He knew he couldn’t move her, Rosa’s injuries were too severe. “Getting you on my horse alone, could kill you.”

As she slept he gathered all the supplies he could from where Rosa’s horse had met its fate. Brady even considered climbing down to where the horse lay to retrieve what remained in Rosa’s saddle bags.

When awake, he shared his plan to get her help. “I must get you help and the only way that’ll happen is if I leave you here and find your family.”

On the early morning before the sun rose, he checked his saddle and lead his horse around the boulder and along the wall. Brady felt a sense of dread as he hopped in the saddle and knowingly left the injured Rosa alone.

By noon, Brady was guiding his horse off the far side of the mountain and back onto the flat, sandy desert. He willed the horse into a light gallop, heading in the general direction Rosa had instructed him to follow.

As he crested a rise and slipped down into the gully, a group of fifteen riders surprised Brady. Before he could even think of escaping they had surrounded, lassoed and dragged him from his mount.

“Where is she?” one man said from somewhere in the group.

“Who?” Brady responded.

“Rosa!”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Without warning the butt-end of a rifle slammed into the back of Brady’s head and the world grew black.

Brady awaken to a severe headache and then found himself chained to the wall of a darkened room. He touched the back of his head and withdrew his hand covered in drying-blood.

Isolated and in near-darkness, Brady sat on the hard-packed earth and listened for what sound he might hear. There was very little, but every once in a while he could make out voices talking and arguing among one another.

Having dosed off, he jolted awake at the sound of keys rattling in a lock. Suddenly a stab of bright light flooded the dungeon where he was being held.

“Food,” a man stated as he slid a tin between the bars.

With hunger gnawing his insides, Brady took the plate and greedily scooped it into his mouth with his fingers. He handed the tin back to the man, noticing his jailer was a Black man from the color of his skin.

“So, where is she?” George Keene demanded.

“Don’t know,” Brady answered.

Obviously, Keene owned the town and could do as he pleased, including beat his captive and leave him imprisoned for God-only knows how many days. Day-in and day-out, the torture continued until Brady broke.

“She’s back with her family,” he lied. “And they’re planning to kill you.”

While the torment stopped, Brady still found himself a prisoner of Keene.

“How many days has it been?” he asked himself as he felt the notches he’d scratched in the wall after each time Nigger John brought him food.

For a month and a day, all Brady could think about was Rosa, alone, injured and in need of help. A quiet desperateness fell over him as each day passed.

Then one day, as his food arrived, John acted out of character. Not only did he unlock the bar doors, he unlocked the chain holding him prisoner to the wall, whispering, “They’re planning to kill you. There’s a door over there that leads up and next to the livery.”

As usual, Brady ate what food was given to him, then said, “Thank you, John.”

He started planning his escape for when it was dark. And still, the thought of Rosa weighed heavily on his mind.

The pair half-trotted, half-cantered out of sight of the town. Brady understood at once that Rosa knew the lay of the land, so he let her lead him deeper into the chaparral covered desert into Mexico.

The sand, dirt and small rocks made for an easy trail to follow and Rosa knew this as she reined up so Brady was side-to-side with her. “There’s a canyon ahead. It leads up into the mountains. I know where there’s cave that we can use to hide.”

After entering the canyon’s mouth, Brady dismounted and using his slicker, smoothed over the hoof-prints of their horses, hoping to make it harder to see which direction they’d gone. He knew that if they had a half-decent tracker, he’d figure it out within a minute or less, but the delaying tactic made Brady feel better none-the-less.

It was a steep and narrow ledge of a trail as she turned from the sandy loam of the canyon’s dried up creek bed. The clatter of the horse’s hooves echoed through the towering sandstone cathedral’s and disappeared into nothingness.

The trail broke wider as the two rode higher where the echo of hooves died-off. Now it was hard, flat stone leading through the small gorges and slots carved into the mountain by centuries of rainfall.

With the height came the ability to see into the distance and for the first time Brady pulled-up to look back on where they had come. In between rises in the red and yellow earth he could see glimpses of dust as it streamed low across the horizon.

They were following at a quick pace, but far enough behind that they’d have to stop for the night because of the setting sun. Back on the trail, Brady hurried his horse forward to catch up with Rosa.

She had paused, having gotten down from her horse to give it a taste of water. Brady moved ahead of her as she double checked the cinch on her rig and lifted herself aboard.

The landscape was open and flat, laying at a slight downward angle, made of hard multilayered weathered sandstone and emptying into an uncharted abyss. On other side was a wall of some height.

“Right ahead of us, around that boulder,” she pointed.

Brady guided his horse towards the wall and proceeded around the angle of rock, that Rosa had indicated. That’s when he heard Rosa’s horse scream in deathly fear.

Looking back, he watched in horror as her horse first slipped downward on the rocky slope, then pitched itself onto it’s side, slamming Rosa hard to the ground. The horse continued to struggle and slide towards the gap as Rosa lay unconscious, her left foot still gathered in its stirrup.

Brady leaped from his horse and scrambled towards the downed horse and rider. By the time he touched the reins of the panicked horse, he knew it was too late to save both of them.

He sliced through the fender holding the stirrup and turned his head so as not to watch as the screaming horse slipped over the edge of the precipice and into the unknown darkness of the cavern below it. Refocusing, Brady looked Rosa over, noting she had several broken bones from where the animal, in it’s fright, had rolled over her en route to its death.

Gently, he lifted her battered and limp form from the rocky ledge and carried it around the boulder that she had pointed out. A few yards from there, he found the opening to the cave she’d described and he placed her inside the mouth.

For the next two-hours, Brady spent his time moving his horse into the nature-made shelter, building a small fire and caring for Rosa’s injuries. He was thankful when she fluttered her eyes and seconds later looked up at him.

“Lay still and rest. You’re badly hurt,” he calmly told her.

It was roughly a two-day ride from the tiny town he found himself in to the next, and that was across the border in Mexico. Brady stepped off his horse, wrapping the reins lightly to the post, before dusting some of the travel from his britches.

Everywhere he looked, he saw one name and one name only ‘Keene.’

“A one-horse town,” he thought as he searched out the only grub-hole along the dirt street.

Inside, he found the a table in the far corner from the door vacant and sat down. The special on the chalkboard sign read, “Chikin-n-dumpluns.”

“I hope it tastes better than the spelling,” Brady said to no one as he flagged down the counter help to order.

She was a sight he hadn’t seen in days, petite with deep brown-eyes and black hair. She moved quickly to where Brady sat, ready to take his order.

In her hand she held a piece of paper. “Coffee and today’s special,” Brady stated as he read the note written on the paper.

“Help me.”

Knowing that she might be seen, Brady played it cool and nodded slightly. She vanished into the back, beyond the bare wood counter.

Brady was unable to stem his curiosity, he wanted to know what sort of help she needed. He pulled a worn notepad from his shirt pocket and a pencil tucked on the inside of his hat brim and wrote down a two words: “With what?” and laid the pad open where she could read it upon her return.

She glanced down as she set his coffee in from of him. It came in a china cup, dainty and floral, with a handle too small for even his pinky, and sitting atop a saucer sporting the same design as the cup.

Obviously, she was a step ahead of Brady. Folded neatly under the cup was a bit of paper that read “escape.” Brady picked the cup up by it’s brim and in one gulp drank the liquid down.

“Ma’am” he said, as he raised the cup indicating he’d like more.

“Rosa,” she replied.

“And can I get a bigger cup?” he asked.

She smiled and nodded yes.

He then took the time to write out the words, “Out back. Eat first.”

She stepped up to his table and set a clay mug in front of him and a coffee pot, while taking away the ‘good’ china. As he poured another cup of coffee and wiped the last of the gravy from his plate with a dumpling, Brady fingered the hammer of his pistol, removing the leather-loop that secured the six-shooter from falling out of the holster.

Finished, he put away the note pad and pencil stub, and stood up. He removed from his vests watch pocket a couple of coins and set them on the table, before leaving the diner.

Not wanting to draw anymore attention to himself that he already had by simply being a stranger in town, he slowly checked his saddle, adjusted his bed-roll and made certain his saddle-bags were secure. Once mounted, he reined his horse between the diner and what passed for a hotel, coming out in back of the eatery.

Rosa was there, waiting. She already had herself a horse, saddled, supplied and ready to make her quick getaway.

The masked-man entered the couple’s bedroom as they slept. He immediately tied up the husband.

Next, he tied up the wife and as he did so he bent over her, appearing to nibble on her left ear. Finished, he went into their bathroom.

“Don’t fight him,” the husband whispered, “Be strong and know that I love you.”

“You need to be strong,” she replied.

Puzzled, the husband asked, “What does that mean?”

The wife answered, “He says he’s gay and wanted to know where we keep the Vaseline. I told him it’s in the medicine cabinet. I love you, too.”

Nearly empty now, her mother’s storage unit only held two cardboard boxes and an old leather suitcase. But memories of her mother lingered, hanging in the air, almost visible.

“Not much to show for the life of a seamstress,” Julie sighs.

The boxes, like many of the others are full of cloth, odds-and-ends, bits-and-pieces, multi-colors, the smell of mothballs and little else. Finally, Julie opens the suitcase, finding a costume jewelry-layered dress.

Julie lifts the dress, allowing it to glitter in the light. She then recalls the wadded up newspaper used for packing — and the headline: ‘Diamonds Stolen, Police Baffled.’

Two months and still she couldn’t figure out how she wanted her new apartment to look. Table here – or over there; her couch in the only place it would fit.

“At least I know where I want my artwork,” she told herself as she sat on the floor looking around the room. It was her first real home in years and she became determined to make it reflect her personality.

As she sat there, she dreamed and day-dreamed until it did reflect her personality. Without noticing, she slowly dissolved into her surroundings until she altogether vanished into her new apartment.

Once again we’re hearing stories about Universities having safe-spaces and crying rooms. I didn’t go to college, no, I joined the military for my ‘higher learning.’

“To each his (or her) own,” is how I figured it.

We didn’t have safe-spaces. In fact, we really didn’t have any sort of space we could call our own – not with Drill Instructors emptying drawers, dumping out foot lockers, tossing mattresses and bedding around the bay and screaming in our ears.

We did, however have a crying room, though we never once dared call it that. We only used it twice, but believe you me, that was more than enough.

No, we called our ‘crying room’ the gas chamber. And I remember doing fine both times, not one tear shed, that is until ordered to remove my mask and suck in a lung-full of ‘2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile a cyanocarbon,’ commonly called CS or tear gas.

There’s a reason there’s a saying painted on the far wall that reads, “Even the Brave Cry Here.” Let the tears commence – followed by violent gagging and in some cases, projectile vomiting.

No one said the married life was an easy life. Especially when you marry a woman who becomes a beast on the eve of a full-moon and then again on the new moon.

The hairy legs and arm pits are easy enough to live with. And believe me, her howling isn’t as bad as her bite.

Admittedly, there’s a bit of hound in me when she gets in one of her moods. I’ve been known to take advantage of the situation, if you care to know what I mean.

But I wish she’d clip her damned toe nails before bed.

Nearly eight years ago I wrote a short history about how the statue of President William McKinley came to grace the town square of Arcata, California. This was long before the idea that removing statues and other symbols, because they were somehow offensive, became a political tool, weaponized to rewrite U.S. history, both small-scale and large.

Recently, I became aware of how the City of Arcata has voted to remove the statue from the town square. One prominent group says this is the proper thing to do, pointing that McKinley instigated a ‘genocide in the Philippines’ in 1899.

We were at war with Spain at the time, so there is more to the story.  Afterwards, the U.S. established posts and bases in the chain of islands and we’ve maintained a presence there ever since.

It’s true that the U.S. has not always acted in the best interest of those it offers to support. This goes for those foreign lands we so-call ‘occupy,’ as well as those who live within the borders of our own nation.

But here’s the problem with expunging history based on political correctness: the human genome goes back to Africa and the Middle East. This means a complete expungement will return us all (if not you and me — than our coming generations) to this same point of origin. No one escapes the rewrite.

Too simplify this idea — if you are not Asian and insist on wearing pants, you are stealing from the Asian culture — which is ‘cultural misappropriation,’ and thus are to be expunged from ‘our’ history, which I’m sure you’ll agree is total B.S. None of this makes sense unless one breaks it down to beyond the P/C culture and realizes it is about ‘power,’ which in of itself is a politically incorrect act.

Remember what ever weapon’s called for today to destroy history and culture can and will eventually be used again at a later date. After all, it happened to Native American’s and now its ugly head has returned.

“You know,” Tabby said, “I really don’t mind living with my Human after all.”

Mishka responded without taking her eyes off the bird sitting on the nearby outside window sill, “Yeah, why’s that?”

“To start with, they feed us and we don’t have to work for our food like that dumb Dog does,” Tabby answered.

“Well,” Mishka stated, “I miss the hunt and if they ever leave the door or a window open, I’m gonna split this scene. Get myself some fresh meat.”

“I hear ya,” Tabby replied. “I’d also miss the entertainment factor.”

“Yeah, what entertainment is that?” Mishka asked, tail wagging furiously as she watched the bird tease her through the window.

“I mean, look at her, Mish!” Tabby demanded. “Years of yoga and she still can’t lick her own ass.”

“Point taken, Tabs,” Mishka came back, “And think how surprised she’ll be when she finally does.”

If cats could laugh, their Human would have been seriously shock. As it is, all the felines could do were purr loudly.

And in return their Human stupidly smiled at them as she attempted the ‘Eka Pada Sirsasana’ one more time.