The Shootists

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At the age of forty five my wife decided I should stay at home. The way of the cowboy had all but dried up and my bones were getting old and stiff. As a family we all made our roots firmly in the Texan town of San Antoine. It was a lovely place and we all ended up living next door to each other which was nice and cosy. It was in this town that we met a man call Mississippi, he was funny guy who loved to sing. It soon became known that he was a serial proposer and was married three times before he found the right woman for him. He joined in to our group with a simple ease.

We lived our lives in perfect harmony, I even got a job down at the livery and cattleman’s as expert on cattle. Beau he got a nice little job in a printing shop and Alabama opened up a leather work shop where he made all kinds of stuff from saddles to boots. And Mississippi well he just kinda lived off his wealth.

The way of the frontier was growing to an end and it was not so hard to live in the plains as it once was. Texas was getting better and better with each year. I even heard that Indians were becoming Christians in some towns. We had one in ours, it was a different experience to see him in that sack suit, I found it a sad sight. If only they coulda’ stayed in their own clothes.

Soon enough we all had children but they didn’t stay around for long, they were off living their own lives before I could blink.

I’m all that’s left of my family now. I’ve buried all my friends. So I’m packing up my wagon with all the small parts of my life; a portrait of my wife in her finest of gowns, my son on his first day of work and my daughter stunning in white the day she married her love. I take up my horse knowing that she will never ride the plains again; I stroke her mane with care. I give a little tear as I pack as I say goodbye to the lives I had.

With a final look at the house I built I hitch up my horse and I just keep riding right on in to that forever setting sun.

The End

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