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BILLY JOE, COWBOY SONGS, AND JOHNNY CASH (CONTINUED)
“Here’s the story. Billy Joe straps on his guns and tells his ma he’s a man, and gets on his horse and he rides into Dodge.
“He hitches his horse outside the Wrong Ranch and strides in like he owns the place and orders a double Jack Daniel’s and Ms Puma serves it up. Which Billy Joe knocks back too fast, and starts coughing like an idiot.
“So the dusty cowpoke over there starts laughing him down. Next thing you know, they get into that famous gunfight, and the cowpoke plugs Billy Joe real good, because that’s how the song goes.
“We planted Billy Joe up on Boot Hill. That part isn’t in the song, but we had to do something. You can’t just leave a body shot full of holes to rot on a saloon floor. It would stink like a sack of rotten eggs in a day or two. Ms Puma would lose her license pretty quick.
“We couldn’t even report the shootout to Marshal McDillon, because that’s not in the song either, and Johnny Cash wouldn’t let us change the lyrics. He told us he already shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, in one of his songs, and he didn’t take kindly to strangers messing with his plot lines. Especially in a song where a dude gets shot. Bad karma, Johnny Cash said. So the dusty cowpoke never even got arrested.
“So that’s why I advise everybody who reads this book to please leave your guns at home. You never know what sort of dangerous characters and ideas you might come across, itching to pick a fight. Thank you.”