Another Look at the Streets of Laredo

"As I walked out in the streets of Laredo;1

as I walked out in Laredo one day…"2

I stepped off the porch of Marisol’s boarding house, and painfully hobbled up the main street of Nueva Laredo. My legs hadn’t worked so well ever since they got swept from under me by a shotgun blast in Eagle Pass. It was the damn barkeep that shot me, and all I was trying to do was break up a fight.3

"I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen,4

wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay."5

I found him there in the middle of the street; a young-un no more than twenty or so. He was still alive and someone had brought him a sheet to cover with. It was a cold desert morn and he shivered under the sheet, desperately fighting for life as I knelt beside him.6

"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,7

the young cowboy said as I boldly walked by…"8

“M-m-m-mister”, he said, “w-w-what’s it like to be a r-r-r-real cowboy”? “Tain’t easy son”, was all I said as I adjusted the sheet around him to keep him a little warmer. I could tell by the dark expanse of spreading blood that he was a goner, and there was nothing I could do.9

"Go fetch me some water, a cool cup of water,10

got shot in the breast and I know I must die."11

My canteen was empty, so I walked over to the livery stable to crank the old, rusty pump there. The water was alive with minute creatures barely visible to the naked eye, and it tasted like alkali. But still, it was water, and I filled my canteen and walked back to the boy.12

"But before I returned, the spirit had left him, 13

he’d gone to his maker, the cowboy was dead."14

When I got back, I saw that the young cowboy wouldn’t be needing any water, or anything else for that matter. A tumbleweed rolled across his lifeless body and brushed up against my leg, sending a cold chill up my spine. “So young”, I thought, “so young”. I bent and pulled the sheet over his face, and then turned and walked away.15

"So beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,16

sing the dead march as you carry me long.17

Put bunches of roses all over my coffin,18

Roses to deaden the clods as the fall."19

I sat on my horse and watched the procession go by the next morning. It seems the young boy was the preacher’s son, and had gone to town with the new gun he’d received for his 21st birthday, much to his mother’s dismay. He’d walked into Rosa’s Cantina with his new gun hanging at his side, and ordered up a tequila. But he’d never drank whiskey before and he’d never shot a man either. It wasn’t long before he was lying in the street dying.20

I heard his father whisper something about “ashes to ashes and dust to dust”, and then they began shoveling in the dirt. I put my hat back on and pulled on the reins, leaving the boy to his peace. I wondered why I hadn’t died the day my legs got blasted, leaving me in pain for the rest of my life. I just wasn’t as lucky as the boy, I figured…21

“So young”, I thought, “so young”.22