The Calgary Stampede in '56 With Bill 'n' Ernie

Daddy had been training a horse named Bill for a year, a sorrel whose daddy lived on the King ranch and whose momma was a mare that my daddy owned. Daddy trained ol' Bill just right, and boy was he a good horse! So, in 1956 I took Bill to the Calgary Stampede with me. As soon as I got there, I unloaded ol' Bill at the big barn on the grounds of the rodeo and started walking down the aisle of the barn when I noticed a craps game going on. It was the darndest thing I've ever seen – the chuckwagon racers were shooting the dice and a big guy they called Ernie, the only one wearing a suit, bet me even money that he could make 10. Right away I thought about a rodeo dice game I'd been in the year before and how I'd been cheated in it, so I knew that this might be another trap, but I figured that I had wised up since then. I could see that everything was all right – Ernie just didn't know the odds, and was betting even money that he could make 9, $40 here, $50 there. Making a long story short, in two hours I didn't have a nickel to my name!

Bill was standing in the barn and I was standing alone by my car with just a $20 bill I'd found in my jeans. I used $10 of it to rent myself a little room and got up the next morning broke, and went to see what I could do about it. I went out to the rodeo grounds and found some cowboys, who loaned me $500. Ernie Walters, the "suit" in the craps game, was a really nice guy who owned a car business in Calgary. With some dice that I bought at the drugstore, I went down to Ernie's car lot to pay him a visit.

"How ya doin', Ernie?"

"Hello there, Byron, what're you up to?"

"I came down here to shoot some craps with you."

"Sure, we'll play some," he answered, real friendly.

We shot the dice right there on the desk in his office. With my dice, he was betting even money on 9, 10, 5, everything. Damned if he didn't win all of my money again – he was lucky, and I was sick, just sick. I had to borrow some more money to pay my entry fees for the calf roping event at the rodeo.

I might've been unlucky at dice, but the rodeo was a different story. The first day, I took second in the day-money, won the day-money the next day, and then won the average. In fact, I won every nickel that I could win at Calgary except for $137. I tied my last calf in 12.5 seconds – broke the all-time record getting off the left side of the horse and won $4,500 in prize money.

After I'd won big at the rodeo and had money in my pocket, I called Ernie again.

"Where you goin' from here?" he asked.

"Shelby, Montana," I answered. "I've got a bankroll now, Ernie, so why don't you come on down to the hotel and we'll have a drink and shoot some craps before I leave."

"I'll be right down!"

I had some whiskey in my room, set a suitcase on the bed, and we started shooting dice on top of it. Ernie was still betting even money on 10 and 9 and all that. He'd take the 10 and I'd say, "A hundred you don't make it." The tide had turned – I beat him out of $10,000 cash.

"Let me have $200 and I'll send it to you in Shelby," Ernie pleaded, so I gave him the dice and he rolled a 3. He didn't want to borrow any more money after that. Ernie was such a pure yap that I should've turned my car around, driven back up there, and won myself rich off him, but I was too busy doing nothing. I found out later that Ernie was killed in a car accident that Christmas. What a shame – he was a nice guy. And thanks to him, I left Canada in '56 with close to $15,000.

It's funny how I can remember names like Ernie's after 40 or 50 years. Lots of times I'll be going down the road with my wife and I'll say, "Ol' so-and-so lives here, used to rodeo with him years ago."

"When's the last time you saw him?" she'll ask, and I'll answer, "It doesn't seem so long ago, maybe 45 years or so."

Sometimes one of the old-timers will meet me at the cafe for a glass of iced tea and a bite to eat, and we'll talk just like we'd seen each other a few days earlier. Of course, everybody's changed and we all look different, but that don't make no difference to us. I think I'm lucky to be able to remember all these things. And, of course, there are some famous people I've met in rodeoing that nobody, no matter how bad they are with names, could ever forget. One of them was Dean Oliver – but I'll save that story for another day.

Editor's note: Byron "Cowboy" Wolford is the author of Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers, now available through Card Player, in gaming bookstores, and at Barnes & Noble. Visit the web at www.pokerbooks.com for more information.