From my notes: “All but three of the 59 people killed in the mass shooting in the Las Vegas have been identified.”

Survivor Heather Gooze was working as bartender when the shooting started, but she risked her life to stay at the side of the dying Jordan McIldoon. She describes the situation:

“You could hear everyone shouting, ‘Shooter, shooter,’ This was legitimate terror. There was a moment where you’re like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’

And then you’re like, ‘All right, go.’ I put my hand on the arm of the guy that was laying there. We brought him over to the sidewalk and we lay him down.”

“I had an off-duty police officer, it was a Minneapolis police officer, off-duty, was in my bar hanging out. He came up to me and showed me his badge, and he says… ‘I’m [a police] officer and I’m not armed for the first time ever. I can’t believe it. Are you armed?’

I said yes I am armed. I [have] my concealed carry.

Based on a tale I heard as a child from my grandmother…

Truth and Lie meet at the local swimming hole, where Lie says, “It’s a great day.”

Suspicious, Truth looks at the sky before agreeing.

Lie says, “The water’s nice, let’s go for a swim”

Still suspicious, Truth checks the water before agreeing. They get undressed and start swimming.

Then without a word, Lie gets out of the water, puts on Truth’s clothes and runs away. With no other alternative, Truth chases after Lie to get her clothes back.

Since then, Lie, dressed as Truth, has been traveling the World spreading falsehoods because people don’t want to see the naked Truth.

There’s no way to hate
Without getting jelly and crumbs
On your hangman’s noose.

How Vince really lost his left ear — and damned near his life.

“Be careful with it,” the archaeologist exclaimed, “It might have a metal frame, but it’s also made of glass and is very fragile!”

The six assistant’s continued moving the heavy artifact between the narrow walls of the old building and up the newly prepared dirt ramp. The structure had been part of an underground complex abandoned several thousand years before it’s rediscovery.

Once they made it to the surface, the same archaeologist that had warned them to be careful, squatted down next to the item to get a better look at it. He’d never seen an object like it and was certain it was a one of a kind.

He held his scanner against the object’s outside metal rim, while speaking into the scanner’s recorder, “Length, 2.1336 by 1.0668, height, 0.0009144 and weight, 680.3886.”

Gently, he dusted away some of the millennia-old build-up that had accumulated on the flat glass screen and peered inside the thing. “Long, cylindrical glass tubes, still intact, a slight bluish tint. Four total.”

That’s when he noticed the hinge work on the far side of the discovery. He looked up at the concave top with its curved glass and saw another set of four glass tubes and concluded that it must be designed to encase something.

“But what?”

Then he saw the cord and it’s heavy plug with it’s three prongs and recognized it as being ‘electrical.’  He quickly returned to where the object was and searching the wall, found what he believed to be where the artifact would’ve been attached to a power source.

Back outside, he walked all the way around the thing, scanning it in full. That’s when he found the faded graphics, that once translated, read something to the effect of ‘sun-cradle,’ or ‘solar-crib.’

“Quickly, bring me a genetic test kit!” he demanded.

Once in hand, he prepared a swab and drew it across the glass of the lower half of the bed, then scanned it. “Human genomes.”

After looking over the ‘bed’ one more time, he spoke reverently into his scanner, “It appears that this apparatus was used in an as-yet unknown religious ceremony, wherein they sacrificed the victim or possibly a willing volunteer by cooking them alive.”

The old mule saw the figure standing on the left side of the path, stone ax in hand; so it stopped. Impatient, Zeke struck the animal using the lead-rope, trying to make it move, but it refused.

“You ornery, stubb’rn idjit! Git movin’!”

Then the figure stood in the narrow between the walls of the canyon that formed the ancient Sioux foot trail. When the mule saw the figure again, it leaned against the wall to its right, trapping Zeke and out of anger, Zeke punched the animal.

“Come on, you ol’ fool! We ain’t got all day!”

Then the figure stood behind the pair. By this time the mule was so scared he refused to move either forward or back and with no way to turn right or left, it lay down, where Zeke kicked the mule..

Then the donkey asked Zeke, “What did I do to you, that makes you treat me like this?”

“Because you’re a stubborn beast!”

That’s’ when Zeke saw the figure, who had moved back to block their way forward. Frightened, Zeke quickly turned and yanked his double-barrel shotgun out from under the canvas covering his supplies tied to the donkey’s back, and held it up towards the figure.

Unfazed by the sight of the shotgun, the figure asked, “Why do you treat your mule like that? He’s only trying to save your life!”

“From what?”

“From what’s ahead.”

Zeke flipped back the canvas covering his supplies and returned the weapon to its hiding place.

“There ain’t nothing but trail ahead. Besides this here’s a mirage and I’m hallucinatin’ because of the sun again.”

“No. There is trouble ahead.”

“Outta my way! I wanna see for myself.”

Zeke moved quickly by the figure and deeper into the narrow canyon. As he did, several Lakota arrows found their mark in the center of his chest and he toppled over dead.

The figure looked at the mule, saying, “He should have listened. After all how often does one learn their mule can speak?”

The mule answered, “Because he was the one that was stubborn, that’s why he wouldn’t listen. In spite of that and the way he treated me, I’m going to miss his companionship.”

Day four and my head was still hurting. My wife suggested I go to the doctor, and much to her surprise, I agreed.

The doctor ran a battery of tests on me, checking my ears, eyes, throat, heart, blood pressure and even sent me for an MRI. After everything, nothing could be found that might be causing my headaches.

As we sat in the examination room, he asked, “So, do you drink coffee?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“How long you been drinking coffee?”

“Since I was nine or so.”

“How many cups a day?”

“Two to three.”

“How many have you had today?”

“None.”

“Wait here. I have an idea. I’ll be right back.”

Less than two minutes later he entered the room and handed me a paper cup with hot coffee in it. I was certainly puzzled as most doctors warn folks my age to cut back and her he was giving me coffee in his office.

“Lean back and relax,” he said, “I’ll be back in half and hour or so.”

As he left he switched off the overhead lights. I sat there and sipped my coffee, enjoying the nature light coming from the window.

As promised, the doctor returned, “So how are you feeling.”

“Much better! My headache’s gone. What did you put in my coffee?”

“Nothing,” he responded, “I had a hunch after our conversation that you might be suffering from caffeine withdrawal. You should go home and double-check the coffee can – I’m betting its ‘decaffeinated.’

My wife was already gone to work as I pulled in the driveway. I hurried inside to the kitchen and pulled the can of coffee from the shelf and looked it over.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I mumbled as I saw the word in bright yellow lettering ‘decaffeinated.’

“Hey, Vic,” I said to the know-it-all scientist, turned doctor, “I had no idea you’re into body building.”

“Very much so,” he replied in his slight Easter European accent.

“Do you have a favorite?” I queried.

“My creation of course,” he answered.

“Really?” I questioned, knowing something was off about his presence.

“This is a body building contest, no?” he responded.

“Yes,” I smiled politely, “But I think you’ve misunderstood the premise.”

“No,” Victor said with great confidence, “I have built a body better than anyone here, you’ll see.”

I simply nodded and smiled, waiting for the competition to begin.

“Hola’,” the aging lawman said, touching the brim of his cowboy hat, as he drove by. He didn’t recognized the Mexican woman, nor should he have as the last time he’d seen her was nearly three-decades before in the dark of night and not in the bright of the day.

She slowly turned in her saddle, looking back at the single-horse surrey and the tall lanky man exiting the rig. She watched as he turned his back to her and began to urinate along the side of the cattle trail.

It would be his last act of life as two shots, rapidly fired in succession, echoed across the open expanse of New Mexican desert near the village of Las Cruces. Having seen the man topple face down into the puddle of his own piss, the Mexican woman turned back, spurring her horse on to a quicker pace, riding from sight.

By the time the general alarm sounded and a posse formed, the Mexican woman had found her way back into town and quietly sat in the rear passenger car of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad bound northeast towards home. It would be the last time she would visit Las Cruces.

Though Paulita Jaramillo didn’t follow the events as reported in the ‘Fort Sumner Review,’ she did hear from friends and relatives of how someone had murdered Pat Garrett in broad daylight. She listened with rapt attention to every detail, knowing that the Gringo lawmen were literally searching for the wrong man.

They’d forgotten the woman, once a 16-year-old girl with the last name of Maxwell, raised on a ranch in Mora, New Mexico and later the wife of a prosperous sheep rancher, who knew all to well how to shoot a Winchester, killing vermin that threatened the herd. She also swore revenge the morning after her brother Pedro’s ranch was used as a killing ground, the place where William Bonney lost his life.

“Dormir bien mi querido Billy,” Paulita often said while thinking back on her unknown deed and a promise kept.