Maybe he learned it in his father's shadow gathering strays as a kid on the Louis Gill spread. Or maybe it seeped into his blood while pushing cows as a buckaroo in Nevada. But somewhere Steve Fitton picked up how to cowboy like the old timers-reading a weather change in a horse's tail fanned out with static, finding the high meadows where the big bucks feed, or feeling the hump in his mount's back before it breaks in two. His friends say he was born a hundred years too late, but his bride doesn't think that's such a bad thing.

"My mother told me I needed to find a cowboy," said Teresa, Fitton's wife of 10 years. "I did."

And so did Western columnist and entertainer Montie Montana, Jr., after looking for a good fence builder to trim up his home place near Springville, Calif.

"I asked somebody, and they said Steve Fitton was the best man around," Montana said. It seems odd that one who cowboyed for a living would be in high demand as a fence builder, but Fitton's fame nearly rivals that of Montana's Buffalo Bill's Wild West production.

With several thousand feet of custom board fence and a dozen gates, the entertainer is pleased with Fitton's talents, particularly the automatic gates and lodge pole railing around his mountain home.

"If you need a good fence, call Steve," Montana said.

Good fences make good neighbors, they say, and Fitton's neighborly construction bisects the hills and meadows near Springville with barbed wire, vinyl, board, safety wire, welded pipe, or cable. His handiwork keeps livestock in or out, depending upon which side of the fence you ride.

And for Fitton, it's all about the ride. "I knew I was going to grow up and do what my dad did," he said. "I just wanted to get up in the morning and go ride." And he did-all the way to Nevada's 25 Ranch near Battle Mountain.

Three days after high school graduation, Fitton headed out to keep a promise to a friend. As teenagers, the two had planned to spend the summer on the 25 with their jeans tucked in their boots and the crowns of their hats popped. But a shooting accident took the other boy's life their senior year.

"Mom told me I couldn't go, but Dad sided with me," Fitton recalled, and he headed out alone that June.

"I couldn't let him down," he said of his friend. "I had to stay true to my word."

Six months on the 25 taught young Fitton more about cows and cow country than he dreamed possible.

"It was a neat life-it was just like going back in time."

With 8,000 head of mother cows and more than 60 square miles of high desert and scrub-covered slopes, Fitton learned to flush strays from sage and sycamore, live on two meals a day, and sleep by the light of the stars and a Coleman lantern.

"After I got there we branded 3,800 head, and every one was roped and dragged to the fire," he said. "If you didn't catch by 2 feet, you were ground crew, and that was the hardest part of the job. You learned to rope real quick."

Working seven days a week for $350, "I thought I was cuttin' a fat hog at the time," he said.

That fall they pushed the herd down to the low country, a 60-mile trip in three days.

"When you were riding drag you couldn't see the lead," he said. "Riding the side, you'd spend all day at a trot keeping 'em in."

When the weather turned cold, Fitton turned west toward home and California. He plied his cowboy trades in a leather shop and at the Montgomery and Hershey ranches.

After winning a head-on battle with cancer that included four major surgeries and eight months of chemotherapy, Fitton healed up eating eggs and deer meat and went into business for himself running heavy equipment and building fences.

Today he strings the best for those who need it, but he still looks to the open country and said he'd like to sell out someday and move north of Springville about 1,200 miles.

His family says there's a little more buckaroo inside him than he cares to admit.

Fitton doesn't argue.

"It's just a matter of growin' up and payin' attention," he said with a grin in his sky blue eyes.

But down deep in his heart he dreams of the mountain creek meadows where deer graze in the morning mist, and the big cats drink, and wire fences grow few and far between.

Dreaming is one thing. Pursuing a dream takes a lot more effort. And for professional rodeo clown and roper Dale Woodard, the pursuit of his dream has led him from one success to another, until he's right back where he started-in the roping box.

"I always wanted to be a competitor," said Woodard, who snagged last year's reserve championship team roping title at the Senior Pro Rodeo Tour in Winnemucca, Nev. "I really enjoy roping and the horsemanship that goes along with it."

Woodard started his rodeo career at the timed event end of the arena but soon recognized that his talents also leaned toward timing of a different sort. Quick of wit and foot, he pulled on a pair of baggy Wranglers, painted on a clown face, and ran in front of enough bulls to earn his meal ticket making spectators laugh and bull riders feel grateful.

"In my mid 20s I found it a lot easier to feed my family and make the mortgage payment clowning than as a competitor," he said, "but I never lost my desire to compete, and I continued to work at my roping skills."

Woodard considers his clowning ability a gift, one that not only put food on the table but also landed him in the spotlight at the National Finals Rodeo as barrel man in 1992. The following year he was chosen as the specialty act for the Dodge National Circuit Finals. But reaching the zenith as a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association contract performer didn't quench his thirst for competition. "Even though I was clowning, I'd go and rope every chance I got."

With a PRCA Gold Card in his back pocket and silver in his hair, Woodard cut back on clowning in the mid 90s and hit the Senior Pro Tour circuit where he won his first team roping championship in 1997 and again in 2002.

"The championships were a dream come true," said Woodard. "I felt like God had rewarded me for my diligence, hard work, and the fact that I had utilized the clowning gift that was given me."

After years of success, Woodard still packs his barrel into a few arenas, but he doesn't let the job interfere with what he really wants to do.

"I don't let my work get in the way of my competing," he said. "At this stage of my life, competing at the rodeos I choose to go to has priority over working."

but Woodard's chosen profession of following the rodeo circuit helps him stay close to the dream. He pencil's in his Senior Pro Tour rodeos at the beginning of the year and then tries to not book a clowning job on the same dates.

That little trick helps him set priorities and keep the dream alive. "Dale is not only a good comedy entertainer but also a topnotch cowboy," said veteran rodeo announcer Hadley Barrett. "He takes his knowledge of horses and his roping skills very seriously, and that he should, because he is very good at both."

Barrett, four-time PRCA Announcer of the Year, has had a front row seat for many of Woodard's acts. "One of Dale's attributes in his clowning performances is that he's not afraid to laugh at himself, as well as other targets of his comedy." Professional rodeo photographer and competitor Jan Spencer also has shared the arena with Woodard.

"He does everything with great gusto," Spencer said. "I don't think he ever in his lifetime did anything halfway."

Right after last Christmas, Woodard, his wife Karla, Toco the mule, and his horses Coca-Cola and Seemore left their small spread in Canon City, Colo., and headed to Arizona and a nice string of SPT rodeos to work while it was snowing back home. Woodard also hosts roping and horsemanship clinics and competes in several PRCA Gold Card ropings while Karla plays tennis in the warm Arizona sunshine.

Woodard has followed his dream for more than 30 years-across the country and back again. But he said he doesn't consider it a hardship.

"It was always in me; I wanted to do it."