When this commentary ran on National Public Radio, there were several listeners who objected to my “blatant endorsement” of the Lands’ End jacket. In my defense, no money changed hands. It’s just a good jacket, and I said so. Oddly enough, if it had been a bad jacket, I’d have told the story and never mentioned their name. For those who are concerned about how horses do in our part of the country, southeast Arizona, aka God’s own brierpatch, it is surprising to me how seldom they get injured beyond the occasional sticker. They slide through the thickets like dolphins. The only thing sticking out on the horse is you!

BRUSH JACKET TESTIMONIAL

A year ago, I was approached to do a testimonial by an upscale environmentally conscious maker of urban clothing named Lands’ End. Since neither Wrangler, Resistol, Bailey, Copenhagen, or Coors had ever called, I figgered it was better than Uncle Billy’s Baldness Salve or Depends.

I told them I would consider it as long as the product was biodegradable, herbivore friendly, and barbecue proof. They sent me a catalog, with instructions to pick anything I wanted.

I chose a brush jacket. They didn’t call it that, but that’s what it is. Brush jackets are insulated and made out of canvas like wagon tarps, tents, or Carhartts. These jackets are the standard uniform in cow country, where mesquite thickets and other equally thorny, prickly, spiny, daggery menaces await the dedicated cowboy. To maintain my own credibility and give it a fair endorsement, I put it to the test.

At the next roundup, I donned my new jacket to gather cows with the crew in the dreaded Parson’s Pasture. I started in the lower arroyos, riding through two miles of mesquite, dagger yucca, ocotillo trunks, and crucifix thorn tall as a low windmill. It got so thick, my horse was on his hands and knees trying to find the trail.

Malicious thorns the size of pitchfork tines pierced my boot tops, my rhinoceros hide chaps, and my galvanized wrist cuffs. Catclaw big as the talons on an eagle hooked and pulled at every piece of leather, flesh, or cloth that was exposed, leaving thousands of horizontal slashes and scrapes, shredding my tapaderas into ribbons, and spinning my rowels till they got so hot they set my boots on fire.

Then we chased some cows out of a cholla forest—wicked cactus over the horse’s head that breaks off, clings to you, and works its pins and needles through your clothing and into your skin. When you clear the forest, rider, horse, and cow are festooned with bratwurst-sized cholla chunks like Christmas ornaments on a hirsute manatee.

Then, just for the sake of product integrity, I rolled through a pineapple field of barrel cactus, lay on the cattle guard, and let two loaded twenty-foot stock trailers back over me slowly, was drug through a wet field of corn stubble by two three-year-old colts, and lay underneath a ’69 Ford pickup while they changed the oil.

The results of my test? Lost one button. A remarkable testament to the durability and toughness of their great brush jacket, which I guess allows me to keep it. That should help compensate for the burnt boots, melted spurs, shredded chaps, and thirty-five stitches. I only wish we could have found my other ear.