I’ve never known any real cowboys, only those in the movies, and most of them are like cartoon characters. I’ve read and studied quite a bit, though, and I appreciate how the real cowboys worked in the old days of the west and how many still do. It’s a calling, I imagine, like anything else, and a tough life. Long days in the hot sun, long nights under a sky carpeted with stars, cold early mornings and a lot of loneliness. But the beauty of the western landscape would make it worth it and I suspect it’s one of the reasons many chose and choose the life. Stretches of barren plains, the hard unforgiving earth ready to wash away at even a hint of rain, rolling hills made treacherous by rocks and loose vegetation, all spreading out as far as the eye can see. There are no houses, no towns, no cities. No urban sprawl or hip-hop music blasting from passing cars; no true modern amenities. Cowboys still sleep under the sky.
I thought about that today as we drove west across the Sonoran desert, heading home from Tucson. It’s flat and bleak, with a blight of asphalt jungle, the 10 freeway, running through it for hundreds of miles. That’s the only hint we were in the 21st century as much of the landscape is still untouched, largely uninhabitable because of the terrain and the heat. So much of it seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Occasionally we’d see an abandoned structure, the windows long broken by who knows what, perhaps sand storms or driving monsoons. It would sit impossibly low, as if no one could truly stand up inside. Maybe it was just our perspective from the road. There were no doors, no clutter, no rusting metal tools or cars; just a building that someone resurrected once upon a time and then left to whither in the unforgiving desert heat. I wondered who, and then we were past.
We drove on, direction due west, on our steel horse, the cruise control set at 82, trying to beat the sun. It always seemed to be just beyond our reach, moving further and further down in the sky no matter how fast we went. Finally we stopped trying and settled in for the ride and its beauty.
Jack Kerouac wrote a novel, published in 1957, called On the Road about two friends, Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise who meet in 1947 New York City and begin three years of restless journeys back and forth across the country searching for adventure, for truth and for passion. It was an autobiographical work with a stream of consciousness style. An acquired taste to be sure. Kerouac was part of the Beat Generation, writers who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. Most Beatnik writers like Kerouac were inspired by other writers like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, also non-conformists who sought to change how the world thought, acted and reacted through commentary, analysis and poetry. The poet William Carlos Williams was also a big influence. His poem The Dance is one my all time favorites.
Writers like Kerouac were dedicated to respecting the land and indigenous peoples and creatures, much like today’s cowboys. (The old children’s game of cowboys and Indians notwithstanding.) Kerouac’s own description of On the Road was that “the Earth is an Indian thing,” meaning rich in history, in culture, in what’s real. In some ways, it’s horribly naïve; in others, it’s exquisitely beautiful and introspective. That’s what the cowboys have always gotten right: the idea that truth is in the land, in nature. It is all around us, still waiting to be absorbed and appreciated and loved.

Tonight, we’re back in California with our beloved Maguire. We have the windows open and the air is cool. Crickets are chirping and we’ve opened a bottle of Arizona wine, a Syrah made by Kief-Joshua. It has hints of dust and the sunset, of deep pomegranate and desire. A perfect wine to drink this night, with the stars blanketing the sky and the earth and the memory of the desert still in our minds and hearts.
When we close our eyes we’ll see the fire of the sun as it drifted toward the horizon, changing from white hot to bright yellow to orange to red as it sizzled into the sea, extinguishing its heat as it pulled the sky over for cover. We’ll relive our journey and rejoice.
“The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Chapter 7.