(WESTERN THEME)
SS: The Lives of the Cowboys....stories of the men who were defeated by the West but refused to admit it --- brought to you by Western Lubrication. (SQUIRT) The oil that makes everything slide along better.
(HORSE HOOVES, TROTTING)
FN: Hey, howdy. Welcome to Blanco. What can we do for you, stranger?
TR: Looking for my pardner Lefty. Been missing since yesterday. Big tall fella, kind of wild hair, filthy, dusty, smells bad----
FN: Haven't seen anybody fitting that description. But I'll keep an eye out.
TR: Appreciate it. (HORSE HOOVES) (TO HIMSELF) Dang it. Twenty-seven years we been riding together and he never done this before. Wonder if he mighta been kidnapped by Big Messer's gang. And if so, how much ransom would I be willing to pay? Hmmmm. WHOA. WHOA. (WHINNY AND HORSE COMES TO STOP) Easy, boy. Whoa. Easy.----Lefty? Is that you?
GK: Hi, Dusty.
TR: Almost didn't recognize you in that suit and tie. And the briefcase. Is that hair pomade I smell?
GK: It is. Decided to apply for a job.
TR: Why didn't you tell me?
GK: I haven't been hired yet.
TR: Well, you could've told me where you were.
GK: I knew you'd be upset, so I wanted to spare you the agitation.
TR: What sort of job you applying for?
GK: Marketing.
TR: Marketing what?
GK: Marketing seafood.
TR: You're in the fish business?
GK: Not yet, but that's the job I'm applying for.
TR: Why? Why???
GK: The other day when you were in the saloon, I went around the corner to the Assay office and nobody was there so I went in and sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk with pictures of a wife and family, and behind it a walnut credenza and a big glass bowl full of green apples, and I just felt at home there.
TR: Sitting at a desk.
GK: It felt like it was meant to be.
TR: And what about me? What am I supposed to do?
GK: Whatever you want to do.
TR: I don't have any experience in "doing what I want to do" --- neither do you ---- all we know is how to make the best of hopeless situations.
GK: Cattle drives and cowboys are obsolete and have been for a long time, Dusty. And I am getting too old to sit in the saddle. At a desk, you can lean back and put your feet up. Not possible in a saddle. So I am going for a desk job and if they offer me one, I will ask them if there might be a position for you. (WORRIED WHINNY)
TR: But what about----
GK: Let's not talk about it in front of the horses. Later. Adios, amigo. (BRIDGE)
SS: So---- Mr. Smith ----
GK: Yes, ma'am.
SS: I've been looking over your job application, and there seems to be a large gap in your resume ---- about 27 years ---- you simply write "Travel" there ---- could you be more specific?
GK: Well, I could list places I've been, I guess. El Paso, Abilene, Reno, Denver, Yellow Gulch.
SS: Why were you travelling?
GK: I was searching. Looking for my own identity. As the French would say, "la recherche de l'identite ----
SS: You speak French?
GK: I don't know. Never been around French people so I never had a chance to find out.
SS: I see. What do you see as your strongest assets that would be useful in marketing seafood?
GK: Well, persistence. High tolerance for misery.
SS: Okay. That leads me to wonder if you were a cowboy. Were you?
GK: Well. I guess you could say that.
SS: You were a cowboy, right?
GK: Yes, ma'am.
SS: Okay. So you were herding beef cattle from one place to another.
GK: Among other things, yes.
SS: Well, Mr. Smith, we have hired cowboys in the past and I must say none of them has lasted more than a week or two.
GK: Oh?
SS: No. There is a tendency to roam and to ramble, to leave work without stating an estimated time of return, of taking long weekends that turned into months and years. Not to mention a certain proclivity for whooping and spitting.
GK: I see. Well, my whooping days are done, ma'am, and when I spit, I spit into a tissue, same as anybody else.
SS: Look at the floor, Mr. Smith.
GK: What's on the ---- oh, that. That's not mine.
SS: It's right there beside your chair.
GK: I know my own gobs of spit and that is not mine. Mine would be brown.
SS: So you chew tobacco?
GK: I have been known to on occasion.
SS: Thank you for coming in, sir. The door is that way.
GK: I take it I won't be getting this job.
SS: That is correct.
GK: But my chances would appear to be slim.
SS: Around here, sir, tobacco chewing is on a par with going around without pants.
GK: Okay. Well, thanks for giving me a chance. I appreciate it. (BRIDGE) (FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, LONG WALK, HORSE WHINNYING, DISTANT MOOING) Hey, Dusty. It's me. I'm back.
TR: Thought you were gonna get a job in town.
GK: They turned me down. Who's this?
LK: The name is Duke.
GK: You got a last name?
LK: Maybe.
TR: He was born in a canebrake to an old mama lion. People in canebrakes don't have last names.
GK: So what's he doing here?
TR: He's going to intern as my new partner.
GK: I was just taking an interview and already you find a replacement?
TR: He's an intern. ---Did you get the job?
GK: No.
TR: Well, I assumed you would. So---- I got him.
GK: Where'd you come from, mister?
LK: Came from out there. Been all around this world.
GK: What else?
LK: My daddy is an engineer and my brother drives a hack. My sister takes in washing. And the baby balls the jack.
GK: A travelling man, huh----
LK: That's right. I do hard travelling. Hard rambling, hard gambling.
GK: You look like it's been hard. And you probably don't get frequent rider mileage for hard travelling, do you.
LK: You get a heavy load and a worried mind, lookin' for a woman that's hard to find.
GK: What kind of woman?
LK: Woman who saves her loving just for me and gives me money when I'm in need. Every morning 'fore the sun comes up. She brings my coffee in my favorite cup.
GK: And that's how you know that she loves you so?
LK: That and other things.
GK: I see by your guitar that you are a singer, sir. You sing cowboy songs?
LK: All songs are cowboy songs if they're sung by a cowboy.
(GUITAR. LK SINGS)
The sun was sinking in the west, where my old pardner lay.
He'd been captured by the posse and convicted that same day.
He was bound for the gallows and he looked up and said,
"This is goodbye, boys. In the morning I'll be dead."
He'd been caught while wearing a paper shirt and vest,
And paper boots and spurs and pants, so they made an arrest,
And charged him with rustling, which obviously he did:
And so they would string him up, the Amarillo Kid.
But the rope was not strong enough, and so they sent for poison,
And then one cowboy cried out, "Boys, in
All my days on lynch mobs, there was one sure way of lynchin'
That's to lock him in the outhouse with the works of Thomas Pynchon.
So they put the Amarillo Kid in the little house out back
With the works of Thomas Pynchon, a solid four-foot stack.
He read The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow,
They could hear him sighing and his breath was coming slow.
When they opened up the door, he had gone to his rest,
He had died of suffocation for the books lay on his chest.
GK: That's good. You write that?
LK: I took it off an hombre whose horse stepped on him.
GK: Well, good luck with your internship.
TR: You planning to spend the night in town, pardner?
GK: I reckon. Probably hang out with other marketing people. Going to a bar and drink some Mojitos and talk about business trends.
TR: Good luck.
GK: Thanks. You too. So long, Duke.
LK: Yeah. Right.
GK: You ever use more than one word, Duke?
LK: Sometimes.
GK: Ever get tired of taciturnity and feel like you got a whole flood of feeling dammed up inside you?
LK: When I do, I'll let you know.
(THEME OUT)
SS: The Lives of the Cowboys...brought to you by San Jose Brand Hoof Softener...if your feet are covered with painful hard callouses, try San Jose Hoof Softener.