Wrote a story on a plane. Cowboy Planet Ch 1.
“Tarnation!!”
I screamed out to the dusty horizon! A pin prick of pain settin’ in my mind.
Not the pain of a toe stub. Or a tiny little pin prick from a decroded prickly cactus.
No no. The pain of a poor decision. Little too much rope weed and cowboy tunes the night before.
“We’re gunna be late!” Manically this time. I wasn’t screaming at anyone but myself.
“Euugh.” The other party grimaced in reply, no stranger to the outcry.
I pulled out my smith. The icy stained steel resonating through the fibers of my everything, bringing the sizzling moment down a peg.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!. Each pull of the trigger brought me closer to myself. I wasn’t firing at anyone.
I was just letting off steam in the only way I knew how.
“What in tarnation are you doing, cowboy?!”
The other party, Dennis Ricky James, met my shots with a special shot from the barrel of his face. A glance.
His glance ricocheted off my bouncing eyes, the strides of our burdened beasts syncing long enough to lasso me a piping hot memory of my Pop pop.
“Slim Jimmy Daniels, that’ll be your cowboy name, son.”
“You serious pop pop?! You givin’ me my cowboy name?!”
Pop pop reached down, hand to tasseled shoulder. Stoic resolve infecting my excitement with a still composure.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I first laid my eyes on you, your ten gallon hat, your shaking boots, the way you tended to the cattle with a kind and rugged attention only a true cowboy could muster, I knew you’d get your Cowboy Name faster than two shakes of a whisker.”
He beamed a rare smile. Maybe I imagined that part, real cowboys don’t smile unless in the exclusive company of a fine cowgirl. Either way, I couldn’t contain my widened grin.
“Slim Jimmy?”
“Slim Jimmy! Slim on account of your muster being twiny as an unfurled ropeweed. Jimmy cause you got that pep in your step only a Jimmy could have.”
“And my proper name?”
Pop pop stood up. Arms akimbo.
“Daniels. In honor of the best damn cowboy I ever knew. Don’t you go sullying that name Slim Jimmy Daniels! His cowboy ghost would turn every old dusty trail trot into a right tootin’ ruckus iffin’ you gone and went sullying like that.”
“Slim Jimmy Daniels! I won’t ever do no sullying Pop pop, I’d sooner eat a patty cake and slap my horse silly!!”
The echo of reality pulled me from time dilated flash back.
“I said, what in TARNATION are you doing Cowboy?!”
The smoke of the revolver hit my old sniffer as the realization of my sullying dawned down on me. As Pop pop’s glance left my mind, Daniels glance, whatever that looked like, god rest his soul, filled it.
“My apologies, my apologies. Sometimes I just gotta start shootin’ to fill the void!”
The galloping of hooves, ridden up chaps, and clicky clang of spurs filling the air of the commotion around us.
“Void?! Ain’t no Void ahead Slim Jimmy! Late as we may be, the city slickers are just over the bend! Last thing the Sheriff would want is to think we got trouble ridin’ into town!”
Guffawing out a hearty guffaw, “Dennis Ricky, we are trouble ridin’ into town!”
He spat, slickin’ up the dirt with a Sheriff sized wad of rope weed. “You might be trouble but I’m as true to Cowboy planet as they come!”
Couldn’t argue with that. “Can’t argue with that.”
Our steeds kicked into high gear, doublin’ their engines output, makin’ fer what did seem like an unnecessarily fast approach.
Given the circumstance though, appropriate.
We rounded the bend, and saw the big ole dang carriage loomin’ up over town. “Where these town folk comin’ in from anyway?”
“Slim Jimmy, I don’t much care. A city slickers a city slicker, they ain’t know an apple from a ropeweed!” He said.
“You ain’t know an apple from a rope weed yourself!” Fetching a leather pouch from my Cowboy vest with one hand on the reigns, pulling the string with my teeth. Flip turning it upside down. Nothin’ but dust hit the ole dusty trial.
“Heh, sorry! I’ll trade ya a few apples for your generous donation, Slim Jimmy.” “That’s Daniels to you, tillin ya done do.”
Off in the distance a thirty foot tall tassled and chapped hulk of prime Cowboy Planet Cowboy gave us a wave.
Being that we ourselves was only a mere 15 feet tall, our horses equally statured, it always left my cowboy heart skippin’ a beat.
“The Sherrif just gets more tootin’ every time I dun do lay my eyes on him.” “And how often is that?” He said. “More than I’d like, Dennis Ricky, more than I’d like.”
A voice cracked out a half a horse to the right from The Sherrifs left hand wave, sending some of that old dusty trail we was kickin’ up back down the other way.
“Daniels! James! Ain’t no time to be tardy, we got city slickers lookin’ ta trade!”
We breached the perimeter of town, horses neighing on down from a gallop to a trot.
In unison as practiced, we tipped our tenners, threw a leg on over, hopped on off, and slapped our horses in the direction of the stable.
The herd roared behind us, an endless sea of moos, toots, and grass chewin’. The pride of cowboy planet. Each specimen so darn built you’d swear we smithed ’em outta straight metal.
An unfamiliar voice took my pride right out my birches.
“Why are they smaller?”
“The Cowfolk or the cows?”
The voice was shrill, a tiny creature with an accent unfitting the pride of the planet, clearly ain’t no rope weed where these city slickers from.
“Hmm. Both I suppose. I was promised the biggest steers this side of the quadrant, with cowboys equal in grandeur.”
I felt inclined to answer back with a shot outta my cow poker, but I ain’t one to ruin a life that ain’t got no shot at shootin’ back nothing anyway.
“Heh, well, you ever seen any that size? Cows, or boys. Other than myself of course.” The Sherrif’s voice sounded true to Cowboy planets pride. Made a Cowboy wanna put in the work.
“After seeing you I’d have thought them all equal. Though I must inform you, Ranch Planet a few quadrants over had cows twice the volume.”
The Sheriff knelt down, towering over the shiny sad tiny little slicker, lookin’ into his specs with a stoicism only bred right here.
Without a moment to cry, The Sheriff scooped up the slicker in his hand like one of them big ole cranes I’d seen in my leisurely travels.
He stood up and held his hand out stretched parallel to his tenner, giving the slicker his first look at the hoard still fillin’ in over the horizon.
“Ranch planet may have a few bigger, but they have a few.”
If I could see his tiny specs for eyes I’m sure they’d be waterin’ with awe.
“Well. Well. Yes, you have me there. Please lower me back down.” Astonished and terrified, ain’t never heard nothing like it.
I spoke up “So how many are you buyin’ then slicker? We can put ’em in whatever form of wagon you dun brought from whence unknown.”
“All of them.” He said.
“All of them?!” Dennis Ricky said.
“All of them.” He said.
“All of them?!” I said.
“All of them.” He said.
Me and Dennis Ricky stopped lassoing around the slicker, looked each other in the eye and let out a
“YEEEEEEHAWWWWWW!!!!! ROPEWEED ON US BACK AT THE SALOON!!”