Mario Launi, a WWII veteran who served in the Pacific, will be turning 100 years old on January 26, 2012. He is currently at the Hollidaysburg Lutheran Home, 915 Hickory Street, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648. His family and caregiver have requested the community and all veterans to come together and shower him with cards. So what I am requesting that every patriotic and freedom-loving American in the area join in thanking him for his sacrifices. This will be a small token by letting him know how much we appreciate his selfless and dedicated service.

Thank You so Very Much,

Peggy Lidwell, Ret USA MSG
Service Officer
Post 175
Gallitzin, Pa

Who among us has not yet known fear?
up close heard the mighty grizzly roar
a child, trembling in the dark with tears
For our Fear itself has history and lore

Many of us fear the night
and stay so near the light
Fear stalks us in different ways
Master fear or cower all your days

Fear is real or created
Thus evil can be elated
Using fears to manipulate
Satan’s key to Hell’s gate

Skook 09

Irrational fear is one of our most dangerous enemies. H1N1 is an irrational fear, every year the seasonal flu kills 40,000 people with challenged immune systems and H1N1 is a more benign flu than the seasonal flu; yet, because of the Obama administration’s irresponsible hype over this flu, an unrealistic fear became a form of national hysteria.

I once saw irrational fear consume a friend, years ago; his name was Johnny or Barb Wire Johnny. He was one of the best horsemen, I’ve ever known. Johnny lived in the bush country of Northern British Columbia; he was an outfitter, trapper, and horse trainer. A small man with long black flowing hair, black locks of hair that the most beautiful women in the world can only dream about.

With a gentle heart and calm steady hands he could make the best ranch horses, mountain horses, pack horses, and driving horses I have ever seen. For all his abilities, Johnny had his personal demons; like many in the North he was part native and possessed a weakness for alcohol, a common affliction in the North Country.

Johnny also had a taste for high venison; most of us ate moose and moose hardly ever spoils, but Johnny liked to hang his venison until it started to spoil. It caused him to have a permanent case of dysentery and Johnny never quite made the connection.

Like many of the old timers, Johnny wore moose hide moccasins and leggins, in the winter he also wore a union suit beneath his moose hide clothes. That’s a pair of woolen long johns with a two button flap in the back for life’s necessaries.

Unfortunately, Johnny might be overtaken by his dietary problems at any moment, so he liked to stuff straw or hay in the back door of his union suit, just in case. Moose hide stretches and Johnny was always stretching his leather leggins from riding horses and stuffing the hind end with straw. It was funny to watch a little man with an oversized and sagging butt walking away, but I never said anything.

I was Johnny’s connection to the outside world, I brought the whiskey, horses for training, and cash paying hunters. I lived on a ranch with a phone, an asset that is considered a real advantage for a business man. There was usually at least a dozen people listening to every conversation, but it was a phone. I helped him with the hooves, shoes, and teeth, and he taught me of the mystical world of man and horse or the science of turning two critters into one, many of the same lessons I use in my business to this day.

Johnny struggled for a long time trying to make spurs out of barb wire that would work with moccasins, no matter what he did he couldn’t get them to stay in place. Eventually, I made a pair of spurs in the forge that would work for tiny moccasin’ed feet, he was so grateful it was touching. Little did he know, I would use his knowledge and techniques to build a business that would take me all over the world.

On a cold October day, I was bringing in a couple of hunters from the States along with several green colts for Johnny to train, when darkness overtook us. Traveling in the dark is risky business, it’s easy to lose an eye or run a snag through yourself or your horse, so we made camp about twelve miles from Johnny’s cabin. The temperature dropped to 30 below, and the hunters suffered from the cold; but I didn’t want the hunters to ride in the dark, there are just too many accidents waiting to happen.

We rode into the yard in the grey light of a snowy morning and heard screaming like someone was torturing Johnny in the cabin. I drew my rifle from the scabbard and jumped off my horse and hit the ground on the run. The cabin door was latched from the inside, I kicked it open while listening to Johnny screaming in agony. I stepped into Johnny’s cabin expecting to put rounds through one or more bad guys.

Johnny saw me and yelled, “Shoot him Skook! Shoot him!”

I surveyed the scene in front of me, propped my rifle against the cabin wall, drew my knife and walked towards Johnny‘s bunk.

During the night the fire had gone out and Johnny’s moisture laden breath froze his beautiful black locks to the iron bedstead. While trapped by ice and his own hair, Johnny let his imagination run away with him, he dreamed or envisioned the devil holding him down by the hair; consequently, he promised to give up drinking when he saw his departed mother praying for him over the tongue of the wagon if only she could help him out of this fix.

I drew my knife through Johnny’s hair next to the iron rail, he jumped up and ran outside to collapse on the ice and snow in front of the two hunters who were still on their horses and probably thought they had ridden into an asylum.

I walked outside, knelt down and consoled Johnny, who was in his sweat soaked union suit and barefoot. “Skook, Skook you are the bravest man in the world. You threw down your rifle and took on the devil with your knife. There has never been a braver man than you.”

I smiled, all I had to do is let Johnny carry on with his delusion and I would be a legend in the Omineca Peace Region for a hundred years. I told him the truth, “No Johnny, the devil wasn’t in the cabin. Your hair was frozen to the iron rail on your bed.”

Johnny looked at me as if I were crazy. “I, I saw my mother on the tongue of the wagon praying for me.”

I shook my head, “No Johnny, it’s impossible to see your mother on the tongue of the wagon from your bed, that was your imagination.”

Johnny was slowly regaining his grasp of reality. “I swore if I could get loose from the devil, I would give up whiskey, but the devil didn’t really have me.”

“No Johnny, the devil wasn’t there,” I told him.

“Then I don’t have to give up drinking!”

I could see an advantage disappearing, I tried another direction, “It depends on how you look at it Johnny.”

Suddenly with an inner calm, Johnny asked, “Did you bring the whiskey?”

I couldn’t lie, “yes, I have whiskey.”

“Good, I need a drink, you talk to those hunters while I get ready and then we will take them out for a hunt.”

Johnny’s hysteria is not much different from the hysteria over H1N1 or the Global Warming Hoax; Johnny was duped by his own imagination and was on the verge of believing anything during his delusion, especially if I had taken sadistic pleasure in perpetuating the delusion.

Americans are proving to be a gullible people, following the pied piper-like images of Al Gore and Obama. Their delusion and vivid imagination is being used to ensnare them into the belief that the government will save them from destruction and death, if only they will trust the good intentions of the Socialist State or Obama’s omnipotence. Thus our lemming like public is being duped by the Obama administration.

A basic difference between me and the Obama administration is that I didn’t want to use a delusion to advance my agenda.

Epilogue: This article was written and published in ’09; since then, many of us have forgotten this attempt by Obama to seize control. It failed, thank goodness, but we should not forget these pathetic attempts of leadership and the acquisition of control. Don’t think for a minute we would not have heard how Obama, had saved us from a terrible disaster, if the vaccine would have been ready, and not to mention the tidy little profit for the select drug company. Incompetence in government can work to our advantage occasionally.

“It was the first time I’d ever seen death like that. I never realized you could die so easily. It’s something that can haunt you. I never forgot.” - Edward Davis, 90-year-old Army veteran stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The Washington Times)

It was seven decades ago when the paradise island of O’ahu turned into hell, assailed by a surprise attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy. Today, the Department of Veteran Affairs estimates we are losing the WWII generation of military at a rate of approximate 1000 per day. Out of the 16 million that served, only about 2.5 million still grace us with their presence. Those who can say they survived Pearl Harbor’s attack number only around 8000.

It’s taken some time for survivors of that war, and this battle, to open up and speak of their experiences. Most say they had a war to fight, and they just tried to put the experience of this attack behind them. Others may have found the trauma to much to relive. But now they speak more freely, fearing future generations may not remember and that part of history will be lost.

Edward Davis – a 90-year-old Army veteran with Parkinson’s disease – is one of those elite few. Even now, living at D.C.’s Armed Forces Retirement Home, he has vivid recall of that day of infamy, and wonders why he returned home without a scratch when so many were maimed or killed.

The USS West Virginia

Steve Krawczyk, a member of of the Army Air Corps 22nd Material Squadron, was en route to church when the attack began.

“When the attack came, it was like going 180 degrees from a serene setting to being attacked,” Mr. Krawczyk said.

As he watched a Japanese plane heading right for him, he squeezed underneath a raised sidewalk, fearing the worst. The plane ultimately bombed a target behind him, and he escaped unharmed.

“That was as close as I ever came to being terrified,” he said.

“The thing that carried us through that raid was the fact that the service people we had at that time averaged about 19 years of age,” he said. “And it was the resiliency of youth, you might say, that carried us through that trying period.”

USS Utah Memorial

Ms Soucy is only one of five who’s final wishes will be granted at the same time.

The ceremony is one of five memorials being held this week for servicemen who lived through the assault and want their remains placed in Pearl Harbor out of pride and affinity for those they left behind.

“They want to return and be with the shipmates that they lost during the attack,” said Jim Taylor, a retired sailor who coordinates the ceremonies.

~~~

Most of the 12 ships that sank or were beached that day were removed from the harbor, their metal hulls salvaged for scrap. Just the Utah and the USS Arizona still lie in the dark blue waters. Only survivors of those vessels may return in death to their ships.

The cremated remains of Vernon Olsen, who served aboard the Arizona, will be interred on his ship during a sunset ceremony Wednesday. The ashes of three other survivors are being scattered in the harbor.

Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Logo

For those with a love and respect of history, I invite you to cyber walk thru the Naval photo gallery of Pearl Harbor.

For interactive history, National Geographic has put together a stellar timeline of the Japanese attack map. If it were embeddable, I would have done so.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day isn’t a nationally recognized federal holiday. There are no “nearest Monday” days off to make it a convenient long weekend… no BBQs, the mail moves as usual and banks are open. As we lose this greatest generation, I fear we will also lose marking this day with the import in history it has. For most, it’s just another passing day. Yet, in impact, it is that generation’s September 11th… and one more lesson for the US that we are not immune from enemies attacks.

1942 poster by Allen Saalburg

A great blog read…

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2011/12/07/my-mothers-war-courtesy-of-pearl-harbor/”>Bookworm Room, with a story of his mother during WWII.

Our fate can change the course of our lives in a split second; often, it is beyond our control, but we must be ready to adapt and be resourceful enough to make the best of new circumstances. America is likely to see some dramatic economic changes in the next few months. We must be resolute to endure the possible collapse of the world’s economic systems. I suggest having supplies on hand to last at least a month and plans to unite with family members in case communications fail. I hope, I am wrong, but with leadership that seems intent on destroying or at least inhibiting the economy, the possibility of collapse is a real possibility that is heightened with the refusal of profligate members of the EU to impose austerity upon their entitled masses or the reluctance of those entitled masses to accept sacrifice; therefore, despite efforts by the overly leveraged Obama administration to avert the collapse of European Socialism, essentially by borrowing money to loan it to countries drowning in debt and unable to borrow the same money from legitimate sources. The world will now see how interrelated the international banking systems are and how fragile the US economy is under an incompetent Socialist leadership that like the leaders of the EU refuses to confront the problems of debt, entitlement, and profligate spending. Perhaps this story will give us hope for the future and for overcoming adversity by turning a disaster into a future with different possibilities.

This is part three of the Oregon Trail story. If you haven’t read the first two parts, Three Island Crossing and The Spaniard don’t worry about it, there’s still an adventure story here, without the other two. The violence is graphic as is life: you will not find me being politically correct, so please don’t bother to mention those indiscretions.

Cougar Cub of the Metis (pronounced MayTee)

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, as he was named by a proud French father with a sense of humor, who spent a total of three winters with a beautiful Indian maiden before deserting her to go trapping in the wilds of what was to become British Columbia, and never bothering to return. She died of starvation four winters later and left her child to beg for survival among the village of teepees belonging to the Metis people of Lac La Biche, near Fort Edmonton. Louis ingratiated himself from family to family as the food supplies fluctuated with the hunting success among different families.

Louis earned the nickname Cougar Cub honestly enough, by raising an abandoned Cougar Cub to maturity, as a boy of about twelve. The cougar stayed with him for almost two years; until, the call of the wild beckoned it, away from Louis, to join nature in its true feral state. From the day the Cougar left and for the rest of his life, Louis was never called Louis again; he was Cougar Cub of the Metis. Cougar was a bright lad destined for leadership. At least, several of the Metis elders considered him an excellent choice. He was not given to hard liquor, a vice that ruined many of the young men. He wasn’t quarrelsome or mean to weaker people. He had a quick mind and often provided good suggestions in the tribal lodge. He also had keen eyesight an uncanny ability to carve objects from wood.

He was an orphan of the mixed blood people, a large tribe called Metis; a mixture of different Native American tribes and French or other European types, they lived not quite as natives and not quite as Whites. They were unique and made every effort to remain that way. True eclectics, they had no reservations against adopting the features they liked from either culture.

They were a hardy race. Horses, hunting, singing, drinking, and the lusty pursuits occupied their free time. They often worked as voyagers, courier du bois, and trappers, but their favorite pastime was hunting buffalo.

Every year, a hunt was organized from Fort Edmonton in the fall. It was not just for men; it was a family affair with a dichotomy of labor that recognized the importance of women within the family. It was also a chance to renew old friendships and learn the news of the Metis people. Women, children, and old people were all anxious to participate in securing meat for the winter and the one big annual gathering of the Metis people.

The vehicle of choice was the Red River Cart, a single axle horse or ox drawn cart with wooden axles; actually, there was no nails or metal; the entire vehicle was built of wood using mortise and tenon, and dove tail joinery. For people who could not afford nails and screws, the Red River Cart, named for the area that would eventually become Manitoba, the wooden cart was a creation of genius. With axles made of Maple to reduce flex, felloes were made of ash or oak because it could be bent with steam and because of its durability, and the hubs were made of elm because of its resistance to splitting; the Red River Cart came into prominence in 1800, primarily to service the fur trade, it was in use from Minnesota and into the farthest trading posts of Canada. The carts were primarily pulled by oxen; especially, in the boggy country, the maximum payload was nine hundred pounds on trail conditions and forage that a horse couldn’t survive on. An ox could cover 25 miles a day in the bog country without roads. In the drier prairies, horses were used about half the time. The could manage sixty miles a day, but the payload was reduced to five hundred pounds.

In the east and in Minnesota, the cart was primarily used for the fur trade, but once the Metis saw the advantages of the Red River Cart in buffalo hunting and migration, their lives were changed almost instantly.

The Red River Cart, named after the original designation for the country that was to become Manitoba, where it was the only vehicle that could travel through the bogs, it became a symbol of pride for the Metis; for it reflected the migratory ability of the horse Indians of the Plains, who used the travois and the pack horse to carry their possessions and yet, the technological advantages of a wheeled vehicle, without a complicated steering mechanism for a front axle, reflected their White heritage.

The Metis’ carts of the plains carried supplies for each family, and their teepee or wickiup, the buffalo hide tents of the plains. The children, old people, and women carrying children or with infants took turns walking and riding; while the young men dashed around on fiery horses trying to impress the young women. Older men, who had already had their share of horse falls and the broken bones that come with such accidents, were content to walk their horses with an occasional burst of speed for something important.

The teenage girls rode their horses in a group at a walk and tried not be too obvious in their admiration of the wild and reckless riding of the young men competing for their attention. They giggled and covered their mouths as they looked at each other when a youth would ride by and drop off one side of his horse at a gallop to let his feet hit the ground and be thrown almost effortlessly back on the horse’s back.

There were approximately 800 carts when they left the campground South of Fort Edmonton and more would join up as they traveled south to hunt the traditional hunting grounds West of Medicine Hat to the mountains. The buffalo could be anywhere in this vast country. The scouts were excellent trackers and they would be sent out to find the herds and then report back. They would find the buffalo eventually, but until then, everyone who wasn’t a scout was taking part in a celebration of life and the social life of the hunt.

The wheels and axles of the carts were without grease, because the grease became a trap for dirt and sand, causing the wheels to seize from trapped dirt; thus the continuous whine of wood upon wood was horrendous. The noise was so loud when hundreds of them were moving, that people could no longer carry on conversations. The screeching noise could be heard for miles. Whites from England, who heard the noise compared it to a thousand bagpipes getting started.

The Metis didn’t like the orderly White man’s method of travel, they preferred to spread out on line and not breathe the dust of those in front of them, at least if they weren’t following a narrow trail.

The Metis were a proud and handsome race from many different tribes, but in time and after a few generations, they lost the cultural traits of their home tribes and felt alienated as their connections became less distinct. Whites often discriminated against them, thus they felt united in their common heritage, which was a diverse mixture of heritages and blood.

There was bitterness among some who felt the sharp slap of rejection from both Whites and Native tribes, but most had a surreal appreciation for life and nature, with a cheerful disposition and a smile for everyone, they were determined to let no one else intrude on their happiness with bigotry and hatred.

Cougar was one of these young men. He loved the outdoors and the animals, but he had an uncanny ability with wood. With only the most basic tools, he made tables, chairs, and desks with a fascinating ease that seemed effortless.

At Lac La Biche, an old carpenter from Switzerland observed him working as a boy, using little more than a knife. He was amused and brought out an old leather satchel with fine old European carpenter tools.

He gave young Cougar a combination square, a ruler, two chisels, a plane, two saws, a brace and bit, and a small spirit level. He spent several hours with the boy teaching him about numbers, how to use the different tools, and how to sharpen them.

From that afternoon of instruction and those few tools, Cougar became a carpenter and eventually had a thriving business in Fort Edmonton by the time he was twenty. He was wealthy enough to buy tools and hardwoods for furniture from Ontario and have it shipped to his shop in Fort Edmonton. The wives of Edmonton’s most successful men, all wanted the furniture that Cougar made in his bustling shop.

He had missed the hunt for several years, but he planned to go this year and renew his old friendships. He had a traditional Red River Cart that he used to deliver his furniture and various projects, but he wanted to show off his skills and appreciable success, with a new finely made Red River Cart. He ordered iron axles and steel rimmed oak wheels with iron races from Ontario and began drawing plans for the most beautiful Red River Cart ever built.

He was not a man who could do anything half way. The cart would reflect his pride and craftsmanship. He had no family, so he would drive the wagon and have a hunting horse tied to the back for the actual hunt.

He ordered a new rifle, he could afford the best, so he bought the new Sharps buffalo rifle. The project was easy for him, but he still went out of his way to make his cart a work of art. The body was framed in Oak, sheathed in Maple, and trimmed in Walnut. The wood was finished with a walnut stain made by Cougar by cooking walnut hulls down to a gelatinous mass and straining away the solids, then applying the stain in thin layers until he obtained the color enhancing quality of the stain that allowed the beautiful grain patterns to show through. Hot bees wax was later rubbed into the wood to preserve the finish. Traditionally, the carts were built free of nails by using classic mortise and tenon and dovetail joinery, this aspect was Cougars stock and trade.

Cougar dreamed of driving his cart across the prairies for more than acquiring a buffalo. For this was a chance for him to say to the friends of his childhood, that he had become a success in life.

When Cougar finished his cart, he hitched up his driving horse and drove through the dirt roads of Fort Edmonton. Whites, Metis, and Indians all cheered the young man and his masterpiece whether they knew him or not, for his cart was an image of grace and beauty, that represented the open prairies and the freedom of the Metis people.

Cougar felt a mixture of pride and happiness for his cart to be so well received. Now, he needed his cooking and sleeping gear, and a teepee. He drove over to the fur trading post and told the manager he needed a smaller buffalo hide teepee and the rails. He bought cooking utensils and a set of crockery; he splurged a bit on the crockery in case he met a potential wife and invited her and her parents for dinner.

He drove out onto the campsite at daylight on the morning the hunt was to begin. The teepees were being taken down and the camping gear loaded on the carts.

He received many admiring glances when he joined the procession and a few faces showed scorn, especially from some of the young men riding spirited half broke horses.

They were the least of Cougar’s worries, he was here to see boyhood friends and find a wife.

Cougar brought his basic carpenter tools and fixed several wagons for people, free of charge.

The Metis hunters traveled far to the Southwest searching for the elusive herds. The scouts had located massive herds of a hundred thousand spread out along the Sheep River, about three hundred miles south of fort Edmonton. These people had a different concept of time, for them the objective of the hunt was to secure meat for the winter, so the distance was of little concern. After driving for several days, they camped on Fish Creek and made plans for the hunt the next morning on Sheep Creek about ten miles to the South.

The hunters planned to encircle the herd before daylight and kill as many as possible before they stampeded, they would then follow the herd until the horses were exhausted and kill as many as possible. They would try to kill enough so that every wagon had a carcass and a buffalo robe to take home for the winter.

There was a problem, Cougar couldn’t hunt and drive his cart at the same time.

He made several repairs for Jerome, who had a charming wife and a beautiful daughter. He had been admiring the sixteen-year old maiden, Hawk’s Cry from a distance; she resembled the high-cheeked native type more than her French ancestors, she had thick long black hair, there was only one feature that gave away her White heritage, her eyes were green with a golden brown ring around them.

Although her father wore the White Man’s clothing like Cougar, she and her mother dressed in traditional native dresses of tanned leather with intricate beadwork and porcupine quills decorating the area covering their breasts. They could barely communicate with Cougar, since they mainly spoke in their native tongue. Cougar spoke in a combination of French and English that was difficult for someone unused to the Metis to understand.

He invited Hawk’s Cry and her parents to dinner that night. It was a simple dinner, but they were impressed with the polite young man’s friendly nature and a well-cooked meal of bacon, beans, potatoes with butter, and cornbread.

After dinner he asked in sign if Hawk’s Cry could drive his wagon to his kill site, since he was alone. Her parents looked at her with a look that said it was her choice. He could see the disappointment in her eyes at first, because she was an excellent rider and hoped to borrow a horse, to be as close to the action as possible, not back with the screaming kids and old people, but she realized that Cougar Cub was a special catch and he might lose interest if she said no.

She agreed with a smile and the dinner party was over, Cougar asked Hawk Cry’s father, Jerome Fast Horses, if he would ride with him in the morning. Jerome’s eyes flashed and he was proud to have the young man ask him to ride with him. He was thirty-nine, and most men were no longer riding on the buffalo hunts at that age. Jerome promised to be ready at two hours before daylight.

It was customary for women to break camp and load the gear, but Cougar thought it might seem presumptuous of him to expect Hawk’s Cry to load his teepee.

Everything was loaded and his driving horse was hitched to the cart when Hawk’s Cry walked to his camp. She smiled, climbed in the driver’s seat and was one of the first carts to get on the trail. She arrived on a hill above Sheep Creek about a mile away and heard the first rifle shots just as the sun was burning away the early morning fog away.

The buffalo stood in silent confusion as thirty or forty of them dropped to their knees and then fell over sideways. One of the shots was poorly aimed and hit a hoof. The animal bellowed in pain and started to run on three legs. This strange behavior caused the rest of the herd to stampede to the West. Some of the herd crossed the creek and were shot as they scrambled up the opposite bank. Soon all the hunters were running alongside the horses and firing at close range into their backs.

Within a few minutes, the majority of the buffalo had outrun the horses, and it was all over. There were buffalo carcasses spread out for five miles along Sheep Creek and she saw where at least two riders and their horses had fallen, and were trampled to death.

She felt a moment of sadness, but this was life, you hunted and sometimes you died in the pursuit of the animals. It was a fairly simple explanation for the human toll below.

She drove Cougar’s cart down to the river to look for the men and her mother followed in her father’s old cart. She heard her mother call her name and turned to see her pointing to a small Fleur de Lis flag waving in the air about a mile up stream. Her father’s father had given it to Jerome when he was a young man. It was awarded by French soldiers to her relative for gallantry in a battle back East. He always had it with him and today it was perfect for his wife to locate his buffalo.

Hawk’s Cry saw Cougar working on a huge carcass about two hundred yards beyond her father; he had the traditional blue and white Metis flag, with the symbol for infinity. She waved to her mother and drove up to Cougar with a big grin. She was dressed in a white smoke tanned deerskin dress trimmed with martin and moose hide moccasins trimmed in beaver. These clothes were not meant for work, they were worn to catch Cougar’s attention.

The ploy worked well, when he saw her, he was speechless. He stood up to look at her, stepped backward to trip and fall over the gut pile. She smiled with flashing eyes and a mouth full of snow white teeth, he still couldn’t say anything in front of her overwhelming beauty.

She told him he had killed a good buffalo in sign language and turned to let him appreciate her feminine form. He still was unable to speak. She said in a language he didn’t understand, “I will put on my work dress, and help,” but he was oblivious. He watched her in awe as she pulled her best dress over her head to reveal one of nature’s most perfect feminine forms. She wondered why Cougar was being rude and staring at her nude body. She wasn’t shy, but it was considered rude to stare at someone’s nude form.

Cougar stared at the first nude female he had ever seen, for half a minute and then dropped down to continue skinning the carcass. Hawk’s Cry laughed at his strangeness and slipped one of her old dresses over her head and changed moccasins. She started to tie the leather thong to tighten the V neck opening over her breasts, but then decided to leave it open, since Cougar seemed to enjoy looking at her nakedness, maybe he might want to look some more.

She was quick with her hands and together they skinned the buffalo in short order. Cougar was lost in love, but he couldn’t look at her, and she was beginning to realize the power she had over this talented young man.

Cougar split the skull with an ax to remove the brain for tanning the hide and cut out the tongue for lunch. They quartered the animal and Cougar lifted the quarters into the cart. Hawk’s Cry tried to help with the lifting, but he was so strong, she was just in the way.

They drove over to her dad’s kill and Hawk’s Cry felt so proud sitting next to this handsome young man with the finely made cart and the freshly killed buffalo in the back. She decided, she wanted this young man for a husband, the sooner the better.

When they drove up to her parent’s buffalo, Cougar handed the reins to Hawk’s Cry and jumped out to help Jerome lift the quarters into the cart and then suggested they wash upstream and cook lunch. Her parents somehow understood or at least agreed to follow him to a nice campsite away from the gore and the stench resulting from butchering so many large animals.

The four of them washed at the creek, Jerome told Hawk’s Cry of what a fearless hunter Cougar was and how he shot four animals by riding right next to the buffalo with the reins on his horses neck and riding with just his legs. He said Cougar was just like the hunters of the old days.

Hawk’s Cry listened, but showed none of her parents’ enthusiasm; she seemed to be oblivious to the hunting abilities of Cougar as she pulled up her skirt to expose thighs the color moose hide moccasins and began to wash the blood from her knees and hands. Cougar was watching from such short range that he lost his balance on a slick rock a fell into the swift water. The others laughed and Cougar felt awkward and humiliated. Jerome and his wife suspected that Cougar was smitten with their daughter, and they were excited to see how this ancient dance of love was to be played out.

They decided to set up their teepees and spend the night, then leave early the next morning. They cooked a big feast that night and many people stopped by to congratulate Cougar and thank him for his hunting skills. There were several single girls who looked at Cougar with an appraising eye, but Hawk’s Cry made sure to be sitting next to him throughout the evening and smiling at all the visitors. Cougar felt funny, he wasn’t self-conscious around the other girls and they were much easier to talk with, since it was more common to speak a mixture of French and English rather than the native tongue, but the other girls respected Hawk’s Cry and her claim to the handsome young buffalo killer.

A group of young men came into their camp after dark. It was obvious they had been drinking. They took plates of food without asking, but it was a feast. The leader was loud and belligerent. After taking a few bites he said the buffalo was spoiled and unfit to eat. He broke his plate by throwing it on a stone next to the fire and then turned to smile at Hawk’s Cry as if she might be impressed with his behavior.

Jerome stood up and tried to walk the young man out of the camp, but he pushed Jerome away and pulled a knife and looked at Jerome and then Cougar.

He told them the girl was his and he was going to take her. Cougar jumped to his feet and walked toward his rifle and suddenly felt the razor edge of a skinning knife cut his cheek through to the teeth. The drunken boy drew back to slash again when he was hit above the eye with a good sized rock, thrown by Hawk’s Cry. Cougar started for his rifle again and felt the boy on top of him. He grabbed the boy’s wrist that held the knife and they were locked in mortal combat.

Cougar tripped the boy and they fell. Cougar wrapped both his hands around the boy’s knife hand, took the knife away from him and stood up. The boy stood up and lunged for Cougar’s rifle, but he had no idea how to work the mechanism and when he realized it was hopeless, he swung it like a club at Cougar’s head.

Cougar ducked and jumped forward and cut into the boy’s gut with the knife. He heard air escaping and the foul odor of a bowel being cut open, the boy had his hands around Cougar’s throat and was cutting off Cougar’s air in a last ditch effort to kill him. Cougar aimed the knife upward and thrust it hard toward the boy’s heart. The hot blood squirted all over his fore arm and wet Cougar’s body from the waist down with the hot pulsing liquid, the boy went limp and fell to the ground. He was dead.

Cougar looked at the boy and knew the Red Coats patrolling the country for American whisky sellers would hang him for killing the boy, no matter what the circumstances. The boy’s friends were mounting their horses and soon galloped away into the night.

He had to move fast. Cougar started loading his cart. Jerome talked with his family for a few minutes and started loading his cart. Cougar had his cart loaded and told Jerome in sign language that he was heading south to the United States. Jerome tapped his chest and then pointed his vertical palm south and then pointed with his index finger.

It looked like Cougar was going to have company along for the ride on his bid for freedom. Suddenly, he had an idea. Jerome and the women would take the carts south to Sweetwater Montana and Cougar would head straight for the Glaciers to the South. The Red Coats would track the wagons and if they caught up to the wagons it would be too late to catch him. They would then drive down to the Great Falls and he would meet them there in two weeks.

The communication was all in sign language, for them it was much more accurate than trying to speak in the fragments of several languages.

They left a few moments later: the wagons bound to the Southeast and Cougar in a lope to the South.

Cougar would cross the High River about ten o’clock and then cross the Oldman River before noon. With luck he should cross the border before daylight the next day.

The NWMP detachment sent one man to bring in the killer, Mike Irons or Iron Mike as he was known to the Indians and American Whiskey traders. Most outlaws gave up when they knew Iron Mike was on their trail. He inspired respect and fear in the wild country. He was fair, but if you resisted, Iron Mike shot you before the court could hang you. He was an expert tracker and used to Indians making a run for the border. He was on the trail of the two carts by nine the next morning. It would be easy to run down the two Red River Carts.

The story he heard from the Metis boys didn’t add up, but that wasn’t his problem. That’s what they have courts for, he was just a man hunter and the law west of Medicine Hat. He slowed his pace and tried to piece together the odd story. Young man by himself, old man with beautiful daughter and wife, they are hunting buffalo and camped together. They get two buffalo and a young man comes into their camp and gets butchered.

“Wait a dang minute,” Mike said aloud to himself, “They were supposed to have four horses. There’s only tracks for three.”

He dismounted and walked a circle around the tracks to be sure, “Well, I’ll be, they almost out smarted Iron Mike.”

He rode hard to the southwest looking for a lone track headed straight south.

About ten miles from the border, he picked up a single track. The horse was exhausted and unable to track straight. This had to be him. He came to the border and saw Cougar leading his horse about sixty yards into the US.

“This is Constable Mike Irons of the North West Mounted Police, turn around and come back or I will shoot you dead.”

Mike fired a warning shot and Cougar pulled his rifle from the scabbard and shot Mike’s horse through the heart in less than a second, and then dropped down below a hill and disappeared.

Mike felt fear for the first time in his career, he felt his blood turn cold and he felt himself shaking; he had just looked death in the eye, this young man was a stone cold killer and a deadeye shot.

He took his tack off the dead horse and started the long walk home, feeling lucky to be alive.

Cougar kept his horse walking until they had walked several miles to the east and came to a nice valley with good feed and a creek. He turned his horse loose and laid down to sleep between two rocks. Cougar slept the rest of the day and all through the night. He caught his horse the next morning. The horse was still exhausted and sore. He walked beside his horse, so that the only weight he carried was the saddle. Cougar carried his rifle; he didn’t want to have someone like Iron Mike getting the drop on him again.

After two days of walking beside his horse, the horse seemed to be regaining its strength, but Cougar kept walking, hoping to insure the recovery of his horse.

A few days ago, he had a beautiful cart that was admired by almost everyone in the Metis nation, a possible romance with the most alluring girl he had ever seen, a closeness with a family group he genuinely liked, a buffalo carcass in his wagon, and a good meal in his belly. Now, because a drunk walked into his camp, he could be hanged in Canada, he was on the verge of starvation, and leading a lame horse.

Life’s fortunes can change quickly; especially when you are trying to be someone you aren’t. He was a carpenter with a good business at Fort Edmonton, not a buffalo hunter.

They will be shocked to hear he is wanted for murder. He had a few carpenter tools in the wagon, not much more than the old Swiss carpenter had given him when he was a boy, but they were in his cart and hopefully his cart was in Great Falls.

He met some Indians on the trail. He had never seen Indians like these. There were three of them and they each had human scalps tied to their saddles.

Cougar used sign language to tell them he was Metis from Canada and the Red Coats wanted to hang him for killing a man.

Their faces showed no emotion, until he said a Red Coat was hunting him and wanted to hang him, he then saw a measure of respect emerge from the eyes of these warriors. They asked when he had last seen the Red Coat and he said he had shot his horse two days ago at the border.

The warriors admired his rifle and he thought they might try to kill him for his rifle, but instead they gave him a foot long piece of pemmican. Cougar asked how far to Great Falls and the warriors said it was two more days to walk and he would cross a good trail when he walked through these rocks hills.

He was surprised when they told him they wanted to hunt this Red Coat and they had to leave. The three warriors rode off silently as they followed Cougar’s back trail.

The three warriors were the most dangerous men Cougar had ever seen, but he had learned some valuable lessons: never show fear, and violent men respect men who are capable of violence.

They had treated him well and had even given him food to ward off starvation, but now he had a new problem, his moccasins were worn out after walking over this rocky trail and his feet would soon be bleeding if his horse didn’t overcome his lameness.

Iron Mike cached his tack under a cottonwood and continued on with just his rifle, when the bullet ripped through his thigh and he felt his right boot fill up with blood almost immediately. He looked down to see the pulsing of his blood moving his military issue riding trousers. He knew this would be his last fight.

The rider who shot him now was riding straight towards Mike with a lance aimed for his chest. Mike waited until the horse was only two strides away and sent a bullet through the center of the man’s chest.

The Indian dropped his lance and rode harmlessly by Mike to fall and die a few seconds later. The second rider was charging right behind the first, he fired and missed Mike. Mike drew his revolver and fired three rounds before the last round hit the man in the center of the forehead, rolling him backwards out of the saddle. Mike emptied his revolver at the third rider as the lance tore through his chest, killing him instantly.

The third rider turned his horse to look at the battle scene and the glory that no one would hear ever about at tribal fires. He could hear the air sucking through the hole in his chest as the lung filled with blood and he felt lightheaded while drowning in his own blood.

He thought to himself, “These Red Coats are great warriors,” he raised his hand to appeal to the spirit world and fell from his saddle to die a few minutes later gasping for air.

Cougar rode the last thirty miles into Great Falls and found his people camped upstream on the North side of the river. They greeted him like long lost family and made cooked a feast of buffalo hump roast and potatoes.

Hawk’s Cry traded several roasts for a new pair of over the ankle winter moccasins for Cougar and he was touched by her concern for his welfare.

After dinner that night, Cougar asked Jerome what he planned to do. Jerome said there was free land in Oregon and he thought they could all go there together in the spring. Cougar felt tears come to his eyes at the sense of belonging to a family group. The two men embraced and Cougar told him they would head to Oregon together.

That night, as Cougar was sleeping in his teepee, Hawk’s Cry slipped in between his blankets. At first he thought she was cold, but then he realized she had ideas of her own. He had no idea of what to do, but Hawk’s Cry was an excellent teacher. From that moment on, they communicated in the language of love. The next morning, she moved all her belongings into Cougar’s teepee and they became a couple for the rest of their days.

The winter seemed a magical time for Cougar’s family. He and Hawk’s Cry fell deeper in love with the passage of time. The family had great meals in the evening and Jerome’s family had a quick mind for learning the English of the frontiersmen.

The fur trader of Great Falls paid Cougar a twenty dollar gold piece to build a twenty by twenty log home.

People were amazed at Cougar’s craftsmanship and tried to entice Cougar into staying in the area to build homes, but Cougar wanted to distance himself from his crime in Canada and Oregon, with its free land, seemed like a good idea.

In the spring after the creeks and rivers settled down and were safe to cross, the little family of four, that was soon to be a family of five, set out to the southwest, hopefully to join up with emigrants on the North side of the snake, and continue on to Oregon.

They were on a well-worn trail that had been used for thousands of years by buffalo hunters, but now the trail was busy with miners headed north to the Montana Gold Rush of 1860. The miners were causing resentment among the native people, and there were already incidents of violence.

Cougar’s family avoided the hostility, because they traveled with women and showed respect to the natives they met on the trail.

The trail was an ancient migration route that had served Indians and wildlife for thousands of years as it weaved through the mountain valleys and crossed into the country that was to become Idaho. In Idaho the winds raged and left them exhausted at the end of each day.

They met some Shoshone along a fast, deep river and asked the name of the river. The leader made a wriggling motion with his hand out away from his body several times. In the international language of the Plains Indian, this meant the River of Many Fish.

Jerome and Cougar made sure they traded with the Indians they met. Cougar kept them well supplied with buffalo and elk with his Sharps rifle. Cougar also carved small figures of buffalo, fish, eagles, and horses. The Indians considered them to be sacred talismans and traded valuable goods and camas root for them.

On an early morning during breakfast, Cougar and his family saw five Indian buffalo hunters on horseback chasing a buffalo that bristled from so many arrows stuck in its hide, that he looked like a big speed porcupine; except the bull was much faster than a porcupine and much faster than the exhausted Indian ponies. None of the arrows seemed to be deep or lethal enough to cause the animal to slow down enough to allow them to finish him with their spears.

Cougar pulled his Sharps out of the scabbard and at a distance of two hundred yards, put a 50 caliber round just behind the left shoulder of the running buffalo in mid-stride. In the split second before the front feet hit the ground, the animal lost all control and power in its front legs and collapsed onto his great shaggy head. His momentum caused him to roll on over onto his back after standing on his head for an instant, he bounced on his back and into the air twice before the massive body came to a complete stop. He was dead.

The Indians yelled out some cheers and held their bows in the air and then rode over to the dead bull and attacked the still bleeding carcass like wolves. While Cougar’s family began to break camp, they noticed the Indians cutting off long portions of the gut and squeezing out the contents from one end and eating the intestine from the other end. Another Indian was eating the heart and still another was eating from a huge chunk of raw liver.

Jerome laid his hand on Cougar’s shoulder and said in a mixture of languages and sign, “They are starving. Their bodies tell them to eat the most nutritious organs first; this is what starvation looks like. You are a good provider my son; otherwise, we might be in the same condition.”

The scene had a profound effect on Cougar, and he vowed to never allow his wife or her parents to ever go hungry.

They passed near the carcass and the Indians waved them over. There were five of them and they had the bull cut up and divided into six equal piles on the hide. The Indians loaded one of the piles into the two carts along with the huge tongue as a measure of appreciation. They each rode up to Cougar and touched him with their hands and bows to try and share in his uncanny accuracy with the rifle.

Cougar reached under the seat and gave each of them a small wooden talisman and for the young chief, Bull Calf, he placed a buffalo carving, about half the size of a fist with a small hole drilled through its back and suspended from a leather thong, around his neck.

It was this small act of kindness that insured the legacy of Cougar and their safety. The Blackfeet were in a famine and Cougar broke the famine. He later gave the hunters talismans and they all had great success from that point forward. Cougar was given a status of protection until they passed into Oregon and later on the protection was extended to Colonel Fallon’s wagon train. He was considered to be a shaman and a legend among Indians of the Northwest.

The word spread by moccasin telegraph of the Metis from Canada with the repeating rifle who never needed a second shot, who was a shaman who carved animal spirits from wood that gave hunters and warriors extra spiritual guidance. Thus many Indians were willing to travel for days to get a buffalo or elk carving that would enhance their hunting skills.

Whether there was actually magic in the carvings is debatable, but the results were never in dispute, for the Blackfoot nation once again regained their hunting luck and the tribe began eating well. To the mind of a stone-age man, Cougar was the man who changed their luck, many gamblers of modern cultures blame lesser objects for good luck or bad. Perhaps Cougar gave them the confidence they needed or maybe there was magic in his carvings, the main thing was that the people were no longer starving and they gave the credit to Cougar.

Cougar had heard the miners speak of the Snake River and how treacherous it was, but if it was more treacherous than the River of Many Fish, it must be an extremely dangerous river, it was at that moment, he realized the problem. The Whites were interpreting the wavy hand-signal as the symbol for a Snake, when it was actually the symbol for many fish. This was a great relief and he quit looking for a ford. He could now follow the Snake on the North bank and join up with a wagon train on this side or he could meet a wagon train on the north side of the Three Island Crossing.

As they traveled on the plateaus of the North Snake, they were accepted without the hostility and animosity that was building because of the increased traffic of miners and emigrants. The Indians were intrigued by these mixed bloods, who were fluent in sign and traveling in these amazing carts. They came to trade salmon and flint knives for amulets carved by Cougar. The carved salmon, buffalo, horses, and eagles were the most popular.

Cougar’s group came to the Three Island Crossing and he did a brisk business repairing damaged wagons. He passed up opportunities to travel with different groups because he felt there was a need to wait for the right wagon train.

Jerome had learned to trust the instincts of Cougar, and even though he wanted to go on to Oregon, he trusted Cougar’s judgment.

When Cougar saw Colonel Fallon with his cavalry hat, he knew that this was the group he was supposed to pair up with. He stood by on the bank and watched helplessly while Captain Levin drowned, but when his body was recovered along with the wreckage of his wagon, he started building the Captain a casket from the wreck of the wagon.

Colonel Fallon was astounded at the speed and accuracy that the young man used to create the dove tail corners and mortise and tenon top and bottom.

After the little ceremony, Cougar asked the Colonel for permission to join the wagon train. He told him he comes with his own Blackfeet escort that will follow them to Oregon and make sure they will not lose stock to horse thieves and they will not be attacked.

The Colonel was suspicious, but Cougar told him he was regarded as a type of shaman and the Blackfeet had sworn to protect him as long as he was in their territory.

The Colonel called over Mr. Tomlin to translate for him since there was a combination of languages and the Colonel wasn’t sure of the message. Mr Tomlin and Cougar talked in sign and then Cougar turned to call in the Blackfoot chief with the buffalo carving, and he and Mr. Tomin engaged in several minutes of parley in sign.

“Colonel, we best take this young Metis, Cougar is his name, with us. He is the best insurance policy we can have. Anyone who tries to hurt him will die by the hand of these hostiles. They rarely like each other, but Cougar kept their tribe from starving and they figure he is pretty special. We better take him and be glad he wants to travel with us.”

The Colonel was surprised at Mr. Tomlin’s candor and trust. He turned to look Cougar in the eye and said to Mr. Tomlin, “Tell him we try to make fifteen to twenty miles a day and he and his father-in-law will be expected to keep up and pitch in with camp chores.”

Mr. Tomlin used sign to translate the message and Cougar broke into a big grin and replied in sign.

Mr. Tomlin looked at the Colonel and said, “He says the two carts can easily make fifty miles a day and he is an excellent hunter and marksman, if we need meat.”

“He’ll make friends fast if he can bring a buffalo into camp,” the Colonel told Mr. Tomlin.

Cougar laughed grabbed his rifle and said something to his wife in the native language and jumped on his horse to ride off with the Blackfeet.

Later on that afternoon, Cougar returned and the two carts headed North and returned close to dark with half a buffalo in each cart. Some of the wagon train members came to him with tears in their eyes to thank him for the fresh meat; many of them had been living on fry bread and a few bits of smoked salmon they had traded the last of their silver coins for.

Cougar had made friends once again.

Epilogue: This is a novel with a degree of historical accuracy. The characters are fictional; their struggles are real and based heavily on the author’s experiences in the wild country.

The Seville family survived the Moors during the invasion of Spain in the early 8th Century; actually, their sword making techniques, during the occupation, made the Seville family wealthy. The Moors had a deep respect for the technology involved in manufacturing a fine honed blade, thus they allowed the Seville family to prosper; eventually, Moors married into the family and the family became one of the wealthiest families in Spain.

Over a thousand years later, the family members were titled and wealthy aristocrats; they were a handsome family, noted for dark skin tones as well as blue and green eyes. They were considered to be capable and intelligent; unfortunately, because of the early practice of marrying cousins to keep the family estate intact and perhaps, because of incestuous relationships over time, there was a strain of madness that permeated the Seville bloodline. However, Toledo made the best steel swords in the world and the Seville family was considered to be the best sword and knife makers in Toledo.

A good sword had strength, flex, and the ability to hold a razor’s edge. The Seville swords and sabers were easily recognized by men of arms, whether they were duelists or the arms buyers for the armies of Europe. Inferior swords often broke in combat and if they couldn’t hold an edge they were useless and cost lives. The secret was in the purity of the iron, the carbon and the tempering process. In an era of coal fired forges, there were no thermometers; however, temperatures were critical, if the temperatures were too high when the steel was quenched, the iron would be too brittle and the steel would break like glass. If the steel was too cold, the blade wouldn’t hold an edge and the sword would bend. The control of the temperature, the application of carbon, and the quench or cooling phase were all important factors needed to make a good sword.

Young Ignacio was the son of a younger brother of the Don who headed up the family. He would never inherit the wealth of the family. His most obvious options were the military or the church. Young men like Ignacio were supposed to be men of leisure, horse riding, fencing, and seducing astronomical numbers of maidens were considered worthy pursuits for wealthy dilettantes, but Ignacio was different. He learned the steel business from the smelting of iron to the sharpening and polishing of the finished blade.

His family was incensed when young Ignacio came from working in the mills and forges with coal dust and dirt covering his body and clothes. His male cousins laughed at him and the females rolled their eyes with smirking grins. Despite his family’s disapproval, Ignacio was being recognized as an important member of the sword making enterprise.

If someone was sick or if someone died, Ignacio stepped forward and trained a new worker. He still rode horses and took fencing lessons; except, he had a strength of both body and mind that his brothers and cousins secretly envied.

There was one cousin that envied Ignacio’s skills and hated him for his work ethic and his knowledge; Carlos was in line to inherit the sword making factory. His life was spent in gluttony, wine drinking and being a bully to anyone beneath his social station, which was almost everyone. He was waiting for his invalided father to die so that he could inherit all the money to continue his life of unfettered debauchery, until the family estate went bankrupt or he died of excess.

Such young men resent those who make them look useless. Thus, Carlo’s hatred for Ignacio seethed; he waited patiently for the chance to rid himself of this cousin who served only to remind him of his wasted and irresponsible life.

Saturday evening belonged to Ignacio and he would go to a small cafe on the plaza to get a glimpse of the love of his life. Louisa would be there with her older brothers. Her impossibly blue eyes that flashed and sparkled like the forges at work and her long flowing black hair that curled in waves down to her lower back were her most striking features. At 5 foot 8, she towered over most of the men in the village. Yet she was the romantic daydream of every male with a libido in the village.

Ignacio was allowed to join Louisa and her two brothers to stroll on the promenade where flirting and flashing eyes were a formal tradition in selection of possible matrimonial partners. Young girls paraded their charms and chastity while chaperoned by older male relatives who glared at men who showed an interest. To walk with a young girl, a suitor must ask the chaperone for permission to speak to the maiden. He then had to ask to walk alongside of her. This was his chance to engage in conversation and make a favorable impression. Many potential suitors asked, but few were accepted; it was fashionable to be in demand, but not to seem too approachable.

If a man was deemed suitable, he was asked to Sunday dinner. After several dinners, he was expected to propose or he might be challenged to a duel by a brother or cousin of the maiden. Honor and respect were expected and disputes were often settled with blood and death. Courtship was a serious matter to the caballeros of this class and to those who ascribed to the old traditions.

Young single women of lower socio-economic classes and some who weren’t so young or single used the promenade as a chance to set up liaisons of passion. A glance, an eye movement, or a toss of the head were all part of a ritual that helped unite lovers later on that evening. The danger from male relatives and husbands was intimidating in a village where every man owned a sword and was trained in its use. But in the village of Paloma near Toledo, it was accepted that its people were a lusty bunch, even by Latin standards.

Ignacio could have met with hundreds of peasant girls or frustrated married women for a few minutes of lust, but he had already been invited to Louisa’s family dinner and he was under close scrutiny as a possible mate for Louisa, it was imperative not to be caught up in some scandal. It was easy to be caught, for although it was considered the actions of a degenerate for a man to speak of his sexual conquests, it was a great topic of conversation for women to speak of their sexual conquests, listing all the important details of each encounter to any female who would listen. Thus men sometimes died after a glowing review was told and retold, until an enraged male relative demanded satisfaction and one of the two men was either seriously wounded or killed. It was a part of their culture, flawed as it may have been, it kept a measure of honor and cohesion within the group.

On this fateful night, after walking with Louisa and her brothers for a respectable twenty minutes, one of the brothers said it was time to say goodnight. Ignacio stood about 18 inches away, a distance that made her relatives nervous and said good night to Louisa and telling her he hoped to see her soon. He bowed his head and his torso slightly. When he stood up, one of the brothers told him they would be serving dinner tomorrow at 3 o’clock and that he should come at 2 o’clock.

Ignacio thanked the relative and said he would be at their hacienda at 2 o’clock.

The trio walked toward their home and Ignacio was ecstatic. This was his second invitation; if he were invited two more times, he was expected to propose. He decided to have a glass of wine to calm his nerves while he was oblivious to the admiring glances of many females.

After drinking the wine without tasting it, he mounted his horse and decided to ride by Louisa’s family estate on the way home. He had to feel close to her, just one more time this evening. He was in a dream world and the beautiful Spanish maiden never left his thoughts.

A short distance out of town, Ignacio saw two men in the road and one of them was in agony. He jumped off his horse and held onto the reins as he knelt to offer assistance. It was Louisa’s brothers, they had been stabbed multiple times and were bleeding profusely. The one who asked him to dinner said they were dying and not to worry over them, but Louisa had been kidnapped by Carlos Seville and several brigands. He pointed to the wagon tracks of a carriage and told him to save Louisa.

Ignacio said, “May God hold you in his arms tonight.” The dying man said, “Vaya con Diaz” (“Go with God) and laid back to die. Ignacio jumped on his horse and followed the tracks to a room in the back of a cantina. The carriage was parked beneath a tree and several evil looking men were lounging around the carriage. Without forethought he walked up to the men as they slowly stood and put their hands on swords and knives. He drew his sword and slashed the first man through the right collar bone and down through the chest cavity. The sword finished its diagonal arc through the left abdomen of the man and Ignacio brought his sword up at lightening speed and thrust it through the breast bone and the heart of the next man, killing him instantly. He lost valuable seconds while trying to dislodge his sword from the bone. One of the cowards ran into the night, but the other one drew his sword and thrust at Ignacio just as his sword broke free. The thrust of the sword was stopped by the ribs of Ignacio, the man lacked the strength to break the ribs and force his sword into the chest cavity to deliver a killing thrust. The blade glanced off the ribs leaving only a jagged cut and chipped ribs. Ignacio raised his sword and brought the razor sharp edge across with speed and power. The blade entered the side of the man’s neck and exited the other side without slowing down. He dropped his sword and grabbed his neck with both hands in a futile effort to stop the bleeding. Ignacio left him to bleed out on his knees and ran into the small room. His cousin was on the naked Louisa, she was bitten and bruised as if the hunting hounds had nearly torn her to pieces, her face was unrecognizable, her eyes were bruised and swollen shut, her nose was broken, and her lips protruded many times beyond their normal shape.

He hesitated to stare in horror at the scene of debauchery in front of him. Carlos reached for his sword and the two engaged in mortal combat next to the violated girl. As often happened, when two expert swordsmen meet in combat, they thrust at the same instant and each sword met flesh. Carlos’ sword cleaved the left cheekbone and below the eye of Ignacio, blinding him with pain and blood. The blade of Ignacio pierced the belly of Carlos and would have been a killing wound except for the roll of belly fat around his middle and the intense pain of Ignacio’s wound causing him not to complete his thrust. If Carlos would have been a stronger man, he could have finished off Ignacio, but the sight of his own blood scared him and he ran to his carriage, barely noticing the bodies of his brigands, as he left to acquire medical assistance at home.

Ignacio overcame his pain and covered his love with her torn clothes. With difficulty from the pain of his two wounds he mounted his horse while holding his beloved’s broken and bleeding body. He rode to the home of his older sister Emilia, Emilia and was a serious woman who understood the gravity of the situation. She tended to Louisa and had one of her maids tend to the wounds of Ignacio. She told a stable groom to prepare a coach with their best team.

When the two young people were bandaged, she gave them a hamper of food, two bottles of wine and a bottle of brandy, she told them to drink the brandy for pain and to drink the wine at night to sleep. She pressed a leather sack of gold and silver coins into the hands of Ignacio and told him, “Head for the port of Malaga, Andalucia, we are shipping swords and knives to Lavaca, Matagorda, and the ship leaves in ten days, the ship is the Corazon de Mexico, give the captain this letter and you will be safe, now go!”

The groom drove them to the coast and left them with the ship and the Captain who treated the couple as royalty. Louisa was withdrawn and rarely ventured from their cabin during the five week trip across the Atlantic. Ignacio realized she would need time to recover and he was determined to give her all the time she required.

The village of Lavaca was a cultural shock for the young couple. The roughshod Texican seemed to be little more than uncouth barbarians; yet, they were respectful with a strong sense of justice and fearlessness.

At first Ignacio disliked these frontier ruffians, but he soon realized the very element of independence and self-reliance that made him learn the weapon manufacturing business is what drives these Texans. He learned to admire their rugged individualism and sense of right and wrong.

With the Mexicans, there was a distinct set of social classes that reminded him of Spain. They were among the upper levels of society, since they were born of Spanish aristocracy. The Mexican born of Spanish blood was next, followed by the Mexican born of Indian and Spanish blood. The Indian was of the lowest class. The aristocrats considered beneath their station to associate with lesser people. Yet, people from lower social classes were always trying to marry their children to a higher social group to attain entry to a higher level and hopefully any wealth that might part of the deal.

Ignacio had already seen the caste system at its worst. He preferred the Texans, they showed only a minimal respect to aristocrats; although, it was no wonder, among the Texans, there was a mixing of the social classes, for the wealthy aristocratic Texans were just as uncultured as the lowest classes.

It was a short time after their arrival, they met acquaintances from Spain. Fearing the possibility of Carlos sending assassins or coming to Monterey himself to kill them both in an effort to avoid repercussions in the future, they were anxious to keep moving.

Louisa hated this new country and wanted to socialize with no one, even the one man who loved her. She wore a veil to hide her crooked nose and her shame, for she now knew she was pregnant with the seed of Carlos. She had told Ignacio to tell people they were brother and sister, since she was with child and she felt as if she could never marry, because of her disgrace and her crooked nose.

When she felt the swelling begin in her belly, she told Ignacio. She expected him to throw her into the street, but he told her that he would love this child and raise it as his own. At that moment, she fell in love with the brave young man that had saved her life and told herself that she could never look at another. She told him she wanted to start a new life in Oregon, to be away from the old world and the horrible memories. Ignacio longed for adventure and told her that Oregon would be a good place for them to build a life. He kissed her cheek, she felt herself swoon and she almost fainted.

At some point in the future, she knew they would marry and could live as man and wife; she knew that day would come in their future, when she felt safe and free of the Old World.

Ignacio thought the wagons of Texas were weak and poorly made, there was no comparison in the craftsmanship of Toledo and Mexico, but he bought one of the inferior wagons, for he was sure that his future wife would be unable to ride all the way to Texas in her present condition.

He purchased the best wagon he could find and enough supplies to carry them to Texas. He hired two young vaqueros to guard them and help with the chores. The vaqueros were just boys with quick smiles, but they were quick, brave, strong, and fearless. Alejandro and Pepe were of true Mexican stock. They were illiterate, but possessed the skills of master horsemen and stockmen. They also had that Spanish trait of undying loyalty to a patron. He was sure they would fight to the death to defend Louisa, for that feature was embedded deep within the soul of the Hispanic and his culture of machismo.

Ignacio knew of the Comanche and the even more ruthless Comanchero, the mixed blood offspring who traded with the Comanche for slaves and gold, and supplied them with guns; they had a reputation for hating everyone and everything. He swore if they were under attack, Louisa would never be taken alive. He made sure that his vaqueros understood his wishes in that regard. They each nodded with solemnity, indicating that they understood their responsibilities; at that instant they had both respect and love for their Spanish patron, for he gave them this great measure of trust and responsibility that is so important to the young men of the Mexican culture.

During the trip through Texas, Ignacio was glad he had his vaqueros with him. They rode past many men who looked to be bandits, but the bandits seemed to dislike the possibility of armed resistance from three well armed men. In the desert of North Texas, they were camped for the night when the voice of a gringo caught their attention, “Hello the camp, Ranger Mckee, coming in.”

Ignacio drew his pistol as did his vaqueros.

Ranger Mckee walked into the light of the fire leading his horse. He looked strange and frightening, he stood over six feet tall and had multiple weapons on his belt and in scabbards on his horse. As he walked into camp he smiled and said, “buenos noches”, with the horrible gringo accent. Everyone was silent as they stared at this stranger who seemed to travel alone. He asked if he could have a bowl of beans, Ignacio nodded his head and the ranger opened a saddle bag to withdraw a wooden bowl and spoon. He ate several bites and asked if they knew Querna Vaca was tracking them.

“Who is Querna Vaca?” asked Ignacio.

“If you live long enough, you will meet him and his men just before daylight.”

Ignacio asked the ranger to explain.

He is one of the worst Comanches that has ever lived and he has eight or ten of the most bloodthirsty Comanches and Comancheros in Texas as his companeros. Tommorrow they plan to kill you and your men, and steal your woman and anything you have of value.

At first, Ignacio thought Ranger Makee might be an assassin, but this sounded much worse. He asked the ranger how he knew all this information.

Mckee smiled and said, “I’ve been tracking him for three months; you’ens are the first victims I’ve found, before he killed them.”

“What do you intend on doing,” Ignacio asked.

“I’m going to wait until he comes in the morning and kill him and his men or die trying.”

“Can we help you, Señor?”

“The help would be appreciated, but they will be coming fast and ready to kill. If you hesitate you will die. If they captures you alive, they will torture you for hours, just so you know what to expect.”

“We will fight, Señor. We will fight to the death.”

“I was hoping you wanted to fight. Put out the fire and roll the wagon over here. We’ll turn it over in this coulee and build a redoubt. I want the four of you in the fort, I’m going back in that brush and shoot them in the back as they run past me. I may come up out of that hole with guns blazing if it looks like you are going to be overrun, so don’t shoot me.”

Ignacio made sure his vaqueros understood the battle plan and they began preparing for the battle.

The first Comanche crawled to within thirty yards of Ignacio’s little group and stood up to charge at a full speed run with a blood curdling scream. Ignacio and his vaqueros all three fired into the torso and the Comanche was sliding forward with his momentum and stopped within a few feet of the coulee. One of the vaqueros was shot through the hip, but he turned to fire at another charging Comanche. Ignacio could see the ranger firing into the backs of the attackers and then walking forward with both revolvers firing. It was almost over when a bullet smashed into his kneecap, Ignacio fell forward onto the lifeless body of Pepe. Ignacio raised his revolver to fire just as Querna Vaca brought his war ax down on the left temple of Ignacio, exposing a portion of his brain. Louisa drew Ignacio’s sword and plunged it upward into the belly of Querna Vaca until it pierced his heart. Querna dropped his weapons and touched his fingertips to his chest and mouthed a silent scream; until, he fell forward and pushed the sword all the way through his back. The battle was over, the three men who were protecting her were all dead and she was going into labor.

Ranger McKee carried her from the carnage and into the shade of a small tree. After she tried to deliver the baby for the rest of the day and into the night, Ranger Mckee told her he knew how to help cows deliver and if she didn’t deliver the baby soon, she would be too weak to deliver the baby and they would both die.

Louisa told him to do what he needed to do, while she still had the strength to help.

McKee felt in the birth canal and found the head in a normal position, but one foot was beside the head and there wasn’t enough room for the baby to be born. Using his knowledge of cows, he placed her lower back on his thigh and pushed the baby back with all his might, when he felt the baby slip backward, he pushed on the little foot until it slipped backward and upward in the birth canal. The baby slid forward at a tremendous rate of speed and was born. Louisa passed out when the baby was slid into Mckee’s hands. He cleaned up the baby boy with his bandana and held the baby to Louisa’s breast to suckle. While holding the baby, he laughed at its’ aggressive appetite. He looked sadly at he bite scars on her thighs and breasts and assumed she was ravaged by Comanches, it probably happened at the same time her nose was broken. It wasn’t a terrible break, the lower half was angled to the left a quarter inch or so, but it was the only blemish on an angelic face, a face that was beyond comparison on the frontier of Texas.

She would need help, Makee’s rangering contract was up and since Querna Vaca and his merry band was dead, he no longer had other responsibilities. He would take care of her and the baby, until they were with her people. He held the baby when it was done feeding and drifted into a light sleep, while Louisa slept a deep sleep.

Mckee introduced her to her baby before daylight the next morning and explained that the baby had already fed during the night and he had an excellent appetite. She smiled at the baby as if he was the most beautiful treasure in the world, while Mckee wandered into the brush to round up as many horses as he could find to get them moving. By noon Mckee had his horse, the team for the wagon and the vaqueros’ horses, as well as several of the comanche horses. He didn’t know how she was set for finances, but the horses had value and some of them could fetch a twenty dollar gold piece.

He retrieved all the weapons from the battle and the fine Spanish sword Louisa had used so well to stop that homicidal bastard Querna Vaca. He found the leather pouch carrying the gold and silver Spanish coins on Ignacio and put them into the wagon. She was pretty well set up, he could accompany her wherever she wanted to go and she would have enough money to support herself for a long time or until she could find a husband.

Louisa looked upon Mckee as almost a god, he came to them out of the blue, to warn them of an indian attack, an attack she and her baby would not have survived. He then delivered her baby, when it was caught in a position that would have killed her and the baby. He was truly a special man, yet he was so humble and polite. He had seen her scarred body and crooked nose, but didn’t ask the questions she didn’t want to answer. She could feel herself falling in love with this gentle giant, this gringo, who smiled so openly, when he looked her in the eye, he never stared at her crooked nose. With him she felt safe and accepted: she never wore a veil again for the rest of her life. If this giant gringo could accept her without questions, the rest of the world could accept her as well.

He laid Ignacio, Pepe, and Alejandro in shallow graves and by mid-afternoon, they were ready to travel a few miles before dark. He felt it was important for the mental health of Louisa to get away from the scene of the battle.

When they were ready to start, he asked Louisa where she would like him to take her. He could have fallen over when she said Oregon.

He once rode all the way to Santa Fe to shoot a cold blooded killer, but that was the farthest he had ever been outside of Texas. There was no hope of her reaching Oregon, unless he helped her, but there were no guarantees she would make it, even with his help.

Heading North Out Of Texas

Makee was born on a ranch in West Texas twenty seven years earlier, He had been in twelve skirmishes with Comanches, had fought countless Comancheros, and had hanged many renegades and horse thieves, but he had never been north of Texas. It was late fall, but he knew if he stayed East of the Rockies they could probably travel all winter; at least, if the snow didn’t get too deep.

The woman and the baby seemed to grow stronger each day. Louisa and Ranger Mckee took turns riding and driving the wagon. Mckee was actually beginning to like the baby. He was a strong little fellow that would grab his finger and hang on then smile and giggle. McKee was ten years old and an only child, when the Comanches killed his parents. After the death of his parents, he had lived off the land and by using his wits, until he was big enough to lie about his age of thirteen and become a ranger. He had never been around children and this was a new experience for him, an experience he was really starting to enjoy.

Growing up as a ranger meant long hours in the saddle and moments of extreme danger. They never chased and hanged good men. He had mainly been exposed to the worst examples of human kind. The only women he had known were the women of the saloons. they loved his boyish smiles and shy mannerisms, but he always had an empty feeling in his soul the next morning. After awhile, he stopped joining his ranger buddies for a chance to relax with whiskey and women at a saloon after a successful patrol. He would rather enjoy a full night’s sleep. He never really developed a taste for whiskey; he had just liked the camaraderie of his friends and the attention of the whores.

He became a recluse, there was no chance of securing a wife, there was no woman who wanted to live as a wife alone and never knowing whether her husband was dead and scalped on the Staked Plains or in old Mexico.

In his imagination, he made himself think of Louisa as his wife and of the boy Dominic as his own son. For the first time in his life, Ranger Makee was feeling content and happy. Louisa enjoyed riding and often showed off her equestrian skills. It was obvious she had learned real riding skills from a master in Spain.

They spoke in a mix of Spanish and English and although Mckee had no concept of verb tenses, for few Spanish speakers in the New World mastered the correct usage of Spanish, he was learning the grammatically correct aristocratic Spanish from Louisa; unfortunately, she was picking up the same imperfections in English that Mckee had, as well as his direct, slow speech patterns, but she was learning McKee’s imprecise English at a tremendous rate.

Sometimes Mckee wondered whether she expected him to ride back to Texas after they arrived in Oregon or whether she might want him to stay in Oregon. Maybe he could be a substitute father of Dominic and a friend of Louisa, for he never thought this fine Spanish lady would look upon him as a possible husband. She is a cultured beautiful Spanish Lady: he is an Indian fighter, tracker of horse thieves, and a Texas Ranger, he had been a ranger since he was thirteen, he had spent most of his life in the saddle, he had been wounded by twelve bullets and arrows, she probably thought of him as just a little better than a half civilized Comanche.

For the first time in his life, he was not alone. He had ridden with many rangers and seen too many of them die, but even when he rode with these rough men, he was alone. He now had a spiritual partner and he felt fulfilled. For the first time, since his parents were killed, he had deep loving feelings for a human being; he thought maybe he was falling in love with Dominic and Louisa.

It was mid-afternoon when two human figures came running down from the foothills to the East. They were running very hard and about a mile away from the wagon.

Ranger Mckee, said to himself, “What’s going on here?”

He drew his rifle from his scabbard and started to trot toward the two figures. Suddenly, a group of eight riders rode down from the hill. The ranger spurred his horse into a gallop and said to himself, “I don’t like the way this looks.”

He fired twice at the lead rider and missed both times, the rider was within twenty yards of one of the runners and was ready to throw his lance. McKee aimed as well as could on his galloping horse from sixty yards and fired just as the lance left his hand. The bullet from the Sharps struck the Apache in the center of the chest and he flew backwards out of the saddle, but McKee watched in horror as the lance arced through the air and struck the running Indian woman in the lower back, the blade and part of the shaft were sticking out of her lower abdomen.

McKee could see that she was carrying a newborn baby and he flew into a killing rage. He draped the Sharps over the saddle horn by a leather thong he kept tied to the rifle. He then drew the Navy Colts and killed the other Apaches with a bloodlust he had never felt before. In less than a minute, the Apaches were all knocked from their saddles. He finished off two of them with a double barrel shotgun he kept in a saddle scabbard and finished off the last one with his Bowie knife. As Louisa drove up in the wagon he reloaded his pistols and put a bullet in the head of each Apache. He learned a long time ago not to trust Apaches to die, just because they had a mortal wound. He then joined the Indian who was trying to comfort his dying wife.

Louisa ran up and asked the ranger in Spanish if there was anything they could do. Mckee tightened his lips and shook his head no. She was on her knees and was holding her newborn to her breast. Eventually, she sat down on her calves and tried to be as comfortable as possible while waiting to die.

Mckee and the man were communicating with sign language. Louisa asked what the man was saying. He says his wife can’t die in peace, knowing that her baby daughter will starve to death.

Louisa looked shocked and said, “Ranger Mckee, you tell her that I will feed her baby like it is my own and raise her up to be a young woman.”

Mckee gave the appropriate hand signals and the young Indian woman’s facial expression took on a look of peacefulness. She held out the baby to Louisa and slumped down to die.

They laid her in the wagon and drove to a little hill and buried her at sunset. Louisa fixed dinner, while the men dug the grave. They buried her in silence. After dinner the Indian man sang a funeral song in his own language. It was a haunting song that made the hair stand up on Mckee’s arms. When he was finished, Louisa sang a Spanish song of love, life, and death. During the song, the Indian man started crying and Ranger Mckee felt all the emotion of twenty-six years boil to the surface and he began to cry, not so much from death and sorrow, but from the happiness of having a good woman with him and the expression of kindness she showed by taking on the little Indian baby. His family was getting bigger.

Louisa now began to realize why the Texas Rangers are regarded so highly. Ranger Mckee didn’t hesitate when he saw an injustice. He was not only the peace officer, but he was the judge, jury, and executioner as well. He was a magnificent man, but he was as humble and unassuming as he was brave. She decided that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

The next morning at daylight, Mckee was awakened to the sound of an animal in camp. He jumped out of his bedroll to see the Indian cut the throat of an exhausted bull elk. Mckee helped the man butcher the animal, but he was astounded by what he had just seen.

When the men were cooking elk steaks, beans with onions, and coffee, Mckee began to ask the man how he had caught the elk and brought it into camp.

The Indian explained that he was from the Tarahumara tribe from the high mountains of Northwestern Mexico. They were legendary runners who hunt game by running it down. They live in the high mountains and usually don’t venture away from home, because they are shy of the rest of the world.

They had to leave their home because his wife was in a contract of marriage to a chief’s son, it was arranged when she was a small girl, but she had fallen in love with him, Chi Chi and they decided to elope, so they ran away.

They didn’t expect the chief to hire Apaches to hunt them down. The Apaches had been on their trail for over a year and if they wouldn’t have run into Ranger Mckee, he too would have died with his wife and since Ranger Mckee had saved his life he was bound to serve him for the rest of his life.

In all his days of rangering, Mckee had never heard such a story. He had heard of the Tarahumara, but considered them to be legends. They were said to be able to run distances of a hundred and even two hundred miles. No wonder those Apaches looked so gaunt, they had spent a year trying to run down these two young runners, “foot throwers” they call themselves, it was no telling how many horses the Apaches had stolen trying to keep up with the runners. The Apaches were among some of the best trackers, they were considered legendary like McKee, but to run down people who can run over a hundred miles a day would kill horses, you would kill a horse every few days.

Mckee wondered if he could have run down these two. The Apaches were relentless and would have considered it to be a matter of honor; although, from their appearances, they looked more dead than alive, they couldn’t have pursued the young couple much farther before the pursuers would have died on the trail. The story was even more phenomenal when you consider his wife ran during her pregnancy and gave birth a few days ago; yet, they were still running and they looked to be in great shape.

He told the tale to Louisa and she began to cry. Mckee put his hand on her shoulder and said that at least the two lovers were together for a year and that the fruit of their love would now live under their protection. Louisa spun into Mckee and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle and squeezed with an unimagined strength. She was five foot eight, Mckee was six foot two and an extremely strong man, but her strength was almost frightening. She cried even harder and Mckee patted her back with his hand and told her that things would work out.

Later, Mckee was overwhelmed with the strength of Louisa’s bear hug around his belly. She was visibly upset, but was she upset with him, did he do something wrong? It was all very confusing for Mckee, for he was the fearless Indian fighter and tracker of horse thieves, because the fearless hunter and executioner of bad men had no experience in affairs of the heart.

Ranger Mckee had never considered having a servant and disliked the term itself, but Chi Chi was proving himself to be very useful. Every afternoon, he would run ahead to find a good campsite with good water and feed for the horses. He’d have a fire started and fresh meat or fish cooking, when the wagon arrived.

One morning, Chi Chi saw a lone buffalo about a mile in the distance. He told Mckee to be ready because he was going to run way around the buffalo and then spook it towards Mckee and his horse. Mckee started to signal him that buffalo may turn to fight, but Chi Chi was already running away to flank the buffalo.

Chi Chi was an excellent hunter, so Mckee assumed he knew what he was doing.

In the distance, Mckee saw Chi Chi run toward the buffalo to spook him. The buffalo took three strides in retreat and then spun to fight. Chi Chi kept running straight at him and slapped the buffalo on the forehead and ran toward Mckee.

“Well, he don’t lack for nerve,” Mckee said out loud when the buffalo followed Chi Chi with a frightening burst of speed.

The distance was eaten up by the speed of Chi Chi and the rampaging bull in a few minutes. Chi Chi swung North away from the wagon, to take Louisa and the children out of danger and Mckee charged the buffalo at full speed. He saw his first two rounds sink deep into the chest cavity, he was then galloping alongside the buffalo, the animal did not slow or show signs of distress, McKee put the muzzle up against the animal’s back and fired. The bullet destroyed the heart of the beast and he collapsed in a rolling heap.

Chi Chi let out a war cry and came back to dance around the buffalo in celebration. Mckee let out a Comanche war whoop as Louisa drove up in the wagon. They were celebrating because of the kill and partially because they knew, there would be no starvation for the rest of the winter. For they could carry all the meat on the wagon and the meat would be preserved in the cold. That day they celebrated with a day of rest and a meal of tongue with wild prairie onions.

Later that afternoon, Chi Chi began mixing and cooking a pot of cactus and other plants he had been collecting along the trail. He rendered some of the buffalo fat and mixed it in with the residue of the plants. Once it was stirred well, Chi Chi placed it in the snow to cool.

Two hours later it had congealed into a gel, he presented the mixture to Louisa in a wooden bowl. She looked at him with a question on her face. He made the motions of rubbing the mixture on his chest. At first she thought it was meant as a breast salve, but then he pointed to a scar on his forearm and put a small amount on the scar.

He had surely seen the scars from the bites on her breasts, they were still vivid red marks on her ivory skin. She thanked him and thought she would first experiment and apply the mixture to the scars on her abdomen. Her breasts were the only things keeping the helpless babies alive and she didn’t want to take a chance of ruining their feed supply.

She applied the medicine that evening and in the morning she looked at the scars in disbelief, they were nearly gone. The angry looking redness had disappeared and the scars were much harder to see. She was overjoyed and quickly applied the medicine to all the scars she could see and reach. Within days of applying Chi Chi’s salve the scars had all but disappeared, there were only faint traces of the marks.

She thought of the ranger and how good it felt to hug him and hold him to her body. He had been so embarrassed and at a loss to know to hug her back. She laughed at his naive nature that she admired so much. He was a darling man and she needed him to hold her.

She devised a plan. When Chi Chi went out on one of his two hour runs, she called Mckee into the wagon under the pretense of rubbing the salve on her back. He was rubbing the salve into the scars of her back, when she pushed the sheet covering her backside to expose a few scars he had never seen. Mckee began rubbing the salve into these new scars very dutifully and professionally, as Louisa made a low guttural cat noise in her throat and turned around to embrace Mckee to her naked body. Mckee started to panic, when he felt the abnormally strong Louisa grab him in a fit of passion, but he forced himself to relax and returned the raw passion of a woman overwhelmed with a combination of love and lust, and responded with a gentle loving touch, a response that inflamed Louisa’s aggressive raw passion even more.

In less than two hours, they had consummated the passions that had been pent up for years within both these young souls and had pledged their love and commitment to each other for the rest of their lives. Thus a true American love story was born from tragedy and pain.

Their love was to span six decades.

Later on that summer, Ranger McKee and his family met Colonel Fallon’s wagon train in the area that was to become Montana. They were shocked to see the suffering these Americans had endured; for while the American wagons were falling apart and many of the people seemed on the verge of starvation, their wagon was still sound and they had eaten quite well on the trail, thanks to Chi Chi with his unique skills at hunting and gathering wild food.

The Americans found it astounding that the Mckee wagon had been on the trail all winter.

Colonel Fallon was glad to have the experienced lawman and Indian fighter with him, but he had never met a man so instilled with the thoughts of right and wrong and the sense of being the law, the judge, and the executioner. Colonel Fallon took time to explain to Ranger Mckee that the laws of Texas don’t necessarily apply to someone who had never been to Texas. Mckee was in a state of shock at the concept of jurisdictions, in Mckee’s mind, Texas was the only law west of the Red River and the idea that they were in an area with no real law, other than the Colonel’s jurisdiction over the wagon train was very confusing for a Ranger.

The Colonel appointed Ranger Mckee as his second in command and began instructing Mckee in the Constitution and of how America had won its Independence. Thus from these early history lessons and of teaching McKee to read, there emerged a brilliant mind from this rustic frontiersman, for he read every book the people in the wagon train had to offer. Captain Levin introduced him to Plato and they had great philosophical discussions that often left the old sea captain perplexed and amazed at the young man’s ability to grasp complex concepts so soon after learning to read. This was the nucleus of the transformation of a rugged Texas Ranger into a judge for the future state of Oregon.

The Colonel married the couple a few days after they joined the wagon train, Louisa was beginning to swell and she wanted to talk to the other ladies, using her newly acquired English with a back country Texas accent, she wanted to talk about of her new baby and her Ranger. She was quickly accepted among the women of the wagon train, who admired her for taking in the orphaned baby and her knowledge of ladylike culture.

Chi Chi began working closely with the Colonel and the guide Mr Tomlin, to find forage and water.

The new wagon brought hope and strength to the wagon train, because of their positive attitude and their ability to thrive in the wilderness. Americans were fulfilling these dreams of Manifest Destiny. They were bringing these ideas of nationhood and freedom to the Pacific Northwest with a resourcefulness and richness of ability. There was a richness of intellect and ingenuity that would help them tame this new country and make it safe and civilized in the near future.

Epilogue: This is a chapter from a novel about the Oregon Trail. It is meant to portray how Americans from diverse cultures have used their abilities to overcome almost insurmountable obstacles. These people relied on themselves and each other to accomplish great things. There was no need for the government to come in and regulate every phase of their lives, dependency on the government and the hunger for power and control by politicians would come much later. As humans weakened and developed fear of the unknown and the future, some people felt the need for benevolent despots to guide and protect them. These concepts were almost unheard of by those who ventured to Oregon; for them, the weak died along the way and the cowards never started. The cowards came much later.

I just finished reading An American Life, the autobiography of Ronald Reagan. The book was given to me by my oldest daughter, and I enjoyed it very much.

What do Ronald Reagan’s autobiography and FDR have in common? After reading this, see if you agree with me.

At the end of page 66 and on page 67 of the (hardcover) book, Ronald Reagan is remembering FDR’s 1932 presidential campaign. Reagan says,

“With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America. But I think that many people forgot Roosevelt ran for president on a platform dedicated to reducing waste and fat in government. He called for cutting federal spending by twenty-five percent, eliminating useless boards and commissions and returning to state and communities powers that had been wrongfully seized by the federal government. If he had not been distracted by war, I think he would have resisted the relentless expansion of the federal government that followed him. One of his sons, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., often told me that his father had said many times his welfare and relief programs during the Depression were meant only as emergency, stopgap measures to cope with a crisis, not the seeds of what others later tried to turn into a permanent welfare state. Government giveaway programs, FDR said, ‘destroy the human spirit,’ and he was right. As smart as he was, though, I suspect even FDR didn’t realize that once you created a bureaucracy, it look on a life of its own. It was almost impossible to close down a bureaucracy once it has been created.”   [emphasis mine]  

Based on what Ronald Reagan (who voted for FDR four times) said, it sounds to me like FDR is just the opposite of what Democrats say or remember. And Democrats like to cite FDR’s policies even today. So what follows can be considered a very brief fiscal history of the FDR administration.

When Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, the breadlines, bankruptcies, and bank failures of the Great Depression mandated unconventional politics. He responded immediately. The dominant faction in Roosevelt’s first Administration traced the origins of the Depression to basic structural flaws in the nation’s economy. According to “Brains-Truster” Rexford Guy Tugwell, an economist from Columbia University, a laissez-faire regime of “competition and conflict” was responsible for the crisis and only “coordination and control,” meaning centralized planning, could correct matters. FDR’s central planning economy was imposed on the United States, with almost every part of the market under the supervision, control, and regulation of the federal government. An increasing number of Americans became directly and indirectly dependent upon the Washington for their employment and income. The era of big government had arrived in the United States.

Sound familiar? Central planning is just what President Barack Obama is currently trying to ram down our throats. Obama is crafting his own laws of politics by issuing executive orders, saying “We Can’t Wait” for Congress.

FDR believed in the desirability of balanced budgets. During the presidential campaign of 1932, he pledged to balance the federal budget at a lower level of spending. Roosevelt qualified his commitment with a significant rider: The budget to be balanced included only “ordinary” government expenditures. “Extraordinary” outlays, needed to cope with fallouts from the economic emergency, could be treated separately. In the first two fiscal years for which his Administration was responsible, Roosevelt presided over record-setting peacetime deficits. But with the aid of creative bookkeeping about the categories to which expenditures were assigned, his Treasury’s arithmetic could nonetheless show an “ordinary” budget with a modest surplus. FDR’s Administrations had consistently run deficits. But he had regarded them as politically embarrassing, and had held that they were the result of unusual economic circumstances, not his policy preference.

Some advisers near FDR, including Harry Hopkins, Marriner Eccles, and Henry Wallace, had accepted the recent theories of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who argued that technically advanced economies would need permanent budget deficits or other measures (such as redistribution of income away from the wealthy) to stimulate consumption of goods and to maintain full employment. It was the reduction of federal spending that these advisers viewed as the cause of the recession. Deficit spending continued throughout WWII, when the economy expanded rapidly and employment reached full capacity. The acceptance by FDR’s Administration of what became known as Keynesianism established the precedent of using deficit spending as a vehicle for promoting economic recovery in times of national fiscal crisis.

Again, does this sound familiar? This is just what Obama wants to do: run up huge deficits and redistribute wealth through taxation.

Several of FDR’s measures have become bureaucracies and permanent fixtures. Several programs introduced by FDR remain active today, with some still operating under the original names, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

But that’s just my opinion.

Crossposted at RWNO, my personal web site.

KING HENRY V
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

This is the latest popular image that seems to be making its rounds amongst my liberal friends on Facebook…

Conquests and Cultures:

Another cliché among the American chattering class is that the European discovery of the Western hemisphere was an unmitigated disaster for the native peoples. Columbus Day is now an occasion for mourning and self-flagellation. But, Sowell points out, there were benefits as well as costs. Diseases that ravaged the natives were spread by whites—ruthless conquistador and benevolent missionary alike—but so was the ability to combat all disease. Liquor led to much drunkenness, but European manufactured goods, such as cloth, were superior to the products the Indians could produce themselves, and they gladly traded to get them. There certainly was inexcusable brutality against the Indians, but, given the degree of brutality that had existed among Indians for centuries, establishing the Western idea of the rule of law undoubtedly reduced the prevalence of violence in the long run.

The fact that cultural contact gave some benefits to the Indians is no justification for forced resettlements, reneging on treaties, or massacres. Sowell makes no such argument. He merely observes that history is a very mixed bag of causes and effects.

It’s no longer politically correct, and hasn’t been for decades, but…Happy Columbus Day!

In fairness, Columbus was an exceptional sailor and entrepreneur who was obsessed, as so many were at the time, with finding a quicker and more cost-effective route from Europe to China and India. He bumped into America because it was in the way.

So Columbus’ motivation was self-interest. He did not explore to improve humanity, but he didn’t do it to inflict catastrophe either.

I’m not even sure why we celebrate/recognize Columbus Day at all since it only peripherally has anything at all remotely to do with North America…

Congolese soldiers wait at a military base in Rumangabo, Democratic Republic of Congo. Lionel Healing, AFP/Getty Images

Back in 2006 I made mention of the Human Security Report (along with its 2007 update) whose study suggests that armed conflicts around the world, along with genocide and other related fatalities, have been on the decline.

And in spite of current conflicts, including that which involves Islamic militancy and jihad-terrorism, the trend continues. Frankly put, we live on a more civilized, more peaceful globe:

the last decade has seen fewer war deaths than any decade in the past 100 years, based on data compiled by researchers Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Worldwide, deaths caused directly by war-related violence in the new century have averaged about 55,000 per year, just over half of what they were in the 1990s (100,000 a year), a third of what they were during the Cold War (180,000 a year from 1950 to 1989), and a hundredth of what they were in World War II. If you factor in the growing global population, which has nearly quadrupled in the last century, the decrease is even sharper. Far from being an age of killer anarchy, the 20 years since the Cold War ended have been an era of rapid progress toward peace.

Armed conflict has declined in large part because armed conflict has fundamentally changed. Wars between big national armies all but disappeared along with the Cold War, taking with them the most horrific kinds of mass destruction. Today’s asymmetrical guerrilla wars may be intractable and nasty, but they will never produce anything like the siege of Leningrad. The last conflict between two great powers, the Korean War, effectively ended nearly 60 years ago. The last sustained territorial war between two regular armies, Ethiopia and Eritrea, ended a decade ago. Even civil wars, though a persistent evil, are less common than in the past; there were about a quarter fewer in 2007 than in 1990.

If our perception of this hasn’t changed, or we think things have gotten worse, according to Goldstein, it’s because we live in the information age, inundated by the “if it bleeds, it leads” abundance of news reporting:

If the world feels like a more violent place than it actually is, that’s because there’s more information about wars — not more wars themselves. Once-remote battles and war crimes now regularly make it onto our TV and computer screens, and in more or less real time. Cell-phone cameras have turned citizens into reporters in many war zones.

There’s a lot more and it’s a pretty interesting piece to read, even if you disagree with some (or all) of the author’s conclusions.

Exit question: Is U.S. benevolent global hegemony the key to “keeping the peace” with its exercise of a muscular foreign policy- peace through strength- or is it part of the problem of prevailing violence in the world? Have our engagement with the global jihad movement strengthened or weakened its influence on the Muslim world; and have our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increased or decreased anti-Americanism around the world?

Is America more or less safe today?

Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon engaged in the first televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960, with over 70 million viewers watching. It was the first of four debates and it was focused on domestic issues.

The debate was an historical event: primarily, because it was the first televised presidential election debate, thus initiating television as an important medium in presidential elections and revealing how superficial and shallow the American voter can be regarding appearances, yet how critical or important appearances are in elections.

It can be argued that the visual contrast between the opponents was the defining issue that determined the election.

In August, Nixon suffered a serious injury to his knee and was hospitalized for two weeks. On September 26, 1960, he was still twenty pounds underweight, he looked tired, and had the pallor that accompanies pain and hospital stays. He arrived in an ill-fitting shirt and refused make-up to hide his perpetual 5 o’clock shadow. He looked tired and haggard; some said, he looked like a drunk.

Kennedy had just finished a month long campaign in California. He was tanned, fit, looking young, confident and well rested.

Nixon later wrote, “I had never seen him looking so fit.”

The candidates were evenly matched in the debate; those who listened on the radio thought Nixon had won the debate, but those who saw the debate on television could not see past Nixon as a sickly man in pain; especially, compared to the healthy and charismatic appearance of Kennedy, with his smooth delivery and quaint Boston accent. That vast audience of 70 million television viewers focused on physical appearances rather than the messages and Kennedy was perceived as the winner by a vast majority.

Democrats predictably argue, without hesitation or logic, that Kennedy would have won the election regardless of Nixon’s appearance, but as a lad becoming aware of the presidential elections, I can vouch for the public’s opinion of Nixon’s haggard appearance being a major topic of conversation for years and yet almost no one could recall the topic of the debate.

During the election process, more than half the voters indicated the debates had influenced their choice.

Thus presidential debates became an integral part of campaigns and the concept of image became one of the most important criteria in presidential elections. In previous elections, still photography, the occasional black and white film clip, and the voice were defining elements for a candidate, but since that first Great Debate, it is imperative that every potential candidate pay particular attention to their appearance.

There is a sizable demographic that will vote primarily on the appearance and charisma of the candidates, substance is a secondary consideration, if it is even considered. Our current president is an excellent case in point. Most voters assumed he could deliver those grand speeches at any time, they had no idea that he can barely form a sentence, without a battery of teleprompters. Most Americans were unaware of what a teleprompter was until the Obama Administration, now they assume it is a prerequisite for speeches. It can be argued that the Obama election was a continuation of the Kennedy election, in that an image was elected, not only an image, but an assumed or perceived image of what people wanted to see. In both elections, it was not only an image that was elected, but an image was defeated.

Whether we like it or not, this swing vote of image seekers determine elections. Thankfully, the Obama image has become identified with poverty, unemployment, Narcissism, Elitism and of a dilettante with few or no solutions and many excuses. An image that no candidate wants to drag with him to an election and a hard deficit to overcome. Yet, he still has many followers who believe in the Obama of 2008 Image, despite his performance for the last two years.

No serious candidate will doubt the image component, but it is still important to be aware of that first Nixon versus Kennedy Debate of September 26, and its’ effect on the history of our nation.