Brody, Bill and Shawn

My great grand-daddy hung the wagon wheel from the ceiling when he built his home.
He hung it there to light up each and every meal and to serve as a sentinal of days long gone.

Now, that ol' wagon wheel had rolled his family out from Franklin, Tennessee,
It rolled a thousand miles to claim a stake on this vast - West Texas prairie.

And it has hung there since I was a tiny little boy,
I've heard a million stories told beneath it, stories of tryin' times and time of joy.

For fifty years three sets of spurs have hung from that old wheel,
And I often think about 'em, like each time I sit to eat a meal.

You see, they belonged to cowboys who worked for grand-dad when the war was comin' on,
Good cowboys you hate to lose, their names was Brody, Bill and Shawn.

Somehow, Granny knew that they'd be called to work for uncle Sam,
To go off to a far-away place and defend this sacred land.

So she told them to hang their spurs from the wheel in the dining room.
They'd be there when they got back and that...we hoped was soon.

Brody's spurs were inlaid with silver and his name,
Bills sported his brand and Shawns were only plain.

But, as time flew by and years passed on, we never heard from them.
Until one by one they each showed up in a box marked "U.S. Government."

Those cowboy's was our family, they never knew their own.
So we buried 'em at Cottonwood Hill under a tree that still softly moans.

And we knew we couldn't change was God had meant to do,
But Granny promised those spurs would hang there, 'till they walked back in the room.

And...they're still hangin' there and sometimes I hear their ring.
It reminds me of the freedom those cowboys faught so hard to bring.

A true story from Oklahoma's famed Mulendor Crossbell Ranch-Thank you soldiers

Copyright © Shad Sullivan