rum horses

I'd be writing makeshift Westerns if they'd let me, out there lost and on some ugly plain in Mexico, watching the cactus glow bronze with the developing dusk, riding the rains and thunder clouds, disappearing into those sad eyes.

I'd trade my luxury prison for some dusty boots, a pistol and classical cigars, an angry horse galloping in the basin, a man killed in a saloon, gunshots; I'd be a villain, the hell with the womanizing Clint Eastwood, I like Lee Van Cleef, he looked like a predatory bird, a Barquero..in that one film.

It would take at least six shots to kill the local sheriff and the unfortunate deaf, dumb and blind kid that wandered into the crossfire, his head split like an apple, the first overly pale elderly lady that gasps would get one in the throat, staring into the wheels of a burnt wagon, the lavish hats of the wealthy pig-nosed ladies, the brightly colored umbrella's in the sunlight, the intoxicated whores and Chinese rail workers with their exotic potions and elixirs, I'd smoke Opium and try to shoot the passive ghosts of the buffalo, the blades and barking mongrels, I'd dodge the arrows of the red-clay smeared natives scalping the settlers and drinking their blood, I'd hoot and holler like a loon, I'd bathe in whiskey and soot, the cholera colored blankets and intrinsic poverty, the light and dark, coppery medallions and houses made of cedar, stone ruts and muddy avenues of wandering contrast, elaborate chests of Spanish treasure and skinny grave robbers, the old planks and dirty nails, my prismatic eyes, damp overflowing barrels of brine, the drench of stolen rye and swollen creek beds, chalky lips and tangles of briar copse, shooting gentle deer and leaden snakes, the public hangings, the ageless wooden scaffolds and toothless crowds throwing rotten lettuce at the bad guy as his gang arrives and starts shooting everyone, popping gunfire and helpless bodies falling in sickly clumps like sacks of worthless Irish immigrant potatoes, a jail break, a stern lasso for a neatly uniformed official, dragged raw by the time the border crossing is reached, the syrupy waves and smooth floor of rock, no cold iron bars, just silver horses and riding in the rain.