Image below: Cattle Drive by Charles M. Russell

 
   THE SEARCH

Once again, I'm alone and far from my home
    as I warm beside my campfire on the plains.
Did I pay too high a cost when that noble War was lost
     and left behind the suffering and the pain?
I left the ashes of my past and a life that couldn't last
     when the Yankee blue forever changed the South,
Hitched my future to the hope I could learn to ride and rope,
      the cowboy life seemed my way out.

      So I rode hard out of Dixie.
      Leaving hearth and home I had to get away.
      With mementos in my pack and the clothes on my back,
      Out West there had to be a brighter day.

Getting harder to survive, somehow I got out alive,
     looking for a place to start life anew.
I stopped in Texas for a time but I was surprised to find,
     the war had left its mark on Texas too.
So I left that Lone Star scene, punching cows to Abilene,
     riding drag was the price a greenhorn paid.
But I learned as I went and I hung on to every cent,
     knowing I'd need the wages I had made.

        I hit the Eastern slope of the Rockies,
        Determined to make it on my own
        Moving farther away from that warm Dixie clay,
        I faced a winter wind that chilled me to the bone.

Rode the grub-line now and then, 'til I'd move on again
     learning things no one could ever take away.
Hard work and time chased the demons from my mind,
     I've made my stand, it's here I 'm gonna stay.
This life is hard and sometimes rough, but I've drifted far enough
    to this little patch of heaven calling me.
I can't hear the sounds of battle for the lowing of the cattle,
     it's my new home, I know I 'll never leave.

         I have found the life I searched for
         Free from strife with war behind and far away.
         Dixie has become just the place I started from.
         The Search is over, I found the brighter day.

                  Doc Stovall
                   copyright 1999

                    Webmaster's note:
    This poem was of particular interest to me because of the history it embodies. I am currently doing a web page on Bannock, Montana/Idaho  Territory. Did you know that during the hey days of the gold rush, Bannock had more Confederate than Union sympathizers?  Washington was determined that none of the Bannock gold shipments would reach the South; and measures were taken to see that they did not. Some authorities claim that this was one of the agendas of some of the Vigilantes. Did you know that there is a monument to the Confederate army in Helena, Montana? The story in Stovall's poem was played out all across the Rocky Mountain West; but this is the only poem I know of that spells it out this vividly.
                                                                 Wacobelle