Gather ‘round this wood stove
While our bellies are full.
Let me cram a tall-tale down your gullet.
For the steers that we drove
Had been sired by a bull—
An old horny long-horn we called Bullet.
This here Bullet was tired
But each cow, as they say,
Was in œstrus and yearned to be mounted.
So he went out and sired
Forty calves that same day
And the next, more than we could have counted.
We all thought he would quit
But he bellowed for more
When we ran out of cows to be serviced.
So the bull threw a fit
And then charged off to war
Like a conscripted Army reservist.
He was angry, and how!
Pawed his hooves in the ground
And broke loose when we couldn’t restrain him.
He attacked every cow
On the prairie he found
Till we caught him and had to re-chain him.
Bullet’s life had been good
But he finally dropped dead.
As we rode him like rodeo jockeys.
So we saved what we could
And enjoyed, what we said,
Was the best oyster stew in the Rockies.
James A. Tweedie has lived in California, Utah, Scotland, Australia, Hawaii, and presently in Long Beach, Washington. His favorite corner of the West is the Sierra Nevada where he has hiked and fly fished since he was old enough to walk.