cowhand

Born in Nebraska and raised in South Dakota, Leahy worked in his youth as a cowhand, a soda jerk and a clerk in a trading post.

They were called “cowboys,” and white cattle workers were called “cowhands,” he said.

Houston is also home to the rodeo, the country’s oldest Black trail ride, and Black cowboy culture — in 1800s Texas, one in four cowhands were Black.

From time to time, diverting visitors wander into Faye’s campsite — friendly neighbors with a dinner invitation, Indigenous cowhands with an unusual request — their whimsical intrusions adding flavor to an unyieldingly spare story.

Characters discuss how Hollywood has “whitewashed” the history of Black cowhands, and they live under threat of their stables being closed because of encroaching gentrification.