Snow delineates the peaks of the canine-toothed mountains far away. The streets are cold tonight, and brooding. Wearing his trademark black-brimmed Stetson, Paul Zarzyski, (rhymes with whisky) twists round the corner of Fifth and Railroad, into a whiplash winter wind.
Zarzyski, bronco-buster (retired), from Grand Falls, Montana, a million miles away, has the quintessential gait of the hustling cowboy, the lean and weather-beaten face, the black moustache, and he's sporting a fancy cowboy tie, a Zarzyski hallmark that signals pizazz. As he makes his way towards the Stray Dog Bar, its neon sign already glowing in the dusk, you'd be pushed to notice the modest sheaf of breeze-riffled poems pressed to his body, or the gleam beneath the brim of that Stetson halo.
Waddie Mitchell, long-time cowpoke and poet laureate of Elko, whose bull-horn moustache has the kind of big presence that warrants an agent all to itself, is already ensconced at the Stray Dogs bar. He tips back a Ditch, a cocktail of bourbon and lemonade fizz, declares Zarzyski to be "a legend", then orders another. Two hours later they've moved the event to The Pioneer Inn, beneath the roof of the Western Folklife Centre, already having recited their work to a holler of praise from the gathering of Elko folk in the centre's Three Bar Theatre.
Zarzyski smiles a smile that's a blaze of pure resurrection. People risk blindness just being close. "Coupla years ago," he says, "the New York Times ran a cowboy poetry story, using the banner headline - wait for this - Get Along Little Doggerel." Pregnant pause. He puckers his mouth and nods, to show he has not mis-remembered. "Whatya think?"
More to the point is what Zarzyski thinks - perhaps that east coast America, just like Hollywood, likes to imagine it has the cowboy experience taped. A big mistake. The 16th Cowboy Poetry Gathering at Elko, (hyped as America's Last Real Cowboy Town), is a genuine celebration of a culture that's universally known and romanticised, but often misunderstood. It's a part of the Great American Dream which will always be larger than its fulfilment, the cowboy-as-icon in its heart, the key to its yearning, as PZ puts it, to have a free life, to breathe fresh air. Elko, Waddie says, is the biggest cowboy poetry gig in the business. "First and best".
Cowboy poetry finds itself racing like a forest fire through America's open heartland right now, and it's brightest right here in Nevada. The Cowboy Poetry Gathering pulls in crowds of visitors each year from Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and places east. Close to 70 poets and singers are booked to play in a handful of venues Sunday through Saturday. There are more than 100 events comprised of readings, singalongs, talks and western folk art, events with titles like Four-Legged Friends, The Cowboy Code, When It's Nighttime in 2000, Texas Sons and Prairie Prose.
For those familiar with Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone chronicles of life in Minnesota, those nourishing, down-home, homespun values of small town life and big horizons on the plains, there's something in Elko that hits the same vibe. All it lacks is a crinkled-eyed, Stetson-wearing statue to that hombre: The Unknown Cowboy. But who's complaining?
We step outside from the good-natured crowd at the Pioneer Inn to find it's been snowing. The wind has softened. Across the car park I see the lights of the Stockmen's Casino, Zarzyski's abode, their neon twinkle through the gossamer flurry of snow flakes promising slot machines and beer. Time to drive back to the Oak Tree Inn, my home for four nights on the outskirts of town, where the lights concede to a treacly darkness, and alien life moves through the silence and the sagebrush.
Next morning I'm driven towards Spring Creek up a snow-smothered ribbon road that takes you into a silent and beautiful wilderness where redtail hawks and bobcats live. My guide is John Collette, a local insurance man, on whose office wall hangs the saying: "Pain is inevitable; misery is optional". Makes me wonder is this the obverse of cowboy life, or maybe its nub? Cowboy poetry paints a picture of camaraderie, praising bunkhouse life and roundups. Its humour is gentle and its sentiments at best are more good-hearted than soft in the middle.
John wears his Stetson like a man who prefers riding horses to driving a camper, and so we slither around in our tracks and head back to town by way of the Walther Ranch, where Jack Walther, 80 years old, the wattle-necked ancient among cowboy poets, holds court to visitors, and scribbles affectionate verses about his wife Irene. That night at the Folklife Centre, Jack recites his verses, his voice like a gulch full of rocky water gargling over the lapping silence of the audience. Two Australians, Guy McLean and Louise K. Dean, guests of honour at the Gathering, conjure up sheep station life in the bush, and Paul Zarzyski causes impromptu rearrangement of the furniture, thanks to belly-aching laughter, when he performs his `Why I Love Pie'.
Next morning I mosey around downtown, kicking my heels, in search of riders fresh in from the range, keeping an eye out for dudes packing pistols among the spread of flat-roofed buildings, until I'm as tuckered as a plum. The absence of holsters and pearl-handled weaponry perplexes. But back on Idaho Street, the North East Nevada Museum exhibits evidence of slaughter in abundance. There, in the Wannamaker Wildlife Wing, hangs proof of one man's obsession. Stuffed heads of moose, stuffed torsos of cats and bear, and of beasts with scales, claws, horns and beautiful pelts, from all the continents of the world, grin back dead-eyed, the fallen prey of Mr Wannamaker, described as "a lovely old gentleman" by staff, who made it his business to track down everything Noah once saved and shoot it pie-eyed, then haul it home. The collection is grisly, disturbingly beautiful, and sad. And I soon depart.
The Elko Convention Centre, the Gathering's jumbo venue, is packed that evening to hear Red Steagall, a singing cowboy, open the bill, before Lorraine Rawls brings the house to a hush with The Man From Alberta. The show is presented by Hal Cannon who hosts a radio show he calls The Open Road, with Ruby the Radio Dog-in-residence. Hal is one of those guys who makes you glad you belong to the human species, and tonight he is wearing a rootin' tootin' tie, on the short side of stubby, that gives his Desperate Dan appearance a touch of Oliver Hardy comedy. The crowd sings along on Ragtime Cowboy Joe with the bill-topping Wiley & the Wild West. "God put his finger in that young man's throat," says a fella beside me, to nods of agreement that God did well.
Thanks to the bounty of the music, my mood is billowing as I drift towards the Stockmen's Casino to share a final Buckaroo Brew with Paul Zarzyski. The night is mild. The snow has melted, and I hear from the far off Stray Dog a muted cowboy-coyote wail. It's the sound of Syd Masters and the Swing Riders propelling a sentimental ballad into the dark of the desert sky, where it joins the hushed, attentive constellation far above.
Tom Adair was a guest of the Nevada Commission on Tourism and American Airlines (for American Airlines reservations, phone 01-6020550). For a free travel pack on Nevada and Las Vegas phone 0044 8705 238832.