Way out, approximately 152 miles from Las Vegas, in Lincoln County, Nev., I meet Ed. He works for the artist Michael Heizer at “City,” Heizer’s megalithic land-art sculpture, which is a mile and a half long, and located in a remote stretch of the Nevada desert. I’m on this ride as a cultural commentator for the Nevada Independent. Ed is our driver and guide for the day, conversing with the six guests on the trip. He is affable and charming, with the sort of high-desert kindness that wizened white men in Mormon country possess. In between bouncing in and out of his Chevy Tahoe, Ed looks at my feet and remarks: “Those are a mighty fine pair. I’ve got a few at home. I oughtta drag ’em out.” Ed is, of course, referring to my cowboy boots.
I don’t often have opportunities to find things in common with most strangers in general, but especially in rural Nevada. Coming from a bicoastal Black family, possessing no love for sport, or business, I find most of my conversations center on topics like art and history and human rights, or some hodgepodge of the three. My interests make it hard, on the surface, to relate to a rural Mormon. (A snap judgment, I know.) But to my surprise, Ed and I have more things to talk about. We’re well versed in the region’s botany (including the Great Basin’s sagebrush and juniper trees). We also understand ranching practices (my family owns 200 acres of meadow and forest near the Colorado River in Egypt, Texas, and Ed learned what he knows from a lifetime of experience in Alamo, Nev.). That initial conversation about my boots led to many more. It strikes me that we have, in the most tacit of senses, become friends thanks to my footwear.
My boots are composed of stacked leather, and are lavishly embellished with romantic stitching. Cowboy boots are a coalition of several cultures. The riding boot dates back to the Mongol Empire. Mongol riding boots and cowboy boots look like cousins down to the pointed toe, but the former model is much smaller and doesn’t have a prominent heel. The direct progenitors of our modest spur-sporters are the British Wellington and the Spanish riding boot, shoes created for military action and ranching respectively. According to legend, the design was altered around the 1870s to sport a scalloped top, which provided ease of access and removal. The design of the boot is thick enough to repel chafing, scrub brush and ornery varmints; stalwart as to endure difficult working conditions; nimble and supportive for fast action; and still powerful and noble-looking after a shine.
The boots moved West after the Civil War. They rode through cattle drives on many Black and brown feet (up to 60 percent of all early cowboys are believed to be of African or Latinx descent). An estimated quarter of working ranch hands after the Civil War were Black men freed from slavery, finally receiving compensation for work they were already familiar with. Those early cowboys spent much of their income on their gear’s ornamentation and decorative flair.
Before I cropped my hair, I cut an interesting figure in the desert, like some modern incarnation of the Black cowboys I studied: My dreadlocks were dyed blond under my cowboy hat, and I carried a tool kit as a suitcase. My ornate kicks completed the look. I came to cowboy boots after a lifelong attachment to factory-assembled tennis shoes, either for exercise, comfort or to feel culturally relevant. I also wore flip-flops and charmed-up Crocs. By comparison, the cowboy boot is rustic utilitarian footwear that fits right in at a black-tie event or in a more rugged environment. I wear mine every day as a sort of post-18th-century cosplay and ode to my Texan roots. I figure if you can wear them while cattle ranching and conquering the West, I can wear them on a casual night out, picking the kids up from school or installing some of my art. I’m now on my third pair in six years, and after they’re broken in, they are more comfortable than any footwear I’ve committed myself to.
The cowboy boot is innately American, shoe as nationalist symbol. The more normalized depiction of Black cowboys in recent popular culture (see: Beyoncé’s album “Cowboy Carter,” Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” the brilliant Dom Flemons’s music, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo) might prompt more people of color to purchase a pair, identifying with an essential aspect of Americana from which we have so often been excluded. The cowboy boot and its legacy are complex, but it may be the gear we need right now. Americans can’t agree on much these days, but if we can come to a consensus on the cowboy boot, we might be able to find other things we have in common.
Back in Las Vegas, I’m getting my tire changed. I use my local llantera religiously for this ever-necessary maintenance. Jerry, the man who runs the shop, approaches me during this rotation, declaring: “I’ve got a great pair of ropers! Maaaaan, I love to take them dancing.” I’ve been coming to his shop for seven years, and this is the first thing he’s said to me that wasn’t related to auto repair. I’m wearing a new burgundy pair of boots, and maybe the color caught his eye. We go on for the next 20 minutes about his love of cowboy boots, his collection, his kids and mine and how we dress them in a Western style for important events. I’m once again astonished at how my shoes have expanded a relationship I had only superficially engaged.
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