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

The Old Cowboy looked down
on the town from a high ridge, his roan knee-deep in sunburned grama grass.
From his warbags he withdrew his battered Busch binoculars—what
was left to remind him of the war in Cuba he never fought—and through
them studied the treeless town, its weatherbeaten, clapboard buildings, the
streets besat by wagons, buckboards and gigs, the womenfolk in swishing
skirts passing along the boardwalks, checked-cloth covered baskets dangling
from bent arms, flowered bonnets bowtied beneath their chins.
At the far end of town a white church spiral scratched the sky’s blue belly.
Telegraph poles studded the length of Main street,
Along the backside of town ran the railroad track, its iron ribbons
stretching off to the horizon, beckoning the adventuresome.
It had taken over a year to get here, what with one thing or another.
Unlike the other cowhands, he left the herd the day after they hit Abeline.
He wasn’t interested in staying around for the rip-roaring and the hoe-dig
with the Calico Queens and the painted Cats, or dowsing himself with fifty
cent whisky that left a man blind, broke and unbalanced.
I’ve finished the drive and drawn my money,
Goin’ into town to see my honey—
Instead, he had drifted on, had lit out and headed south.
He was used to this sort of travel, rocking along in his saddle
unaccompanied by other men’s voices, sleeping on the ground—a Tuscon
bed—always headed for the next horizon with only the dust-muffled beat of
horse hooves for company. Most of his life had been lived that way, trailing
herds across the West. A veteran of the Shawnee and Chisholm Trails,
he’d ridden from Texas to Missouri, and on into Kansas. The Goodnight-
Loving Trail had taken him through New Mexico. The Bozeman Trail had
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 11