A multicolored cowboy canters into Bandera,
Texas today, leaving Sipokni West behind.
His face looks like a wax figure, melting
In rivers of hues, under southwestern sky.
Every color on the spectrum stripes his
handsome features and reflects no particular
ethnic group. He is a man unto himself.
With Stetson pulled low to shadow his expression,
he hitches his quarter horse to a post,
strolls into the Longhorn Saloon. Tourists,
young and old stare, never having seen
a kaleidoscopic man. Russ is used to this
kind of attention, doesn’t think twice
about questions or people being standoffish
because of his difference. He is an anomaly
who exists outside the proverbial realm of
instant preconceptions and bigotry.
Even though his appearance suggests
an indeterminate background, supposition
has it that his father and grandfathers were
Spanish vaqueros who trained to heard cattle
on horseback. As a modern cowboy,
Russ trails cows down the mountains in autumn,
weans calves, ships stock. All in all
his attention centers on the well-being
of these animals.
In the saloon, he orders Maker’s Mark,
a bourbon that he sips neat. Tomorrow
he starts his new job in Bandera, managing
farm animals, maintaining fencing and
rangeland. Employers at the Dixie Dude
Ranch have not met Russ in person,
will be initially startled by his prismatic
appearance, but will soon learn that he is
an impeccable worker and embrace
his peculiarity. He is a tough man
who has only weakened once, when
he was a little boy and first looked
into a mirror, so startled
by his oddity that he cried. Rainbow tears
ran down his cheeks, pooled in a
watercolor lake, beautiful
as self-acceptance or colors
of the Painted Desert.
