(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
(THEME, W. CATTLE, WHOOPING, AND FADE FOR.....)
SS (ANNC): THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS.....brought to you by Coyote Brand Cornstarch.....If you feel out of sorts out on the trail, the problem could be your underwear. Keep it from bunching up by sprinkling it with corn starch. And nothing gets the wedgies out like Coyote Brand. (MUSIC)
(WHOOPS AND YELLS, CATTLE, HORSE WHINNIES)
GK: Looks like Yellow Gulch is dead ahead, Dusty. Reckon we oughta be there by sundown.
TR: That's good. We'll bed down the cattle and head in to town and form false friendships with attractive women.
GK: You do what you want, I'm gonna find me a bookstore.
TR: Bookstore!! What you want with books??
GK: A bookstore, Dusty, is where you go to meet young women. Stand by the reference section and thumb through a dictionary or a thesaurus and you'll meet finer women than in a saloon.
TR: There is such a thing as too much fineness in a woman, Lefty. Specially if your time is limited.
GK: Well, I'm not looking for a dance partner, I'd like to find me a wife. I came across an article in a magazine, that said married men live longer than
single men.
TR: Pshaw! When you're married, it only seems longer.
GK: If I found the right woman, pardner, I'd sell my horse and saddle and buy me a bedroom suite.
TR: Ha!
GK: Settle down and make her breakfast in the morning and everything.
TR: You're never gonna do that.
GK: Read out loud to her after supper.
TR: So why don't you do it? Huh?
GK: I might.
TR: Why don't you?
GK: I might.
TR: Twenty years we been riding together and you met plenty of right women and you never settled down with one of them! Why not?
GK: I might've. I wish I had.
TR: Ha. Let me tell you why you don't do it ---- it's because you don't like to be tied down any more than I do. Have people telling you what to do. Sheriffs or schoolmarms or padres or lawyers or whoever. Anybody who tries to mind your business for you. Out here on the prairie, if I want to pull out my pistol and shoot it into the air I just go right ahead and do it. (THREE GUNSHOTS, SPACED) In town, if you wanted to do that, you'd have to file an environmental impact study showing that there was no chance the bullets might fall to earth and cause harm to a living plant!
GK: Well, you get to my age and the thrill of shooting a gun in the air has pretty much worn off. ----What's this up ahead?
TR: Looks like a woman standing at a barbecue or something. And it's next to a cow stanchion.
GK: What would she be doing with a stanchion out here?
TR: Or is it a doorframe?
GK: Maybe she's selling em. Whoa. Whoa. (HORSE WHINNIES) Easy. (TR WHOAING) Afternoon, ma'am.
TR: Nice doorframe you got there. How much you asking?
SS: This ain't a doorframe, it's a metal detector. You gentlemen mind dismounting and putting your saddlebags and your gunbelts on the conveyor belt here? I'm going to run them through the scanner.
TR: What for?
SS: Just checking everybody who comes down the trail, sir.
GK: Checking for what?
SS: Checking for firearms, explosives, knives, any sort of weapon. Forks. Fingernail clippers. Set em down on the conveyor, please.
GK: What good is this supposed to do?
SS: I'm not authorized to answer that question, sir. Just put your pistols and stuff in the scanner and then run your herd of cattle through this metal detector.
TR: Our cattle?
SS: Yes, sir.
TR: All of em?
SS: All of them.
TR: Some of em are pretty big.
SS: If they won't fit, then I'll have to frisk them by hand.
TR: You ever frisk a 700-pound steer before, ma'am? They get frisky if you do.
GK: What exactly are you looking for on these cattle, ma'am?
SS: I'm not authorized to answer that question.
GK: Well, try.
SS: I'm only doing my job, sir.
TR: Who do you work for?
SS: The Office of Prairie Security.
TR: Ma'am, this is purely ridiculous.
SS: I don't make the rules, sir.
GK: You may have to frisk two-hundred head of cattle, ma'am.
SS: Then we better get started.
TR: Ma'am, we are not going to try to run 400 head of cattle through a metal detector. It ain't going to happen.
SS: Then I can't let you use the trail.
GK: Ma'am, you're standing in the middle of the great plains. This is wide open country--- it's pretty hard to tell somebody where he can and cannot go.
SS: I'm not responsible for the country, just this one trail.
TR: There is no point in arguing with a bureaucrat, Lefty. Their minds are rusted shut. Let's turn this herd around----
GK: It just plain doesn't make sense, ma'am.
SS: That's not my job. My job is running this metal detector.
TR: C'mon, pardner. (WHINNY) (MUSIC BRIDGE) (SALOON INTERIOR AMBIENCE)
SS (BARTENDER): What kin I bring you two?
TR: You got rotgut whiskey?
SS (BARTENDER): Which kind of rotgut you want? We got the sitting down sipping whiskey and we got the falling down guzzling whiskey.
TR: Gimme some of your sitting down whiskey.
SS (BARTENDER): How about you, mister?
GK: Would you have a Chardonnay? An Oregon Chardonnay? Say, about a '97 or '98?
SS (BARTENDER): Sharnay? Is that a brand of something?
GK: It's a wine. White wine.
SS (BARTENDER): We don't sell wine, mister. This here is a saloon. It ain't a book club.
GK: Well, how about an iced tea then?
SS (BARTENDER): All I got is coffee. Strong coffee. Brewed it last summer. We use it to strip paint.
GK: Well, just water then.
SS (BARTENDER): Coming right up. (FOOTSTEPS AWAY)
(PAUSE)
TR: The way this country is going now ---- I just don't know. There were way too many security people before all this. Now there's gonna be twice as many. And they're going to mean it. You wait and see. They're gonna put a bar code on our butts before you know it. They're gonna have rules from here to next Tuesday about where you can go and where you can spit and what you can say.
GK: They already got rules against spitting.
TR: And I'm against every last one of them. (BIG FOOTSTEPS)
TK (GROWLY): You fellas new in town, ain'tcha.
GK: Just arrived. Heading west.
TK (GROWLY): Good. You just keep on heading.
GK: That's what we intend to do.
TK (GROWLY): And the sooner the better.
GK: Not the friendliest town I ever been in, I must say. What's your name?
TK (GROWLY): None o' yer business. But it's Luke.
GK: You seem to have a chip on your shoulder attitude, Luke.
TK (GROWLY): I don't cotton to strangers much. Don't care for my friends that much so what do I want with folks I don't even know? (FOOTSTEPS)
SS (BARTENDER): Here's your rotgut whiskey. And here's your glass of river water.
GK: Thank you, ma'am.
SS (BARTENDER): Wait a minute and let the sediment settle.
GK: Yes, ma'am.
TR: So what line of work you in, Luke? You a cowboy?
TK (GROWLY): No, I'm the Lutheran minister.
GK: You??? You're no Lutheran. I know Lutherans. They're the kindest people on God's green earth.
TK (GROWLY): I'm one of the mean Lutherans.
GK: There ain't no such thing!
TK (GROWLY): Is too! I come here to get away from those Lutherans.
TR: How many people in your church?
TK (GROWLY): Just me. I run all the others off.
GK: I never heard of Lutherans like you.
TK (GROWLY): Well, you have now. (HAWKS AND SPITS)
GK: You just spit in my water glass, mister.
TK (GROWLY): So what if I did?
GK: You know, I have a rule about never hitting a Lutheran but I believe I may make an exception in your case, sir. (HE SWINGS, AND THEY WRESTLE AROUND PUNCHING AND GRUNTING, AND BREAKING CHAIRS AND THROWING GLASSWARE) Hey, wait a minute---- hold on---- (BREAK CHAIR) I said, Hold on.
TK (GROWLY): What is it? ---- (SLOW FOOTSTEPS) Who's she?
GK: Ma'am----
SS: Evenin'.
GK: Ain't you the woman who was running the metal detector on the old Chisholm Trail there today?
SS: Right.
GK: I run into you there, my partner and me.
SS: Yeah?
GK: You were wearing a navy blue uniform and a badge. Now --- here you are in this scanty little silk pinafore with the marabou wrap and smoking a cigarette in a turquoise holder.
SS: It's my night off.
GK: Who's running the security?
SS: Nobody. We shut it down at 6.
GK: Can I buy you a drink?
SS: Reckon you can. It's a free country.
GK: Can I dance with you?
SS: Reckon so.
GK: Can I take you up to the bookstore and shop around?
SS: Sounds like fun.
GK: How about afterward?
SS: I'll be around.
GK: Mind if I sing you a song?
SS: I'd love that.
GK: This is a little ditty I wrote called "I'm In The Nude for Love". (HE STRUMS GUITAR)
TR: Hey pardner. I think it's time we were moving along----
GK: Soon as I sing my song, Dusty.
TR: Let's go.
GK: I'm busy.
TR: Come.
GK: I'll come in a minute.
TR: Now.
GK: (SIGHS) You have just about the worst sense of timing of anybody----- (TWO SETS OF FOOTSTEPS, OUT DOOR, INTO NIGHT AMBIENCE) What is it?
TR: The coast is clear. Let's round up the dogies and head up the trail.
GK: First, I'm going to take that sweet lady to the bookstore and ---
TR: No, you ain't, pardner. (KONK, GK FAINT) (MUSIC BRIDGE) (HORSES HOOVES, WALKING, CATTLE) (GK GROANS)
TR: Sorry I had to hit you, Lefty.
GK: You didn't need to hit me so hard. I got a headache feels like somebody pounded a nail into me.
TR: Just hit you hard enough to change your mind.
GK: Hit me so hard I forgot the song I was going to sing to her.
TR: Well, there's a bonus.
GK: And what did you do with my guitar???
TR: I give it away to a songwriter. He looked like a songwriter. Anyway, he was drunk. Giddup. (FASTER HORSE GAIT)
(THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by Coyote Brand Cornstarch.....Put a coyote in your pants today. And sprinkle some under your saddle and see if your horse doesn't appreciate it too. (WHINNY) (MUSIC PLAY OFF)
© Garrison Keillor 2001