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Read by Willa · excerpt from Cowboy by CG Fewston

‘My birthday’s cursed,’ the boy said, and he spat on the dry earth between the two horses. ‘Unless curses are a kind of fate.’

‘Guess that’s one kind of fate, kid,’ Henry said, ‘and there’s nothing out of my own life that can make me say anything against it. God knows Bowdre, Rudabaugh, and Wilson could attest to the same. I imagine Diarmuid and Finn MacCool could also. Remind me tonight, and I’ll tell you some interesting stories.’

Neither the man nor the boy spoke again for some time; each one riding and adjusting to the company of the other, learning how the other handled the saddle and reins, and how the other treated his horse. How the other dealt with the long-profound silences most often found in tough Texan men, built more for the land than the city.

Henry finally retrieved a canteen of water from his side and drank a refreshing drink. He offered the boy some. The boy thankfully retrieved the canteen and drank the mildly cool water from within. One day, the boy thought, he needed to get himself a canteen just like that one. It was an old Confederate canteen, and for some strange reason the canteen reminded the boy of his own grandfather.

When the boy drank from the canteen, the man spoke softly but with a kind of confidence that appeared to the boy to be constructed out of some unknown lie that had been told enough times that the meanings of the words meant nothing anymore other than presenting the illusory shapes of sounds leading to false truths.

‘People have been saying how the American Old West is dead or dying,’ the man said, gazing out over the flat land ahead of them. ‘How it’s closed or closing. What do you think, kid? Do they have a point?’

‘I reckon it will stay alive as long as we keep it alive.’

‘Fair enough,’ the man said. ‘Name’s Henry Bartholomew Roberts, kid. How about your name, or should I just keep calling you kid?’

The boy stopped short of saying his Christian name, because he believed, right then and there, that maybe his Christian name was the thing about him that was cursed, and since his name was cursed, his soul was also cursed. Or so went the boy’s thinking. The boy rode quiet for a brief spell.

‘So, how about it, kid?’ Henry said after a good time had passed. ‘Got a name or did the cat get your tongue?’

‘Name’s Cowboy,’ the boy finally said, his voice shaking when he said it.

‘A fine name,’ Henry said without hesitation, as if names meant little to him. ‘A fine name for any man, indeed.’

Henry retrieved his canteen back from the boy and hung the canteen’s leather strap around the saddle horn to let the canteen hang free. Henry next wrapped the strap a few times around the horn to keep it tight and high up alongside the saddle.

‘How about it then, Cowboy,’ Henry said, scanning the horizon in all directions, even the one behind him. ‘How about we go make a name for ourselves.’

‘Fine by me,’ the boy said.

‘All right then,’ Henry said, giving his black beast a few kicks in the sides with the heels of his boots, ‘Let’s ride, kid.’