Once, a cowboy spent so much time on horseback that his legs grew in a bend. His friends called him Bowleg Bill.
Bowleg was 8 feet 4 inches tall and lived and worked in Laramie, Wyoming. But one day, he found himself on the east coast near a fishing port at precisely the wrong time in history.
You see, this was a time when whaling ships were hard to crew. So, captains hired “crimps” to recruit sailors in taverns with an easy manner, a free drink, and a few drops of knockout potion.
Two crimps noticed Bowleg Bill straight away. He loomed over everyone in his cowboy hat, holster, and boots. After the knockout potion took effect, the crimps dragged Bill to the wharf and installed him on the deck of Sawdust Sal.
The Sal’s captain, a bloodthirsty man with a quick temper, paid the crimps their fee and stroked his whiskers with satisfaction. “I expect hard work from this Goliath,” he said. His first mate, Saunders, muttered in agreement while admiring Bill’s cow-punching outfit: chaps, holster, and hat.
The captain noticed Bowleg’s gun, “Remove that gun from his holster, just in case.”
Bill awoke surrounded by water. “Must’ve flooded last night,” he said with a yawn. “Any of you seen a chestnut horse tied up around here? He don’t like the wet.”
“You!” yelled the first mate from across the ship, pointing at him with a steel pin called a marlin spike.
“Up, you great lump!” shouted the mate. “There’s nowhere to go. You’re stuck as a sailor on the Sawdust Sal. So hop to your business, or I’ll crack your nut with this spike, see?!”
Bowleg Bill didn’t quite understand all the words this man yelled, but he did catch the tone—and didn’t like it. He reached for his gun, but his holster was empty. The first mate charged, and Bowleg grabbed him and bent the spike out of his grasp, tossing it overboard. “You should be polite to a man askin’ ’bout his horse.”
The Sawdust Sal’s crew rushed to the aid of their first mate, and Bowleg was brawling before breakfast. He repelled the sailors until they were slap out of courage. Then, suddenly, the captain’s snarling voice broke out over the deck!
“What is this mutinous display!?” he roared, brandishing a pistol. “Saunders, clap this mutineer in irons and put him down below.” But Saunders didn’t move, nor did the other sailors who lay on the deck coughing and wheezing. The captain ran his eyes over his devastated crew, and Bowleg Bill pulled out a whopping great six-shooter. It was a spare he kept in his boot.
“You the foreman?” asked Bowleg Bill.
“I am the captain,” said the captain, with a tiny bit of uncertainty in his voice.
“You best put that parlor piece away,” said Bowleg, “and turn this boat around to port while you’re at it.”
“Why, y-y-you—!” sputtered the captain.
Then Bowleg squinted and looked down his barrel, “And to show you I’m serious—”
CRACK!
Bowleg’s bullet took off the right side of the captain’s mustache.
“Mr. Saunders!”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Turn the Sal back to port, immediately!”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Saunders.
And before the day was out, Bowleg was back on land atop his horse. But in the following months, he returned to sea with his cowboy ways to ride bucking mackerels and talk with mermaids.