PROFILE OF A COWBOY

Daryle Cofield

Seventeen I became a confederate soldier for Texas
Twenty I was a veteran of a lost war.
Twenty-one I drove cattle from Texas to Kansas
Twenty-two I bought my first whore and my first slice of Rhubarb pie.
I can't remember her name, but I sure remember the first bite of that pie.

I drove cattle for eighteen years, fought off rustlers, and lost to rustlers.
I killed Buffalo for the railroad, I fought a few Indians.
Won some money at Elbow Creek's Rodeo three years in a row.
Raged in another war over barbed-wire, lost that war too.
Became a ranch hand by the early nineteen hundreds.

Now its 1910 and I'm 65. To old to punch cows or break ponies.
So I ride the fence lines from sun up to sunset.
Sleep under the stars and over a blanket.
I guess the only thing that has changed over the years is my taste in pies.
I now like two kinds: hot and cold.

John Wilcox Quill,
Cowboy