Story with a moral

Now I know there’s things worse that make cowpunchers curse,
and I reckon it’s happened to us all.
Though it is years since, you bet, when I think of it yet,
it still makes my old innards crawl.

I was makin a ride to bring in an old hide.
That hadn’t shown up in the gather;
I was riding upstream day dreaming a dream,
When I caught there was something the matter.

Near some quakin asp trees, I had caught in the breeze
a stench that was raunchy anad mean.
And I reckoned as how it might be the old cow,
So I rode to a bend in the stream.

Shore nuff that cow lied in the crick there and died;
Hard tellin how long she’d been there.
She was bloated and tight, twas a horrible sight-
She was oozin and slipping her hair.

Her Eye sockets were alive with maggots that thrive
On dead flesh, putrid yellow and green.
And the hot sun burning down, turnin pink things to brown,
Spewin’ oily gunk in the stream.

Well I spurred upwind fast to get away from the blast
Of the heavy stench the cow made;
And I felt bad seeins how I’d lost the old cow,
And I pulled up to a tree in the shade.

Then I got sick to the core, rememberin minutes before
I’d done something made me feel worse;
Not thirty yards down, I’d stepped off to the ground
And drank till my belly near burst.

For months after it, Just the thought made me spit,
And I’d live it over like a bad dream.
And the Moral I think, is if you must take a drink,
Never ever remount and ride upstream. W. Mitchell