Buck's Five Dollar Saddle

The ol' saddle warn't much to look at but it was all Buck could afford. He paid Billy five bucks fer it when Billy died and loped to his eternal reward! The saddle fit his hoss Dan like an ol' shoe and sat Buck's buttocks mighty well! Fer twenty bucks a month and found, Buck cowboy'd fer an outfit called Ruby Bell. The saddle was scratched and gouged from chasin' steers through salt pine brush, And stained here 'n' there with terbaccy chaw and splotches of muddy slush! The other fellers made sport of Bucks well-worn saddle but he cared nary a tittle. He'd jes' grin his boyish grin and loose a well-aimed stream of terbaccy spittle! He rode many a mile astraddle fixin' bobbed war fences and corallin' stray cattle, On night herd duty or on the trail in snow, rain and dust but he allus won the battle! He rode the ol' saddle herdin' longhorns on the Chisholm Trail up t'ward Abilene, Abidin' cantankerous trail bosses, rushin' rivers and many a perilous ravine! He and Dan tried their luck calf ropin' at the annual rodeo down the road a piece, But a wily calf busted the horn off'n the saddle, bringin' his rodeo career to a cease! Buck found comfort usin' the saddle as his piller 'round the campfar at night. He'd cuddle it like a dance hall queen he knowed 'til dawn's blindin' light! Buck was as bow-legged as a pair of pliers from sittin' saddle fer many a decade. He and Dan and the saddle had become mighty weary and somewhat frayed! "Boys" he said, pointin' to a knoll, "When I come to the end of the trail and I'm dead, Bury me beneath that pine yonder along with my saddle as a piller fer my head!" Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (c) All Rights Reserved