The Last True Sheriff of the Wild West

He was old and haggard, in the year nineteen twenty something A tall lanky old man, with a worn out hat and a rusty ring His squint blues eyes pulled together the wrinkles upon his face With an expressionless gaze, that told of another time and place Half the day he sat in his front porch rocking in his chair Before taking long walks amid the warm breeze of the Mid-Western air While tipping his hat to every passerby; friend and stranger Wandering his way to town with no expectation of danger A little whisky and a friend for company finished his day’s mission Eager to head back to his shack under the laws of Prohibition Once in a while a group gathered around him to drink some beer And to hear him tell old tales and adventures of the American frontier It followed him everywhere he went, the far distant past As far back when he was a drifting gunslinger, young but not yet fast As a cadet in the civil war, he properly learned how to use a gun Fighting in such battles as Baton Rouge and the second Bull Run Fought bravely and the goverment rewarded him with a land claim Headed west dodging every arrow from every angry Indians aim Settled among hard working folks in the middle of nowhere They made him sheriff and by the gun and bible he did swear He once crossed paths with Jesse James and Billy the kid He came close to be the one to end their gun slinging greed But he rode night and day to keep the law all over the Western map Rode one time in the same posse with the legendary Wyatt Earp He put away many outlaws and stood to watch many hang He was feared by every bank robber and every criminal gang No cattle rustler and train robber ever crossed his territory For many had tried before and many had ended up sorry He never settled down and he never took a wife There was no place for a woman or children in his kind of life His first and only love was keeping the laws of the land As far as the northern plains to the great Rio Grande When he retired he became a farmer of sheep and crops Behind him were the days of tying men’s necks with ropes But all those countless bullets he put into faceless bodies Could not be forgotten by engaging in retirement hobbies So one dawn when he woke up with a nightmare and ill health He knew well it was the day he was going to draw his last breath So with a gun in his hand he rode his horse towards one last sunset Just to lay motionless upon the land he loved, whisky on hand, one cartridge spent