Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp · Chapter
The Drunken Desperado explained
A boastful, wild cowboy brags about his lawless exploits, violence, and drinking, declaring his independence and fearlessness in the face of death.
What happens
A boastful, wild cowboy brags about his lawless exploits, violence, and drinking, declaring his independence and fearlessness in the face of death.
Themes in this chapter
Masculinity and Bravado
The speaker's exaggerated claims of violence and toughness embody the cowboy's performative masculinity.
Violence and Justice
The poem glorifies gunfights and killings, presenting a personal code of violence without remorse.
Characters to notice
- Baird Boyd
Speaker and author of the poem, a self-proclaimed drunken desperado.
- Good-eye Jim
Mentioned as serving the crowd at the bar.
Key passages
“I’m wild and woolly and full of fleas, I’m hard to curry below the knees, I’m a she-wolf from Shamon Creek, For I was dropped from a lightning streak”
I am untamed and rough, born of wildness itself.
The speaker establishes his feral, untamable nature.
“I never killed for profit or fun, But riled, I’m a regular son of a gun”
I don't kill without reason, but when provoked I am dangerous.
The speaker justifies his violence as reactive rather than wanton.
“When I get old and my aim aint true And it’s three to one and wounded, too, I won’t beg and claw the ground; For I’ll be dead before I’m found”
When I am old and outmatched, I will die fighting rather than surrender.
The speaker vows to maintain his defiant pride even in death.