The Way of the Cowboy

Chapter 1

“And it’s a great day to be alive
I know the sun’s still shining
When I close my eyes,
There’s some hard times in the neighborhood
But why can’t every day be just this good
Ah, yeah”…

“OK, OK, I’m up Mr. Tritt,” I mumbled, while begrudgingly reaching a hand out from under the warm confines of my bed to switch off my infernal 6:00a.m. alarm on my iPhone. I glance out the window and the sun hasn’t quite come up yet. At that moment, while also yelling out that first dawn yawn mid stretch, I hear movement in my room. A couple of dog yawns later, I knew it was time to make my move. Moving to bring myself out of bed, two excited fur balls are there to greet me.

“Good Morning Shay.” I said to my Catahoula/border collie mix, while also petting her head and scratching her ear a bit. Shay had an all black coat, except her chest had a bit of white, her left hind paw was white and the very tip of her tail was… white. I felt a nose trying to nudge my other hand. “And an excellent morning to you too, Lyra.” I chided the Heeler/Hanging tree mix while giving her her ear scratches, too. Lyra was an all merle color, a mixture of white, gray, and black. Both were cattle dogs trained by me, and they were damn efficient at their jobs. They are worth their weight in gold.

In nothing but my boxers, I walk from my bedroom to my front living room to the front door. The pathway being pretty short because of the standard trailer house design. “Come on girls, outside.” I open the door, letting them out to go run around doing their early morning “routine”, living on a cattle ranch in northeastern Montana with the closest neighbor being 5 miles away, has its perks.

I close the front door and head back to my bedroom to use the master bathroom to take care of my morning routine. After draining the dragon, I showered, brushed the pearly whites, and combed my glorious beard. I came out of the bathroom feeling fresh.

Donning a pair of Cowboy Cut Wrangler tough skin blue jeans from out of my closet and threw on a turquoise George Strait Collection Wrangler long sleeved button up western shirt. After tucking in said shirt, I reach for my belt, and started slipping it through the belt loops. Grabbing my handy dandy “Surge” model Leatherman in its sheath, attaching it to my right side on my belt. This genuine handcrafted leather belt, built from a long-time friend, had my father’s last name on it. That name was Thompson, elegantly stamped into the leather on the back side band of the belt, along with a basket stamp pattern for the main embodiment of the cincture. The ending tip of the belt had another tooled stamping mark, containing only three marks, T T -. A Montana Silversmith Trophy buckle, with a saddle bronc rider, adjourned the front. With “Miles City Bucking Horse Sale 2018” professionally etched on it.

Getting mostly done dressing, I head out into the kitchen, grab two eggs out of the carton in the fridge, then crack ‘em on to a heated cast iron pan on the stove. I decided I wanted a couple of egg and cheese on English Muffins sandwiches, can’t beat homemade. Even the eggs were fresh from my older brother and his wife’s little chicken coop, (mainly hers and she knows it). While I was building my breakfast, my automatic coffee maker had about a third of the way full pot, having turned on about the time I got out of my shower. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee, what’s not to love. I Usually just eat on the go, so I wrapped up my breakfast in some paper towels, grabbed my green growler sized coffee thermos and filled it with coffee and added some fru fru coffee creamer. I NEED CREAMER IN MY COFFEE!

With all my food and coffee gathered, I head to the back room porch to put on my stovetop Olathe square-toe cowboy boots. With the tops being cherry red, and reaching mid calve length, making them great for protection from nasty things like sneaky rattlesnake bites and razor sharp thorns from bull-berry bushes. The oiled brown foot covering, shows is share of battle scars. Currently on the back above the heel, sits a set of silver spurs with half inch bands and lady-leg shanks and 16 point rowels. Makes little sense to take ‘em on and off when I’m riding horses every other day, especially this time of year.

I reach up to grab my felt hat that was hanging on a 5x5 Mule deer shoulder mount I had shot a few years ago. My current lid is an open crown silver belly Resistol, though it used to have the standard butt crease style. I had received it from my grandfather when I was young, before he died. I was 12 then, now I’m 28. By the time I really grew into it, I had my own way of how I like my hats shaped. During my college years, I think that was one of the best skills to learn, and it wasn’t even a college course. We had a big rodeo team in college, and our biggest pastimes, besides rodeoing were, 1 drinking, and 2 roping the steer head dummy in the college dorms, and 3 hat shaping.

I grab by shoulder holster rig and start strapping it on. Within it, lays an 1871 Navy Open-top revolver in .38 Special with a 6 1/2 inch barrel. It’s an Italian made Uberti, though I did updated all the internal springs with aftermarket Wolf Springs. I’ve owned it for several years and have shot quite a few varmints with it. Hell, sadly, I had to put down one of my favorite mounts a couple summer ago, because of a severe case of colic. By the time I got to him he was in the death shakes, so I did what any sane person would do I that situation, he was only 8. On the shoulder strap that runs diagonal is a few bullet loops, enough for 9 shells. Grabbing my wallet, phone, making sure my battery phone case was all the way charged, my fully charged JBL Flip Bluetooth Speaker and its power cord. Slipping on a pair of rose colored aviator style sunglasses, and grabbing a few bottles of water, I head outside.

Author's Note

This is my first Story, i had it rolling around in my head for the past few years, and i figure i might as well get to writing it.