(THEME)

GK: Well, in another week or two we'll be in Minneapolis, Dusty. Right back where we started out. Remember that?

TR: I'm afraid I do.

GK: You wouldn't do it all over again?

TR: The long days in the saddle in the cold and the rain with the sudden onset of blizzards and tornadoes not to mention rattlesnakes, grizzlies, desperadoes and two-faced women?

GK: If I'd known I was going to be riding the prairie all these year, I would've taken a course in social skills but instead I studied literature which only made me more self-conscious, so here I am. Washed up, no good to anybody, but not yet discouraged.

TR: Speaking of literature----

GK: What?

TR: You know what. You've written a novel, ain't you.

GK: I have.

TR: Why did you go and do that?

GK: I could feel it in me and it wanted to come out.

TR: I have things inside me that want to come out, but I don't see the need to share them with other people.

GK: Well, it's done, Dusty.

TR: Am I in it?

GK: Of course.

TR: Is this an honest portrayal?

GK: I'm afraid so.

TR: So I am a drunken tongue-tied saddle bum with a gruff voice and a sour disposition giving off noxious fumes and falling in love with women whom I seem to irritate in ways I cannot comprehend----

GK: I made you more comprehensible .

(FOOTSTEPS APPROACH)

FN (MESSER): What you two talking about?

TR: He wrote a novel, Messer, and you and me is in it.

FN: Well, la di da. Ain't that special. HAND IT OVER, Writer man.

GK: Ain't handing it over, Messer. It ain't done yet.

FN: I'll say it's not. Ain't done until I finish editing it. Hand it over.

GK: Not going to.

FN: Are too.

GK: Am not.

FN: Am too.

(FOOTSTEPS APPROACH)

SW: What's going on, gentlemen?

FN: Who wants to know?

SW: Me. I'm the sheriff in this town.

FN: YOU?????? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. When did they elect you sheriff here in Yella Gulch?

SW: Same day the former sheriff got drunk and stepped in a gopher hole and snapped his femur.

GK: I've heard tell that you're a darned good one, too. Town sure seems calmer than last time we were here.

SW: And we like it that way.

SS: Okay, gentlemen ---- sheriff---- what'll it be?

TR: Whiskey for me, Lulubelle.

SS: You want the sipping whiskey or the kick in the pants whiskey?

TR: Better give me the kick in the pants.

SS: Okay, bend over.

FN: Make that too.

(FOOTSTEPS, GK & SW MOVE AWAY)

GK: Never mind these low-lifes, ma'am. I say a woman can take charge as well as a man and maybe better on account of women are peacemakers by nature. Part of the mothering gene.

SW: Well, I don't know about genes. It's just always been what I wanted to be. (SHE SINGS)

I want to be a small-town sheriff

I want to try to uphold the law

I want to administer justice

And laugh at danger, ha ha.

I'll stand up to the bullies

And put them under arrest

I want to be a small-town sheriff

And pacify the wild west.

(YODELS)

GK:

I'd love to be a sheriff's sweetheart

And shine up her gunbelt

And let her talk about feelings

All of the ones she felt.

I want to sing around campfires

The way that posses do.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows

But I think I'd get used to you.

(DUET YODEL)

SW: You're the first man I met who I really enjoyed yodeling with.

GK: Is that right. I must say, ma'am, when you talk about law and justice and protecting the weak, you sound like you maybe come from the same place I come from. Back in the North Star state of Minnesota.

SW: You're from Minnesota???

GK: I know that what with the hangdog expression and the poor hygiene I may not look like it, but yes. Minnesota is my home.

SW: I went to Augsburg College.

GK: No! Impossible.

SW: Lived on Cedar Avenue. Drank at Palmer's and the Mixer's.

GK: I was there, too. But years before you.

SW: Ever miss it?

GK: Missing it right now. The lakes. The river. Those streets with the arch of elm trees.

SW: Hennepin Avenue.

GK: Dayton's Department Store.

SW: You are making me feel very sentimental.

GK/SW (SING):

I want to go back to Minneapolis

That's where my childhood home is

I want to cross the Mississippi

And walk around Lake Nokomis.

I'm gonna feel so very happy

On Hennepin Avenue

I might cut loose and spit tobacco juice

And a little yodel-adi-hoo.

(DUET YODEL)

SS: So what you going to do if your novel is a big best-seller ----- you going to buy yourself a ranch and settle down?

GK: Not a ranch, Lulubelle. An apartment above the 10th floor. Out of range of flash floods and rattlesnakes.

FN: You ain't got no bestseller, pal.

GK: What do you know?

FN: I had me a look while you was yodeling. It's a whole lot of talk, talk, talk, talk. Novels are not about dialogue! They're about this. (WHIP CRACK) They're about this. (GLASS BREAKAGE) And they're about this. (FOUR GUNSHOTS)

GK: You just shot my manuscript, Messer.

FN: I call it editing.

SW: Put the gun away, Mr. Messer. He's right, Lefty. Cut to the chase. Forget all the introspective flashbacks and

internal soliloquies. Novels are about action. Kiss me.

GK: What?

SW: Kiss me, you fool. (BRIDGE)

GK: As she said it, I could not help but think back to when I was 19, walking along the Mississippi below downtown Minneapolis, looking at the ripples of water as it flowed toward the gulf and thinking of the gulf that separates us from our fellow man, not to mention fellow woman, wondering about my future on life's long twisting pathway and whether I would ever meet the woman of my dreams, which, at that point in my life, being restless and uncertain of my own gifts, I thought unlikely, and so.....

TR: Lefty---- hey, Lefty----- wake up.

GK: Huh? What?

TR: Wake up.

GK: Where am I?

TR: You're in Yellow Gulch. Time to move on.

GK: What happened to the woman sheriff?

TR: The who?

GK: The woman sheriff?

TR: You've been taking a nap, pardner. Let's get going.

GK: I didn't write a novel?

TR: Who said you were awful?

GK: I wrote a novel and somebody shot it.

TR: They shoot movies, mister. They publish novels. But first you got to write one. Let's go. (GIDDYUPS, HORSES HOOVES)

(THEME)

SS: The Lives of the Cowboys. Brought to you by Lickety Split lip balm: it heals chapped lips and broken hearts. Also good for rope burns and flesh wounds.