Broncho Charlie

A Saga of the Saddle

By: Gladys Shaw Erskine

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

From the sage-scented breeze of the Pacific slopes to the crowded streets of New York City is a far cry, and from the saddle of a wild mustang to the terrace of a penthouse is a big jump, but Broncho Charlie Miller made that jump.

The first time I met him was on a summer’s night in 1932. Captain Edwin Deming, whose paintings have immortalized the North American Indian, brought him to my home. It was a memorable evening. Captain Deming, a gracious gentleman in his seventies; William (“Daddy”) Jackson of Oregon trail fame, ninety-one years young; Broncho Charlie, last of the Pony Express riders, then eighty-two, and just returned from his trip across the continent riding one horse; and my Dad, Colonel Richard C. Shaw, pioneer of Indian Territory days, and one time Editor of the famed tombstone Epitaph, of Tombstone, Arizona—over three and a quarter centuries of experience and memories among these four men! The yarns they had to spin were well worth the hearing, each one’s recollections so completely different, and yet all having to do with the building of a new land, in which they took an active part.

The telling of tales around the campfire is a time-honored custom of the Old West, so I offer these of Broncho Charlie, in his day the West’s most famous broncho buster, who has spent his life in tire saddle, and even carried his prowess across the ocean when he went to England with Buffalo Bill—perhaps the greatest ambassador of Good Will that ever went from America to Europe—to display his horsemanship before Queen Victoria, the crowned heads of Europe, and Li Hung Chang of China.

To sit high on the terrace of a penthouse in New York with the lights of the city far below, and the din of traffic surging up, and be transported in spirit to the mountains and deserts of the Old West, with the scent of sage in your nostrils, and the howl of a coyote in your ears, is a fascinating experience.

I can only hope that these tales will take you out of yourself, wherever you are, and put you in the saddle to ride through life with Broncho Charlie...

Gladys Shaw Erskine