GILLETTE, Wyo. - Ron Gallimore, 96, winces as he pulls on the little red backpack that contains his personal oxygen tank. For the next hour, that is the only sign of weakness he will show.

He unsheathes his weapon of choice - a pool cue, which he lugs about in a dark, nondescript carrying case - and glances across the cramped pool room at the Campbell County Senior Citizen Center.

As Gallimore prepares his cue, he sizes up his opponent, a fellow at least two decades his junior.

What follows is not so much a competition as it is a ritual humiliation.

Gallimore prowls around the table, hunting down his shots. Whether caressing a ball into a corner pocket or blasting a shot from one end of the table to the other, he takes out the striped balls one by one. On the few occasions when he does fire off-target, Gallimore does not just look upset: He looks positively offended that the balls have not obeyed him.

Meanwhile, his opponent, Tom Simmons, pushes his shots around the table glumly. It's token resistance. Gallimore sweeps their two matches with minimal effort.

Simmons ducks out of a third, and Gallimore is left standing alone in the pool room, cue still in hand.

"He'll never play me again," Gallimore says. He sounds half proud, half disappointed.

But Simmons shouldn't feel ashamed. Gallimore demolishes just about everyone who crosses cues with him. He's been a fixture in statewide senior pool tournaments, routinely coming home with a top finish.

Usually, he makes such mincemeat of foes that they never come back for a rematch.

So the Senior Center has taken to recruiting opponents for Gallimore to face. Local visitors, relatives of employees, guys who play down at Jakes Tavern on weekends ... anyone to give Gallimore some competition.

In Gallimore's past few years as resident pool shark at the Senior Center, there was only one player who could regularly test his abilities: Mel Mohler, a 90-year-old ex-aeronautical engineer.

Their matches took place every day for more than a year, starting around 10:30 a.m.

Often, they were the only ones who played in there. Others would swing by to watch, but the two old shooters intimidated them so much that few would dare pick up a cue to challenge them. Spectators called them "90" and "95," after their ages.

They split their matches just about evenly. And with most of the old guard of Gillette's pool players either dead, homebound or moved away, they were the last true shooters left standing.

Despite playing countless pool games together, Mohler and Gallimore hardly spoke with each other. They never discussed their personal lives. Neither one even knew the other's last name.

Yet a silent sort of dependence developed between the two men. Both were widowers, living at home with younger relatives. Their matches were as much about the company as the competition.

That bond was tested in February. After another day's worth of pool, Gallimore was pulling his car out onto Highway 59 when another vehicle smashed into his. The force of the impact shattered seven of his ribs and sent him to the hospital's intensive care unit.

Gallimore estimates that he's nearly died a dozen times, starting from his earliest days as a "half-assed cowboy" in South Dakota. His parents, convinced that he'd find a way to do himself in, took out a burial policy on the young Gallimore ... and none of his many siblings.

Still, Gallimore scraped together a living for himself as a laborer, bouncing from South Dakota to Arkansas to Washington to Wyoming, where he worked on Campbell County's first oil rigs in the 1940s. An old photo displayed in the home of Gallimore's daughter shows him as he once was, and in some ways still is: a ruddy-faced young man with his cowboy hat cocked back and a pistol at his hip.

Pool didn't become a pastime until he was in his 70s, when he took up playing at a bar in remote Arvada. He'd face off against cowboys half his age deep into the night. His natural competitive streak took over, propelling him to master the game.

But with his rib cage in tatters, it looked like Gallimore would never shoot again.

After hearing of his friend's accident, Mohler went to visit Gallimore in the hospital. It was the first time they had interacted outside of the pool room.

"He encouraged me to come back," Gallimore said. "He said, 'In 30 days, you'll be back playing.' "

In the meantime, Mohler found himself shooting alone. But Gallimore and Mohler never played another match.

Gallimore fought his way back to recovery, regaining a little bit of mobility each day. Even after he broke another rib in a fall, he kept working to get back to the game he loved.

But by the time he made his triumphant return to the Senior Center in early June, Mohler had died. Since then, Gallimore has taken back custody of the pool room.

It hasn't been the same. The competition certainly isn't on his level.

Gallimore hopes to remedy that by playing in the next statewide senior pool tournament, scheduled for later summer. Although his lingering injuries have slowed him down, he still likes his chances.

Meanwhile, the Senior Center's staff plans to honor Mohler's memory by framing his cue and hanging it on the pool room wall.

Even though he never got to know the man, it's clear that Mel's absence stings Ron most of all.

"He was a damn good shot," Gallimore said, hiding his eyes beneath the brim of his cap.