~ The Demise of Jesse Brown ~

The hot sun shone on Jesse’s neck,
A few more miles to town,
On the trail eleven days,
To help out "Kooter Brown."

Uncle Kooter’s health was failing,
Jess would run his ranch.
A spread well known to folks in town,
Kooter’s "El Savory Branch."

"El Savory," a cowboy town,
of ranch hands raising hell.
Fresh in from a cattle drive.
Hot right off the  trail.

Jess rode into town,
tied-up his horse at Nell’s Saloon.
Two wooden doors push open,
his spurs jingling through the room.

Jess orders up a branch water,
to quench his dusty thirst.
After two or three, he rents a room…
a bath comes first.

Pays a liveryboy to take his horse,
for feed and care,
Then had one more while waiting,
for hot water, heated there.

"Hey! you ole Kooter Brown’s kin,
come to run "El Savory Branch?"
"You’ll be runn’in more’in cattle,
Kooter bootlegs on that ranch!"

"Steel’in business from Old Nell,
"white lightnin" brewed instead."
Gun raised, he fired three bullets…
Today Jesse Brown is dead.

COPYRIGHT©2005 BONNIE TORRENTE