This could only happen in Texas. To be sure, let's even name the exact location - just north of Graham, a little way from Wichita Falls, where free winds blow, fragrant as morning coffee!
There, in the open air, the best Texas cowboys broke horses. The rancher and his guys had their hands full. It was just dawn, and the cowboys on horseback were racing. Everyone was doing something while waiting for early breakfast and coffee.
And I must tell you, the rancher was the most famous coffee maker in all of Texas. He almost never trusted the cook with this task and, as a rule, made the coffee himself. Strong cowboy-style morning coffee in the land of wild animals and bandy-legged cowboys is sweeter than the singing of a violin on a Saturday evening!
Do you know what strong cowboy coffee is? No? Now we'll tell you.
Take two pounds of ground coffee and pour it into boiling water. Boil for two hours, strain through a horse shoe and boil a little more. Now the real cowboy style coffee is ready!
This ranch had a three-gallon kettle in which the cowboys prepared their favorite drink.
First of all, the owner washed the pot himself, so as not to doubt its cleanliness. He filled it with clear water, set it to boil, then poured more freshly ground strong coffee into it. The coffee bubbled and foamed, and a deliciously spicy aroma filled the air like a sweet spring breeze.
Everyone sat around and ate unleavened scones with bacon, washing them down with steaming coffee. True pleasure! After breakfast, everyone mounted their horses in the most good-natured mood.
Everyone except the owner. He liked to wash the pot himself so as not to doubt its cleanliness and know that it was ready for the next meal.
And then one day he rinsed the pot several times, and also stuck his hand into it to check if there were any coffee grounds left at the bottom, and when he touched the bottom, he felt something soft and slippery there. He picked it up, pulled it out and... Oh, horror! It turned out to be a seven-inch long centipede!
Have you ever heard of Texas centipedes? Each has forty legs, and each leg contains deadly poison. All it takes is the touch of one poisonous foot and you are already dead! Can you imagine what it means to eat it whole?
The owner of the ranch was a decent and honest man. Seeing what a forty-legged monster was brewing in coffee, he became whiter than a sheet. This poisonous coffee will poison him and his guys!
And he did what any decent Texan would have done in his place. He howled and screamed and screamed louder than a thousand coyotes to summon all his men. Well, he knew how to think, and he thought quickly. Everyone immediately galloped back.
“Friends,” he said, “we are finished!” And it's my fault. I boiled poisonous centipede in our coffee. “He raised high the long flexible body of the vile insect. - One centipede bite is enough to poison a person. And since I boiled this poisonous reptile in coffee, that means the coffee is completely poisoned. Graham is over twenty-five miles away. Maybe they would help us there, but we won’t be able to keep up! There is no hope. And if we are destined to die, we will die, guys, like true Texans!
The cowboys slowly got off their horses, they were gloomy and inconsolable. Everyone sat in a circle and began to wait... Some tried to put their fingers in their mouths to expel all the poison from themselves. Others encouraged themselves with such strong words that they would pierce tin plates. And one even praised the owner:
- This was your best coffee! So they waited... and waited... and waited for the centipede's venom to take effect.
We waited for a long time... An hour passed. Then the second one slowly reached out. And no one died! No one even got a stomach ache!
The owner was puzzled.
- Maybe boiled centipede is not poisonous at all?! - he muttered dissatisfiedly. - Maybe the centipede is not harmful to Texas loafers at all? Personally, I feel more energetic than the son of the Thunderer himself on a fiery chariot!
“And I!.. And I!..” came from all sides with noisy relief.
- Hip-hip, hurray! — And the cowboy hats flew into the air. - This coffee is not scary for cowboys! The coffee was great!
There was laughter and all sorts of jokes here! Only inveterate bores who didn’t understand jokes kept quiet.
- Hey, master, one more poisoned breakfast of bear with vinegar - and we will all be cured of scabies out of fear!
“That’s right, guys, it’s more fun to die from a cup of first-class coffee than from rheumatism in old age!”
And everyone went to work in the best mood and... in good health.
The next morning the owner said:
-Today I will make coffee so that no centipede can climb into it!
He cleaned the pot thoroughly, then poured water and coffee.
And soon everyone was sitting around enjoying hot scones with bacon and strong coffee.
The skinniest cowboy on the ranch, nicknamed Reed, said:
- Just the coffee, master! I bet you put a nice fat centipede in it again!
- Jokes aside, Trostinka! - said the owner. - This time you lost. There are no centipedes in coffee!
When breakfast was finished, the owner shook out the coffee grounds and... that's it! Once again, an excellent boiled centipede fell out of the pot.
Well, well! After all, he checked everything himself, examined everything. In front of the other cowboys.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said, “whether sweet words will soften the heart of a stubborn northerner, but that coffee with boiled poisonous centipede is especially good - that’s for sure!”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru