I put more detail into a previously written western opening. Here is the first start: https://krisendicott.com/snippet-from-a-western/

Western Whittling – A story start

Sheriff Clint McCade studied the block of properly-seasoned pine in his hand. His pocket knife made a small flick, and a tiny curl fell off the wood. Pale tawny eyes in a prematurely weather-beaten face studied the still indistinguishable shape and saw the bird beneath the surface. Much like the man saw between the lines of what people said and didn’t say.
He propped a boot heel up on the scarred desk. It rested comfortably in the worn notch as he leaned the matching chair back on two legs. Clint pushed back the brim of his battered Stetson. An onlooker might not think the whittling was at a stage where critical cuts were required. But the survivor of Gettysburg knew battles could be lost before the first shot was fired.
The lawman’s gaze drifted up to the shelves on the wall alongside his desk. In the decade he’d been in Ludlow Crossing, he’d had plenty of time to perfect his whittling. He liked the even rail the town ran on most days.
A smile of contentment snuck across his face as memories surrounding each figurine played in his mind. A cow when he’d seen his first cattle drive. A playful dog when the doc first rolled into town. He eventually got around to making a little statue for every major event or to symbolize each person in town.
He never told anyone that’s what his whittlings represented. He just did it to help him kept track of people’s personalities. His gaze stopped on the wild young colt he carved as he sat out on the front stoop of the jailhouse watching the Drakes build the new stable in town. Cora Drake, widow of a Union cavalry soldier, and her father moved west and settled in Ludlow Crossing in the aftermath of the war. Clint had been surprised to see the young woman swinging a hammer alongside her father and their hired hand, a freed former slave. Clint was even more startled the first time he saw her grab a frightened, lame horse from an inexperienced rider, calm it, and re-shoe it.
From the corner of his eye, his attention was caught by the figurine of an aggressive bull posturing in front of a carving of a sheriff’s badge. The happiness he’d been feeling disappeared and he went back to studying the wood in his hand.