I’ve always been drawn to Westerns.
It doesn’t really matter what era they’re set in. Give me an old black-and-white Western from the 1950s, a sprawling epic from the 1960s or ’70s, a modern Western, or something set so far back that everyone is still riding horses because automobiles haven’t even entered the conversation yet, and I’m probably going to watch it.
There is just something about them.
The horses. The wide-open spaces. The dusty towns. The mountains. The silence. The campfires. The hats. The boots. The rifles. The cattle. The sunsets. The unspoken rules about loyalty, honor, responsibility, and knowing when somebody needs to be punched in the mouth.
I’ve never really stopped to ask myself why.
Even Seven Samurai somehow fits into that fascination for me, despite being set in feudal Japan. And if you’ve seen Seven Samurai, you already know where I’m going with this: it became the foundation for The Magnificent Seven, because apparently the basic idea of a handful of people willing to stand between ordinary folks and people who mean them harm works pretty well whether they’re samurai or cowboys.
Maybe that’s part of what has always appealed to me. The setting changes. The clothing changes. The weapons change. The story doesn’t.
Lately, I’ve become even more aware of it.
I recently watched the entire Yellowstone series, followed by its two prequels, 1883 and 1923, and then wandered into some of the various spin-offs and related stories. And somewhere along the way, something strange happened.
I didn’t just enjoy them.
I found myself drawn in.
Almost… nostalgic.
Which is ridiculous, because I have never lived on a Montana ranch. I’ve never driven cattle across an open range. I’ve never sat on a horse watching the sun come up over miles of nothing. I’ve never had to protect a herd from rustlers, negotiate a land dispute at a frontier bar, or bury a friend somewhere beneath a cottonwood tree.
And yet, watching those characters sometimes felt less like discovering a world and more like remembering one.
That’s probably the strangest part.
It wasn’t quite the same feeling I had as a kid watching superheroes. Back then, I’d see Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or whoever the hero of the moment happened to be, and I’d immediately want to be them. They were larger than life. They had powers. They had cool costumes. They had villains. They saved people.
Western characters hit me differently. I didn’t necessarily want to be them. I wanted to understand them. Or maybe, more accurately, I recognized something in them.
The way they moved through the world. The way they carried responsibility. The way they could sit quietly around a fire without feeling the need to fill the silence. The way they could work all day, handle whatever needed handling, and then sit down at sunset with a cup of coffee and simply look out across the land.
And the more I watched, the more I started wondering if maybe there was a reason I felt so strangely at home in those stories.
Which brings me to a completely unsubstantiated theory.
I have absolutely zero evidence to support this theory.
None.
No family journal. No old photograph. No dusty trunk containing a pair of boots and a letter addressed to Mariano, Somewhere West of Here. No genealogical discovery revealing that one of my ancestors disappeared into the frontier sometime around 1823 and was last seen riding toward the horizon with a questionable haircut and a very good horse.
And yet…
I have a deep suspicion that I may have been a cowboy in a previous life. And the more I think about it, the more the evidence starts to pile up.
Not just a guy who lived in the Old West. I mean an actual cowboy. The kind who woke up before the sun, drank coffee that could probably dissolve a horseshoe, saddled a horse, threw a rope over something that needed roping, and headed out into the heat because apparently that was just what you did.
I’m not saying I was a cowboy in the early 1800s, but if someone handed me a saddle, a Winchester, and told me there was a herd three counties over that needed moving, I have a feeling I’d just nod and say: “Well, I suppose we better get going.”
The evidence, frankly, is becoming difficult to ignore. For starters, I like cowboy boots. Not in the “I’m going to a country-themed wedding” sort of way. I actually like wearing them. There’s a difference.
Some people put on cowboy boots and suddenly look like they’re trying very hard to convince everyone they’re from Texas. Other people put on cowboy boots and somehow look like they just came back from checking the fence.
I prefer to believe I belong in the second category.
Then there’s the cowboy hat. And I feel compelled to point out that not everyone looks good in a cowboy hat.
The hat knows.
The hat is judgmental.
It looks at some people and says, Absolutely not.
On me, however, it seems to work. And if a cowboy hat looks natural on you, I think you have to at least entertain the possibility that somewhere around 1827, you had a similar one hanging on a peg outside a bunkhouse.
I’m also not really a morning person, which would seem to argue against this entire theory. Except for one inconvenient detail: I wake up early almost automatically. My brain may not appreciate mornings, but apparently some deeper, more primitive part of me thinks dawn is a perfectly reasonable time to be awake.
My modern brain says: I hate mornings.
My ancestral programming apparently says: THE HORSES ARE WAITING.
And coffee?
Obviously.
Cowboy coffee wasn’t a beverage. It was a survival mechanism. There is something about that first cup of coffee in the morning that feels less like a luxury and more like a necessary piece of equipment.
I don’t mind hard work, either. I don’t necessarily seek it out—I’m not insane—but I’m generally not afraid of getting my hands dirty or doing something the hard way if that’s what needs to happen.
Very suspicious.
I also like being outside. Some people need air conditioning, Wi-Fi, a comfortable chair, and the assurance that nothing unexpected will happen to them. I apparently just need somewhere to stand. And heat doesn’t bother me all that much. Other people see ninety-five degrees and immediately begin negotiating with God. I’m more likely to shrug and say: Eh, it’s warm.
That’s not normal. That’s desert-adjacent programming.
Then there’s fire.
This is where the case starts getting particularly damning. I don’t just like bonfires. I genuinely enjoy making them, and I can usually get one going with whatever I happen to have available. Give me some questionable wood, a few scraps of something flammable, and enough time, and eventually there will be fire.
That’s not merely a hobby. That’s a skill you develop after repeatedly finding yourself somewhere without the proper supplies and deciding: Well… we’ll figure it out.
Which brings us to rope. I like rope. I don’t have a particularly good explanation for this. I just do. And honestly, why do I like rope? That’s exactly the sort of thing that makes a genealogist stop asking questions.
“So, Mr. Velez, we’ve traced your family back to—”
“Do you have anything about rope?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Rope. Any records?”
And then there’s steak. A good steak is good anytime.
Morning? Sure.
Afternoon? Absolutely.
Evening? Obviously.
Somewhere around 1820, I suspect my previous self would have considered a perfectly cooked piece of beef a legitimate food group.
And apparently I also like sunrises and sunsets—which is mildly inconvenient because I generally don’t want to be awake early enough to see a sunrise, but when I actually do see one, I really like it.
Same with sunsets.
There’s something about sitting outside, watching the light disappear, and doing absolutely nothing for a few minutes that feels strangely familiar. Which is beginning to make me wonder whether my previous life involved a considerable amount of sitting around staring at horizon.
Possibly while wearing a cowboy hat.
Possibly holding coffee.
Possibly next to a horse.
And then there’s the sheriff thing. Because the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I wasn’t just some cowboy moving cattle around the frontier.
Maybe I was a sheriff. Maybe even a marshal.
I have no evidence for this whatsoever, either, but it just seems like something I would do. Not because I particularly enjoy authority. Quite the opposite. But because I have a suspicious tendency to look at a situation that has gotten completely out of hand and think: Well, somebody needs to deal with this. And apparently, in my hypothetical previous life, that somebody may have been me.
I can see it now. Some dusty little frontier town. One main street. A saloon. A general store. A horse trough. A handful of buildings that are probably one strong wind away from becoming kindling. And me, wearing a badge. Not because I went looking for trouble. But because trouble apparently had a way of finding me.
Someone comes running down the street.
“Sheriff!”
I look up from my coffee.
“What?”
“There’s trouble at the saloon.”
I sigh.
Finish my coffee.
Put on my hat.
Check my gun.
And probably say something deeply understated like: “Well. I suppose we better go see what that’s about.” Which, admittedly, sounds suspiciously like something I might say today. Maybe that’s the part that really convinces me.
Not the boots.
Not the hat.
Not the rope.
Not even the fire.
It’s the idea that, somewhere in some previous existence, I was probably the guy who didn’t necessarily want to get involved—but when something needed doing, I got involved anyway.
Maybe I wasn’t the fastest gun in the territory. Maybe I wasn’t the toughest guy in town. Maybe I was simply the guy people knew would show up. And somehow, that feels very plausible.
At this point, I should probably mention again that I don’t actually have any evidence that I was a cowboy.
That’s important. Because there’s a significant difference between “I have discovered compelling historical evidence of a previous existence” and “I look good in boots and enjoy steak.”
But here’s the thing.
I didn’t say: “I think I would have liked being a cowboy.”
I said: “I think I may have been a cowboy.”
That’s different.
That feels less like fantasy and more like my subconscious has been trying to get my attention. Maybe somewhere in the collective universe there is an old photograph of a guy standing beside a horse, squinting into the sun, wearing a beat-up hat and looking mildly annoyed that somebody interrupted his coffee. And he looks suspiciously like me.
Maybe he’s holding a rope.
Maybe there’s a badge on his chest.
Maybe he’s supposed to be watching the town, but he’s actually watching the sunset.
And maybe, if you look closely, he’s thinking about steak.
Which brings us to the real test.
If I actually was an early-1800s cowboy—or sheriff, or marshal, or some questionable combination of all three—I imagine my typical day probably went something like this:
4:47 a.m. — Awake for absolutely no reason.
4:52 a.m. — Coffee.
5:10 a.m. — Stare into the darkness wondering why I’m awake.
5:18 a.m. — Build a fire because apparently that’s what I do.
5:31 a.m. — Check the horses.
6:00 a.m. — Steak somehow enters the equation.
6:15 a.m. — Rope becomes involved.
7:00 a.m. — Working.
10:00 a.m. — Still working.
12:30 p.m. — Someone brings me a problem that apparently only I can solve.
12:35 p.m. — Wonder why I became a marshal.
12:36 p.m. — Go solve it anyway.
2:00 p.m. — Still working.
5:47 p.m. — Pause long enough to notice the sunset.
6:00 p.m. — Fire.
7:00 p.m. — Steak.
8:30 p.m. — Sit quietly and stare into the fire.
9:00 p.m. — “I’m tired.”
9:01 p.m. — Fall asleep instantly.
4:47 a.m. — Wake up for absolutely no damn reason.
NO DAMN REASON.
And honestly, the fact that I’m not a morning person but wake up early anyway may be the most convincing evidence I’ve presented. My modern consciousness is saying: “Please let me sleep.”
Meanwhile, my 1820s cowboy ghost is standing beside the bed with a tin cup, looking out the window and saying: “We’re burning daylight.”
And maybe that’s where I’ll leave the theory. I may have been a cowboy. Maybe a ranch hand. Maybe a cattleman. Maybe the guy who always knew which horse belonged to which ranch. Maybe I was a sheriff. Maybe even a marshal.
Honestly, that one feels pretty plausible. Someone had to keep the peace, and apparently I have a long-standing tendency to look at a problem, sigh, and think:
Well, I guess somebody has to deal with this.
But then, every once in a while, another thought crosses my mind. A slightly less respectable possibility.
Maybe I was an outlaw.
Mmmm. Nah. I doubt that. I mean, I like rules.
Mostly.
And I don’t think I’d have had the patience for constantly looking over my shoulder, sleeping with one eye open, or wondering whether the sheriff was going to catch up with me.
Besides, I’m pretty sure I’d have been terrible at being an outlaw.
I’d probably feel guilty.
I’d return the stolen horse.
I’d leave a note apologizing.
I’d probably pay for whatever I stole.
And eventually I’d turn myself in because I’d be tired and want to go home. So, no. Probably not an outlaw.
But maybe…
Maybe I was the other kind of outlaw. The one who wasn’t necessarily bad. The one who broke a few rules when the rules needed breaking. The one who rode into town when everyone else was riding out. The one who knew the law but also knew there were times when doing what was right mattered more than doing what was written down. The one who disappeared before anyone could decide whether he was a hero or a criminal.
Okay. Now I’m just making things up.
I was probably a cowboy.
Maybe a sheriff.
Possibly a marshal.
Definitely someone who owned a good hat.
And if, somewhere in another lifetime, I happened to cross the line into outlaw territory, Well… I suppose we’ll never know.
But if you ever find an old photograph of a suspicious-looking man in a cowboy hat, standing beside a horse, holding a cup of coffee, with a badge on one side and a wanted poster on the other— don’t send it to me.
I don’t need that kind of confirmation.
A brief disclaimer: Before anyone asks, and this will be the only time I address this, I am NOT a Dallas Cowboys fan. Never was. Never will be. Nothing against them. But Jerry Jones, Them Boys, and whatever questionable cowboy tendencies I may have inherited from a previous life are completely unrelated.
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Telling stories, sharing thoughts, and drinking coffee. A blend of fiction, reflection, and whatever’s brewing—one post at a time.
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© 2026 Mariano Velez ~ InkBlotz Press
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