Cowboy Poetry

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THE HAZING OF BILLY McCALL
Robert C. Atkin

On Hallow's Eve the BAR M boys
Got the campfire a blazin'
This was the night they had chosen
For Billy McCall's final hazin'

'Twas kind of a ranchhand's ritual
An initiation to the west
To weigh a greenhorn's fortitude
Could he pass the cowboy test

An elaborate scheme was mustered
'Twould give the bravest soul a battle
Send a lone cowboy to Devil's Deep
In search of long lost cattle

The crew was hunkered round the fire
The foreman addressed young cowboy McCall
Said “Billy; go fetch up them dogeys
Don't come back til you've found them all”

He saddled up 'n' off he rode
Disappeared 'midst the gloom
A screech broke the silence
With a haunting call of doom

The Bar M boys then moseyed out
Set to work at the master plan
A labryinth of devious tricks
Tempting the sanity of mere mortal man

Nooses were hung and traps to be sprung
When the unwary cowboy passed in travel
A well placed cat and the swoop of a bat
Made nreves of steel unravel

Twenty men that night partook in the fright
Each had their part to play
But through it all young Billy McCall
Had rounded up every last stray

Old Cookie woke him in the mornin'
Enquired if he'd had a good sleep
Billy mentioned somethin' bout the trouble
He'd encountered at Devil's Deep

Cookie kinda shrugged it off
Turned to the wranglin' of the lunch
But the camp was strangely quiet
What happened to the rest of the bunch ?

The hours passed and at long last
Cookie couldn't take it anymore
He said to young Bill “Tell me if you will
The events of the night before

Billy said “Hell; I don't have to tell
A picture's worth a thousand words
Come on let's go and I will show
What happens to them who try to steal herds.”

Cookie stifled a laugh said “You don't know the half
Weren't rustlers but the Bar M crew
Crazy cowpokes playin' their jokes
They sure pulled one over on you.”

Billy paled in despair a hush filled the air
The blood ran cold in his veins
He wept as he knelt for sorrow he felt
For cowboys who'd not ride again

Now down there in that valley
Known to all as Devil's Deep
Lay not cowboys fraught with laughter
But instead in eternal sleep

Some dangled from tree branches
Like puppets on single string
While others stared through lifeless eyes
Succumbed to a bullet's sting

Throats were slashed and heads were bashed
Two were impaled on a stake
Others just fell by some unseen hell
That caused fragile necks to break

The crimson red that covered the dead
Made an onlooker gasp for breath
'Midst the green of this valley serene
Was a mural painted by death.

The local gentry pondered how this could be
Why he was only a freckle faced boy
They couldn't condone that he all alone
Could every last cowhand destroy

The dust swirls down this sleepy old town
A general store, a saloon and a station
After many a year folks still live in fear
Was it mortal or devil's incarnation

A poster out-dated, dog-earred and faded
Flutters loosely from outside shed
Offering ten thousand reward to those that record
The capture of the killers; Alive or Dead

But there was only two who truly knew
What happened that Hallow's Eve
And this secret thet keep about Devil's Deep
Cuz no one else would believe

Now when the campfires burn; old memories return
And this haunting tale tops them all
Old cowboys remember the first of November
After the hazing of Billy McCall.