She was 6 feet tall, smoked homemade cigars and was rumored to have broken more noses than anyone in central Montana.
If you got her really mad, she might pull out the pair of six-shooters she was packin' -- or, if need be, go for her huge shotgun.
And please, don't ask her to cook! Mary Fields was a cowgirl, not a housewife. She even closed down her own restaurant for serving lousy meals. She was more at home throwing down a few whiskeys the local bar.
"Stagecoach Mary (Fields' nickname) was very tough," says former Bloomfield resident and Texas transplant James Austin Jr. "She was also very notable, but a lot of people don't know about her."
In fact, most people don't know about any of the African-American, Hispanic and Native American cowpokes who inhabited the Old West.
Austin would like to change that.
"A third of the cowboys and cowgirls were people of color," he says. "They were left out of Hollywood and the history books, and we should start teaching our kids about them. There were brown, black and red cowboys back in the day."
| Negrophile hopes to spur you to read the rest of Lisa Irrizaray's Newark Star-Ledger article "Ride 'em cowboy"
posted in articles on January 15, 2004 12:51 AM | t (0)
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