Ricky William Black – father, friend, cowboy – found peace at the end of the trail in the early morning hours of August 10th, 2017. Ricky was born October 24th, 1956, at Doc Stover’s office in Marfa, Texas. He was the third child of Mutt and Helen Black – their first and only boy.
From the moment he could walk, he was on the back of a horse. Ricky loved to rodeo. He accumulated countless buckles, saddles, and trophies in his lifetime, mostly in team roping as a heeler. In 1967, he won the 9-12 Boys All-Around at the American Junior Rodeo Association National Finals. Ricky also excelled in 4-H and FFA. He took top prize at several regional livestock shows, he was Reserve Champion at the Southwestern International Livestock Show in El Paso, and, in 1973, he won the State Fair of Texas with a crossbred lamb that sold for $300, a pretty penny at the time.
Though he saw success in the arena and the show ring, there was no place Ricky felt more at home than in the gramma grass and mesquite brush of far west Texas. He was a working cowboy up until the last year of his life. His roots run deep in the Presidio County dirt. Much of his childhood was spent at the crossing pens in Presidio and working cattle in what is now Big Bend Ranch State Park. It’s impossible to name all the ranches he worked on over the years, but among them were the Chillicothe, the Crippled Mill, the ZO, and the Mesquite. There was no range of land Ricky wouldn’t take off into, no hill too steep, no creek too deep. Few people have known the back country of west Texas the way he did – on horseback, unencumbered by the limits of the pavement or the frame of a car window. Part of the scene, not just a passive observer (to paraphrase Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).
Decidedly old school, Ricky relied on old wives’ tales to predict the weather. The buzzards returning from Mexico meant winter was over. Clouds on the horizon before 10am in the summertime meant there was a good chance of rain. He could name every grass, every plant in the Chihuahuan desert. He knew how to read tracks on game trails and could identify scat with just a glance. He loved to hunt and trap when he was young, but fell away from such things in his later years, more content to feed feral cats, even though it was against the rules. (Ricky never had much time for rules.) He loved his dogs, including his pit bulls Suzy, Sin, and Tortilla. People around Marfa will also remember the red heeler he kept company with for years. Diva and Ricky are together again.
Ricky loved tennis and golf, both the watching and the playing of them. He collected anything that was Coca-Cola red and kept the cleanest house in three counties. He read Zane Grey, Carlos Castaneda, and John Steinbeck. He painted. He wrote poetry. He kept journals. He loved pie and botanas and sun tea and chocolate milkshakes. He loved hackneyed jokes and classic country music. He loved his friends. He loved God. He loved the stars. But of all the things Ricky loved, he loved his children and his grandchildren most of all. And they loved him, despite his ornery ways. Despite his stubbornness. Despite everything.
Ricky Black was preceded in death by his parents, Mutt and Helen Black; his sisters, Punk McFadden and Kay Doyle; and his son Damon Black, a tragic loss from which he never quite recovered. He is survived by his sister Carla Beth and brother-in-law Darin Blacksher; ex-wife Nancy Hollen Black, with whom he remained dear friends until the end; daughter Mercer Black and son-in-law Marc Declercq; son Brandon Black and daughter-in-law Rebecca Vargas; honorary son Justin Lavalle; grandsons Campbell Black Declercq, Blaze Black, Gage Black, and Fox Lavalle; countless nieces and nephews who loved their Uncle Ricky, whether they were related to him by blood or not; and friends upon friends upon friends. He will be so very missed.
Those he left behind will not be surprised to hear that, even when he saw the end coming, Ricky continued to laugh and smile. He possessed boundless optimism, as evidenced by this entry in his journal dated April 2016: “I love life and life loves me. Believe it!”
We believe it, Ricky. Godspeed.