THREE-X BRAND

Assignment: Write about a person and his possession

Although he was stove up, ancient, blind
nearly mummified by the time I arrived,
I could see the Texas Ranger in his
ferocity of independence,
and soft gentlemanly manners,
but mostly in his memories.

After his sturdy saddle horse broke a leg
in a prairie dog hole and
had to be shot between his knowing brown eyes,
single-handedly my Uncle Jim wrestled down
a wild mustang and chewed his ear hard enough
to convince the ornery broomtail
to carry him for three scorching waterless days
out of the vast desert of West Texas.

I studied Uncle Jim’s tool-leathered visage
looking for the tough-as-whet-leather wrangler
who survived decades of bringing in outlaws- -
desperados who weren’t exactly friendly
to the notion of capture.

I pumped at the well of stories and
even primed him with my favorite ones,
“Uncle Jim, remember when the bad guys
were laying to ambush you in the livery stable?”
A smile would part his thin lips
giving glimpse to tobacco-stained teeth
and his sightless tobacco-stained eyes would gaze beyond
the flowered wallpaper of Grandma’s parlor
all the way to the dusty Wild Times.

He’d dig two thick white chalky mint candies
marked with XXX out of his shirt pocket:
one for the storyteller and one for his ardent audience.
Uncle Jim would lean back, while I leaned forward.
We’d let the sweet sit on our tongues for a moment
before his recollectin’ commenced
I was one lucky apprentice cowgirl.

Many years later, long after Uncle Jim was gone,
while grocery shopping with my own five wild Indians,
I am upon his favorite 3X brand of mints.
Since I proudly am my uncle’s legacy,
I snagged a bag in tribute to Uncle Jim
and recalled one of his tall Texas Ranger tales,
“Kids, have I told you about the time Uncle Jim
was chasing after a band of cattle rustlers
and got stranded in the West Texas desert?”


Patricia Prewitt
January 4, 2009