Uncle Harry was a cow poke

Actually, Uncle Harry was a rustler and bank robber … a tobacco chewing, cussing, odiferous, nasty, hell bent for election, no good. He never rustled herds or any large quantity of bovine creatures. He’d rustle one. Kill it. Carve it up, eat the good parts, and be on his way. He’d rationalize his dirty doing by telling himself that the guy that owned the branding iron of the steer he’d eaten had plenty more where that one had come from. So it didn’t matter. “Hells bells,” he’d say, “the grass those steers eat don’t cost nothing. The hombre that owns the herd makes more than enough to live on, enough to pay his wranglers, with a lot left over, so what the hell.” Then he’d spit! The tobacco juice being the exclamation point of his words.

When he ran out of money, he’d rob a bank. He would walk in, introduce himself to a teller, ask for a hundred dollars in a nice way, and say, “Now, don’t get all riled up. You don’t want a die over money that ain’t yours. Your boss, the one that owns this place, has a lot of money. Most of it ain’t his. He lends it to people and gets more back than he doled out. That’s robbery of another kind, so I’m just asking to share the wealth. You work for wages, you ain’t getting rich, so you don’t want to die over a hundred dollars. If you make any trouble before I’m on my horse out there, a lot of people … most likely friends of yours … will wind up hurt or dead. You wouldn’t want that now, would you? Just shake that head of yours, if you understand what I’ve told you.” Then he’d spit! The tobacco juice being the exclamation point of his words.

More often than not, Uncle Harry got the hundred, without any trouble. And riding off into the sunset, he would feel good about himself. He didn’t ask for all the bank’s money, didn’t hurt anyone, felt the old bank owner was a bank robber himself. So, no harm done.

Uncle Harry started his errant ways at the age of twenty. Rambled from Missouri to Nebraska, to Wyoming, to Colorado, to New Mexico, to Arizona, to California, to Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. As he was close to his thirty-fifth year on earth, he was headed toward Deadwood, South Dakota. It was about the time that the Black Hills Gold Rush was no longer panning out. He had been riding hard from his last bank holdup and his faithful, old nag of a horse, Homer, had thrown a shoe … just a mile or so north of town. Then Uncle Harry did something that was really nasty … nasty by any standard … something he had never done before. He walked Homer into town, tied him up at the hitching post outside the Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10, and went about trading Homer for a beautiful appaloosa tied there. As he was changing saddles, saddle bags and bed rolls, he was tapped on the shoulder by a hombre that had a gun in his hand and no smile on his face.

As Uncle Harry sat on Homer with a noose around his neck, Bill Hickok asked him if he had any last words he’d like to say.

“Well, I knows horse stealing is a low-down trick. But I put thirty-five dollars in your saddle bag. Figured that would help you in trading Homer for something better. So that ain’t exactly stealing. Your appaloosa just went and got under my skin. If I had knowed he was yours, I wouldn’t have done it. Sure enough, I’d have done something else!” Then he spit! The tobacco juice being the exclamation point of his last words.

---

---