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

Long Fellow. All but the Navajo fear him. He can shoot a bird’s
eye out on the wing. He can ride three days without sleep, water
or food. He can track an ant over barren rock. He’s the worst
enemy, and the best friend, a man ever had.
He’s Roy Weston.
King of the Kowboyz.
Roy steps to where hang his fringed cowhide coat and white
Stetson.
ching ching ching
Clouds scud past faster and faster.
He takes his wide-brimmed Texican off the nail that had been
honored to support it throughout the night, and settles it onto
thick, curly hair.
Next comes his heavy leather cowhide coat, fringed and
covered with fancy bead work.
Pinned onto the coat is the badge of a Texas Ranger.
On another honored nearby nail hang his gun and holster—
tooled black leather, silver conchos and a pearl handle.
As he hefts them, a smile creases his handsome face.
Who would he shoot today? Or was that whom?
Maybe he would be the one on the receiving end.
The whom who gets shot.
He wraps the heavy belt around his slender waist, buckles up
and ties off the holster.
His hand caresses the Colt.
He slides it out and admires it.
He squints along the hog wallow trough sight, his thumb on
the big hammer.
They say if you pick up a seashell and hold it to your ear you
can hear the ocean’s roar. Roy doesn’t know about this, has
never been to an ocean, has never heard one roar. What he does
know is that when he spins the cylinder on his Colt he can hear
ivories tickled in a Dodge City saloon. He can smell wet cattle
herding along the Bozeman Trail. He can taste hot bacon and
black coffee fresh off a campfire in the Montana mountains. He
can feel history stretching back to the beginning of time.
He holsters his gun.
He knots his kerchief.
1 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY