"Wanted, Living Or Dead", a cowboy western poem.

"Basin With Sailor" by John Singer Sargent, 1917.

WANTED, LIVING OR DEAD

The vista was wrong. He didn’t belong
any where on this sage-crested prairie.
Jones longed for the fogs and the salt-water bogs;
and the thought that he’d die here was scary.

He missed sailing ships and the fierce whaling trips;
and he’d die for some stout Boston ale.
Any port is a jail when your heart yearns to sail
and his yearned for schooners and whale.

But he’d killed a man; then left Boston and ran.
Bounty hunters were hot on his trail.
He could ride with the best and was safe in the west…
and it sure beat some dank Boston jail.

             **********************

Now at high noon, in the Pryor Creek saloon,
a dude with a scar slammed the door.
It was hard to ignore
the gun that he wore-
and the clothes of the fancy buffoon.

His garb was top-drawer
and a long way from poor,
but it sure didn't fit in the west.
From the accent he spewed
this gun totin' dude
must 'uv come straight from Boston, Jones guessed.

With eyes, mad-dog mean-
with a fierce, rabid glean,
the man eyed each soul in the place.
Jones faced the bar. Thus the dude with the scar
saw his back and not Jones's anguished face.

With a gun on his hip, and Jones's name on his lip,
the dude flashed a poster that read,
"WANTED LIVING OR DEAD”;
and then the man said,
"This time he won't give me the slip."

The sheriff was there; but he didn't much care
if Jones found a friendlier port.
Bounty hunters he cursed. Their kind was the worst;
and Jones seemed a quite decent sort.
(He didn't cause trouble like some of the rubble
that shot up the town just for sport.)

Said the sheriff, "Could be...
but I'd search by the sea.
There’s no ships or water out here.
The closest you’ll get to anything wet
is a mug of the bartender’s beer.

It strikes me as strange
that y’d search on the range.
Frisco’s more like it, I’d say.
Sailor’s like that flock t' Frisco like rats
and hole up in dives near the bay.”

Then the dude showed a card;
and the sheriff looked hard.
The postmark read PRYOR CREEK as feared.
Jones still used his name;
but his looks weren’t the same.
He’d aged; and he’d grown a full beard.

“Take a look round the place.
Do y' see any face
that looks like the poster y' brought?
Put down your gun. Do y' see anyone
that looks like the picture y’ve got?”

……………………………………
The last time I heard, no one breathed a word;
(and by now, it’s been nearly ten years.)
The dude caught a stage, leaving Pryor and the sage;
and Jones is still rounding up steers.

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