KING and the COWBOY: The Saga of “Smilin’ Bill” and his Wonder Horse “King”

Before horse-whispering was popular an ole’ time cowboy, William A. Cummins, was changing lives with secrets he learned by talkin’ to horses. Over 100 photos mirror the sensibility of this soft-spoken feed-bucket philosopher and author of “KING and the COWBOY.” The book is deeply moving, yet never self-pitying in telling Bill’s hard-knocks-but-dream-inspired story. It would have been tempting given the broad strokes of Bill’s life: A childhood marked by early stardom — he became a teenage singing cowboy on radio — he taught a golden palomino stallion to talk and pray on stage and learned trick-roping — they headlined as “Smilin’ Bill and his Wonder Horse King” — the partial loss of his right hand at age nine — the early death of his mother when he was 15 — the heart warming solace he found in horses — and a highly successful engineering career. Instead the book allows the facts, simply told, to carry the weight. The idea for the book came when Bill was again encouraged to perform rope tricks during retirement. With wisdom coming straight from the horse’s mouth he now spins cowboy yarns and hi-tech stories to the young at heart.