Hooves to Houston

Salt Grass Trail riders stir before sunrise. Campfire smoke lingers. Coffee’s percolating. Not a dainty brew, but bold cups of Joe that zap the week’s plans into sharp focus: Let’s forgo the comforts of home – among them, hot showers – and ride a horse a hundred miles into dust, weather, and ultimately, Houston. 

Horse tails swish. Wagons groan like they already know what’s coming.

Go time.

Every February, as reliably as traffic on I-10 and humidity in August, Salt Grass Trail riders saddle up and do something wildly impractical, deeply heroic, and as Texan as a ten-gallon hat: They climb onto horses, hitch up their old pioneer wagon, and point themselves toward the city, determined to arrive at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo the same way their predecessors did – proudly, resolutely, smelling for all the world like a Eau de Salt Grass cologne – a mix of mesquite smoke, sweaty horse, and leather.

JACKETS DO THE TALKING Members of The Desperados wagon group were the first on the Salt Grass Trail to don matching attire decades ago. Their Desperados Wanted jackets logo was designed by former member Pam Francis, a beloved family member and well-known photographer, now deceased, who shot portraits of presidents and movie stars. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

It’s a beast, say members who navigate the 105-mile trek, the largest and oldest Texas trail ride with more than 1,000 people. The tradition, celebrating its 75th anniversary, started in 1952 when four men decided to travel on horseback from Brenham to Houston to promote what was then called the Houston Fat Stock Show.

On a ride this large, no single wagon can tell the whole story. But The Desperados, one of the trail’s longtime groups, offers a vivid slice of Salt Grass life.

The ride starts in the large Wittenberg family pasture in Cat Spring, west of Sealy, concluding in Memorial Park on Feb. 27, where many riders spend the night before converging with 10 other trail rides. Like spokes on a wheel, arteries of riders come from all directions, destined for the Downtown Rodeo Parade the following day. 

It’s equal parts tradition and endurance test. The ride is long on dust, short on sleep, and downright merciless when temperatures dip and rain pelts sideways. 

Whatever the weather conditions, those riders are coming.

“It’s all about family and companionship and the love of horses and just being out there, unplugging from the world,” says River Oaks resident Rene Bennett, of her group, The Desperados, one of 22 wagons on the Salt Grass Trail.

Cousins Ryan Wasaff, Cindi Proler, and Rene Bennett co-own The Desperados wagon with elder cousin Margaret Jo Byron (not pictured), who won most experienced female rider on the Salt Grass trail last year. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

“We’ve got this old dinosaur of a pioneer wagon, dating back to like the 1890s, that we keep in shape, year after year, and it gets us down the road. It takes a village to run our group. A labor of love,” she says.

Bennett, 59, co-owns the Desperados wagon with three cousins. It’s the same wagon that was owned by her mother Beverly Wilson Bennett Smith, who started The Desperados with her brothers, Welcome and Jack Wilson, in 1980. 

Bennett’s mother, crowned Miss Humble in 1961, died in 2022, but her legacy is carried by generations of family who still feel her presence in the saddle, she says. She was also the first female wagon boss of the entire Salt Grass Trail Ride. 

The beauty queen cowgirl who reigned the reins.

“Seriously, my mom was a beauty queen. But always a cowgirl. And very softspoken,” explains Bennett. “I never saw her cuss. I never saw her raise her voice or take a sip of alcohol or smoke. But she was a master horseman. A stubborn horse would test her once and then think the better of it. Even the most rugged cowboy out there respected my mom.”

The Desperados are known for their signature yee-haw salute to the crowds.

Matching denim jackets were her mother’s idea, their attire to this day. Bennett’s cousin Pam Francis, since deceased – known for photographing presidents and movie stars – designed the “Desperados Wanted” logo that’s embroidered on the back. Coordinating jackets and shirts became the group’s signature, long before other wagons began donning matching attire. 

“Mom would be gone a week, and everyone was on high alert because that meant she was on the trail!” recalls Bennett. “I remember as a small child going to Old Katy Road where some apartments were on I-10 and looking down the street and watching all the trail riders go by. It was mesmerizing. 

“And she was a busy mom,” she continues. “She had six kids within five years, including two sets of twins. I was the oldest girl. She was my person. Our whole world. I rode with her on the trail for 15 years. I think about her every time I’m out there.”

Each wagon camp does their own thing, sets their own rules, explains Bennett. The Desperados have two parts to their camp: riders and camp movers. Camp movers are ground support teams, logistic wranglers if you will, responsible for transporting and setting up the next campsite’s infrastructure and supplies before the main group of riders and their wagons arrive.

“I love setting up camp. I’ll be riding half the time and setting up camp half the time this year.”

A sea of wagons, horses, and riders on the Salt Grass Trail make their way to downtown Houston for the Downtown Rodeo Parade.

Four generations of family have made up The Desperados. Bennett’s grandfather Archie “Pa” Bennett Sr. used to man the wagon as the mule skinner, driving the team of horses. Her uncle Joe Bennett rode with them for nearly 40 years, assistant wagon boss and megaphone for her shy mom. “She’d whisper orders and he’d yell them out,” she says laughing. “It helped with her shyness.”

That uncle also kept members fed and happy, running the cook shack. When he died last year, his daughter Mandy Bennett Niscavits, a professional caterer, took over cuisine duty.  A whole behind-the-scenes posse of relatives that pull up various duties, making up the group’s backbone. 

Over the years, The Desperados have grown beyond kin to a trusted mix of carefully vouched-for outsiders – friends who earned their place, learned the ropes, and pull their weight alongside the blood relatives, proving that on the trail, belonging is measured in effort, not last names. 

Bennett’s daughter, Maren Flood, is now a rookie boss, equal parts cheerleader and keeper of the code – making sure new Desperados are doing the work, learning its traditions and group rules, all the while having fun.

“Every rookie gets assigned to a senior Desperado member and they have to do what they say,” explains Flood. “We have all these fun traditions, but a lot of what we do before the ride is get people prepared, signing forms, making sure they know about the matching outfits and clothes they need to bring. If you don’t own a horse, you can rent one, that kind of thing. They all must wear their rookie badge, even when they’re sleeping.

“Everyone has duties, like cleaning dishes or packing coolers for the wagon the next day, whatever needs done,” Flood continues.

The group’s old wagon is pioneer eye candy for crowds cheering on The Desperados. Pictured, from left: Ryan Proler, David Shofner, Elizabeth Patton, Joanne Wilson Shofner, Preston Proler, Margaret Jo Byron, Rene Bennett, Ryan Wasaff, Rachael Bennett, Archie Bennett III, Logan Niscavits, Mandy Bennett Niscavits, Cecilia Herdeg, Joe Niscavits, and Maren Flood.  

Rookies are challenged to put on a skit the night before the parade, a roast of sorts, poking fun at whatever members fit the bill. The roast is wildly received with boisterous laughter. Then comes what the group calls their Super Bowl speech.

“We pump up the crowd, hype them up because there are awards you win by the parade committee like Best Appearing Wagon,” says Flood. The Desperados have won their share over the years: Best Appearing Wagon Group. Best Show Wagon in the parade, Best Wagon on the Salt Grass Trail Ride. 

Once the speech has ended, camp rookies receive a baptism in a horse water trough. With ice. A good-natured ribbing and ceremonial splash. You’ve survived the practice round – now you’re one of us. 

Every year, a rookie wins Rookie of the Year, voted on by Desperado members. “They earn it,” says the mergers and acquisitions lawyer. 

Flood’s fiancé, from New Jersey, will ride this year. His first time. “I want to get to boss him around even more than I already do,” she quips. “I’m not sure he’s completely ready for this.”

Although there’s no rule to turn off phones, Flood goes cold turkey. “It’s dead for seven days. I don’t even look at it.”

SHARED MILES, SMILES, AND YEE-HAWS Fast friends Dick DeGuerin and Rene Bennett have been riding the Salt Grass Trail for years. Bennett co-owns The Desperados wagon with three cousins. It’s the same wagon that was owned by her mother Beverly Wilson Bennett Smith, who started The Desperados with her brothers, Welcome and Jack Wilson. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

Her favorite part of the experience is bonding with fellow riders. “There are people from all walks of life. It’s great to connect with nature and step back from daily life. It makes you appreciate the little things like boots that don’t give you blisters and hot coffee on a cold morning.”

Cindi Wilson Proler, 72, a co-owner of the Desperado wagon, and cousin to Bennett, remembers her first ever Salt Grass Trail ride.

The memory is almost mythic. In 1967, her dad Welcome Wilson got a wild hair to join the ride after seeing a local news anchor broadcast from the trail. He decided the Wilson family needed to participate. 

His brother Jack, Welcome’s compadre in life, was always game for a wild idea. Jack rounded up his daughter Kathi. Welcome nabbed his son, Welcome Jr., and Cindi. They loaded two saddles into an old drugstore delivery jeep, went to stables where Welcome kept their paint horse, Lucy, borrowing another horse, Pepper. They hooked up the horse trailer to the Jeep and off they went.

Let’s find this thing. 

They arrived in the dark where the trail ride was camping in Hempstead County Park. Pulled up to a grove of trees and settled for the night. When morning came, they woke to the sight of a large circle around them, horses, wagons, and people everywhere. They’d landed dead center inside the Salt Grass assemblage itself.  A lone one-horse trailer, tucked into the middle of a tradition that seemed to have been waiting for them all along.

“We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies had arrived,” Proler quips. “Dad literally goes and talks his way onto Jim Burroughs’ wagon. We rode with him for years,” she says of the longtime dedicated Salt Grass trail rider and firefighter, now deceased.

It was her uncle Jack – wearing a tall Hoss Cartwright-style cowboy hat, like that from the decades-old Bonanza series – who started The Desperados’ hand-to-hat, hats-off salute of hip-hip-hooray when passing spectators along the route, a crowd-pleaser at the parade, she says. “We are the only wagon on Salt Grass that does this.” 

Trail rides aren’t the Wild West anymore, Proler says. Once upon a time, riders rolled in with tents, bedrolls, and a tolerance for rocks under their backs; now they arrive with RVs, climate control, and a generator big enough to qualify as a minor utility. It’s still the trail – the dust and horses and miles – but the definition of “roughing it” has been renegotiated.

Camps come alive at night. Wagons and cook shacks turn into rolling stages and open kitchens with delicious camp cuisine. Groups host dances and professional singers, music drifting through horse nickers and laughter. Stories around the campfire grow longer, whiskey poured generously and repeatedly. 

Proler remembers that first outing with her dad. “The eggs, on tin plates, were freezing. The bacon had little chips of bone in it. We once had some riders behind us that were nice guys, real polite. But they had their little bottles of booze they threw on the ground when they were finished. It was lawless! No rules!

“And my gosh, there was no Gore-Tex back then!” she says of the water and windproof fabric that saves many a rider when skies open and wind slices through denim like a branding iron. 

HISTORY AND HORSES Siblings Jack Wilson, Beverly Wilson Bennett Smith, and Welcome Wilson started The Desperados in 1980. Beverly was the first female wagon boss of the entire Salt Grass Trail, a former Miss Humble, who was respected for her genteel southern ways, kindness, and ability with horses.

Cindi has traded a horse for the wagon these days, preferring to hitch her ride on four wheels. “My father’s great-grandchildren are on that wagon now.” She’s proud to share co-ownership of it with her cousins, one of whom, Margaret Jo Byron, turning 81 this month, was named most experienced female Salt Grass Trail rider last year. She mostly rides in a buggy or in the wagon these days, but was on a horse for decades, even riding the trail before The Desperados were officially formed.

Rounding out the cousin consortium, and a co-owner of The Desperados wagon, is Tanglewood resident Ryan Wasaff, 50, grandson of Jack Wilson – that Jack Wilson, brother to Welcome Wilson, of the Beverly Hillbillies much-loved let's-find-the-trail-ride tale.

Wasaff, who loves all things Western heritage and horses, is a director of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. “I just love the Western way of life,” he says. “I’ve done this for 30 years and I’ve watched my family do it all my life. It’s where we all came from, where we started.”

Riding the Salt Grass Trail can change people’s lives, he says. A bucket list kind of thing. 

“You take somebody from the city and put them on the trail ride, and it will change their life forever. A complete city slicker can join The Desperados. It’s happened over a hundred times. The next thing you know, the person falls in love with that Western way. You’re out there in the middle of it, on the trail, you feel like you might as well be on a different planet.”

But watch once you’re off your horse and in a car again, he jokes.

“You tend to pull back on the steering wheel instead of hitting the brake pedal. You forget you’ve put down the reins.”

“I love riding the trail so much,” says Michele DeGuerin Luke, who has ridden with The Desperados for years and knows all about its tight-knit family. Luke and Rene Bennett have been fast friends for years, since school days. Luke’s dad, Houston criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin, is like a second dad to Bennett, and he thinks of her as a bonus daughter. He’s used to trials – and trails.

Dick DeGeurin treasures this old photograph with young daughter Michele. The father and daughter trail riders have been around horses their whole lives.

“I used to ride with the Magnificent Seven group with my dad a long time ago and we’d bring our own horses out,” explains Luke. “But we don’t have any horses right now that can tolerate being in large groups like that anymore. I rent a horse like quite a lot of people do.” 

Dad and daughter are riding together this year with The Desperados. DeGuerin, 85, has owned a ranch near the rolling hills of Burton for years. He grew up working and riding horses. 

A 1941 photograph of him tells the tale: Six months old, he sits nestled in front of his uncle Arthur Knaggs, already learning the feel of a horse beneath him. That uncle was sheriff of Dimmit County, Texas for 30 years. And that paint horse was a working extension of him, carrying him across miles of jurisdiction.

“Salt Grass is an exciting time for the horses as well as the people,” DeGuerin says. “Horses are very social animals. They like to visit each other. And fight each other. Some like to be the alpha. So, you better have a horse that’s acclimated to the trail.” 

That’s where the red ribbon comes in, he explains. Salt Grass Trail rules dictate that you tie one around your horse’s tail if they’re known to be a persnickety sort, warning riders to not follow behind too closely. “By nature, horses want to follow each other closely. It’s in their DNA that they’re prey. They don’t want to be that last horse in line and get caught by that mountain lion or bear, so they’ll nuzzle up and put their nose right in the other’s bottom. A good recipe for getting kicked.”

Longtime trail rider Dick DeGuerin, a Houston criminal defense attorney, grew up around horses. Here he is at six months, nestled into the saddle with his uncle Arthur Knaggs who was sheriff of Dimmit County, Texas for 30 years.

The Salt Grass Trail is legendary, DeGuerin says. “A great way to perpetuate the Texas aura. I wish more people could experience it because it is a uniquely Texas experience.”

Although, these days, he no longer hops up on a horse. “I’ve taken to a stepstool, and somebody pushes me up from behind.”

He much prefers the comfort of his Airstream to any notion of earlier wilder days when members took to sleeping in a bedroll on the ground. And he knows from last year’s ride when temps dipped well below freezing how important long underwear is. 

Because he wasn’t wearing any. 

It was so cold last year that the circle ride was canceled – the trail’s unofficial dress rehearsal where riders, horses, and wagons settle into a rhythm before the real miles begin. 

“I was chilled to the bone. Just could not get warm,” DeGuerin says. Bennett – yes, his daughter’s best friend, his bonus daughter – loaned him some undergarments. They got pulled on quickly.

Dick DeGuerin saddles up with The Desperados on the famed Salt Grass Trail ride into Houston. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

“She loaned me pantyhose. I discovered they were very warm,” he quips. “You know, sometimes you’ve just got to cowboy-up and do what you’ve got to do.”

Technically, recalls Bennett, they were a pair of ladies’ thin, footless cashmere long underwear. “That is true love. Hand over your long underwear,” deadpans Bennett. “He was hilarious. He was like, ‘You know, there are so many ways to bring this up in conversation. ‘Hey, I’m wearing my daughter’s best friend’s underwear.’”

Frozen limbs and long underwear aside, Salt Grass riders keep coming back. New layers of stories, tucked into tradition. Miles logged. Memories handed down. 

A beauty queen who preferred the saddle to pearls. A pioneer wagon still rolling. Grandparents, parents, daughters, sons, cousins, rookies, and bonus family stepping into place when the road calls. 

The coffee gets stronger, the gear gets more modern, but the heart of it stays the same, say the riders.

“It’s Texas heritage and that’s what people are trying to hold onto with this group,” says Bennett. “You feel like you’ve accomplished a wonderful thing.”

Editor’s note: See www.rodeohouston.com/trail-rides for more on trail rides. Salt Grass Trail Riders arrive at Memorial Park on Feb. 27, the day before the Downtown Rodeo Parade, usually between 12:30 and 4 p.m., with the best viewing often around 2-3 p.m. before they line up to leave for the parade on Saturday morning.