​​RAWHIDE ROBINSON

Rawhide Robinson Faces Fear
by Rod Miller
(As published in Shiny Spurs and Gold Medallions, Thorndike Press, 2025)

In 2025, Thorndike Press published a collection of short stories by Rod Miller and author friend Michael Norman, Shiny Spurs and Gold Medallions. The collection features stories by each author that have been honored with awards or other recognition. A few new, previously unpublished stories, were also included in the collection, including the first short story featuring Rawhide Robinson: "Rawhide Robinson Faces Fear." 

In 2026, that story more than earned its place in the book when it was named a Spur Award Finalist by Western Writers of America. "Rawhide Robinson Faces Fear" is included here for your enjoyment.      

THE END

​ Rawhide Robinson’s knees turned to jelly. His legs wobbled and his balance betrayed him. He could not find a steadying breath of air as his attempts to inhale and exhale in proper sequence turned to gasps and pants, huffs and wheezes. Sound became a confusing cacophony of squeaks, squawks, squeals, and screeches seasoned with the occasional howl and holler. Eyesight went awry, fragmenting into kaleidoscopic scraps of light and color in no discernible order or assemblage. Eccrine emissions oozed from pores, sprinkling his forehead with sparkling beads of sweat, moistening his underarms, and sending trickles down the hollows of his hindquarters.

The cowboy’s efforts to calm himself proved ineffective. He swayed and staggered. He shook his head in an unsuccessful attempt at clearance that only contributed to the chaos. His saddle pals looked on, eyes and jaws agape, thoroughly discombobulated by their petrified friend, frozen into inaction despite the tremors and trembling, the shivering and shaking that rippled his frame.

There was no doubt about it. Rawhide Robinson was afraid. Fear had him by the horns and threatened to wrestle him to the ground into a pulsating pile of fainthearted frustration. The others huddled around him in an attempt to shield him, to protect him, to urge him to act, to lead.

“Rawhide! Snap out of it!” someone said.

“You’ve got to do it!” said another.

“The time to act is upon us—on you!”

“If you don’t do it now, it’ll be too late!”

“C’mon! Buck up!”

“We’ll be right behind you.”

But fear had him by the throat and Rawhide Robinson could not respond, rise to the occasion, or otherwise redeem himself in the eyes of his cowboy compadres. If anything, their exhortations deepened his seeming inability to tuck his pants legs into his boot tops and step up as a top hand ought to do.

“Who’d have thunk it?” a cowboy mused. “Rawhide Robinson with the jitters . . .”

Said another, “I ain’t never seen the like of it.”

And another, “Why, it’s plumb unthinkable, is what it is.”

“You could knock me over with a feather!” said one.

“Worse than that, you could topple ol’ Rawhide with the same bit of fluff!”

“If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes I’d never believe it. Truth is, I ain’t sure I believe what I am seeing.”

“It ain’t like Rawhide, that’s for certain.”

“It is—or ain’t, I mean.”

“It’s plumb unlike him.”

“Sure enough.”

“Darn right.”

“We been in tight situations before, and Rawhide has always got us through it.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score.”

“Why, I remember this one time . . .”

The word remember [LM1] [RM2] prompted intercranial activity under the hats of all the cowboys. Memories bubbled up of deeds of derring-do, feats of bravery, heroic accomplishments, and other adventures and episodes of facing down fear that gave the lie to the fit of the willies that currently embraced Rawhide Robinson and held him tight in its grasp.

“Some of you-all remember that time on that one trail drive when that big storm hit us out in the territories . . .”

“Sure. I remember! I was there. That was the first time I ever rode with ol’ Rawhide.”

“Me too! I mean, it weren’t the first time me and Rawhide went up the trail together, but I know the time you mean.”

Someone else piped up. “Well, what happened? You-all know I wasn’t there. Neither was some of the others of us. What happened?”

“Here’s what happened. It had been an ordinary enough kind of drive up till then. We got through Texas and across the Red and all them other rivers without no trouble. No storms to speak of. Just a few little dribbles now and then to keep the dust down. Come to think of it, it was a right pleasant time—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! We don’t need no weather report! Just say what happened.”

“Who’s Pete? And what’s he got to do with it?”

“There ain’t no Pete! He’s a figure of speech.”

“Keep your figures of speech to yourself and let me tell my story. Now where was I?”

“You was somewhere in Indian Territory. The weather was fine.”

“Right. Well, the weather had been fine up till then. Then this one afternoon the clouds started stackin’ up off on the horizon. Started out as just a little dark smudge that kept getting taller and darker and thicker. Pretty soon the hands started beating it to the remuda to get their saddles on their best night horses, the most sure-footed ones, ’cause it looked like trouble was comin’. Ol’ Rawhide, he rode up and down the flanks of the herd encouraging the cowboys to be on the watch and ready for anything.

“Then it got dark and still and the air hung so heavy you could’ve cut it in chunks and stacked it like adobe bricks. The glow of lightning started flashing in that wall of clouds, then pretty soon it was upon us, hitting the ground and crackling in the air, and the thunder quit that rolling boom it has when far away and started in to crashing and banging and liked to have knocked a man plumb out of the saddle.”

The storyteller shook his head. “I do believe that was the worst storm I ever seen.”

The cowboys who had been on that drive nodded in agreement.

Then another took up the tale.

“But it got a whole lot worse when the wind took up. There wasn’t a blade of grass standing upright—they was all clinging to the ground with both hands trying not to get uprooted and blown away in that gale. And still, Rawhide Robinson rode with a smile on his face, urging us on and doing what he could to keep us and the cattle calm.

“But once that wind took hold and there was more thunder than there wasn’t, them beeves started running all at once like they was every one of them sharing the same set of legs. We all spurred up our horses and ran along with the cattle, trying to outrun them so as to get ahead of them and turn them into a circle like you want to do in a stampede.

“Then, like somebody doused a lantern, it got dark as the inside of a grave and the rain—not so much rain, as one big waterfall—started coming down out of that storm like it was dumped from a big old bucket. Between the wind and the water and both hands trying to pinch the horn right off my saddle, it was all I could do to stay aboard that horse. He was doing his best, but what with the slippery ground and all, he wasn’t making any headway.

“All of a sudden I saw a shadow coming up beside me on the right, and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Rawhide Robinson coming on. As he went past me like a trout in the rapids, he looked my way and sort of smiled, and darned if he didn’t tip his hat. I swear, if he’d of bee[LM3] [RM4] n a man with the tobacco habit, he could have been rolling a smoke and putting fire to it, as calm and unconcerned as he seemed about the situation we was all in.”

“So what did he do?”

“Oh, he just kept right on a-going, outrunning that herd and everybody else in the race. He got up amongst the leaders and doffed that big old lid of his and set to swatting them steers on the noggin till they turned away and kept turning till they were in a big circle and finally they settled down and waited out what was left of that storm, just muttering and moseying and milling around while we rode around and around to keep them calm as we could.”

The men thought it over for a moment, all of them thinking of one time or another having been in a similar situation. And all of them wishing they had faced it with the courage and bravery and all-around cowboy “try” that Rawhide Robinson had demonstrated that day on the plains.

Then, as if one, they turned their attention to the man.

Rawhide Robinson stood among them trembling, face as pale as the backside of an antelope, a sheen of sweat clammy on his visage.

One cowboy expressed the thoughts of all: “I never imagined I’d ever see ol’ Rawhide Robinson overtook by a fit of the willies. The poor man looks like he’s about to melt into a puddle of indecision and inactivity.”

“It ain’t like him, that’s for sure.”

“Can’t imagine what’s come over him. I’ve seen the man walk right into trouble worse than this without twitching an eyelash.”

“Me too. I ever tell you-all about that one time me and Rawhide was in Dodge City?”

The cowboys looked at one another, addled expressions matching muddled mugs and befuddled faces. “What time? When? Rawhide Robinson’s been to Dodge plenty of times. So’s most of us. How are we supposed to know which one time you’re jacking your jaw about?”

“Never mind all that. Let me tell you about what happened. Maybe you’ll remember. Maybe you won’t,” the cowboy said. “We had just delivered a Texas herd to the railroad pens and was on our way into town to do what it is boys like us do when we hit the end of the trail. You-all know what I mean—cuttin’ the trail dust with whiskey, maybe enjoyin’ a sit-down dinner, huntin’ up some female company, gettin’ a hot bath and a shave and a haircut, indulgin’ in a penny lick of ice cream—”

The interruptions came at once as every cowhand in the group—save the semi-catatonic Rawhide Robinson—interjected that they were one and all more than familiar with the goings-on at the end of a trail drive, and if he had any information to offer beyond what was common knowledge, to get on with it.

“Well, here’s how it was. Me and Rawhide and another somebody—can’t recollect right off who it was—had just rid into town and stepped down from our saddles and tied our caballos to a hitch rail there when there came this awful ruckus from down the street. It was this white-top buggy harnessed to a matched pair of bay horses with white socks and a blaze on their faces, ’bout sixteen hands high—”

Again came the interruption, with the audience encouraging the raconteur with the threat of violence if he did not get on with it, avoiding in the telling any and all superfluous information.

“Sorry, boys. Anyhow, something had spooked them horses and they was on the run, throwin’ up dust and dirt, ziggin’ and zaggin’ down that street, all but tippin’ over with every jerk and turn. Folks afoot and on horseback was hustlin’ off the street, wagon drivers was whippin’ up their teams to get out of the way, and there was all kinds of screamin’ and hollerin’ addin’ to the confusion—you-all get the idea.

“Well, while everybody else in sight was hurryin’ to get off the street, Rawhide Robinson stepped right out into the road, pretty as you please. When that team got near he walked out in front of them and throwed up his hands. Didn’t stop them, but slowed them down a mite—just enough that just before they run him down he jumped up in the air and touched a foot to the neck yoke on that harness rig to lift him higher. Then he spun right around as he grabbed aholt of the lines and lit right in the middle of the back of the offside horse. He sat right up there calm as could be, sawin’ on one team line and a stub line to bring them horses under control.”

The cowboy paused to catch his breath. Then, “I’ll tell you-all, ol’ Rawhide was a right hero that day in Dodge City. I believe if that woman in that buggy, who could’ve been killed if he hadn’t of stopped them horses and prevented a sure-thing wreck, would have begged Rawhide to take her to wife if she hadn’t of already been married to the mayor. ’Bout the bravest thing I ever seen in all my born days, that was.”

The hands expressed admiration for the deed. One or two seemed to recall having heard of it while in Dodge at one time or another, but for others it was fresh fodder to feed their admiration of Rawhide Robinson—and further flusteration concerning their cowboy compadre’s current state of frozen fear and petrified trepidation.

One cowboy perked up with the memory of a not-too-dissimilar tale of Rawhide Robinson’s courage. It seems they were working together on a Texas ranch when called upon to drive a small mixed herd—no more than two hundred head, he said—for delivery to a buyer intending to stock a small outfit he had recently purchased. Fort Worth was the destination of the drive and the critters moved thorough the town without trouble until a longhorn bull went berserk for no apparent reason—Rawhide Robinson opined after the fact that perhaps a horsefly or hornet had buzzed into the bovine’s ear, causing the upset.

The raging bull sent pedestrians scurrying, tore out porch posts, tipped over watering troughs, shattered hitch rails and hitching posts, knocked sidewalk displays asunder, and even leapt through a plate glass window into a millenary shop and, after wreaking havoc within, exited through the aforementioned window opening wearing a black silk poke bonnet on one horn and a brimless toque embellished with feathers on the other.

While the bull was trying on hats, Rawhide Robinson had taken down his reata and built a loop as he maneuvered his way through the now-nervous cattle. When the angry gentleman cow from the hat shop leapt off the walkway onto the street, Rawhide threaded a loop around the broad horns (without upsetting the headgear, the tale-teller added), tossed his slack around the bull’s backside, and hurried his horse away to tighten the rope, thereby tripping the toro and raising a plume of dust. Almost before the bull hit the ground, Rawhide was out of the saddle, racing down the rope, gathering three legs, and tying them tight with a length of hogging string, thereby rendering the mean beast helpless.

The story sent shivers of admiration through the assembled cowhands—and reinforced their befuddlement over the brave cowboy’s current state of stunned uncertainty.

“You know,” one said, “Rawhide never ever shied away from a horse anytime I ever seen. Didn’t matter how ornery or wild or mean they was, he’d find a way to get a saddle on them and turn them into good cow ponies—heck, sometimes he’d make a mankiller into a kid’s horse, or gentle enough for a lady to ride sidesaddle to a Sunday picnic.”

“That’s the truth,” someone offered. “The man had—has—a way with horses. Why, I was working with him one time on this outfit and there was this old roan outlaw that not a man on the place would lay a hand on. Truth is, you couldn’t hardly get near enough to him to lay a hand on him. The hands were content to let him run loose on the range. Whenever it came time to round up a bunch to break for saddle mounts, they always managed to let that roan slip away, if you know what I mean.

“Thing is, he was a good-looking horse. About seventeen hands high, I’d say—must’ve had some work stock in his pedigree somewhere up the line. He sure wasn’t from some bunch of scrub mustangs, that’s for sure. One day ol’ Rawhide was ridin’ a big circle checking on the cow herd when he saw that roan horse grazing in one of them mesquite thickets there was in that country. When he got back to the bunkhouse at dinnertime he asked about the roan and was told to pretend he never saw him—the horse was nothing but trouble, they said. As likely to rear up and put a hoof to your head, or kick you clear into next week if you got within striking distance. Them cowboys claimed he hadn’t been in a pen but one time, and that time he tore it all to pieces and managed to turn a few more corrals into kindling wood as he quit the country.

“Well, Rawhide Robinson being Rawhide Robinson, he took that as a challenge and set out to capture the horse. It took him the better part of a week to find him again—that roan was as wily as a javelina and just as wild. But Rawhide laid eyes on him and somehow got a rope on him. Ain’t nobody knowed how he did it, but he fashioned a hackamore out of his reata and by the time he got back to headquarters he had that roan broke to lead and following along like a milk-pen calf.

“But riding that roan was something else altogether. Rawhide got him tied to a snubbing post and avoided his hooves long enough to get a blindfold on him. The horse stood there shivering as Rawhide cinched down the saddle. That roan just stood there all tensed up and tight, trembling like somebody had lit the fuse and he was just waiting to explode. Now, Rawhide was all alone in that pen as there wasn’t another man on the place with courage enough to lend a hand—and I’m ashamed to say I was among them.

“Once he had his saddle screwed on, Rawhide untied the roan real careful-like and stepped into the saddle. Then he gathered up the reins and reached out and whipped off that blindfold. You could see that roan sort of squat where he stood, then he busted loose and jumped into the air and turned a half circle whilst in the sky and came down in the same hoof tracks, only backwards. I swear we felt the earth move clear over where we was watching from when he lit. That jump would have been enough to shake loose about any bronc twister I’ve ever seen, but Rawhide just sat in his saddle with a big grin on his face. I swear he could have shucked a tamale and ate it when that horse took to doing some serious bucking.

“You’ve heard how they say about broncs—he bounced like he had a bellyful of bedsprings, bogged his head and broke in two. Wrinkled his spine, spun like a windmill, sunfished, swallowed his head, and swapped ends. He crawfished, crow-hopped, and did the double shuffle. You get the idea. But Rawhide just sat up there and rode it out like he was atop one of them painted ponies on a carousel ride at the county fair.

“That roan finally gave up on the idea of getting rid of his rider and started in to paying attention to the reins in Rawhide’s hands. That cowboy soon had that horse turning circles and walking backwards and doing whatever else Rawhide asked of him.

“Turns out that roan horse’s abilities as a cow horse was even better than what his looks advertised. Rawhide used him as a rope horse, cutting horse, night horse, circle horse, long horse, Sunday horse—you name it, Rawhide used that roan horse for anything and everything as long as he worked on that outfit.

“Thing was, once Rawhide rolled up his bed and lit out for a new range, that roan was turned out again. See, there wasn’t another cowboy on the place that could get within ten feet of him without getting stomped or struck or kicked in the gizzard. He was a one-man horse if ever there was one, and that man was Rawhide Robinson. I always allowed that it was on account of he had the guts and the gravel to face up to everything that roan could throw at him.”

The cowboy shook his head. He wiped a tear from his eye. “And just look at him now. Cowed by a situation that greenhorns and gunsels face up to every day without blinking an eye.” He sniffled a little and swept away another tear. “And him a top hand. I can’t imagine what’s got into him.”

Nor could anyone else among them. The state of Rawhide Robinson was a mystery. And a surprise. A disappointment. A downright disconcerting turn of events.

“It just don’t make no sense,” someone said.

“It don’t.”

“What do you suppose has got into him?”

“I cannot begin to imagine. Why, one time I saw Rawhide ride into a flooded river that was overflowing its banks and running deep and strong, carrying entire trees, outhouses, hogs and milk cows, wagon boxes and buggies, and all manner of things you would not expect to see in a stream of water. But Rawhide, he put the spurs to the belly of the horse he was riding and dove into that river like there wasn’t any more danger to it than taking a bath!”

“But why? Why did he do it?” said a cowboy.

Said another, “Sounds downright foolish to me.”

“It might seem so—but here’s why he did it. Rawhide was just sitting horseback on the edge of that flood looking upstream with the rest of us when he saw a little boy clinging to a saw log for all he was worth. Every now and again that log would roll over in the wash and that kid would get a good dunking before it came around again. He could not have been more than three years old, that boy. But he was showing a lot of try, hanging onto that log for all he was worth and a dollar-and-a-half more.

“The bottom fell out from under Rawhide’s horse when they came to where the riverbank ought to have been and he got a good dunking himself. But when he come up spurting water he already had his lass rope unfurled and a loop built. With that horse of his fighting the current, Rawhide reined him into the river at just the right angle and when that kid came splashing and spinning along he took his shot and settled that loop around the boy’s shoulders as gentle as a butterfly settling down onto a daisy.

“Then he reined that horse around and they towed that kid to shore. He was wet and he was cold and he had swallowed so much water he gurgled when he talked, but other than that the little tyke wasn’t any worse for wear. Rawhide put out feelers and found out in a day or so who had lost a little one and delivered him on home his own self.

“If ever there was a better example of bravery and daring in all the West—all the world, come to that—I have yet to hear of it.”

The cowboy crowd nodded in unison, agreeing that Rawhide Robinson was, beyond all doubt and without fear of contradiction, as courageous as a man can be.

Then reality set in. They looked in turn at the quivering mass of a man standing before them and, in unison, shook their heads in disbelief. They parried the very idea of cowardice in Rawhide Robinson with further tales of his exploits—scaling a cliff to rescue a calf that had fallen off the rimrock and found itself stranded on the lip of a sheer ledge with sudden death an inch away; roping a ringy steer that broke out of a shipping pen, saving innocent citizens from feeling the brunt of its antlers; facing down a pack of ravening wolves to save the life of a newborn calf abandoned by its mother . . .

And yet, there he stood. Rawhide Robinson in the throes of uncertainty, the clutches of indecision, frozen in fear of the challenge he faced.

“Well, there ain’t nothin’ to do for it but to get on with it.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“We got to take ol’ Rawhide by the arms and drag him over there.”

“You think?” came the challenge.

“I ain’t got a better idea. Have you?”

Brows knitted and lips pursed as the cowboys considered the suggestion. They all agreed, eventually, that it was the only course of action available to them. If they did not act, the consensus was, Rawhide Robinson might remain frozen in fear. And the result would be the loss of one of the Wild West’s top hands.

It was an eventuality they could not allow even a chance of happening.

And so each of Rawhide Robinson’s arms felt itself in the firm grasp of a friend. A gentle push from behind, a firm tug on the arms, and the cowboy was on the move. He could not muster the strength or will to take a step, so the toes of his boots trailed behind him, scraping across the floor and through the sawdust there like plowshares. There was a moment [LM5] [RM6] of uncertainty when his escorts noticed that Rawhide’s eyes, albeit seeming to see nothing, were stretched so wide they feared his eyeballs would fall out. His face was so pale as to be indistinguishable from the whites of the eyes. Runnels of nervous perspiration streaked his visage and his lips trembled and his chin quivered. 

Still, they pressed on. They stopped upon reaching their destination, the trip having occupied only a few sweeps of the pendulum on a grandfather clock. The cowboys clutching Rawhide’s arms held firm, as they feared a total collapse should they release him. The mere thought of watching the object of their admiration in a heap on the floor was more than they could bear, so they continued lending support.

Rawhide’s sniffers quivered at the fresher scent of his new location. His eyes attempted to focus, making sense of the swirling colors and patterns before him.

“C’mon, Rawhide—snap out of it,” one of his props said with a gentle jostle of his arm.

“Now’s your chance,” another said. “Take it.”

A helpful hand in the small of his back urged him forward. “Do it, Rawhide!” he said.

And another: “Ask her to dance, for cryin’ out loud!”