cowboyconvict

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warm winter tones

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i see you by phoebe bridgers

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roswell, new mexico by allison beondé

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“Somewhere Between Right And Wrong” by Matt McCormick

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Madison County, Montana, 1939

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Brandon de Wilde & Paul Newman in

Hud (1963) - dir. Martin Ritt

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Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico, 1973

Photographs by Boyd Norton

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take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time

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Storm Riders by Glenn Dean (x)

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Source: Dixie's Cowboy Ranch

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be honest with me now, pard

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how do you deal if someone tells you your no good?

“Wish I could tell you I ain’t never heard it,” Jack says with a wry smile, something bitter in his eyes despite the weak joke. “But, uh…No, yeah. Hear it a lot.”

It’s familiar, almost. He’s heard it since he was a kid, the sentiment that he’s doomed or something close. Was born with a shitty hand of cards and there’s nothing he can do about it, and its effects have made him worse since. He’s been told a thousand times over that he’s insolent, incorrigible - an asshole, a brat. Nothing good, got nothing good to offer, either. Just another poor kid of immigrants.

“It, uh. Gets under my skin a li’l sometimes, I guess,” he admits tightly, fussing at one rolled-up sleeve just for something to do with his hands. “‘S’one a’ them things I think about. Think might be true sometimes. …Crutchie’s good at settin’ me straight, though. Y’know. Tells me the sort of shit I can’t believe, but. I can believe I got some good stuff to offer, at least.”

His fussing at his sleeve devolves to scratching at his forearm with short, blunt fingernails. He has to keep them short, gets paint and charcoal and all sorts stuck under them if he doesn’t.

“I can help people. An’…whether I’m good or not, that’s worth somethin’. I can fuckin’. Paint stuff for Miss Medda to put up, an’ make Kath laugh, an’ listen to the kids, make sure everyone’s fed. An’. Fuck, maybe I’m bad, but maybe the rest of that stuff makes it at least worth it that I’m here.”

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Junction City, Kansas, 1942

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🐊🤠

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Do you have a lot of money saved, Jack? If not, what's getting in the way?

“Uh…” Jack hesitates a moment, gaze ducked to the floor to hide the more complex emotions crossing his face, before he fixes himself with a bold, crooked smile and looks up with his trademark exaggerated charm. “Not as much as I need jus’ yet, so if you’re fixin’ to donate to the cause, any contributions are much appreciated. I’ll even give you a pape for your troubles.”

He draws one from his bag and wiggles it like it’s some beacon of temptation.

“That train ticket ain’t cheap.”

He…assumes. He’s never actually gotten so far as checking. But Santa Fe’s a long way away, so it’s gotta be a pretty penny to get there.

He tells himself that’s the sole reason he’s never checked the price, just because he couldn’t stomach how high it would be.

Not because he’d then have to face it if he ever really had the money.

He collects as much of his cash as he can, every spare coin plonked into his tin that holds his few genuine effects. He saves up a decent amount sometimes, what looks like real money that could get him something - what could well be enough to afford that ticket - but then something always comes along. Somebody being short their lodging money, or Splasher’s shoes falling apart completely, or Jack filling up a sketchbook completely and itching so bad with the need to draw that he has to buy a new one.

There’s always something that needs to be paid for. And perhaps that’s his real safety blanket, covering up the false floor he’d fall through if he really tried to make his “plans” happen. Maybe someday he’ll save up enough and the boys will be safe for long enough that the money gets comfortable, and then he’ll be able to go.

But for now, the savings are more for New York than they are for Santa Fe. And he won’t admit it, but he’ll find any excuse to spend them.

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Do you have any specific feelings about the delanceys

Jack subconsciously lets his lip curl in immediate distaste, baring a crooked canine tooth in his grimace as he looks away.

“They’re assholes,” is his immediate response, before he seems to process the ‘specific’ part in the question and lets his head drop back in a sort of exasperated frustration, exhaling.

He’s spent countless hours of his life analysing his feelings about the brothers, hating them and regretting it and helplessly hoping he could’ve helped them, but fuck if he’s ever done so out loud.

“They ain’t…They ain’t monsters,” he says haltingly, reluctantly. Theatrically. “Morris ain’t even that much older ‘n me, I don’t think - an’ Oscar’s only a couple years older ‘n that. They’re jus’. People. Ain’t near as grown as they act, ain’t as strong neither. But they’re assholes.”

They are. Jack fidgets as he thinks of every recent interaction with them stretching back all the years they’ve worked at The World, flexing his hands to fight the instinct to curl them into fists. Remembering every brutal fistfight, every time he’s been cornered by them and threatened for whatever reason, every time one of his own has come home brutalised or afraid. Every pile of papes thrown into the dirt or intentionally damaged as they were handed over, every miscounted hundred.

But he also can’t help remembering the times before that too. The three of them in the Refuge together, just three scared kids, before any of them had been who they are now. Jack had seen them, tiny and terrified and beaten beyond recognition, caned to ribbons, and they’d seen him the same. Jack had looked after Morris when Oscar was in isolation. He’d backed Oscar up in fights in the bunk room. They’d split meagre portions of food between them to pay their debts. Jack had given them their share of what he’d managed to traffic in, seen Morris dressed in the clothes Jack had stolen.

There’s something sick about knowing someone so well and not knowing them at all. Having what should be the makings of a bone-deep bond with them but all you can make with it is hatred.

“They’re assholes,” Jack repeats quietly, and means it.