The following is a short excerpt from The Last Cowboy

By P. Ryan Frazier

Part One: What’s in a Name?

I met a real cowboy when I was six. He was sitting on a pen panel which is a metal fence designed to keep large animals corralled like cows and horses. In this case, the large animal was Thunder, an American Bison. Yes, the very same animal made famous by Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. As called by the Sioux, Tatanka was the largest land animal in the American West until the nineteenth century. Thunder wasn’t actually in the film. He was the mascot for the West Texas State football team. It was his job to run from one side of the football field all the way to the other side after a touchdown, along with his handlers keeping watch.

My cowboy wasn’t the only cowboy there that day. The West Texas State University Indoor Arena had several cowboys walking around, doing things cowboys do. Some were cleaning up after animals, others were sitting atop horses, while others were simply loafing around doing what my cowboy was doing: nothing of any particular consequence. That is, until my cowboy locked eyes with me as I stood in line patiently waiting my turn to see Thunder up close.

He smiled, pushed up his cowboy hat with one finger exposing his blue eyes, and asked, “Howdy, what’s your name, buddy?”

Now, I can’t be certain forty years later that he responded with “Howdy.” That is an assumption on my part. He may have very well said any number of other appropriate salutations. Hello. Hi. Morning, etc. However, he was definitely a cowboy, and it seemed fitting that he would respond with “howdy.”

I froze, as I do when I’m nervous. I slowly rotated my head in the same direction my eyes had been and looked up at him. He must have been 10 feet tall, wearing skintight wranglers, old dusty cowboy boots, a snap button shirt with a cowboy hat as round as the American Bison was enormous.

In a faint trembling voice with Texas twang, I responded, “Matt.”

“Howdy, Matt.” My cowboy said.

God’s honest truth, when I was born, my mom and dad wrote down three names on my Kentucky birth certificate. They are as follows and in this order:

Philip. Ryan. Frazier.

There was no mention of a Matt or Matthew or even a playful Matty. Just Philip Ryan Frazier. Why did I tell him my name was Matt? Easy. Because I was 100 percent certain there wasn’t a single living cowboy in the West Texas Plains named Philip Ryan Frazier. However, I was sure there was a Matt based on the assumption it sounded more “cowboyish.” At least, in my 6-year-old reasoning, it did.

I was intimidated and didn’t want to embarrass myself with a non-masculine average name like Philip. Cowboys always have the best names. Let us consider a few.

Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Texas Jack, Pistol Pete, and this list goes on. Many of these names were known outlaws, but that doesn’t discount that they were also cowboys to some extent.

There is a website dedicated to helping boys and girls generate a cowboy/cowgirl name. All it does is takes your first and last name and inserts a playful nickname that one would consider to be wild west appropriate. My oldest son’s name was generated as Ethan “Punchin’ Drunk” Frazier, with an added quote, “A man so fierce and ugly, they put another dude’s face on his wanted poster.” I digress.

We also have the great American actors who portrayed cowboys. Just let these perfectly constructed cowboy names roll of your lips: John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sam Elliott, Gary Cooper, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Glenn Ford and the great Ben Johnson. Perfect!

Names matter. That day in West Texas, my name didn’t add up to whatever I believed a cowboy to be. Even at six years of age, I had constructed a preconceived notion of what a cowboy is. It all started with a great name.

In Back to the Future III, Marty McFly is sent back in time to the wild west. Marty took a play out of my own playbook. When Biff Tannen, the villain, asked Marty’s name, he replied, “Clint Eastwood.” No one knew who Clint Eastwood was, but Marty knew that his name wasn’t enough to be a legit cowboy. Not only did he take on Clint Eastwood’s character, but he also attempted to take on the persona of Clint Eastwood from A Fist Full of Dollars, ending the film with a gun duel and almost dying in the process.

Then, forty years later, by chance and by way of a trip to Sunday church, I met one another cowboy. A real cowboy. He wasn’t sitting on a pen panel or atop a horse. He was at church, standing next to the door where parents dropped off their infant children before church. His job was a protector of these children. He was a volunteer security guard. He took his job seriously as anyone, and more importantly, any cowboy would. His name was absolutely perfect. A living legend. The greatest and most decorated rodeo cowboy in history. Called the “Babe Ruth” of the rodeo circuit. “The Bionic Cowboy” and “The King of Cowboys” I found myself completely and utterly intimidated when I heard about him and his story. I knew I had to meet this man. His name is Dan Dailey. I’m fairly certain he’s the last cowboy.