The last bludgeoned meridian blurred lines in my mind as the longing bovine inched along across the broken and beaten ranch ground; scarlet swaths brushed towards the horizon as purple and orange shied away at the sight of a few gleaming stars. I shifted my aching weight to the right, fisting my sweaty toes inside a dusty, musty boot. Forge neighed through mild metallic jingles of the bit, and rooted impatiently whilst creaking and twisting leather held saddle and steed in tandem. It was a long, blistering day. And the body beckoned for mercy, and the mind muttered longevity-the fierce religious believer in all that is eternity, and the spirit sunk and sang a symphony-aligned in parallel with malady, a ballad of all the cowboys effigies, an incessant reverie of a fading blasphemy-one never allowed inside your city: a hellfigure, the diamondback puncher in 501 duds, hands hard and able, handy Hand fable ( one relic-the American spectre, stoic and sanctified by the old Stars and Stripes). My eyes  seethed with sweat that slithered past a leather band under a straw hat stained and covered in sand, and my handkerchief did drink of the day’s toiling and the many colts, stallions, geldings , and mares’ mischiefs.

“I reckon it’s about that time, young buck,” I uttered as I bit the half-broken Marlboro. “Bet you’re about to call it a day, I’d say?”

Forge bobbed his head up and down reminding me that even Trigger had longer breaks no doubt. He never did forget to remind me I was no Roy Rodgers. And without further a due, I’d take his cue and remind him that the only trigger I saw in him was me taking out my piece and sending him to that great glue factory in the sky. Well, we’d giggle a little longer, I figured before I let some air back into his barrel by loosening his latigo.

My youth had gone the way of the world right before the social media insomnia in its digital blind utopia and I was hurting in an old familiar way. My cayuse was aching in the most artistic sway.

 

And here we were.

 

And there they were.

 

Just a little longer, we stood together watching Set defeat Horus as the the great expanse did make this old cowboy dance as his Quarter horse quietly quivered the flies from his hide.

 

And there were were..                                                                                                                         the young hayburner

 

and the Old Revenant

 

∞