Welcome to True Chili’s Cowboy Literature. As with our other endeavors, it has been a long road. But we hope you enjoy reading these stories and poems as much as we did selecting them. So, kick off your boots and welcome to our campfire.
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Dust motes danced in the light that slanted in from the auction barn windows. The place smelled, predictably, of straw
A Ballad for Singers of Ballads with thanks to the Lomax family, many anonymous artists, and those still singing In
A couple of guitars, banjos, and broken verses,won’t stop this band from rehearing,all the lyrics written from way back in
Goodness, not what we’ve expected here at this roadside barbecue.A surprise, not so much the old bearded man flipping the
Kevin Torrey, Reviewer It takes a great deal of skill to tell a story without excess verbiage. Some authors spend
This has been an interesting and stressful period since our last issue. We've had an ongoing worldwide pandemic, chaos in
A DOZEN OR MORE three-hundred-year-old black oaks spread over the top of the south side hill of our farm with
The Door Opens I startleto see my husbandin the doorway,his spine curving like a birchin a forest leaning toward the
“I do believe if a man could go back in time, he’d fight to stay there.” Grandpa Jones rarely opined
Deep in the mountains of Jalisco, Christmas was celebrated with the flesh of bulls.Slit by the edge of the matador
Cindy Swenson, who fed the crew, was afraid of the black widows in the basement of the bunkhouse on the
People tend to keep to themselves around here.But true residents flood the saloon until lukewarm ale spills over glass rims,and
(Inspired by the song “Long Black Veil” by Johnny Cash)Icy wind howled off the bare gray hills that surrounded the
Counting winters, pondering the Buddhanature of cattle; at dusk, memorybecomes gentle, breathing self-indulgent.He rises, and history flops in foldsaround his
Henry Dunn sank the posthole diggers into the ground. Hard, dry soil crunched beneath steel. He worked the handles, lifted,
We said we would rest only for a moment,water the horses and return to the fields.But then the stars descended,peering
Out on the prairie a young man slouched over the neck of his horse as his blood oozed down onto
I crossed through North DakotaOn a quest only know to meIt started with a ladyWho hailed from TennesseeWith hair of
Winnie Bullock stood at the edge of the creek, watching it swirl into a pool next to a large boulder.
One July morningmy older brothers Mark and Tyhopped into the bed of Pa’s red pick-upto burn the wheat cropsA controlled
