volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

He set about gathering firewood and built a pyre near the buck as it
rocked gently to-and-fro. He used one of the newfangled red phosphorus
matches to ignite the tinder, sending up a thin, gray fuse into the sky. Next,
he piled on deadwood and watched with satisfaction as the flames cracked
and popped and danced in the bright day. He wiped off the sticky blood,
rubbing his hands along the buck’s still-warm flanks, before returning to his
roan. Flipping up a stirrup, he uncinched the saddle and slid it off her back.
She flared her nostrils and bobbed her head once or twice. Then the Old
Cowboy carried saddle and blanket to a spot in the tree’s scanty shade.
He lit a cigarette and stared at the horizon. Sometimes, weeks passed
without saying a word. His life was quiet, quiet as his mind. The basic
steps of life—eating and drinking, then eating again—occupied a large
portion of his day, while his night was spent in sleep. Seasons passed—city
people called them years—but a cowboy notices the passage differently. He
saw the small things, like the bushiness of a fox squirrel’s tail, or the speed
with which a cricket played its song. The winter would come again, harsh
and indifferent to human need or suffering, and then the spring and then
the fall, just as sure as war and hunger. These things seemed warranted by
God. Like death. Not time for much else. Except a drink or a smoke.
The cigarette burned down to his fingers and he tossed it into the fire.
Thinking of a drink made him wish he had one. Or two. He stared into
the fire as it ate its way through the wood. After a while, when it became a
hot, incandescent heap of charcoal, he would construct a latticework of sticks
about two feet above the embers. On that he would lay strips of meat to jerk.
Much of the carcass would be sacrificed to the carrion birds already lazing in
wide circles, holding council overhead.
Such was the way of the world.
The Old Cowboy closed his eyes against the blazing sky and tipped his
black hat far forward so its leather sweatband rested on the bridge of his
nose. He would sleep for a while, half awake, always on guard, body tensed
and ready to spring; sleep a dreamless sleep as if still in the saddle, still on
the trail.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY