LONG NOTES FROM
THE STAGECOACH
Invariably, the tribes reach the western terminus before us.
We sit back, entrenched in our magazine wars : Sioux and
Apache. Or Comanche and the rest. I wouldn't know, and
you certainly can't tell by the handwriting. They say we will
die by daybreak - scalped or shot, or a few well-placed
arrows. Who was it died that way? One of those ubiquitous,
crazy early saints? Peter, Paul, St. Stephen; I think that's
the one. A hundred arrows piercing his willing breast;
all that holy blood shed for the Father, or the Son, or -
there wasn't quite a Holy Ghost yet, that came later.
So, whatever - does any of this old rubric carry over
to the new world? Can I die like a martyr? And why,
oh why, are there no Saints from the early settlers or
the first colonists or governors and the rest? They too
fled persecution - so as to set up their own. But, I
digress. Here again we are - in the stage coach, reading
bloody manuals about frontier first-aid and how long
it takes to actually bleed to death. The dirt trails behind
us from these really skinny wheels - and isn't this the
most rickety, jarring ride you'd ever imagined? No one
could shoot back from here, even if they tried, with any
accuracy. Maybe that's why we're gonna' die. Was that
Joplin, Missouri we left, or Jostlin'? I'm homesick already
for all that porridge and the silver spoons of Boston and
New York City. Oh, Caroline, what are we doing here?
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