Stories From Texas

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Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-11-2025

Abstract

Cowboy Time isn’t fast or slow. It isn’t tied to a clock at all. It’s tied to the sun, the herd, and the work.

On cattle drives of long ago, the day began with first light. At dawn, men were in the saddle, driving cattle north to Abilene or Dodge. They worked till sundown. No whistle blew, no shift horn called them home. The only time that mattered was daylight and whether the herd was settled for the night.

Even so, cowboys had their own kind of clock. It was the cook’s bell.

Charles Goodnight invented the chuck wagon, and with it came the sound that structured cowboy life. When the cook struck his triangle of iron, that was dinner time. Cowboys joked the cook had the only watch that mattered.

At night, men took turns watching the cattle. Time wasn’t measured in minutes, but in watches — three shifts through the night. There was the first guard, the midnight guard, and the morning guard.

A cowboy might sing his herd to sleep, humming trail songs or gospel tunes under the stars. The cattle calmed to the music, and time passed by melody more than clock.

Even distance was measured differently. Cowboys spoke of horse time. They’d say: “That’s a two-horse ride from here.” Time was bound up with distance, and distance with the stamina of your mount.

Some cowboys did carry watches — tough old Elgin or Waltham pocket watches, often bought when railroads made timetables important. But plenty of them would tell you: “The only watch I need is the sun.”

They were more on God’s time than Man’s time.

Writers caught onto this too. Andy Adams, in “The Log of a Cowboy,” described trail men rising with the dawn, eating when the cook said so, and changing guard by the stars.

Frank Dobie wrote that a cowpuncher “eats when the cook’s ready, he sleeps when the guard lets him.” Larry McMurtry gave us cowboys singing their cattle through the night, timing their lives by starlight and dust.

So Cowboy Time was different. It was steady. It ran sun-up to sun-down, with a few hours stolen under the stars. It was measured by horses, by bells, by songs – by the needs of the herd, not by the clock on the wall.

And maybe that’s why Cowboy Time still has a hold on us here in Texas. Even if we don’t ride herd anymore, there’s something in us that remembers. We work till the sun goes down. We eat when the food’s ready. We measure time by what matters, not by what buzzes on our phones – or at least we’d like to.

In a world of atomic clocks, digital seconds, and meetings scheduled down to the minute, Cowboy Time whispers a different wisdom: don’t count every minute — just do the work until the day is done.

Format

.MP3, 192 kbps

Length

00:03:10

Language

English

Notes

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/wf-strong-cowboy-time-trails-stories-texas/

Comments

© 2025 William F. Strong. Uploaded with permission of copyright holder.

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