31 Nights of Halloween - Night 9: Tryin' to Catch the Devil's Herd

Few images from American folklore can lasso the imagination more firmly than that of the cowboy. Saddletramps driving cattle across the vastness of the prairies and plains are branded into the nation's subconscious. The gunslingers and tin-star wearers get most of the attention, especially in these latter days, but the weathered and weary cowpoke helped blaze trails and feed a growing nation. Such a life may seem, even now, almost dreamlike, especially to the young - all day in the saddle, all night under the stars, the great open world one's workspace.

But such a life has its shadows, too, from ruthess rustlers seeking to steal beeves for their own, to the lash of the great storms that rake the plains with their actinic fingers. The great openness of a cowboy's working life is as much a threat as a reward, with shelter and safety shunned by necessity. At times, the solitude that so often accompanied the cowboy must have led the mind down darkened paths of contemplation, conjuring images of hooved doom in the roiling thunderheads that so often swept across the open spaces.