Jake and Toad are sitting on their horses on the snow-covered hilltop, waiting for a line of cattle to pass, heading for the corral. It’s almost dark, and the sky is cloudy, while between the clouds, a few stars are beginning to wink.

“Dang, Toad, it’s colder in a pawnbrokers smile out here!”

 “Yeah, Jake, it feels like there’s nothing between us in the North Pole but a bob wire fence!”

 “Why couldn’t I have died when I was a baby, then I wouldn’t have had to endure this misery!”

 “Yeah, my mama told me I should’ve started a grocery store, ‘stead of being a cowboy; then I could work indoors where it’s warm.”

“So, Toad, what you gonna do for Christmas?”

 “Reckon I’ll. go home, if the road’s clear, You?”

 “Well, I ain’t got nobody to go home to. Guess I’ll hole up at the bunkhouse and celebrate with Miguel and the cook.”

 “You could come with me. My mom is a hell of a cook, and my family would love to have you.”

“Aw, thanks, but I guess I don’t fit into town things. My place is out here where churches don’t grow and the roof is the stars. I know you don’t think I got nothin’ but hair under my sombrero, but it always seems to me that out here, alone on my horse on the prairie, I’m actually closer to that Jewish rabbi who walked around in sandals in the Middle East 2000 years ago.

The scene fades away to music by John Denver “Tall in the saddle he spends Christmas Day”