We were just pulling up to the cattle guard when it went off. KAAABOOOM...... "Son of a bitch, he's ripped it this year,” Denny Dupuis shouted to Alice as the whole bunch leaped out of their truck cabs to watch the huge dusty cloud rise from the gaping hole next to the fence. A half-mile distant they could just make out Stub Gillin doing a little dance on his weathered porch, turning in a circle, then leaning out to get a better view. Ma Gillin raced out from the kitchen to stand beside him, then both pointed towards us. You could just barely hear her chewing on him. "Stub, you're just a big kid. You'll never grow up, why you could have hurt them guys."
Alice and I lined up behind the cattle guard along with the dozen others, all of us giving ol' Stub the finger as a kind of salute for startin' off the 22nd Annual Shooters Convention right. Frank Morrison and his new wife Beth stood on either side of us, with Beth next to Alice while Big Frank poked his middle finger up towards the sky. Big Frank was Head Shooter this year, and his was the lead truck that damn near got blown off the road. This was the biggest crew ever since the Convention began right after the Korean War. Frank came 400 miles, all the way from Hamilton up the Bitterroot, while the rest of us were closer.
Take ol' Ferd McCullough who was standing just beyond Big Frank. Ferd, he drove down from Lewistown which was just over three hours away. His current woman, Elsie, was covering her eyes against the dust and sun and laughin' to beat all shit, pounding on Ferd's shoulder while her big butt jiggle adjacent to his narrow ass. Every year when they showed up I got the same wierd image of them two makin' it with her cheeks hangin' down on either side while she pivoted astride him, revolving around his dick like a fat hen gettin' comfortable on her nest. I could just see her head back, eyes squeezed shut and her mouth wide open to catch enough air, while poor is Ferd lying there, trying to keep it up and not lose interest in the action. A guy's mind does funny things, at least mine does, probably because I'm more Indian than White and see things different.
Anyway, I was glad to see Ham Michaels from Miles City back again with his buddy, Pete Ramirez. Ham and Pete were in the First Cav during the Vietnam war and joined the national guard when they returned. They were real handy with every weapon in the armory, and always where kiddin' the two fat guys next to them, Art and Dave Little from Forsyth, who made the Okinawa landing as kids just out of high school. Art and Dave farmed their Dad's patch of sugar beets along the Yellowstone, and kept pretty much to themselves and never married; they lived a hell of lot different lives than Ham and Pete who crowded the Antler Bar most any night in the week, pickin' up whoever was lonely and available to heat up their beds during the long winter nights. Clootchs, that's who they were always looking for, but no women in their right mind would hang her bra on their bedpost more than a few nights in a row. As Alice put it, they were the funkiest cowboys in Montana. Just washing their sheets was a major action.
Posted by John Badgley
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