Merlin Rupp                                               
Legendary Buckaroo 1936-2022                                                

Merlin Rupp often would repeat the rhetoric, “I was born a hundred years too late.“  Like a scene from a Charlie Russel painting, this desire to be of that time era, in that culture, was intwined in his soul forever. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t adapt to his own time era - he just didn’t want to.    

Early on in life, he knew he wanted to be a cowboy. Born to farming parents in Ontario, Oregon he grew up planting, plowing, milking cows and was no stranger to a pitchfork, shovel and hard physical labor. But his heart wasn’t in his dad’s farm. He was drawn to horses, cowboys, big herds and lots of open spaces. One time, as a very young boy, he watched from his porch as what he thought to be a thousand head of horses go by, being handled by men on horseback.  His interest was fixated, and he knew there was more to life than rows and rows of crops. He went to school in Payette, Idaho with no intention of fitting in. His mind was made up. School, sports and the confines of a building were not his repertoire. With his parents’ urging and persistence, he made it all the way to 8th grade, which he would say was too long. Two weeks into his freshman year, he was done with that education. His father wanted him to finish high school studies, so Albert devised a well-meaning plan composed of extra hard work on the farm in hopes that Merlin would find school more pleasant than the alternative.
   
But Merlin didn’t take that route. He pursued a job from a neighbor just down the road a couple of miles, pitching hay to his Herefords. In preparation for becoming a real cowboy, he saved up his money for a saddle.  With cash in hand, his mom drove him to Grangeville, Idaho where he ordered a custom outfit from Ray Holes Saddlery. A few months later, come spring, on his first real job, the cows would be moved to the “hills”, as it was referred to, or the outside summer pasture.  It was at this time, somewhere around the age of 14, working for Jess Newton, he began to learn the ways of his dream.  Riding, roping, cow sense and the art of making a good horse. He was learning fast, thanks to the help of his boss and a few neighboring ranchers.  Dwight Lockett was good hand who ran in common with Jess Newton who helped teach Merlin Buckaroo things. Dwight was savvy to spade bits, reatas and the different styles of fancier roping.  It was exciting to a young boy who had only ridden bareback around the farm. This was what he was made for, he determined.  He was born to buckaroo. 

But a buckaroo can’t stay in one place too long. There’s greener pastures, bigger herds, better horses to pursue.  So, with a small Ford car that he bought with his money earned, he threw his Ray Holes in and went to work for Mike Bauman in Huntington, Oregon taking care of 300 head of cows.   He had worked a team before, but never a four-horse team on a bobsled.  There were other new things too. The long trot and miles of miles of galloping chasing weaner calves. There’s stories of jumping pigs out of a truck, wrangling them to the nearby wheat fields on a green broke snaffle bit horse all by himself.  It was exciting, new and jam packed with his type of education. This was it!  This was the dream. But at 16, there’s no time to let the grass grow under your feet.  

MC Shelly in Payette, Idaho ran a lot of yearlings along the Snake River. They would swim the steers across a fork in the river to a little island.  Merlin didn’t know how to swim, but his horse did, so he never thought much of it.  MC also had a lot of horses; more than a hundred mares and he hand bred a bunch of them to thoroughbred racehorse studs.  Merlin hadn’t been around so many horses before. This was an ideal situation for him to get his hands in the mane of that big project: feeding, moving them to pastures, riding, and training them. The pay was good, and it kept him there a good while. But it couldn’t keep him long.  

At 18, he might have made a step away from cowboy stuff in order to enlist in the army.  However, he didn’t qualify due to an eye injury back when he was a kid.  He was marine tough, but there was no place for him there. And all he really wanted to do was follow the stories of those old guys that sat around at night smoking pipes, telling tales of working with big herds of horses and cattle, lots of open range, roping, and other countless outdoor adventures. In the next few years, Merlin would bounce back and forth between Oregon and Idaho, different jobs and sometimes going back to work for his early teachers, Mike Bouman and the Jess Newton. 
All the while, something was brewing inside him; the growing desire to ride saddle broncs.  He had experience by now with horses. Some that bucked, some that ran off, those that kicked and some that were hard to handle. He wasn’t afraid of ‘em, he was half forked and double tough.   And what some people didn’t know, and he didn’t want them finding out, is that he’d been “practicing” riding broncs for a long time when no one was looking. He’d catch some big ol’ workhorse, saddle it up and go to spurring. Most times this offered just the right amount of rhythm and action, but one time a big ol’ black mare bucked him off hard, right on his head, skinned him up and left him with an awful headache for days. But it didn’t deter him.   
Thanks to his good paying job from MC Shelly, at 18 he was sporting a fancy new Cadillac coupe de Ville, and a new Hamely bronc saddle.  He figured it was time to start his serous rodeo career. With the help and tips from a good cowboy, Lester Wienberger, Merlin started winning money at rodeos. He got better, and Lester encouraged him to stick with it, saying he could go places riding broncs if he kept doing so well. But it wasn’t so. A bad broken leg along with a wedding ring set him back a ways.  Eventually the fancy car, the rodeo dreams and the idea of winning a world title were just rear-view mirages. In front of him remained his dreams of being a good cowboy on big outfits. This dream would never die, never be laid to rest, no matter what it cost him, and come what may. He was born to buckaroo.  

At nineteen, he was working for bigger ranches in Oregon and Idaho. Joyce Livestock of Murphy, Idaho was one of his first experiences with a 1000 head cow outfit, and it fueled his passion for buckarooing. By now, he was a good hand. He had acquired ranch skills, owned a rugged work ethic, knew livestock and enjoyed his job. Never leaving his love for bucking horses, he took on some of the toughest horses around. Maybe he didn’t have the crowd cheering, and maybe it wasn’t a flat 8 seconds, but he rode plenty of broncs just the same. He was sure he would still be riding bucking horses when he was 80. “Most fun I ever had,” he’d say about a horse that bucked. 

The list of places he worked is a mile long, working his way from Malhuer County in the 50s, to Owyhee County in the 60s, then on to Harney County 1970s. He loved the big open expanse of the high desert, the rugged skills needed to adapt to its environment and the Buckaroo culture it provided. Reatas, macates, big loops and spade bits were commonplace in the Great Basin, and he felt right at home. He was a great student of the buckaroo ways, and every job he ever landed, no matter the duration, all played part in gaining him skills for his passion.  

Not a kid anymore, and with a growing family, he was still gaining his education. He honed in more skills at Silver Creek, west of Burns, Oregon, when he began braiding rawhide and spinning hair into ropes in the evenings in his spare time. According to him, they were mostly flops, but nevertheless, learning experiences. A few Spanish field workers at that ranch began to show him how ropes were made in Mexico. It wasn’t a fancy set up - but Merlin was eager to get started, and was getting the hang of the art little by little. He would keep practicing and refining these artisan skills further for years and years to come, adapting his style and gaining tips from others who made nice gear. Someday, these early experiences of learning the art through trial and error, struggling through the mishaps, would all pay off. At 84, though his body wore the toll of years of injuries and hard use, he was still spinning hair into beautiful macates. 
Rock Creek Ranch south of Burns years 1975 - 1985, found Merlin at the top of his dream and career. According to him, it was heaven. There were thousands of wild horses that he enjoyed managing. Sometimes branding and castrating a corral full of colts, sometimes running hundreds and hundreds at a time into the corrals for shipping. Breaking colts and often riding a half bronc to work branding calves, or moving cattle, he couldn’t have loved it any more. It was wild and western, untamed, and right up his alley. Once again, he learned and kept on learning, the ways to handle the bad horses, the wild ones, the cattle and endless acres of land. Fire, drought, flood, bitter cold and flying ants - he weathered the storms and seem a lot of history on that high desert dream.  He passed on his knowledge to more than one adventurous soul who was tough enough to stick around.   

But, as if that wasn’t enough adventure and challenge for a lifetime, he went on to expand his horizon once again, at age 50. Leaving Rock Creek, he leased two ranches back in Malheur County, Oregon.  Having had the opportunity of building his cow herd at the Rock Creek Ranch as part of his wages, he stocked his own outfit with bramaha cross cattle, and had a stud bunch of his own. Managing the stress of a small business on a tight budget was not really his area of interest- but with the help of his family, including his parents who were eager to be a part of his buckaroo adventures, he scratched out a living.    Always longing for faster horses, more miles to cover a horseback, a better spade bit horse to ride, he never lost sight of the Buckaroo culture.  While on the tractor bailing hay for his cows, or repairing some old fallen down fence, he would be seen in a Resistol hat and cowboy boots, oft times, underslung custom Paul Bonds. He never wore a t-shirt or shorts, even in the sweltering heat of summer. He wished it was 1880, and he was a top hand roping a bear in a Charles Russel painting.  Still, in his situation at hand, he was proud of the idea that the things he learned and his experiences were an excellent way of working with the land and livestock.  He enjoyed his own livestock and adventures they brought, but he missed the big outfits and dreamed once more of high desert and big open country.  

A decade later, he left Malheur County with his cows and went west of Burns, Oregon.  He made arrangements to lease pasture and hire on at the GI ranch.  A few short but good memories made, a thumb lost in a roping mishap then it was time to move on. After a short fashion back in Malheur County, he chose to put his cows in the bank, rather than on the feed bill, and closed out that chapter of being in the cow business.  

A Buckaroo has no retirement, so at 60, he gathered up a few of his saddle horses, a couple spade bits, t-pee, and once again headed for a new escapade, this time to explore some of Nevada’s big outfits. He journeyed alone, while his wife stayed in Burns and managed a business of her own. They would meet up from time to time, and she supported his dreams no matter the cost. On the deserts of Nevada, on a camp job he loved, a horse took a fall in a badger hole and left him with a bad broken neck. Recovery was slow and painful, and he was never well enough to work for wages on the big outfits of his dreams.   

His Wild West stories had filled a lifetime, but he loved them so much that a lifetime wasn’t enough. A thousand horses wasn’t enough. Covering 100 miles a day a horseback, trotting and galloping wasn’t enough to satisfy his longing. His dream about days filled with action, fear, challenge and the desire to make another spade bit horse, ride another bronc, rope another mustang would never go away. In the midst of wild cows, runaway teams, more injuries than was kept track of, working in below zero weather in just a cowboy hat, killing snakes, roping coyotes, and a hundred other wild westy stories, Merlin lived a life he is proud of.   
His endurance, determination, grit and persistence marked his life and made others take note.  Known by all that knew him, as a true cowboy, a one-of-a-kind Buckaroo, he was admired by many.  

He didn’t always make it easy for his family, but in his own words, he did the best he could.   
The same Eastern Oregon high desert that gave life to his best Buckaroo memories, also was his home base for his arts and gear making expeditions in his later years. Maybe he left a two-toned blue coupe Deville way behind, but straight ahead, and for years to come he perfected excellent using gear, horsehair macates and rawhide ropes, cinches and hondas.  It was the one last dream yet to fulfill. He enjoyed working with rawhide and horsehair, and he was good at it. The fresh air, sagebrush, Buckaroo friends and small town of Burns, Oregon held and supported him as he navigated his aging years, and the challenges that come with years and miles. At events in Winnemucca, Elko and Jordan Valley, he would carry in his goods, and go home oft’ time sold out. People appreciated his gear for both its function and style, but they also appreciated his heart and desire to help those promoting the ways of buckaroos. And most times, a little bit of a Wild West story was exchanged in the purchase.  

The life he lived and the stories he told are one of a kind originals, true and every bit as hard as they sound. He, like all real Buckaroos, have a little gypsy, a little wild and a lot of adventure.  The life of a hard-core Buckaroo is not for everyone, but for those that hear the call, it’s loud and clear, and there’s no turning back