‘There is an inconspicuous turn-off past the long right curve of I-75 in the southern-most portion of Florida which acts as a de-facto parking lot for viewing, taunting, or getting shot by ‘The Last American Cowboy.’ Signposts indicate the safe distances one might do any of these things, though these signs are also de-facto in that if ‘The Last American Cowboy’ ever chose to run down from the crest of the hill and shoot a distant heckler, there would be nothing standing in his way.
‘The Last American Cowboy’ looks like a man- like a cowboy straight from a spaghetti western. He’s been arrested many times and tried in court, sentenced to various lengths of time in jail. He’s been shot and seemingly killed. He bounces back from jailtime and death in the way only rich white men seem to do. Within a week he’s back up on the hill, shouting yee-hahs and shooting at anyone that comes too close. In this regard, he is more like a ghost or a spirit, but that calls into question the validity of his claim- that he is the last American cowboy. Does it count if you are already dead? If you were never, in the human sense, alive?
It matters less because it is his claim- the only answer he’ll give when asked to identify himself and the easiest way to get under his skin. He doesn’t like to be questioned along these lines. He doesn’t like being reminded that other cowboys do still exist. Given his effective immortality, he could simply answer that he will be the last cowboy eventually, even if it requires the extinction of man. Instead, he shoots those questioners in range, shoots at the sky, twirls his revolvers, spits in the dust.
Ignore signs that claim there is a safe ‘lasso zone.’ They are placed by the cowboy or someone associated with him, just far enough in to be covered by Castle Doctrine. In the long tradition of American cowboys, this one is out for blood.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
