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An Exerpt from
The Adventures of a Helicopter Cowboy

When you put a cowboy on a good horse with a rope in his hand, he will rope anything that runs by just to see if he can and if he's man enough to handle the situation. That happened the last day we worked on Los Machos. It was a cold, miserable day with intermittent showers. It was late and we decided that we had very few, if any, cattle left. It was time to go home to a warm fire and a hot meal.

As I flew back toward the trailer, I spotted a big buck about 300 yards from the cowboys, who were preparing to load their horses. They had told me several times that if I saw a good buck, run it by them. I circled the deer and began to ease him toward the trailer. I told the men over the P.A. system, "One more big one is coming your way." They thought I had found more cattle and I could see their displeasure even from the helicopter, but when that buck ran right by the trailer, the race was on!

The old, gray horse Elicio was riding was fast--a real brush horse. It was only a short run before Elicio threw the prettiest loop in the brush I have ever seen. By the time I could land and grab my camera, man and horse were pulling the deer to the road where Elicio flanked the buck and tied him just like a calf.

The cowboys planned to take the deer to the local cantina that night and bet the cowboys there that they could rope a big buck. They had visions of winning enough money to go through the winter. They loaded the deer in the back of their pickup and headed for town. As I took the last photo, the buck looked at me over the tailgate of the truck and bleated, as if to say, "It's going to be a long ride!"

This is just one sample story of the many written and illustrated in "The Adventures of a Helicopter Cowboy". Not only does the book have numerous stories like this one, but it includes an abundance of pictures corresponding to each detailed story.