“Tyin’ Knots In The Devil’s Tail”

 

Poem by Gail I. Gardner ~ Artwork by

George Phippen

  A non-profit organization.

ARIZONA COWBOY POETS GATHERING, Inc. INC

For 20 years the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering has been a featured event in Prescott, Arizona.  A small group of volunteers, with help from staff at the Sharlot Hall Museum, produced this widely recognized event, with Warren Miller as the guiding hand behind the gathering. His retirement in 2006 meant the committee took over and began making things happen. However,  this year the museum is in the throes of remodeling and cannot house the gathering, so we’ve moved to the campus of Yavapai College.

We became an incorporated 501(c)(3) in early 2008 and began pursuit of production for a gathering in August of the same year. The same committee is hard at work to insure the gathering will continue in much the same fashion as in past years, even though we will miss the museum grounds and the ambiance it provided. 

This event is now and has always been about the gathering together of a group of poets and musicians who are doing their part to preserve the culture and heritage of the American West. The Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering has maintained a standard that has been abandoned by most other gatherings: that of inviting men and women who are now or have been in the past a part of the working cowboys environment and workplace.  It is respected by the cowboy poets as one of the best gatherings in the country because we’ve done so much to maintain the “cowboy” culture and heritage. 

ABOUT our gathering

OUR LOGO WAS DESIGNED BY DAVE HOLL ESPECIALLY FOR THE PRESCOTT GATHERING.

Prescott, Arizona, is rich with history of poetry and prose that is well-known throughout the world. Probably one of the most beloved of all cowboy poems is that written by Gail I. Gardner, “Tyin’ Knots In The Devil’s Tail” or “Sierry Peaks”.  His friend George Phippen, an original member of the Cowboy Artists of America, did an oil painting depicting the tale, and a couple of pencil drawings as well, one of which is shown above.  Another beloved poet who lived in Prescott most of her life was Sharlot M. Hall, for whom the Museum on Gurley Street was named. This was the home of the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering for many years.  There are dozens of well-known poets in the state of Arizona, and every year at the Gathering in Prescott we present many of them to you in venues that are intimate and enriching. If you’ve never been, you don’t know what you’ve been missing! If you’ve been here before, this will be a landmark year for the Gathering at Prescott.

Away up high in the Sierry Petes where the yeller Jack Pine grows tall

Ol’ Sandy Bob and Buster Jig had a rodeer camp last fall.

 

Oh, They’d taken their hosses and their runnin’ irons an’ maybe a dog or two

And ‘lowed they’d brand any long eared calves that come within their view.

 

And any old doggie that flapped long ears, An’ didn’t bush up by day,

Had his long ears whittled an’ his ol’ hide scorched in a most artistic way.

 

Now, one fine day ol’ Sandy Bob he throwed his seago down

“I’m sick of the smell of burnin’ hair and I low’s I’m a-goin’ to town.”

 

So they saddles up an’ hits ‘em a lope, ‘fer it weren’t no sight of a ride

And them was the days when a Buckeroo could ‘ile up his insides.

 

They starts her in at the Kaintucky Bar at the head of Whiskey Row

An’ they winds up down at the Depot House, some forty drinks below.

 

They then sets up and turns around and goes ‘er the other way

An’ to tell you the Gawd-forsaken truth, them boys got stewed that day!

 

As they was a-ridin’ back to camp a-packin’ a purty good load

Who should they meet but the Devil hisself just a prancing’ down the road!

 

Sez he, “You ornery cowboy skunks, you better hunt ‘yer holes!

Fer’ I’ve come up from Hell’s rim rock just to gather in your souls.”

 

Sez Sandy Bob, “Ol’ Devil be damned . . . we boys is kinda’ tight,

But you ain’t a-gonna’ gather no cowboy souls, without some kind o’ fight!”

 

So, Sandy Bob punched a hole in his rope, and he swang ‘er straight and true,

An he lapped it onto the Devil’s horns, an’ he taken his dallies too.

 

Now Buster Jig was a riata man, with his gut-line coiled up neat,

So he shaken her out an’ built him a loop, and he lassed the Devil’s hind feet.

 

They stretched him out and they tailed him down while the irons was a-gettin’ hot,

They cropped and swaller-forked his yeres, then they branded him up . . . a lot!

 

They pruned his horns with a de-hornin’ saw an’ they knotted his tail fer a joke,

Then they rid off and left him there, necket to a Black-Jack oak.

 

Well, if you’re ever up high in the Sierry Petes an’ you hear one Hell of a wail,

You’ll know it’s that Devil a-bellerin’ around about them knots in his tail.

 

 

 

“Buster Jig” in this poem is Gail I. Gardner himself,  while Sandy Bob is referring to his friend, “Texas” Bob Heckle. Both these cowboys left tracks all over Yavapai County.  An interesting side-note is that Bob Heckle was the Grandfather of Marty Robbins, famed country-western singer of the 50’s and 60’s.