Cowboy Junkie: Living a Western dream in Williams

It's the mean side of midnight with an alarm cocked and set to jangle me out of bed in about four hours, but I can't sleep. To be honest, I'm not even trying. I'm spending the night in a place that is more shrine than motel room, and I don't want to waste a minute in slumberland.

I'm reclining on a soft bed in Williams, Ariz., a small mountain town strung along Historic Route 66. Most people visit Williams for nearby Grand Canyon. I come to recapture the cowboy dreams of my childhood.

I'm a guest at the Drover's Hotel, and don't bother looking for signs; there aren't any. Drover's Hotel is part of Wild West Junction, a re-created 1880s Western town set right in the heart of Williams. Each of the hotel's four rooms portrays a different theme, such as the Bordello, China Camp and Hacienda Suite. Don't let the rustic monikers fool you -- these are exquisitely appointed rooms filled with plush furnishings, stylish antiques and an impeccable attention to detail.

My room is called simply the Movie Room, a comfortable temple dedicated to the greatest of all film genres, the Western. Above the bed hangs the rifle Tom Selleck used to such deadly effect in "Quigley Down Under." Perched on the dresser is the hat Clint Eastwood wore in "Pale Rider." A photo of Tom Mix sits on the nightstand. Movie posters cover the walls, everything from "Tombstone" to "The Arizonan" to "My Darling Clementine."

Everywhere my eyes roam, I discover some new delight. A row of slender novels by Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour fills one shelf. Another shelf holds an old-fashioned radio, whiskey decanters and three sticks of dynamite. A Winchester leans in the corner.

Except for the ancient wooden rocker by the bed, chairs are made of cowhide with steer horns as legs. The aged armoire hides a television and DVD player, with an extensive library of Westerns. I'm watching "Open Range" with Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner gunning down the varmints that killed their friend.

As a middle aged man, I would be embarrassed for anyone to know just exactly how toe-curlingly thrilled I am.

Mike DuCharme and Jay Redfeather opened Wild West Junction in 2002. They met when attending cowboy and gun shows, while both lived in Los Angeles. DuCharme owned a company that made architectural facades, and Redfeather was an artist working in a variety of media. Tiring of LA, they decided to pool their talents and start a business in the mountains of Arizona.

Wild West Junction sprang up on the grounds of an old Route 66 motor court. Besides Drover's Hotel, the Junction houses two restaurants -- the Typhoon Saloon and Hop Sing's -- a rollicking bar called The Iron Horse, a trading post and a beautiful little museum.

"We have the largest collection of John Wayne memorabilia anywhere, along with an assortment of genuine Western artifacts" said DuCharme, who has been an avid collector for nearly four decades. "Our original idea was to open a museum, but then it grew into this whole town, where people can come and experience a little bit of what life was like on the frontier. And have a great time doing it."

Even though the museum was closed for some renovation, DuCharme slipped me in for a quick tour. It was like being in the Smithsonian of my youth. He brought out a pistol and saddle from "The Shootist," John Wayne's final movie. He showed me Wayne's personal Winchester with the oversized cocking ring to accommodate his beefy hands. And he even let me hold the "Stumpy" shotgun, an impressive piece of artillery wielded by Walter Brennan who played the Duke's deputy, Stumpy, in my all-time favorite western, "Rio Bravo." When I handed it back, I was grinning as if Santa had let me steer his sleigh.

Western movies snagged me with their breathless action and sweeping landscapes when I was just a little pard and never let go. Saturday afternoons found me planted in front of the television, watching blazing gun battles along dusty streets. I wore a big iron on my hip, tied a couple of my sister's jacks onto my Keds as low-rent spurs and downed my milk one shot glass at a time.

Eventually, I realized I would never hire out my cap gun to settle range wars for a living, but I was never able to let go of that country. The saw-toothed mountains, the deep timber, the lonely mesas -- like nothing I could see from my Ohio yard. Five months after turning 18, I moved west.

Tourists trickle through Wild West Junction during the day, stopping to eat in one of the restaurants and snap a few photos of the elaborate details of the clustered buildings. As twilight bruises the sky, crowds are lured by the band playing outside. Redfeather sings with the house band, 44 Rimfire, while DuCharme oversees the kitchens and greets the guests.

Gunfights are staged most weekends to the special delight of foreign visitors, kids and me.

"We get so many visitors from Europe and Asia that think the wild and woolly West is still going strong, and that's what we're all about here," said DuCharme. "Helping people live out their dreams."

The dream for DuCharme and Redfeather is to continue to expand. Plans are in the works to open three more rooms at Drover's, to add an old-time photo shop and an ambitious Wild West show. But what they've accomplished so far is plenty for this wannabe cowpoke.

"We don't have signs for Drover's Hotel, because we don't want people showing up at two in the morning looking for a room. These rooms are special, and we want our friends to enjoy them, the people who want something different" said DuCharme. "It's the friendships we've earned that make this business so rewarding. My goal is to be sitting here 20 years from now, dressed in cowboy clothes, drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and talking to whoever drops by."

Needless to say, I'll be one of them. Maybe I'll even tie some jacks onto my hiking boots so they'll hear me coming.