Free Cowpokes and Desperadoes by Gary Paulsen

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    Duncan—Dunc—Culpepper sat on the corner of the window watching his lifetime best friend, Amos Binder, pack his suitcase. Amos had a system. If it was semiclean and fell into the category of clothing—throw it in.
    Dunc glanced around Amos’s room. It looked as if it had been through a recent nuclear blast. Junk was thrown (Amos said it was strategically placed) everywhere. Dunc picked up a torn poster of a race car. Underneath was a rotten banana peel, a moldy sock, and a pair of jeans.
    Amos grabbed the jeans and threw them into his suitcase. “That ought to be enough stuff for two weeks. This is so great! I’ve alwayswondered what it would be like to be a real cowboy. Can’t you just see me riding the range, roping cows, and singing songs on the lone prairie? I’m lucky your uncle invited me to come with you.”
    “Uncle Woody said he was glad to have you. He’s a little shorthanded at the ranch right now. Some of his hands just recently quit.”
    Amos sighed. “Melissa is going to be so impressed.”
    Melissa Hansen was the girl Amos dreamed about—the only girl in the world, as far as Amos was concerned. He spent most of his life working on schemes to get her to notice him. Like the time he joined the circus as a trapeze artist and ended up landing on her and breaking her arm. But not even that did it. So far nothing had worked. But Amos never gave up hope.
    “This cowboy thing could turn out to be a lot more work than you think,” Dunc said.
    Amos’s eyebrows went up. “Work? I thought all cowboys did was ride around and look at cows.”
    “I don’t want to discourage you, but there’sa lot more to it than that. The horses have to be fed, and the barn has to be—”
    Amos put his hand up. “Don’t be so negative. This trip is going to be fantastic. Besides, I think it’ll be good for me to get away for a while. Kind of let things settle. Due to the fire and all.”
    “Fire?”
    “Yeah. Our kitchen caught fire last night. It really wasn’t that big a deal—mostly smoke. The fire department put it out in no time.”
    “How did it happen?”
    “I was watching my cousin, little Brucie, in the back yard. You remember little Brucie?”
    Dunc nodded. “Cute kid. Last time he was at your house, he ate your goldfish.”
    “That’s him. I had baby-sitting duty while my dad was cooking hamburgers on the grill. That’s when the phone rang. I was pretty sure it was Melissa calling to talk about my trip to the ranch and how impressed she was about my being a cowboy.”
    Dunc nodded again. He knew it couldn’t have been Melissa. It was never Melissa. Had never been Melissa. Would never be Melissa.
    “She likes for me to get it on that all-important first ring, so naturally I took the shortest route possible to the phone. There was just one problem—the barbecue grill was in the way.”
    “You knocked over your dad’s barbecue grill?”
    “No. You would have been proud of me, Dunc. I was in classic form, with just the right amount of momentum. My stride was great—I hurdled it. I wish someone could have taken my picture. I was incredible.”
    Dunc frowned. “If you didn’t knock over the grill, then how did you start a fire?”
    “I had almost cleared the grill when things sort of went downhill. A flame shot up and my pant leg caught on fire. I think I could have handled it and still made it to the phone if it hadn’t been for the marbles.”
    Dunc shook his head. “You lost me.”
    “Little Brucie. He left his marbles on the kitchen floor. I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose. He’s only three, but he can be vicious. Anyway, I hit them at a dead run, lost my balance, and slid under the table right into the trash can. It was full of paper. My pantleg ignited the paper, and that’s how the fire started.”
    “Did you get to the phone?”
    “No. Amy answered it. She claimed it was someone selling tickets to the firemen’s ball. My dad bought quite a few.”
    Dunc tried to keep