The End Of The Feud Poem by David Welch

Clarence Stone stepped into the saloon,
tired from long days on the trail.
He was riding on west to far Idaho,
where land awaited, spacious and hale.

He was fleeing a feud that had consumed
the families of Burton and Stone.
Rather than die for an old hate,
he had set out with all that he owned.

Inside the bar one thing he did espy:
a woman beautiful and tanned,
with flowing black hair and emerald eyes,
dressed in the jeans of a man.

Why such a woman was here, he didn't know,
but she clearly seemed to belong.
She tossed back whiskey and joined the choir
of the men's raucous, cow-punching songs.

Stone went for a drink, and sat at the bar,
planning out the rest of his night,
when a man shouted ‘cheat, ' and all sprung up
the saloon gave itself over to fight!

Stone swung as they came, holding his own,
and the woman just off to his right,
danced and dodged, kicked and swung,
shrieking loudly her delight…

But her speed failed, and job it got through,
she stumbled, fell back to the floor.
So bold Clarence charged, bull-rushed the man,
who whimpered and cried out, "No More! "

He helped the girl up, but she grabbed his neck,
and slammed him into a deep kiss.
She broke with a grin, and turned to the fray
saying, "Come on! Let's go finish this! "

Ten minutes later they both stumbled out
sweaty with hard-fought victory.
Stone tried to move off, but she grabbed his wrist
saying, "Oh No! You're not done with me! "

They went to her hotel, hurried and hot,
and up the grand staircase did tear.
I won't go into detail on what happened next,
for a gentleman doesn't go there…

But later that night the girl tip-toed out,
and went down to the registry desk.
She picked up the ledger, poured through it all,
there was something that she had to check.

Back upstairs she went, content to wait
her quarry had not yet arrived.
Her lover was awake, and smiled at her,
the kind the makes a man feel alive.

She smiled back and asked for his name,
she'd forgotten to ask in the rush.
He said "Clarence Stone, " and out came her gun,
and she pointed it straight at his gut.

She said, "My name is Ellie-May Burton,
sent out two months ago on this path,
to track down a Stone who ran to the west,
hoping to escape our wrath! "

But he heard a catch in her harsh tone,
and in her gun-hand a slight shiver.
He couldn't forget the warmth of her touch,
so one final chance her did give her:

He nodded and said, "Then fire away, "
with a coldness that made the soul quake.
The gun fell from her hands, and she lit out,
running from the hotel without break.

Come morning he rode, pointed northwest,
unnerved, but his decision remained,
to return to Kentucky and die in a feud
was a choice not made by the sane.

In the bright prairie light a rider appeared,
a familiar woman on a mare.
She rode up slowly, face red form tears,
no weapon upon him did bear.

He moved closer slowly, hand on his gun,
but she said, "Clarence, there's no need.
I've been thinking all night on what I'm to do,
of the future and of dark deeds.

"Of a good man who stood, fought by my side,
and put on a fine show in bed.
Yet my family demands, for forgotten crimes,
that I put a bullet in his head.

"Perhaps it is best, what you're doing now,
riding out a free man to the wild.
To be rid of the hate that has put kin in graves,
since the days when I was a child.

"They say that a woman needs a good man,
and that good men need themselves a wife.
I may not be so good, but I think you and I
could ride out and build ourselves a life."

Then she went silent, he waited and thought
of the chances and of the risks.
But the pain in her eyes told the whole truth,
so he rode close and planted a kiss.

They moved out at a trot, both realizing that
amongst the worst you sometimes find the best,
and to this very day countless Burton-Stones
are scattered all over the west.