Cowboy Murder

I rode back into a little valley,
of which I’d had my fill.
But now returned,
a man full grown.
My freedom had lost its thrill.

Few I knew as I lingered,
on those still dusty streets of town.
Asking about, here and there,
found most were in the ground.

It’d been some years since I’d loped away,
with a curse upon my lip,
All because of a razor strap,
“never again” says the iron on my hip.

I can still see the anger,
my paw had just for me,
every time he’d grabbed it
and bent me over his knee.

Most times I had it coming
the last was not that way,
I was right and he in the wrong,
that‘s why I ran that day.

Maw never saw it coming, his fist
that struck her down.
Her head all spit was bleeding-out,
on our cabins hard pack ground.

She'd stepped between, to save me,
from the beating yet to come.
I was rough but she'd held faith.
I was their only son.
 
A whiskey rage had caught him,
but mine was something else,
as I reached for the big knife resting,
on our kitchen-cupboard shelf.

Like preparing a Sunday-dinner chicken,
my thrusts were ever deft.
I stood alone above him...waiting,
for his last, blood chocking, breath.

Years ago and miles so many,
my trail crossed, then crossed again.
But knew I had to return here
and remember the child I'd been.

Standing now before the grave’s,
that hold that bitter time.
Freedom at last from the shadows they cast,
on the kid they could never find.

The sheriff had figured, it a robber,
who stole the boy away.
Murdered his folks, for a little gold,
and made off in an unknown way.

So coming back to face a cost,
has set me free from the law.
But the miles and years can never remove,
the stain I left before God.

I reached for the piece that rests on my side
and drew it out real slow.
Placed that Cross upon her headstone,
turned from my childhood,
and away I go.