(WESTERN THEME)
TR: (ANNOUNCER): THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS brought to you by Old Pueblo Plate Covers --- for when you'd rather not look at what you're eating --- and now, here's today's episode.
(MUSIC OUT)
(SEVEN SCRABBLE TILES BEING PUT DOWN)
GK:What word is that?
TK: Skelder.
GK: S-k-e-l-d-e-r ---
TK: Skelder. It's a verb. Archaic slang, meaning "to live by begging, to cheat, pander, procure, scavenge, scrounge"
GK:Okay, okay.
TK: So that's (HE COUNTS RAPIDLY) ten, fifteen, thirty-two, sixty- four, plus fifty for using all my letters, a hundred-fourteen, plus five, eight, fourteen, twenty-six for that word, so that's a hundred forty, so the score is three-hundred seventy-six for me and a hunnerd forty-two for Lefty and thirty-three for Dusty. Your turn, Dusty.
TR: Okay. Is AWIUWIA a word?
GK: What?
TR: Or WAWAUII?
GK: Okay--- (FOUR TILES SLAPPED DOWN SWIFTLY)---
TK: D-r-o-l-e?
GK:Drole. "He was quite a drole fellow."
TK: That ain't with an E.
GK: No?
TK: That's with two Ls.
GK: Oh yeah?
TK: Yeah.
GK: You care to make a challenge, Harry?
TK: I just might do that.
GK: Well, if yer gonna do it, do it now.
TR: Hey! I think I heard her car in the driveway---
TK: Don't worry, I might.
TR: I thought I heard a car door close. Listen---
GK: What---
TR: Put away the board, boys, I think she's back.
TK: Wait a minute--- (LETTERS SLIDING OFF BOARD) He...I was
GK:You best get in that bed and git ready to be sick, Dusty.
TK: She's goin' to be mad, ain't she.
GK: She is but Dusty you get in that bed and you act like y' got the hematodes---
TR: What are those?
GK: They're bad. Git! In bed, Here she comes., (DOOR OPENS. SS: AHA! TR GROANS LOUDLY AND DRAMATICALLY. HE GROANS AGAIN, VERY THEATRICALLY.)
SS: I don't believe this! You promised me you were going to saddle up and hit the trail this morning!
GK:Oh, we were going to.
SS:And now there are three of you?
GK: We got in the saddle and then --- I don't know what happened to him. It came on fast--- (TR GROAN)
SS: Who's this other bum?
GK: This is a fellow cowboy by the name o' Harry. He happened to be passin' by when Dusty was afflicted with these seizures .... (TR GROAN) I believe it may be those fantods that are goin around lately.
SS:Fantods!!??
GK: Poultice for his chest. (A DRAMATIC TR GROAN)
SS: Listen. You came here. You asked if you could stay overnight. I said yes. That was two weeks ago. And here you are, camped out in my house and your faces in my feed trough. And there are three of you.
TK: How hot you want me to make that hot poultice, Lefty?
GK: Want that poultice good and hot, Harry. (TR GROAN) These fantods are pretty much beyond the reach of modern medicine, they say.
SS: If you want. to get the fantods, go get it in a hotel. There's a good one about a mile from here. You want me to drive you?
GK: No, no, that's kind of you, ma'am, but no, don't bother yourself. I wouldn't dare move him at this point. I think maybe I better try singing to him. That seems to comfort him somehow.
TR (UNDER BREATH): You sing and I'm goin t' git really sick---
SS: What'd he say?
GK: I dunno. Something about a vision, I think. (HE STRUMS GUITAR. SOUR CHORD) Boy, those things get sour awful quick, don't they. (BAD CHORD) Almost takes the tartar off your teeth, don't it.
SS: Lefty---
GK: Ma'am?
SS: I am going to get a thermometer and if this old dodger is not running a temperature, then you two are out of here. And take your friend with you. (FOOTSTEPS. DOOR SLAM.)
GK: Yes, ma'am.
GK: Shhhhhh. Git feverish. Think fever, Dusty. Think fires blazing. Try to hallucinate a little.
TR: Okay. (HE GIVES A GHOSTLY MOAN) How's that?
GK: Not bad. Here she comes. (DOOR OPEN)
(HE BEGINS TO STRUM)
SS: Here's the thermometer. Take his temperature.
GK: It breaks me up somethin awful to see him.suffer there, my old companion, thinkin back o'er the scenes from life's picture book and how oft in my darker moments Dusty always seemed to be there. Course it was because he was responsible for those darker moments, but still. A friend is a friend.
(STREETS OF LAREDO)
I miss my old pardner, that crusty old guy---
I never dreamed he'd just lay down and die.
He used to be my pal and now he is God's
Since he got a case of those deadly fantods.
TK (SNIFFLES): Poor Dusty.
GK: Yeah. Poor Dusty's not goin to be with us much longer, looks like.
So beat the drum loudly and play the fife proudly
For your poor old pardner as we carry him along,
And shed a sad tear o'er his mortal remains,
(TR GROANS)
GK: Look at him, he's about to have another seizure---
TR: YOU STAND BACK! ALL OF YOU! STAND BACK AND THE FIRST MAN TO LAY A HAND ON HER IS GOIN TO GIT HIM SOME SERIOUS VENTILATIN BY THIS HERE COLT PISTOL IN MY HAND!
GK: He's delirious. He thinks that he's Gene Autry in the movie, "West of the Pecos" ---
TK: That was Randolph Scott in "West of the Pecos".
GK: That was not!
TR: BUNCHA LILY-LIVERED COWARDS, NONE OF Y' WORTH THE POWDER TO BLOW Y' TO HELL --- PACK O' YELLOW DOGS ---THAT'S ALL Y' ARE!
SS: Put this thermometer in his mouth....
GK: I don't think this'd be a good time to make a move on him, ma'am.
TK: Stand back and let him hallucinate---
TR: NOW I WANTA SEE Y' LAY Y'R SHOOTIN IRONS REAL EASY..... ON THE TABLE WHERE I KIN SEE EM. EASY NOW, GENTLEMEN.
SS: Well, maybe we oughta turn him over and take his temperature rec----
TK: You just don't do that to a cowboy, ma'am. It ain't done.
GK: Harry's right. I b'lieve we'd best leave him rest for a while, ma'am.
(THEME)
TR: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS brought to you by Conquistadore Bed Clamps if you tend to be active in your sleep, a pair of bed clamps can keep you there until help arrives and join us again soon for another thrilling adventure in THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS (MUSIC OUT)
© 1996 by Garrison Keillor