Perhaps I should start this story at it's logical beginning. Who am I? The Country Music world I have been a part of almost my entire life simply calls me "The Crown Prince of Country Music". For 25 solid years I have toured up and down the highways, byways, nooks, crannies, and roads of this wide open expanse they ever so fondly call the United States, been everywhere there is to go, done everything there is to do, and most of it legally too. Just me and my band The Western Wranglers, and, I wouldn't have life any other way either. It is the price I gotta pay for being me.

Throw in 75 Smash Hit songs, 60 of them Number One hits, 46 Diamond, Platinum, and Gold records, and you can see why my schedule is so crazy. That, and the fact once the road gets in your blood you ain't gonna get it back out no how.

When I am home in Brentwood, just outside Nashville, unless I'm playing the Grand Ole Uproar, as we who are members jokingly like to call the longest running radio program in history, you will probably find me at my ultimate most favorite night spot Music City has to offer.

One of the many reasons I spend so much time in this particular Honky-Tonk is that the place is down in Music Valley not too far from the Grand Ole Opry House, and it is owned and operated by one of my closest, dearest, and very best friends in this whole wide world, Billie Olsen.

When I told Billie I was gonna write this book she said you will describe me one way and one way only, so using her very own words "Billie Olsen is an ex-drugged out whore" who cleaned herself up, found some spare cash laying around, I wonder where that came from, and started her little establishment giving it the vaunted male personification it thrives on today.

There Billie I said it, and you know exactly how much I really do love you too. No, Billie has never tried to hide her shady past from anyone and is known to freely discuss the topic with whoever cares to know, and like she also says we all have skeletons hiding in our closets but that don't mean we can't get over them.

Pulling my 150 into the spacious parking lot that surrounds the red brick structure and mingling point of the Who's Who in Nashville, known as Bill's, something I am more than quite familiar with, I was no sooner out of my baby blue truck then a certain blonde haired, blue-eyed, waif, or so I deduced upon our chance encounter, approached me like he was on a mission.

I noticed how the boy was particularly well groomed, every single hair on his head neatly brushed into place, and he was wearing clean jeans that did not sag below his behind as so many kids his age these days, that I assumed was about 10 or 12 years old, tended to want to wear them. He also wore boots on his feet that glistened in the mid-afternoon sun that illuminated the warm day.

His speech was deliberate and his choice of words well thought out. His desire was for green paper but his plan appeared to suddenly unravel when he saw Billie Olsen quickly approaching me like her head was on fire and her pert little bottom was catching.

Angrily she spoke harshly to the boy demanding "What the Hell do you think you're doing pestering my guests, especially that one?"

The boy's demeanor flattened out and he became rapidly subdued.

"Get your tiny butt inside and get ready to work! Go on! Get!" she continued her verbal assault on the lad, "Before I run you outta here on your good ear!"

I had not often seen this side of Billie's temper and thought it best to simply escort her into the club, with my arm comfortably around her smooth shoulders, to her reserved booth in the corner of the establishment where she always put me any way when I came to see her, and where I finally asked her if she cared to clue me in on what this whole ordeal was all about.

Before Billie could begin her explanation the house lights dimmed, the soft strums of a guitar filled my ears, and my attention was drawn to the front and center of the well lit stage when I heard the MC's introduction, "Ladies and gentlemen make welcome if you will the amazingly talented, and Number Two draw here at Bill's, the twelve year old singing sensation Matt Connors," to which the kid who had approached me out in the parking lot as I was getting out of my truck almost received a standing ovation just for walking out onto the stage to start his performance.

Of course, out of sheer curiosity more than anything else, I was now drawn into his private little world and barely heard Billie tell me, "And this is why I can't get rid of him Dusty".

I shot her a glance that would have killed her and she continued her saga by informing me "He just blew in with the wind on an open mike night a while back and has taken up residence here since".

When the boy opened his mouth to begin singing I was absolutely flabbergasted by what I heard come out and told Billie "You can't be serious. Ain't no boy that young can sing like that," then I asked her, "Now, who's really doing the singing here Billie?"

All the more determined to try to convince me Billie insisted Matt Connors was the one singing and the faded out notes of his opening song brought the same kind of response his introduction had, and as caught up in the show as I was I still managed to ask Billie to tell me about this boy, because like a sponge, I wanted to know all I could find out about him.

While the music played on Billie and I sat there and conversated, "Gives his name as Matt Connors," she began her story, then told me, "claims to be from Dallas, Texas".

"And, where's his family, Billie?" I wanted to know.

"Damndest thing about it all Dusty is no one's come forward to claim him and he never ever leaves the place".

"Never leaves the place?" I suddenly responded wondering out loud "What do you mean he never leaves the place?"

"Dusty, I'm gonna tell you something you gotta swear to me you never heard me say," Billie began and I could sense she was unsure she should continue her comment any further even though it was me, her oldest most highly trusted ally, she was talking to.

"Billie we've known each other better than 25 years now and there ain't nothing in this world you could possibly tell me that will shock me," I tried to reassure her knowing it was the truth.

"Dusty, that boy sleeps in a cardboard box in my store room, and don't you dare breath one single iota of that to no one, especially him," Billie told me stating, "cause it would crush what little bit of self-respect the boy has left in himself."

Now it was my turn to ask her, "Are you out of your ever loving mind, or what's left of it, Billie?"

The boy kept right on singing totally oblivious to the discussion my friend and I were having about him, and I continued with, "Why haven't you called DCF or some other child advocacy group Billie? How do you know he's not been abandoned or simply run away from home? Do you want a kidnapping charge, or at least a child endangerment rap, on your record?"

"My record?" Billie laughed out loud replying, "Hell, Dusty, you, of all people, know my rap sheet is a mile long already, but, that ain't the point here. The point is what are we gonna do about this kid?"

"What do you mean "we" Paleface?" I remarked.

"You and me, Dusty," Billie simply replied, "cause he sure as Hell ain't got nowhere else to go."

"Billie, you know I believe kids are cute to look at, fun to play with, but doggone it, go home with someone else at night and leave me the Hell alone," I reminded her.

"Ten damn years, Dusty," Billie said strongly pounding the table with her closed fist to emphasize her point, "ten damn years and you haven't budged at all!"

I did not say anything because I knew where Billie was going to go running off in this direction although she knew I never wanted to discuss this unpleasantness with her or anybody else for that matter.

"Tyler," Billie began and I quickly had absolutely nothing more to say.

"And he is why you flat out refuse to stay home for three days in a row. Tour, tour, tour, tour, tour. For ten damn years straight that is all you have done Dusty. Amphitheaters, arenas, fairs, stadiums, and whatever poe dunk places that'll have you. Dusty West, neither one of us is getting any younger and it is high time you slow down one measly little ole step and enjoy some of your high cotton. You can't keep running away from it forever Dusty."

I couldn't believe I was actually speaking but I said, "Tyler would be 21 years old now, Billie."

Squeezing my arm tightly Billie said "Honey, I know that or have you conveniently forgotten I held the boy for the first time at the hospital when he was just born right after his Mother died giving him life?"

I had not forgotten, nor would I, ever. How do you forget the warmth of the Summer sun beating down on your face, or the feel of the muddy road between your toes on a carefree boyhood day? Yes, for the all too short ten years I had him Tyler was my entire world, and some things never will change, because in all the time that has gone by since, he still undeniably is. But, then he was gone in an instant and my universe will never be right again. No, I had definitely not forgotten any of it. How could any loving parent ever forget that?"

While the boy on stage kept right on strumming my pain with his skinny little fingers on that pearl Martin I wished he'd just leave alone I could not contain the burning rage welling up from deep inside me and had to let it all come spilling right on out.

"I wish the Hell I could get my hands on that worthless, pathetic, piece of crap Mason Moriarity!" I almost screamed loud enough for everyone in the place to distinctly hear me say the words.

"That three time loser is in the safest place he could be in Dusty," Billie reminded me stating, "and no matter how hard you try you are never going to get close enough to him to put a more than much well deserved bullet in his goat-stinking butt."

"One tiny little bullet, Billie?" I commented, "You know good and damn well I would not stop at one tiny little bullet, Billie. Oh, Hell no! I'd peel that son-of-a-bitch apart one centimeter at a time and keep right on going!"

"Yea, and end up in the very same hole he crawled into right now, Dusty," Billie replied back to me.

"For Tyler's sake I'd gladly take his place Billie," I told her, then I said, "you just don't understand the way I feel".

Billie squeezed my arm tightly once again as I said, "Nothing's too damn good for the worthless animal that murdered Tyler!"

"Don't forget Dusty, I watched Tyler die in your arms but you have got to let the state do things legally. Please!"

"Not if I can ever figure out a way to get to Moriarity first I won't!" I promised her with no further desire to be there so I stood up to leave, pulled ten brand new crisp $100 dollar bills out of my leather wallet, handed them to Billie and said, "Give these to the kid on stage for me okay," to which she assured me she would.

Now it was my turn to squeeze the sides of her face gently and softly kiss the middle of her full forehead, before I asked her "Do you know how much I really love you Billie Olsen?"

"Yes I do Dusty West," Billie replied back to me as only she can, saying, "and if we took our love out of our clothes, something I have had a whole lot of practice doing in my life time, Beth Sorenson would kill us both".

And with that I left her little establishment behind me, climbed back inside my 150, fired it up, pulled out onto McGavick Pike, then drove onto the world famous Briley Parkway, and not wanting to go anywhere near the home Tyler had died in, simply headed south to who knew where, hearing Billie's goodbye fade away as I left.

"See you the next time you drift into town Cowboy, and don't be a stranger about it either," she said.