddle and 180-pound cowboy could cause a saddle sore that would keep Buck out of commission until it healed. But tonight was an emergency, and Monty did this initial step faster than he ever had in his life. Grabbing up the saddle from the sawhorse where it rested, left hand on the saddle horn and right hand on the cantle, he swung it onto Buck's back and immediately reached under the horse's belly to grab the latigo strap attached to the cinch.
Monty had been saddling horses since he was a young boy, and the actions were automatic. Pass the latigo up through the heavy metal D-ring on the saddle, feeding it from the back. Then down through the ring on the cinch, back up behind the first loop of leather strap and again through the saddle D-ring. Pull on it to take out any slack, and make it tight enough to ensure that the saddle wouldn't slip on a hard ride. Then make a smooth half-knot in the strap to secure it, flat so the rider's leg wouldn't chafe on the knot.
That was the procedure Monty had followed for years. But never had he done it with such speed and urgency as now. Normally, this could be done in a leisurely fashion, with more attention paid to accuracy than speed. No cowboy wanted to endure an accident, or embarrassment, due to a flaw in his rigging.