Ballad of Rainey Downes
You’ve all sung “The Ballad of Rainey Downes”, about a man who dominated the west, whose story grew in the telling. Each verse has a core of truth, of course. But the real truth, the truth not sung about, was even more fantastic than any song could ever be.
Appearances aren’t always what they seem, and this was truer of Rainey than anyone else you’ll ever meet.
The rumors come closer to the truth. Some said Rainey was a changeling, left by strange Indian spirits. Some said Rainey was really a woman. Some said Rainey was never real, just a spirit on the wind. Some said Rainey was immortal. Some said Rainey was an Indian God who came to the Earth and took mortal form for love. Like the ballad, the rumors have a core of truth, but not the truth.
Appearances aren’t always what they seem. I should know. I rode trail with Rainey Downes and I’m the other half of the Biscoe Downes Ranch.
My name is Gillespie Ogilthorpe Biscoe III, but most folks out west know me as Gil Biscoe. I was a trail boss in those days, marking time until I died, when I met Rainey. All that mattered to me then was getting the herd through. Men, women, horses – they were tools or distractions, sometimes obstacles.
Until Rainey rode into camp.
I want to say Rainey rode into camp on a lightning bolt in a clap of thunder, that something significant and special marked the occasion. It wasn’t so, though. Nothing unusual happened. It was morning and we were still eating breakfast. The sun was rising into a leached sky that said it would be another scorching muggy day. Already the heat dragged at us. Half the men wore their shirts open. Those of us who could avoided the heat of the cookfire. Old Daisy wore two aprons, one just for mopping up his sweat.
We were entering rocky foothills, lots of dry gulches and rocky stream beds, shallow rivers, and deep copses to hide strays and devour unwary cattle and men. I was thinking of hiring on a few extra men at the next town. They’d be drifters and drunks, but if I rode ‘em hard, we’d scrape through.
...