The night was blistering cold. There didn't seem to be enough heat to even keep the rats warm in my rundown apartment.

Where the heating pipes in my apartment didn't work half the time.
Because half the time, I didn't have the money to get my heat turned on.

I was cold and I was miserable even with a jacket and a blanket wrapped around me I was freezing.
My fingers and toes were numb. My bones were aching and cracking.

I didn't dare go to my cabinets or to my refrigerator looking for food because I knew a such trip would only end in vain for me.

The only thing I had to eat was a 3 day eviction notice from my landlord and a telegram asking me to attend my grandfather's funeral in the morning.

I will admit I had become nothing, but a drunkard going from job to job.
Only bothering to work so that my rent was paid and my mouth had some liquor to drink.

I knew good and well I had no business going to my grandfather's funeral.
My appearance would only embarrass my family and the men and women who had worked so diligently over the years with him.

I was every bit the coward and the procrastinator all rolled up in one.

I had already made up my mind not to attend my grandfather's funeral.

I would had done so, only if, along with the telegram notifying me of my grandfather's death.

My grandmother had a suit of clothes sent over to me making sure I would be looking half way presentable in the morning.

All I needed to do was not to drink, get dressed in the morning and catch the Taxi to the church in the morning.

To be honest I didn't know if I could do it.
I hadn't seen my family for 17 years and the time away from them I had done nothing to make them proud.

Yet I knew I had to see my grandfather before the preacher put him in the ground.

Being Reminded of Who I am

As my grandfather's funeral ended I had tried to quietly thank my grandmother for the clothes she had given me.

Then I was attempting to slip out the side door of the church as my luck would have it my oldest brother would spot me

"Look who the wind blew in. The garbage that use to call himself my brother"

"I see Dave you haven't stop being the A- hole I always knew you could be"

"Call me what you want little brother, but when I leave this funeral I will be going home in my horseless carriage and you.... my brother don't even know where you're going!"

"Of course Sam knows where he's going"
He's coming over for dinner"

I don't know why, but no matter how lousy a human being I was.
My grandmother never stopped being there for me.

Especially since my parents had cut my expense account off after failing to make an honest effort to graduate College.

Along with refusing to marry the snot nose little arrogant Mary B Miller.

God knows if ever a woman was so utterly full of herself.

It was Mary B Miller!

There was no way in Hell ! I was walking down the aisle and saying I do and being led by the nose the rest of my life.

My manhood and my pride wasn't for sale.

Yet for the sake of my family.
Dave my brother his manhood and pride was always up for sale.

Three months after publicly rejecting Mary's family's proposal to marry their daughter.
My brother Dave saved the family from financial ruined and married Marry B Miller.

Thirty days after that I was put on a train with $500.00 dollars heading to Michigan.

If ever two people deserve each other it was my brother Dave and Mary B Miller.

That was 17 years ago.

What did I have to show for not being hen pecked by the only daughter of the Miller family?

Just broken bones, nights sleeping in the county jail and a collection of empty whiskey bottles.

A pretty steep price for saying No, but still not steep enough to have some sassy know it all woman tell me what I could and could not do.

All because of her daddy has money to spread around the city like cheap fertilizer.

No, I'd rather sit a bar with a bottle of Jack then go to socials with people whose only concern is themselves.

Dinner is Served

Dinner was just as I remembered it.
Three long tables line up for thirty people could eat.

Did I forget to tell you my family wasn't only wealthy before the depression of the 1870's

My Mom and Dad had 19 Children.

Each one of them was taught to be like my brother Dave.

To humiliate themselves and to beg at the trough of money hoping the more they embarrassed themselves the more they would get.

So there we were at the dinner table with wine, coffee a giant spiral ham, roasted potatoes, macaroni salad, fruit salad and enough cooked vegetables to kill a cow.

After my father said grace he was about to give the slicing knife to my brother to cut the ham.

After all, if Dave hadn't learned how to be so magnanimous at being hen pecked we wouldn't be eating this fine delicious meal.

As good fortune would have it, before my father had the chance to hand my brother Dave the knife.

My grandmother put her hands over my father's hands.

"Not this time Robert Dakota Sam hasn't sat at this table in a very long time and after tonight he won't be sitting here again.

So this night my Son my grandson is going to have the honors of slicing the ham.

For about a minute the room was deadly silent as if someone had died. Then for no reason in particular Dave started this hideous smirky laugh.

I could tell he thought me slicing the ham was some kind of a joke to him.
I don't know why he thought it was, but he did.

Since I was being the butt end of a joke I thought I should be informed of why?

So before my brother Dave could react I grabbed the back of his head by his hairs slammed his head on the table.
I then out of pure reflexes put the slicing knife to Dave's throat.

"Big brother you want to see what else I'm good slicing up?"

As I stared into my brother's face. I wanted to make sure that he knew I was no longer the little brother he could pick on.

Life had harden me, and I let him know it.

"If I were you Dave I would keep the jokes to myself"

Just as I let Dave up Mary B. his wife started screaming
" I want Sam out of this house I want him out now !"

While she kept on screaming like a mad woman demanding I leave.
My grandmother casually walk around the table pulled out her 38 revolver from her purse.
Stuck the gun barrel right in Mary's mouth and said

"You know I have killed my share of Roosters for waking me up too early on a Sunday.
Killing some loud mouth hen won't bother me either.
So shut up and sit down. I want to eat"

As we ate hardly a word was spoken then as the servants cleared the dishes my grandmother stood up

"Sam the rest of the family is going into the parlor to hear the reading of the Will.
Sam there is no need for you to go into the parlor.
Your grandfather did not put you into his will.
He left you this silver bullet and enough money to find your way to Laredo, Texas.
There my grandson you will find what you are looking for, but if you stay here my grandson. Let me warm you -You will be no better then the rest of pigs that eat at this table.

Now get up and go Texas awaits you!,"

I didn't say a word I opened my hand took the silver bullet and the money my grandmother was giving me and headed for the train station. I was on my way to Texas.

Texas Here I Come

Heading to Texas was going to be a lot different for me.
I had spent my whole life in Pennsylvania working as a coal miner, store clerk, dish washer and a cook.

That was, if I wasn't
drunk or in jail for fighting or for being a public nuisance.

As far as Texas was concerned, to my way of thinking.
I knew about as much about Texas as I knew about the moon. Absolutely nothing.

Outside of seeing what a Cowboy looks like in one of them drugstore novels.
I had never met a real Cowboy or a Gun fighter.

It was probably good thing that I didn't.
With my mouth I might get myself shot

Here I was 38 years old and I had never own a gun a single day in my life.

Now I was going to Texas where only woman and Children weren't expected to handle their business at the end of a barrel.

The Train to St Lous

"Wake up Sir!, you got a ticket for that seat?"
"I reckon I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't."
" Then you don't mind showing me your ticket then, do you?"
"Here it is take a good look at it"
"Very good Sir"

"Conductor, Can you tell me where we are?"
"Sir, we are about ten miles outside of St.Louis. You going west or south from Saint Louie?"
"South my good man south"

As the trained rolled in to the station I couldn't help but, notice the contrast between East meets West just outside my window.

Where I was sitting on the train I could see men harden and toughened by the land and the work they did.

Outside a few of them you could tell that they were not well off.

Most of the men that I identified as from the west didn't have much to show for what they had.

Outside of their saddle, their saddle bags, their side arm and their Cowboy hat.
There wasn't much these men had to offer except the sweat off their brow.

On the other hand when I observed the businessmen that had traveled from New York, Boston and Chicago.
You could tell that these men knew exactly what they wanted and how they were going to get it.

You would think from my point of view looking outside my train window that them poor ignorant Cowboys and farmers didn't stand a chance against the men and woman of the East.

You would of thought so, until you had the opportunity to spend a few years in the West.

Then you would realize that the land west of the great Mississippi. Burdens men and families more then they want to be.
It breaks some to tears. Others it takes away what they use to be.

Then there are those who try so hard.
Only to see their dreams crushed by a land and a people that is unforgiving.

Don't think for a moment it's disrespect for the Cowboys or the farmer not to tip their hat at those coming from the East.

It isn't disrespect it's a friendly warning that Hell awaits them.

Julie Weatherstein

"Mister you gonna stare out that window all day?"
" I'm sorry, but does me , looking out this window bother you?" "Mister you can look out that window until General Grant comes back from the dead.
I need you to get up.
I got my belongs under your bench.
I am switching trains. I am going back home to Texas"

"Texas, that's where I'm going. I never been there"

"I can tell tenderfoot you look like one of them Easterner"

"Well if it's no offense to you I am one of those Easterners I'm Sam Dakota"

"Strange name for an Easterner to have. Tell me tenderfoot is that your real name?
A lot of you tenderfoots from the East runaway from their troubles back home.
You all come out here pretending to be one of us, but sooner or later you stick out like a sore thumb"

" Ma'am I don't know about all that. I am not coming west to prove or to be anything"

"Sam, you are a strange bird, if may say so"

"That I may be Miss?"

" The name is Julie Weatherstein"

"Ms Weatherstein as I was saying I am not coming out here to prove or be anything. I am coming out here to find something"

"What would that be Sam?"

" I am told by my grandmother, my future"

" Good luck Sam, I doubt you're going to have much of a future out here"

There was an ackward moment of silence between us on the train. Then Julie said to me.

"Sam, now that we have been properly introduce to each other.
Can you be so kind as to hand me my belongings.
I do have another train to catch"

As Julie started slowly walking off the train I couldn't help, but be overwhelmed by how beautiful a woman Julie Weatherstein was.

I didn't put in into my head about seeing her or courting her.
Such notions would only get me in trouble and at worse disappointed.

The best thing for a guy like me to do was let a girl like Julie ride off into the sunset and think about what could of been.

As I got off the train I could hear my belly talking to me.

I knew I wasn't going to make it to Texas, let alone the next state without a good meal under my belt.

I thought I'd try my luck at the Train Wreck Saloon.
I had just ordered some fried Chicken with mash potatoes, gravy and some extra biscuits
When I felt a soft cold hand on my shoulder.
It's was Julie Weathertstein deciding to have some fun at my expense.

"Boys", she said as half the saloon started looking

"Do you all know what we got ourselves here?"

One of cow hands yelled out "He looks like another tenderfoot to me"

"Yes, Charlie, of course he's a tenderfoot, but he's a special kind of tenderfoot"

"What he some kind of Big City Lawyer"

" No fellas, he's not a lawyer. Our tenderfoot is prospector"

"So, tenderfoot is on his way to California"

"No, Boys ! Not California. Texas our tenderfoot is going to do his prospecting in the great state of Texas"

The saloon and all of its patrons broke out laughing hysterically.

One of the Cowboys who was laughing so hard that he could barely stand up said to me

"Did anyone ever tell you there's no gold in Texas"

"Sir, I am not looking for gold"

Before I could say another word Julie step in. With her arm and hand around my waist

" Boys, I need you all to get real quiet. I want you all to hear What Grandma told Tenderfoot to go looking for in Texas. Go on tell us what grandma told you"

I sat there sulking not saying a word ready to walkout before getting my meal. I hadn't come this far to be made a laughing stock.

That didn't stop Julie from giving me the full treatment of being humiliated.

"Boys, our tenderfoot is tad too shy to tell us what grandma told him.
Our tenderfoot is coming to Texas to prospect for a future"

I didn't say a word I let Julie a young lady I barely knew have her fun. I was going to have my dinner wash up and find the next train to Texas.

Laredo, Texas

As I got off the train at Laredo I was about to find out the future my grandmother told me was waiting me.































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