Those who remember that enigmatic fellow, Johnson O’Pouncy,
were told by those who knew him in the old West,
that, though he appeared to be of limited means,
he’d amassed enough funds to take over a shack
just outside Horsetrough City, in Texas, which wasn’t worth a hill of beans.

Neighbour Jebadiah Jenkinson remembers meeting this tall,
enigmatic man with his dog Cactus, and wondering what he was doing in this arid country.
He claimed to have arrived on an emigrant ship,
bedding down in steerage, the part reserved for the lower class,
amazing the Poles and Russians by conversing in their native tongue,
his fine voice endearing him to the Irish with a great rendition of Galway Shawl.

He even amused the children by organising a round of ‘I Spy’.
When little Johnny asked him why that game, he said, ‘Spying is the greatest game of all.’

As a kid he’d dreamt of being a captain on his own bridge,
but the voyage’s reality was stark in contrast to his imaginings.
But the air was so fresh on North America’s great plains,
and he didn’t care that his home turned out to be an
old shack nestling in the shadow of the Black Mountain Ridge,
but to the local women’s consternation, never took a wife.

He’d bought the place from old timer, Mocassin Mohawk,
who’d fought the Spanish, but left the Alamo before that Texan fort fell,
leaving his respect for the American way of life,
and its obsession with those rigid values of the old south.

Johnson also became friends with guitarist Senor Montevido,
whose playing delighted his little dog, who danced fit to bust.
When sheriff Pistol Pete called, the pet had great fun playing with his spurs.

‘You can take ’em off you know,’ commented Johnson…
‘Ah, but wait, you might have to jump on yer ‘hoss’,
and set off after the Dead Gulch Gang,
like you told that writer from New York, Frederick Fortitude-Forthright,
who featured your daring deeds in that popular rag,
Wild West Wonders under the title, Tales Of A Texan Lawman.

At which the sheriff uttered a curse, ‘Aw shucks, I needed the money.
Anyway, the readers want escapism, and those dime novelists provide it.
Now, are you going to tell me what a refined chap like you is doing here?’

O’Pouncy looked at him with a frown. ‘Ah, the truth at last.
Well, I could tell you I left ’cos I was heartbroken over a woman.
But I’ll be honest - I was engaged by Britain’s chief spy master,
Chrispin Cockslip, to ensure this state stays on the right side in any conflict.’

‘You mean one that’s beneficial to The Crown?’

‘This land, dear sheriff, is like that fruit cake you see on my table - full of riches,
and my king wants a slice of it.’

Later Johnson reflected on his mission and why he’d revealed it to Pete.
‘Am I bound by a promise to my king?’ He mused. ‘Could I not forget it?’

‘Indeed you can,’ whispered a spirit which emerged out of the night.

‘Is that you, Fiona,’ He gasped, ‘or to give you your full title, Lady Fiona Fulsome-Fultitude?’

‘Indeed it is, my dear Johnson,’ the ghostly shape answered,
‘I was summoned by the tunes of this great guitarist, 
whose Celtic tale reminded me of your crisis of conscience.

‘Unlike other invaders of the Emerald Isle, you didn’t murder and pillage.
You refused to burn peasant hovels, after winning a battle,
in that most beautiful county of Ireland, Wicklow.

‘And I abandoned you - as unfitting for the daughter of
Lord Billings of Bude - even though you’d encouraged me to ride properly,
unlike those silly madams at my prep school - by keeping my arse in the saddle.

‘So I married your colonel, and thus gained the married name of Fulsome-Fultitude.
You were recruited by a master spy and sent to this land,
which in the words of the Scottish emigrant, Professor Theodosius Thackaria,

‘‘Is full of harsh environs, yet boasts nature’s gifts, enough to feed a mighty multitude.’’

‘Indeed,’ concurred her former lover, ‘I read that very same work.
Wasn’t it called From Heather and Thistle, To The Sharper Cacti Of Texas?
Though an excellent introduction to this mighty state, it was rather a long title.’

‘Indeed, he may ramble on, but Theo has strict moral principles.
He objected to allowing that famed woodsman into our celestial domain.
You know the one, Davy Crockett, a ‘hero’ of the Alamo.
‘He got a swift rebuff - why, the damn fellow kept a personal slave!’

Johnson interrupted, ‘I love hearing you prevaricate,
your voice is like a ship’s horn blaring through fog,
but my little mutt needs to find suitable cacti on which to cock its leg...’

‘….You’re right, I must shut my big gob, as they say in county Wicklow.
Anyway, the wind’s getting stronger, and my ghostly form will dissipate,
and I’ve a message for you.
‘Do you remember your sworn enemy, O’Toole The Terrible?’

‘Indeed,’ replied Johnson, ‘I remember that fool Lord Hoppit-Houghton,
boasting he would raise a glass when O’Toole danced the hangman’s hornpipe.’

He laughed, ‘Instead the pompous twit fell under his horse
at the Ballymuggin steeplechase, the silly old fool.’

‘Yes well, never mind mocking our military commanders,’ she smirked.
You’ll be laughing at Wellington next - why the old lech made a pass at my mother,
but he wasn’t her type!

‘Where was I? Oh yes, O’Toole’s written you a little poem.’

To The Man Who Bested Me, Ireland’s Best Ever Rebel

You were a brave fighter and a clever strategist,
whom I often wished I had on the end of my pitchfork.
But you saw the light and let peace enter your soul,
travelling across this mighty land, seeking a peaceful haven,
braving savages, pestilence and the occasional dustbowl.

So to sum up, sorry it’s so short, as I am not used to this writing lark,
especially with rhyming cutlets, and I’ve an appointment with a glass of stout,
served by Nancy, the barmaid of The Saint And Sinner, in our little pub in Heaven.

Abandon your mission for that sod Cockslip, whose spies were the death of me and my band,
or his machinations will see your bones rotting in the Mexican sand.

‘And at the bottom of the poem he’s written...’
‘Not a bad effort, though the rhymes are a bit contrived,
but I’m too drunk to do it again.
I’m having lessons from that chap Wordsworth, you know,
who says I could have been a writer of verse, instead of a rebel.’

After the apparition evaporated, Johnson mused. ‘Was this a dream?
Fiona died in India after she married that blasted colonel,
who made my life hell, when I was a subaltern.’

The following day sheriff Pete called in Ma Murphy’s Pie Pantry
and met an English chap, who got his back up with the comment,
‘This sure is a one-horse town... hmm, this pie is lovely, I was expecting it to be inedible.

‘Tell me, have you seen a tall chap who arrived here in ’41’.
He’s a master of disguise...’

But the lawman hastily interrupted his flow, ‘In that case, how would I know him?’

‘Quite,’ the stranger replied, ‘he could say he’s a Lithuanian barber
or a railwayman from Chicago, and appear perfectly credible.

‘But he is also very handy with his fists, and your deputy, who likes his whisky,
remembers a well spoken chap knocking out some fellow called Mad Mags McNoon.’

‘Oh,’ laughed the sheriff, ‘you shouldn’t listen to him, he was probably pished.’

Making his excuses, Pete galloped away to find O’Pouncy, 
convinced he’d met his friend’s spymaster.
But the old shack was bare of any belongings or person.

Then a little dog appeared out of the twilight,
followed by a ragged shape wearing a broad-rimmed hat
and a ridiculously long moustache - it was Johnson, dressed as a Mexican.
At first Pete didn’t recognise him, being so artfully moustachioed.

‘Old friend,’ Johnson said tearfully, ‘I know what you’re going to say,
my old boss is here (little Cactus sniffed his scent from miles away),
and that conniving spy master has doubtless lined up another dangerous assignment.

'Give me the location of those outlaws you came up against,
for with my secret-agent skills I can be of invaluable to them.

‘You mean Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid?

They’re hiding in Cutaway Canyon.
'They owe me a favour or two, and will certainly help you vanish.’

                         ----------------------------------------

Years later a Harvard professor, writing a book on the ‘Old West’,
discovered that a third ‘Bandito’, said to have been active in the
South American country of Bolivia, was rumoured to have operated
with the above-mentioned outlaws, who, after robbing a bank in the
city of Vallomanadid, died in an ambush.

He was said to have lived alone with a little dog, under the name Muncy McDevitt.
and could sing and play the piano, delighting the emigrants with
his version of Stephen Foster’s Old Folks Of Home,
but in his cups would ramble on about Lady Fulsome-Fultitude,
whom he saw in an apparition.
But all trace of him was lost in 1870, after the visit of a Bolivian detective.

In his book, ‘The British Traitor, former Intelligence boss
Chrispin Cockslip made the outrageous claim that an English secret agent
rode with those notorious outlaws, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.

He claimed this fellow was called Johnson O’Pouncy,
and was such a master of disguise, that even the famed detectives, Pinkertons,
don’t know where he’s hid.

Ah, but that’s another story.