By Charlie Steel

I first spotted the old man when he came riding into Colorado City on a lame paint. His gear was faded and worn. When he sold horse, saddle, and bridle to the hostler at the livery, not much money was exchanged. Everything about him was well used---including himself. He was a tough old man, the leathery kind. He had a face weathered by the sun, and it looked like he had lived a hard life and earned every wrinkle. There sure were a lot of them.

By Charlie Steel

Frances Stevens’ steady hand did not betray her eighty-two years as she stood in the kitchen ladling soup into a bowl for her daughter-in-law. The two women talked lightly about chores that had to be completed and food to be preserved before Frances’s son, Charles, and his cowhands returned from a small cattle drive to Abilene. Except for old Stumpy, the cook, and George and Sam, the two old-timers who cared for the stock, the ranch was devoid of hands.

By Bob Burnett

It took me the better part of a day to drive that cow and calf to town. The old brindle cow was rank and wild and wanted no part of me, but would not stray far from her calf. Mostly I drove the calf and kept a sharp eye on the cow, for she would stick a horn in my horse if she could.

By Lee Aaron Wilson

The sensation of flying, of being lighter than air, twisting lazily in the warm summer sun was wonderful. With his arms outflung and back arched, Ross Dent flew to meet the clouds. The sky receded. The flight came to a sudden stop as he thudded to the pounded ground in the middle of the breaking corral.

Oh my Gawd, Ross thought, I'm killed. My back. My laigs. He wanted to scream, but his lungs wouldn't work. His throat rasped when he tried to get his breath.

By Lee Aaron Wilson

Most days Old John Jordan sat in his rocking chair in the sun and watched the world pass by. The scent of the lilacs and roses, planted by his wife, Ellen, and mostly tended by her, surrounded him. He sipped iced tea or lemonade, or coffee when the weather got chilly, and talked to his old dog, Shadow, and passersby. He and Shadow were taking a little sun when a big brindle dog trotted up the street, swinging his head from side to side as he surveyed his kingdom. Shadow's tail stopped moving as he watched the younger dog.

By Bob Burnett

The day had been a complete bust, as far as I was concerned. Pa had sent me off to find a strayed Percheron mare, heavy with foal. Said I needn't bring her home, just see was she all right. I wasn't near the tracker Pa was, him being raised mostly by his mama's people, but he had been teaching me the ways of a trail ever since I could remember. I figured he could track a snake over solid rock in a rain storm, but tracking a mighty heavy horse with hoofs the size of a dinner plate was something I could have done when I was four years old.

By Ian Rogers

Felix rode into town, the reins clenched in one hand and Wedgy Weiss's letter in the other.
So this is where Wedgy ended up, Felix thought as he took in the dilapidated buildings with their weather-scrubbed boards and crumbling facades. The whole place looked as if a strong wind would knock it down and sweep it away. Platinum Flats, he thought. A town at home with the past tense.

By Bob Burnett

The boy, Will McRae, was first to see the rider on a sorrel horse trotting up the wide valley, still a half mile south and sitting erect in the saddle. “Rider comin’,” he said.

By Pat Gott

After counting wild horses on the Crow reservation for the U.S. Government last fall, Bertha and Charlie Daye stayed the winter at their homestead on the North Fork of the Shoshone west of Cody, Wyoming. He was in his forties, clean-shaven showing his weather-lined gentle face, tall, lanky, reticent, loved mules and the mountains.

By Pat Gott

Upon returning to Cody from a recent horse pack trip into the lower east corner of Yellowstone Park, Bertha and Charlie Daye hurried into their favorite bar at the Irma Hotel to tip back a few shots of whiskey.

Bertha, long on aggression and short on tolerance, said, “I wonder if all eastern dudes wanting to experience a bit of our west will be as delicate as those four guests of Buffalo Bill’s. If so, maybe we’d better be re-thinking taking guests pack tripping into the mountains…that sure was trying on my patience.”