“John Wayne at 30 Paces”
With sentence handed down,
the crowd gathered in the street.
The pistol, primed and loaded,
thrown at Ron’s feet.
Without hesitation,
without a thought or care,
barrel moved to his head
trigger pulled
but did not move a hair.
“No” the crowd shouted,
not what we came to see.
So John Wayne at this finest
marched out into the street.
A shootout at 30 paces
he had decided it would be.
With rifles picked and loaded
words between John and me.
“Sorry son to take you down
But way it got to be.”
The crowd gathered round
again.
Lined both
sides of the street.
Blood thirsty bunch just had
to have
what they had come to see.
John, slow to position,
raised and fired.
But Ron never moved.
He knew it time to expire.
Blasted to the ground,
with blue sky above
and the smell of dirt below,
Ron uttered his last
and let this mortal coil go.
“Didn’t mean nothing”
Some heard him say
and that
with “John Wayne at 30 Paces”
is what is on his tombstone
today.