“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) – Two women are missing after an outing in desert with friends. Foul play not ruled out. Authorities are searching the surrounding canyon and caves.”

Previously known as Sunset Guano Cave, Horseshoe Cave, and Loud Site 18, Lovelock Cave is 150 feet long and 35 feet wide. In 1911 two miners began digging out the bat guano from the cave so that it could be used as fertilizer.

A year later, the first official archaeological search of the site was made by the Museum of Anthropology, University of California to recover any historic materials that remained from the guano mining of the previous year. The cave’s last use is believed to be in 1850 as indicated by a gun cache and a human coprolite, fossilized feces.

Nearby is Medicine Rock, an old formation once used as a meeting place of the local tribes as well as Leonard Rockshelter, a limestone formation ‘discovered’ in 1936. After two hours of exploring the gaps, crags and passages in and around the ‘shelter,’ the two women headed back to find the other two women were still nowhere to be found.

“Damn it,” April complained, “I hope they didn’t wander off and get themselves lost.”

Janice checked her watch, it had stopped at 12-noon. She thought, “I gotta get a new battery when we get back to town.”

She hollered to April who was already at the picnic site picking up what was left of their lunch, “What time do you have?”

She looked at her left wrist, “My watch has stopped, so I don’t know what time it is. Sorry.”

Janice quickened her pace to join up with April. “Did you say your watch stopped?”

“Yes.”

“At what time?”

“Noon.”

“So did mine.”

“That’s kinda creepy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that’s why I wanna get outta here.”

“Good idea. Lets find Marilyn and Lori.”

The pair slipped between the rocks that led them to the center of the rock formation. Once through they could both see Janice’s car, but neither Lori or Marilyn were in view.

Janice continued up the road towards the mountains, calling for the two women. April did the same thing has she crested the rise to the south of the rocks, and looked down into an open field of nothing but small boulders, sand and scrub brush.

It wouldn’t take long for them to agree that they needed help in finding their friends. As hard as it was to do, they decided that together they needed to head into Lovelock, to the Pershing County Sheriff’s office and report their friends missing.

The four women piled into the sports car. The driver, Janice Cohen had told them about a great place where they could have a picnic and do some exploring.

Marilyn Winap-Denault, who packed them a lunch, sat in the passenger seat, while Lori Thurman and April Johnson sat in the back seat. Though the speed limit along Interstate 80 averaged 65 miles per hour, Janice ignored it, pressing down on the gas pedal until the car reached nearly 80 miles an hour.

Less than an hour and a half later, Janice wheeled onto a dirt side road. Not long after, a series of rocks jutting up from the desert landscape appeared.

No sooner had the car come to a stop did the women hop from the vehicle. Marilyn carried the picnic basket as Janice point to a gap between the rocks, where they could slip into the inter-sanctum of the granite outcrops.

“This looks more like a movie set than natural,” Alice stated.

“Always got Hollywood on your mind,” Marilyn teased.

“Yup, the future Mrs. Patrick Swayze,” Lori laughed.

“Gotta meet him first before you can marry him,” Janice added.

All four women laughed and quickly spread out a blanket before beginning to serve themselves lunch. In short order, the fried chicken, potato salad and chips were gone and all that remained were six bottles of beer.

After a beer, Janice asked, “I wanna go exploring, whose with me?”

Marilyn was laying on her side, half-asleep and Lori was using her wadded up windbreaker as a pillow. April looked at the two and said, “Let the party poopers sleep. I’ll go with you.”

The two women got up and wandered off between an opening in the rocks. They slowly made their way towards the west edge of the formation where they climbed towards the precipice of the large limestone rock that overlooked their picnic spot.

“So, where’d they go?” April asked Janice of Lori and Marilyn.

She smiled, “Probably back to the car.”

Off in the distance the two women watched as a pair of motorcycles slipped over the hill towards the Interstate and out of sight. “I never heard them as they rode by,” Janice posed.

Her comment was met by April’s look of agreement.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) — Pershing County Sheriff’s Office investigators are continuing to ask the public to be on the lookout for a missing woman, Almarinda deOliveria, after finding her abandoned car in the White Horse Canyon area. She was last seen in Winnemucca on the 10th.”

Deputies confirmed that the car appeared to be ‘out of place,’ but didn’t find any evidence of foul play. There were no items found in the car to show anyone had any food or gear to sustain life in the chill of the high-desert environment.

Based on this information, the sheriff’s office  initiated a search for deOliveria. Deputies, search and rescue teams and helicopter crews spent the next several days in the canyon.

Eventually, they were able to find what they believed to be  deOliveria’s footprints about three miles past the car and further up into the hills. They also found her cell phone, and evidence she may have walked back down and out of the canyon, but no more sign of her was found.

Investigators learned that deOliveria had been on the way to Los Angeles, from Eureka, California, after a yearlong spiritual retreat and they tracked her movements using information from her bank card. Evidence showed that deOliveria had made it south of Modesto, then for an unknown reason turned and started heading east, with her last known transactions being in Winnemucca.

Family members told sheriff investigators that it was unusual for her to be in an area outside of a populated city. The family also went to Winnemucca and found deOliveria had stayed the night at a motel on January 8 and 9, and checked out on the 10th.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office has no information on her whereabouts for the time between January 10 and the 14th. As of January 29, no further sign of her had been found by any of the several groups searching for her.

Nearly 30-years earlier as similar incident took place.

Originally, I wasn’t going to publish tomorrow’s ‘fiction’ chapter story, “The Fourth Woman,” until September. But with the possibility of landing an actual paying job, ‘there’s no time like the present.’

Did I mention, “The Fourth Woman,” is fiction?

If not, let me tell say that it’s fictional, save for unfortunate Winnescheika.  She’s a very real historical figure.

Finally, there are 11 chapters to this story. However, I wasn’t happy with the original draft of the chapter, so I wrote a new one, but have included the original as a bonus ‘alternate ending.’

That way, you decide which ending is better.

By most folks  standards, Charlie Vickers was an arrogant bully.  Lord help the cowpoke that didn’t move quick enough for him when he barked an ‘order’ or who gave Charlie even the slightest bit of lip.

He had no problem using his size as a weapon of intimidation, pushing men aside as he cussed them out with great precision. He even managed to bluff the boss-man a time or two.

The only reason anyone kept Charlie around was because he was also one of the finest cowboy’s to come out of Wyoming. If only he hadn’t known it – Charlie might have been a decent fellow.

It was the Friday ahead of the end-of-summer Kiley Ranch Barbecue and Picnic. And like every other year, the boss-man had a large steer culled from the herd and chased into a corral, where it would spend the night before finding its way to the barbecue pit.

And like every year, once Charlie got hired, it fell to the six-four, 300-pound man to kill the unsuspecting animal. Many of us believed that because Charlie enjoyed it so much, he could have been a serial killer in an earlier life.

That night, Charlie took extra time out of his evening before turning in to clean, oil and load the 30-30 that always hung on the wall above the door of the bunk house. Amos Farr and I could hardly wait for Charlie to start snoring before we hauled that gun off the wall and headed out back towards the blacksmith shop.

---

After the supper bell and with work finished for the day, Charlie was given the go-ahead to kill the steer. With that, he shouted for someone to bring him ‘his’ rifle, though the weapon belonged to the ranch, meaning it was really the boss-mans.

Rifle in hand, Charlie climbed over the fence, jack a shell into the chamber and took aim. The bark of the rifle caused the steer to jump and dash to the far side of the corral.

“What the hell…” muttered Charlie as he tossed the lever forward and back again. It was obviously a surprise to the big man that he’d missed such an easy shot.

Again the rifle barked, and again the steer raced across the corral, this time back to where it had started. At this, Charlie began cussing a blue-streak so loud that the women-folk came out of the ranch house and onto the front porch to see what was the matter.

With the chamber filled and rifle once again aimed, Charlie squeezed the trigger. This time instead of running, the steer backed up into the corner, butt against a corral post and put its head down.

As for Charlie, he was beyond angry. He cocked the weapon and fired again and again as he rushed the steer.

Having had enough and being both agitated and in fear, the steer jumped right at Charlie. With a flick of it’s head, its horns catching him up, the beast tossed the large man like a rag-doll over it’s back and into the post and down all four railings of the corral fence.

We all heard Charlie’s leg snap at the thigh bone as he came to rest on the ground with the steer heading to the far side of the enclosure. Though we knew he was hurt, we couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the bully finally getting his comeuppance.

---

After Charlie began sounding off like a buzz-saw on a wobbly drive-shaft, Amos and I took the rifle to the shop, emptied it of it’s shells and removed the bullets from their casings. Leaving the powder in the cases, we next sealed each one up with a personally handcrafted spit-wad to keep the powder in place, followed by reloading the rifle and returning it to its spot on the wall.

When Charlie demanded that the rifle be brought to him, Amos obliged him by retrieving the weapon and handing it off to me. I, in turn, gave it to Charlie, then we stepped back to watch the fun commence.

Neither of us thought Charlie would be so full of bluster that he’d charge head-long at a woolly and scared steer fresh off the range. That’s was his doing and none of ours.

It took only a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Normally, one of us would’ve driven him to the hospital like we did with most injuries that didn’t involve the loss of a lot of blood, but the boss-man believed Charlie’s leg was too badly broken for anyone but professionals to care for.

Amos and me never got to attend the barbecue and picnic that year because the boss-man fired us once we admitted to what we’d done. The hardest part to take was his laughter as he recalled Charlie getting bounce by snot-blowing steer while we drew our final pay.

But in the end though, it was worth it to see Charlie taken to the hospital where I’m certain the nursing staff taught him a thing or two about manners. Most all folks with any sort of common sense know you get mouthy with a charge-nurse only once.

It was a very small room, certainly not big enough for two. Yet there it was with him, resting slightly outside the illumination of the single, naked bulb that burned dull, both night and day for his well-being.

It began two weeks before…

Stanley, a night foreman at the local foundry was trying to sleep. The heat of the summer day though was stifling and he found himself awake long before evening.

Wish for more sleep, he lay on his cot. As he did this, Stanley listened to the cry of what he believed to be a bird as it echoed through his open window.

It took him a few minutes to realize that the crying wasn’t jus’ that of a bird, but of a baby, too. As the baby cried, a Raven answered, attempting to calm the baby’s tears.

Soon, Stanley became aware that the Raven and the baby were cawing to one another. Frightened, he grabbed his long deceased mother’s bible and began praying, fearful that the calling back and forth was between Satan and a minion in training.

Shortly afterwards, he began hearing voices; menacing, evil, growling voices. The voices lead to a fear of shadows and other dark places, making work impossible.

Other workers watched as Stanley became obsessed with the dark and a fear of what lurked in it’s inkiness. A couple of them eventually reported his odd behavior to the local authorities, who felt inclined to take him into ‘protective custody for his own welfare.’

Now, Stanley’s trapped in the confines of an asylum, unable to escape. He knows that whatever is in his padded cell, it’s there to take his life – but it can’t save for that single, naked bulb.

“God! Help me!” he cries when the power suddenly goes out.

Joe the Camel was not ‘lost,’ as in not knowing where he was. He knew exactly where he was, though he would have been hard pressed to point out his exact location on a road map.

For others, the desert might stretch out to the horizon in all directions, miles to the nearest bit of humanity, calling such a place absolutely desolate. But to Old Joe, the endless sand-scape is his home.

That’s how ‘banishment’ goes when removed from society. He rarely gave that memory thought after so many years, but he sure could use a cigarette now and then.

My poor friend H.R.R. Gorman writes these wonderfully serious and thoughtful pieces of science fiction and I come along and screw’em up. In this case, H.R.R.’s three part story, “Inhabitation Machine,” which is about future time travel back in history. Thanks, H.R.R. for the indulgence.

Afan laid back in the brine. He knew well the torments of distant continuum warps.

He glanced at Jarusc, who adjusted dials, tapped view-meters, and waited for the energy to resupply the chrono-engine’s double-Amici prism. If he could have smiled, he would have, for he knew Jarusc was the better operator and not quite cut-out for such rapid transitions from one void to another.

Suddenly, he felt the anti-frictional surge race through his body followed by intense pain. That’s when Afan realized that the restroom key they so valiantly sought – was in his uniform’s pocket all the time.

Too late…

The cowpoke lived alone,
Visitors, few and far,
Save for that dog that he had.
I would reach down to pet
And he would not allow my touch.
Odd, but I have never
Had this affect — in fact
Ranch dogs naturally like me.
I’ll brag — and without tact,
Puppies, on me, tend to go pee!

How wish I had known
Honest and true as the North-star
Man’s best friend wasn’t so bad.
No, not the dog — it was the man!

Sure – the beast, it did growl, teeth
Laid bare, so ready to bite.
It is what’s beneath
Finally brought into the light,
That while eating our stew,
Until my waistline drew full,
One should never be a tease.
That dog knows, much good it’ll do.
Cowpoke, his ‘hardy-har-har…’

So I shot the man plum through
Jus’ as quick as you please.
It’s so hard to forget
When using a dog’s bowl.

“We was told not to cross the Carson,” the old man said. “I was a youngin’ then, younger than you are today. That ol’ war Chief said he couldn’t control them warriors on the other side.”

‘Captain’ Asa  Bledsoe, born in 1880, was nearly 102-years old. He wasn’t usually awake during the graveyard shift at the nursing care facility he now called home.

“Come, sit down and talk to me,” he had complained. Though I knew I had things that needed to be done, I couldn’t resist the old man’s plea – besides he told wonderful tales about how it was in the ‘olden days.’

“If my figgerin’s any good still, I think I’s ’bout twelve,” he coughed and I handed him his glass of water. After taking a sip, he continued, “We were a party of ten and Captain Young was the boss, a head strong cuss, not willin’ to listen to no one ‘specially an Injun.”

He paused, seeming to look off into the distance, perhaps remembering, seeing the day in his mind’s eye. “We set up camp not too far off from the river bank.  After, I went down and sat behind a clump of willows near the water thinkin’ about doin’ some fishin’. Chief said there was lots of fish. ”

He cleared his throat and reached for the water-glass. I intercepted him, handing it to him so he didn’t have to lean too far off the bed’s side.

“Never did get to find out on that there day as I watched as the most handsome Paiute squaw came waltzin’ down to river and begin to disrobe. Kinda glad I didn’t get to fish after them science-folk said them fish were poisonous with mercury and all. Anyways, mind you, I’d never saw no nekked womens in my life at the time, so I was kinda surprised but mostly curious.”

“She was elegant in her way of folding up her skirts and blouses. Then slowly she stepped in the water, which even though it was summer and hot as hell, was freezin’. But she entered and like a Goddess, bathed herself right there.”

I simply sat and listened, not  wanting to break the Captain’s reverie or concentration, for fear he’d forget what he was saying and I’d never learn what happened.

“It didn’t take too long fer t’others to take notice of this brazen woman and soon they’ve was settin’ along the bank watchin’ her, too. She looked up and smiled, so I know she know’d we was there, gawkin’ at her particulars.”

“It was all started by Young, hisself. He proceeded to wade into the river towards the maiden. Soon the other eight was waist deep in the stream.”

Bledsoe shook his head and sighed. “Shoulda listened, ‘cause all too soon, them warriors stepped out of the bushes on the opposite side and let loose with gun’s a-blazin’ and arrows flyin’, killin’ ever man-jack of the party, ‘cept me – I never went in the river.”

“The amazing thing is that the woman — I always called her ‘She Braids Her Hair,’ ‘cuz I never did know’d her name or seen her again — amazin’ how even as there was killin’ goin’ on all ’round her, she never flinched or nothin’. I’d remember that little lesson while a-fightin’ in Cuba a few years later and then in France another few years beyond that.”

“And after all’s done, I continued to watch half ‘fraid to move, but curious as any boy’d be, as she rose up, step-by-step from the river, then got down on her knees facing the river, back rod straight, head held high and braided her wet hair into a long tail, kinda like the Chi-nee Coolies used to do.”

“I sat there and watched till she was dressed and disappear’d into the thicket behind’er. Only then did I crawl back to the camp and lite out for Dayton, the closest place I could think of at the time.”

Bledsoe began to cough again and again I offered him his glass of water.  After taking a drink, the Captain leaned back on his pillow and I waited to see if there were another story coming, but no — the old man slipped off to l sleep and I returned to my nursing duties.