The Old Rider

No one paid much attention to the rider on the stallion; he was nobody, just another drifter and if they looked at all the only thing they would have noticed was that he wasn’t wearing spurs. This was cattle country where men lived by the gun, the rope and the spur. It was strange to see a man without a pair of the star shaped tools attached to his boots; even the faded black hat that had turned brown with age brought him no attention.

At twenty-six, Sherlene and I became husband and wife and it's been a great life . We have three children , ten grandchildren and now two great- grandchildren. Together we've worked logging timber everywhere from the hot humid swamps of Louisiana to the frozen snow covered mountains of Canada. I write about how it feels to have the cold blade of steel cut through flesh and muscle and how it sounds as it grinds across bone . The sledge hammer like blows from the soft lead of a bullet shattering bone and cartilage seeking to take a life. I write about these things because I have lived through them. I never learned to write in a school or classroom , life has been my teacher and that is how I write.