Chewed 'Stache

“But it wasn’t a chewed mustache, because he didn’t chew it.”

- The Seekers, by Alan LeMay, page 9



Quite possibly the greatest sentence in any Western I have read. *

I mean – think about it a moment. On the surface, it seems pretty simple, right? A tautology, I believe them ivory-tower types like to call ’em. But to me, and I say this without an ounce of sarcasm or superiority, I see a whole genre written in those eleven words. Brutal common sense and undivided practicality. Spartan, shrewd, and inescapable words spoken by men with names like Amos or Ethan Edwards. Words only men comfortable with heavy and greasy guns could utter as naturally as anything as a watering hole on a desert plain.

Now I need to fry me up some bacon over a fire, wash it down with a tin of coffee and chase it all with a fresh cheroot from my saddlebags …




* To date, I have read six Westerns.