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There was an old song that the old cowboys used to sing when they sat around the fire. It was a long, winding story of a song, with upwards of eighteen verses, if remembered properly. There was a line in one of the verses that went, “A cowboy only takes off his boots when he is purchasing a new pair of boots, which isn't often.”
The boots had been a gift from his father, given to him on his birthday—the date of which neither were entirely sure. (A cowboy knows the seasons, the sky, the horizon, but hardly the date.) He was around sixteen at that time, all finished growing. They were to be the last pair of boots he would ever need. The boots he would be buried in. His father was killed the next month by the town pastor, in a dispute over a woman. Some time had passed since then, and he had set out on his journey, in search of a suitable wife and a ranch that needed a hand. Somewhere out on the dusty trail, though, his feet started to give him trouble. They cramped, and along his ankle a nasty blister formed. One warm night, as he lay under the lonely stars, he unconsciously kicked off his boots. The breeze tickled his feet, running through his toes. A moment later, scared someone would see, he hurriedly pushed his boots back on. But over the next few years, as he made his way north, and then west, nightly boot-removal became a part of his life. And he had finally been caught.
Would a real cowboy kill another man to keep a secret, or simply continue unapologetically? Were there others who removed their boots at night? What did God think?
In the early morning, looking up at the new sky stretching over the desert, he asked God, and got no answer. He would just have to keep moving.
