The two found they had a lot in common. Even at their early age, both were excellent with and knowledgeable about stock and land management, as well as excellent riders and even leather workers. Over time, the two of them became best friends, seldom one being somewhere without the other. In high school they both became heavily involved with their high school rodeo team, where Henry team roped and rode saddle broncs, and Annie ran barrels on her big bay gelding named Blister. Once out of school, the two of them took up rodeoing full time, with both of them having the goal of getting their PRCA cards, which they both eventually did.

They rodeoed hard for three years, during which time they decided to get married while on a stop in Las Vegas. They actually got married on a sort of bet that came from one of their traveling buddies, Les Fowler, a wiry little bull rider with big ears and a smashed nose he acquired when a bull he was riding threw his head up at the same time Les’s went down. The collision also knocked out two of Les’s front teeth, which he hadn’t bothered getting replaced. Sitting behind the chutes with a bunch of friends after the rodeo one night, Les had said that while there was no question Henry and Annie were good friends, it was pretty clear to everybody that knew them that they’d never get married because neither one of them was the marrying kind.

Even though marriage had never been discussed between the two of them, Henry and Annie both disagreed, saying that they were, indeed the marrying kind. In fact, Henry had said indignantly, he wanted to get married one day and have a mess of kids to boot! Annie stopped him, and in her way that completely disarmed him, said quietly that one or two would probably be plenty. After all, it wasn’t Henry that would have to carry them for nine months. Everyone laughed.

Later that night, however, after their friends had gone off to their respective hotel rooms, or climbed in their horse trailers to bed down, as Henry and Annie did, the two of them started discussing marriage for real. It was a foreign subject for both of them, neither one having given it much thought, but the more they talked about it, the better the idea sounded. Before long, one thing led to another, and the next thing they both knew, they were in a little chapel off the Vegas strip.

Later that year at a rodeo in Granby, Colorado, Henry drew a bronc by the name of Coffee’s Western Twister, a horse that had bucked every one of his riders off in the past one hundred outings. Henry had been happy to get the draw, not only because if he stayed on for the allotted eight seconds he was likely to get a great score, and possibly take home the first place prize money, but also because the rodeo promoter had put a five thousand dollar bounty on the horse’s head. Meaning, if anyone rode the horse for the eight seconds without getting bucked off, he would win the five thousand, on top of any prize money.