LONGRIDE.TXT
                         A LONG DAY
                        by J. BOSWELL

                 (with apologies to Louis L'Amour)

     Night was coming on fast and Fallon decided it was time to
start looking for some shelter.  A small arroyo or cut-back by a
stream-bed would be perfect.  Something to get him out of the
cold desert wind that blows at night.
     He dismounted and crept to the top of a small rise, being
careful not to present a silhouette on the ridge line.  He was
surveying the vista and smelled it at the same time he saw it.
Burning wood.
     Far to his left was the faintest trail of gray smoke rising
into the gray sky.  He was lucky to even see it; another few
minutes and it would be lost in the darkness.
     Fallon hoped it was a cabin.  He liked the idea of sitting
on a real chair for a few hours instead of his horse.  And the
thought of maybe sleeping under a roof, in front of a fire
brought a smile to his face.  He didn't remember any pilgrims in
the area the last time he passed this way and it sure wasn't
farming country but that didn't mean some optimistic miner
couldn't be trying his hand at prospecting.
     He just hoped it wasn't some loco who only wanted the
coyotes and Apaches for neighbors.  He'd be lucky to get a
`hello' and `goodbye' from such unfriendly types.
     No, Fallon was hoping it was some lonely miner, who would be
happy to share his roof and beans and fire for the night in
exchange for some palaver.
     Although no true test, the rest of the area looked deserted,
so Fallon remounted and headed off in the direction of the smoke.
Now dark, he refrained from lighting a cigar and just watched the
terrain carefully.  Riding into the wind, down and up, over the
rolling country, Fallon could smell the woodsmoke getting
stronger with each step.  And with each step it smelled less like
a homey fire in a stone hearth and more like trouble.
     Noiselessly, Fallon slid his well-used Henry rifle from its
soft leather scabbard and rested his thumb on the hammer.
     Cresting the next ridge, Fallon saw that he was right -- it
was trouble -- but not his.
     Before him was the remains of someone's Conestoga wagon and
their belongings.  Most of the wagon was gone, burned down to a
pile of glowing ashes and the metal rims from the wheels.  There
were pots and pans and the metal parts of tools scattered around
and some clothes, no more than scorched rags, now.  The Apaches
had taken all they wanted and burned the rest.  There wouldn't be
anything useful left.
     Disappointed that it hadn't been a cabin with a pot of stew
on the fire, Fallon nudged his horse on, circling the wreckage.
With a sharp jerk he reined the horse to a stop and sat in shock
at the sight before him.
     On the ground, naked and staked at her wrists and ankles was
a blonde woman.  The first woman Fallon had seen in over three
weeks.  He blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
     Fallon scanned the area around him, again, and then looked
down at the woman.  Her face was turned away from him, but even
in the moonlight Fallon could see the damage the sun had done to
the skin normally covered with clothes.  Her breasts were large
and soft looking but smudged with dirt, as were her stomach and
hips.  Her blonde pubic hair was plastered and pressed flat and
the insides of her white thighs were dirty.  Fallon could see her
chest rise and fall with her breathing.
     "Ma'am?"
     She jerked her head around and popped her eyes open to stare
at Fallon.  "Oh!  A white man!  Thank the Lord!  You are a white
man!  I thought the savages had returned.  Praise be!"
     Fallon noticed she was fairly young and maybe would even be
more than just pretty, in a different situation.  "Yes, Ma'am, I
am a white man.  What happened to you?"
     The woman looked up at Fallon and began talking.  She talked
with one sentence rolling over the next, with one word flowing in
to all the rest of the words.  Barely taking a breath, she shot
through her story with a rhythm that reminded Fallon of a Gatling
gun.
     "Well, Mister, everything was fine and dandy this morning.
We -- my husband, Joshua, and my children Matthew, Lucas, Melody,
and Charity -- were in a wagon train -- Mr. Jed Fuller's? -- on
the way out to California.  Right after we got underway this
morning, we were attacked by hundreds of savages.  Joshua --
well, not just Joshua, a lot of wagons -- panicked and whipped
the horses to run their legs off.  When we finally stopped, we
were lost and alone.  We had no idea where anyone else was or if
they were even alive.  We didn't know where we were so we just
kept on going.
     "We soon got to a river, but we had to stop because it was
too deep and running too fast to cross.  There were a lot of
rocks and rapids.  Joshua turned us upstream in the hopes of
finding a safe fording place.  When we finally found one, Joshua
and Matthew led the team.  We were almost in the middle of the
river when the lead horses bucked and Joshua and Matthew were
toppled over and into the deeper water.  We saw them fighting the
current and heard them yelling, and then they went under and none
of us saw them come up, again.  They were gone!  My husband and
my son!  Gone!
     "We looked and waited, but they were gone.  My other son,
Lucas, found their bodies downstream -- all battered and bloody -
- and we buried them there as best we could.  We went further
upstream and made it across the river and started up a long hill.
One of the horses stumbled and broke a leg.  Lucas, cut him out
from the team and shot him.  Then, we started down the other
side, and the three horses could barely keep us from rolling out
of control, all the way to the bottom.  When we crossed this
plain, the horses refused to start up that hill over there and we
decided to rest them for the night.
     "That's when the wolves came.  A whole, big pack of them.
They must have found the dead horse, because they had blood all
over their fur.  Poor little Lucas was sitting on one of the
horses when the wolves came running over the hill and the horses
took off.  And they all disappeared.  Including Lucas!
     "Me and the girls hid in the wagon and cried and cried.  All
the menfolk gone and certain the wolves would return to devour
us, too!
     "But we were wrong.  Instead of a pack of wolves, a pack of
painted savages appeared.  I fired the pistol, but I didn't hit
any of them.  They rode right up to us and grabbed my girls away
from me!  Melody is 10 and Charity is only 8.  Two indians put my
babies over their horses and sped away.
     "The eight savages that were left ignored me as they picked
through every item in this wagon; eating all the food and
drinking all the cider and water.  When they were satisfied, they
ripped my clothes off me and tied me down like this -- and then,
one after the other, they violated me.  Some, more than once!
     "I begged them to kill me.  So I wouldn't suffer their
abuse.  A white woman being ravaged by drunk, laughing, red
savages.  I never heard them utter one word of English the whole
time.  Finally, when they were all done with me, and could no
longer mistreat me, they got on their ponies and rode away,
whooping and hollering.
     "They left me in the desert sun to die.
     "And then, thank the Lord, you come along."
......
     Fallon eased the Henry back into the scabbard.  He slid off
the horse and looked down on the woman.  Her skin glowed in the
moonlight.  The marks on her round breasts and open pubis where
she was ravaged and raped were obvious.  He moved closer to her.
     He thought about what she had been through in one day.
Losing a husband, four children, all her earthly belongings and
her respectable womanhood.  It was more than you could expect one
person to take.
     He dropped his chaps and pants and pulled his hard cock from
out of his stained longjohns.  He knelt between her spread legs
and spit on his prick's knobby head.
     He had been wrong -- for once, the Apaches had left
something useful behind.
     The woman looked up at him in surprise, with large round
eyes and he sadly informed her --

         "Well, Ma'am, this sure ain't been your day."

           (A little tongue-in-cheek, for a change.)


(C) J. BOSWELL, October 1991


