Between Marty Robbins’ “Big Iron” and Clint Eastwood as “the man with no name” I imagined myself in the old west as the stranger with a gun. There’s probably a little of a whole bunch of different western movies and characters that formed this particular daydream.
The Stranger
I could feel their eyes watching me
As I walked down that dusty street.
Each step I took raised a cloud of dust,
And it stuck to the boots on my feet.
The people in town didn’t know me.
But as I walked in the midday sun,
They knew I was a man to be reckoned with;
They could see I was wearing a gun.
I stabled my horse at the livery,
Then started off straight across town.
The blacksmith said where I’d find him.
There was no point in waiting around.
The saloon was buzzing with business;
A trail drive was just outside town.
I stepped up to the bar for a whiskey,
Paid my dollar and drank it right down.
There at the corner table,
Sat four of the hardest I’ve seen,
Playing poker with their guns on the table,
And every darn one of them mean.
I stepped right up to their table.
And looked the toughest of the four in the eye.
I said, “I hope it’s not your turn to deal ‘em,
‘Cause right now it’s your turn to die.”
Three men leaned back from the table,
And left their guns there marking their place.
Red kept his hands on the table,
The mean look still on his face.
Your back-shot me down in Laramie,
Remember me now, Red?
You made a mistake and it’s fatal.
You didn’t make sure I was dead.
As I talked he inched his hand forward;
It rested now right on his gun.
I’ve never seen anyone faster,
But his shot and mine were as one.
His bullet smashed into my shoulder,
But in the second it took me to fall,
I saw my bullet reach its mark,
And knock him into the wall.
As I walked slowly away,
My shoulder burning with pain,
Nobody asked where I was going.
Nobody asked me my name.
JCS 26 August, ’74