The Legend of Iron-Gut

It started like a bad country song and ended like a court summons. Me and my uncle, we rode down from Colorado, wild as mountain goats and twice as smelly. We had a pair of horses that knew the way to every saloon from Denver to the Rio Grande. We hit West Texas just as the sun was turning the sky the color of a bruised peach.

We stopped over in Santa Fe, though my memory of it is hazy on account of the mezcal. My uncle, a man with a silver tongue and a heart made of fool's gold, insisted on finding a game. We walked into a joint where the piano player had a scar running from his ear to his jaw, and the bartender kept a sawed-off shotgun next to the pickled eggs.

My uncle sat down with some local cattlemen. They were playing for keeps—gold watches, pink slips, and souls. I stood by the bar, polishing my belt buckle and keeping an eye on the exit. Dealing from the bottom of the deck ain't a crime where we come from, but these Texans disagreed.

One of 'em stood up and shouted, "He's cheatin'!"

My uncle smiled, tipped his hat, and said, "I'm just improvin' the odds."

The next three minutes were a blur of flying chairs, shattered glass, and gunshot. I grabbed the pot—a heavy bag of gold dust and a Rolex—and tossed my uncle his Winchester. We fought our way to the door, back to back, just like in the dime novels.

We rode for the badlands of Mexico, laughing all the way. But when we stopped to split the loot, I realized something important: I loved the open road more than the gold. So I left my uncle there by the side of the road with his share and the horses, and I walked back to El Paso to start a blog.

That's how "Iron-Gut" Kevin was born. I traded my six-shooter for a keyboard, but don't let the pixels fool you. I'm still the quickest draw in the West.