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

“Don’t know anything about you.”
Pete shrugs.
“What do I know about you? You love th’ Sons. You’re here.
I’m here. Ain’t that enough?”
Roy’s expression indicates maybe he reckons it ain’t.
“Where you from?”
Pete dons a crafty smile.
“No place in particular.”
Roy grins.
“And you, Roy? Where you headed?”
“No place special.”
Pete snuggles into his chair.
“There ya go.”
But Roy isn’t done.
“You a murderer?”
Pete drains his glass.
“Me?” He peers into his empty glass. “Am I a killer of my
fellow man?” He strokes his stubbly chin. “Wouldn’t you like to
know?”
Roy nods.
“Why I asked.”
Pete plants his boots on the floor.
“It’s time you watched Fort Apache.”
He moves to the VCR and pops out The Westerner, slips it into
its sleeve, replaces it on a shelf and pulls down another.
“It’s the first of a trilogy of Calvary pictures Ford made—
maybe the best—but Wayne always liked his role as Nathan
Brittles in She Wore a yellow Ribbon—”
He inserts the tape and returns to his wingback.
“An’ in the third one, Rio Grande, you’ll get to see th’ Sons.”
The journey has winded him.
He pours.
“Down the hatch.”
Roy hasn’t touched his. He says,
“I guess you been all over the world, and done all kinda
things—even maybe killed somebody needed killin’—so I was
just wonderin’ what you’ve done and where you’ve been, is all.”
Pete stares at his dilated pupil.
2 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY