A Glibertarians Exclusive: Mystical Child Part IV
From the diary of Robert “Cairo Bob” Allen, 1841-1928
November 17, 1886 – Somewhere in the Canadian Rockies
Cold up here, in Canada. Never been up in these parts before, and I see now why. In November back in South Carolina when I was a boy, can’t hardly remember even wearing a jacket in November, but up here, even in the saddle and moving, I’m bundled up in damn near every piece of clothing I own, and wrapped up in a blanket to boot. Sleeping isn’t easy, either. Especially since we aren’t up here legal and don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, so we’re only making small fires to cook at night. Reminds me of back during the War of the Northern Aggression, when we were raiding up into Yankee territory. Not rightly sure how folk can live in a climate like this.
***
November 17, 1886
It was nearing sundown on the fifth day.
The two men had snuck across the border into Canada two days before. Bob’s skills as a cavalry scout stood them in good stead; they had once spent a half-hour hiding in a small copse of trees as a patrol of Mounties went past, but they had neatly evaded the Canucks. “J.E.B. Stuart couldn’t have done her any better,” Sam Evans observed, which made Bob grin.
But that had been some time since, and the weather turning worse.
“Five days,” Bob groused from the saddle. “Five days since we left Boise. Just keeps getting colder every damn day.”
“This here sure as hell ain’t Dixie,” Evans agreed easily. He let out an audible gasp as a gust of wind drove snow into his thin coat. A coughing fit seized him. “Wish I’d thought to have bought a better coat. I been through these parts once before, but that was in summer.”
“Here.” Bob untied a spare blanket from his saddle and reached across to hand it to Evans. “Can’t have you catching the grippe or something and dyin’ before we find this here dead Spaniard.”
“I sure do thank you,” Evans said, wrapping the old wool blanket around his shoulders. “Damned if it ain’t as cold as a Yankee banker’s heart up here. But I’ll get you to where we’re going, don’t you worry none – you got my word on that.”
“Dark soon,” Bob pointed out. “See that line of trees ahead? Must be a creek. Good place to shelter for the night.”
“Looks like,” Evans said.
An hour later, the horses were tended, and Bob was stirring a small pot of beans over a cavalryman’s fire. He was mulling over the comment he had made to Evans earlier in the day, about Evans dying of the grippe. On the other side of the fire Evans was squatting, cutting up chunks of bacon to go into the beans. Another coughing fit seized him as Bob watched.
At least the snow’s stopped, Bob thought. The sun was gone; Bob looked up at the glimmering, ice-chip stars shining through gaps in the clouds.
“Say,” Bob said at last, “you do know where we’re headed, right?”
“Think so,” Evans said. He took out a dirty handkerchief and wiped his mouth with it. “About another forty miles or so – call it two day’s ride. The Nez Perce I talked to called it what amounts to “straight-sided mountain” or “cone mountain.” The one I talked to didn’t know exactly how to savvy it in English. But when I had passed through these parts the summer before, I do remember seeing a mountain, straight sided, looked just like one of them ancient pyramids over Egypt way. Say, you were there; ever see them things for-real?”
“Couple times,” Bob replied. “Some big ones not far from Cairo. I was there a few times. That’s where I picked up the ‘Cairo Bob’ handle.”
“Well, this here mountain, she looked just like the pyramids I saw once in a picture book. We’ve got some nasty badlands to ride through, but as long as the weather doesn’t get worse, I reckon we’ll be all right.”
“So how are we supposed to find this Spaniard’s grave, anyway?”
“Now that’s the interesting part,” Evans said. “The Indian said he didn’t rightly see the man himself, you understand. But on the east side of the mountain, there’s a big stone mostly blocking a cave entrance, and there’s a Spanish cross carved into the stone. That’s how we’ll know where it is.”
“So, all we have to do Is move that stone, and the grave’s inside?”
“That’s how I see it,” Evans agreed. “Grave, tomb, whatever.”
“I sure do hope you’re right about all this.”
Bob stirred the bacon Evans had cut up into the beans. After a little while, they were ready to eat. Each man had a tin plate and a spoon. They divvied up the beans and bacon and ate in contemplative silence.
When they were done, Evans offered to wash up the dishes in the creek. He gathered everything up and walked the few paces to the little stream. Bob could hear the pot and plates clattering as Evans dunked them in the cold water. Bob could also hear Evans coughing again.
Wonder if he’s consumptive? Bob shook his head. Reckon not. Everyone I ever heard of with the consumption couldn’t hardly eat. Say the flesh just melts right off them. This Evans, whatever ails him, it ain’t that.
Presently Evans came back. He handed Bob his plate and spoon. With an old field soldier’s care, Bob tilted them towards the fire so he could look them over. They looked clean enough, so he stowed them in his saddlebag while Evans stowed the pot and his own eating gear. He knew all too well how dirty eating gear could make a man sick, and he had no desire to pick up a case of the quickstep in this weather.
“Two more days ride, you say,” Bob asked.
Evans nodded. He rolled another cigarette, lit it with a brand from the fire, and took a long, contented drag. “Two more, maybe a day finding the grave.”
“And then, what, a week getting back? Figure on going back to Boise?”
“Sure,” Evans said. “There’s enough mining in the area, I figure we should be able to cash in the gold. We can always melt it down into chunks, so they don’t suspect we stole it. Ought to be able to make it look like credible nuggets.”
“Won’t folks wonder when we don’t file any claims?”
“I doubt it,” Evans assured Bob. “Claims office isn’t even in the same building as the assay office. Even if someone did wonder, we’ll be long gone by the time they put it all together.”
“You say so.”
Evans took another drag on the cigarette. “I reckon we’ll be back to civilization by, oh, third or fourth of December. Not that long.”
“Well,” Bob said, “that ain’t the worst news I ever heard.”
They rolled up in bedrolls to sleep close beside the fire. As he was drifting off, Bob heard Evans coughing again.
***
We set out that night for the cold in the North.
I gave him a blanket, and he gave me his word.
I said, “Where are we going?” He said, “We’ll be back by the fourth.”
I said, “That’s the best news that I’ve ever heard.”
Lunch with agood story, thanks again Animal!
Good stuff.
I Googled “Spanish cross” to get a better visualization and the top results are as a Nazi medal.
Moving your way up a list, aren’t you?
We’re all on lists.
I, um uh, yeah…. more fortifying, now by our good friends at the NSA? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m surprised it made it to print.
Spoiler alert: Evans has Covid.
Evans’ plan seems a bit too good.
He has a lot of faith in how quickly he can find a cave on a mountainside. Has he seen a mountain before?
Desperate men go on to do desperate actions.
Based on the description of the mountain, and the Egyptian tie-in, I’m guessing that this is a Stargate prequel, and Evans is host to a Goa’uld, trying to find his ship.
Looks at title…thinks db is onto something here
Probably already posted, but new to me:
https://babylonbee.com/news/the-bee-explains-what-is-libertarianism
Best line: “Libertarianism is the only logically consistent political philosophy, and it’s held primarily by crazy people.”
2nd best line: “What is the Libertarian Party? A joke.”
If Brennan gets his way…
One of us writes for the Bee, or possibly they just lurk here.
There have been rumors that there is a suspected person, at least what I have seen in the comments. Either way, the Bee writers have a good ear to the ground.
If gambolputty makes an appearance, I will know they are trolling us.
I have no doubt that there are lurkers with the Bee and also with major political groups. I recall instances of comments here that have appeared basically verbatim in political speeches the next day.
Our enemies also lurk, taking notes, and waiting. The Woodchipper incident on the TOS was not a random coincidence.
Political parties just utilize the Fusion Centers…no need to put people in harms way when your established security apparatus will do the work for you.
I have noticed some lines of thought that I first read here and then appeared elsewhere in a couple of days and thought…maybe there are more twisted thinking people than just this small corner of the intertubes.
I was always assuming that people picked something up elsewhere on the intertubes and depositing it here before it was thrust into the mainstream, kinda like how half of our memes here are local spins on broader internet memes.
Probably a healthy mixture of both. I first say Kung Flu here and no where else until Chief President in Troll-land used it.
Like I tell me kids when they came home singing Jingle Bells, Batman Smells and made the claim they made it up, what has been done, will be done again and nothing is new under the sun.
In 1981, my buddy and coined the phrase, “people on ‘ludes should not drive.” Actually we were told that once after crashing on ‘ludes, and the inflection was so funny we repeated it ad nauseam. , all of our friends started using it to mean “get your shit together, man” This was in Encino, CA. Where a bunch of film folks live. The next year, that line appeared in Fast Times. Not saying it was aliens, but…
I invented the question mark.
Good invention! I remember back when we were wondering what to use for that and had no way to express our wonderment in writing. Thanks, man!
I do what I can
*Passes out tinfoil hats*
The Woodchipper incident was a conspiracy theory?
Do we know if it was a Tulpa Sock? Mary? who snitched to the feds?
who snitched to the feds?
Does it matter if someone snitched or the feds were already watching? They sure as hell started watching after that happened.
I suspect a one off.
If we were actually monitored to any extent, H&R woulda gotten canceled long ago.
I will go so far as to say there’s a 98.63542% probability that we have a Bee lurker or maybe even an active participant.
They are watching. People snitch, too. Anyone who expresses dissatisfaction with the government gets spied on by the government. The internet just makes it easier. They did it to the hippies and ’60s revolutionaries, MLK, the Panthers, AIM, Larry Flynt, Cheech and FUCKING Chong fer fux sake!
So someone from Bharara’s office was googling for news stories about the issue (I can’t even remember what it was over, honestly) and got a hit from H&R and kept reading when they got to the comments.
Occam’s Razor
Much more likely than Reason being under constant surveillance. We’re just not that important.
It was Ross Ulbricht. Imma guess that the feds have a huge pool of sidewalk surfers running various anti-government terms and submitting them to various authorities to make various decisions. Why is it that every whack job turns out to have been ” on the FBI’s Radar” or “Known to the FBI?”
I used to work at a press clipping company. I have absolutely no doubt that the government is fully willing to and capable of getting account with a company like this, and giving them a list of websites and keywords to scan.
*taps nose*
Detained? By an Arby’s cashier? So that’s how they get “THE MEATS!”
Nothing is safe from cancel culture.
I can’t find a cute rhyming way to express “Said sorry, still got canceled”, but it’s more accurate these days than “get woke, go broke.”
Apologize, and still get sodomized?
NO NEED SAY SORRY, STEVE SMITH OK!
Apologized, still cannibalized?
Well Sean, it seems we need a ruling now…
I like cannibalized over sodomized if only for the finality of it. 2 more hours until the afternoon links, so we may get a few more contenders.
Then we wait and see what is used throughout the intertubes!
Both imply negative judgment of the lifestyle choices of sodomites and cannibals, and therefore deserve cancellation in their own right.
So no death by bunga bunga?
Make it snu-snu and I am in.
+1 I never though I would die this way – but I always hoped!
My entry in the contest (yes I can enter in my own contest, fuck off!) is: Apologized, still excised
Bent the knee, still hung on the tree.
Punked out, lost clout?
Syllable amounts are more acceptable than the previous entries …but needs more punch.
Punked out; flunked out.
CONVICTED, THEN STEVE SMITHÈD.
Mea Culpa, get the ropea.
“passive racism”
OFFS.
On the one hand, this is bullshit. On the other hand…..man, I hate Captain Underpants and Dogman. My son loves those wretched books.
Sucked the chub, still got snubbed.
I suppose this is from a book you are writing? Great story, I wanted more!
But perhaps we should all give up our jobs and become lifeguards in LA. Six figures for a job I used to do for a dollar above the minimum as a teenager!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/03/27/top-paid-la-lifeguards-earned-up-to-392000-in-2019/?sh=35f1f1254012
Lifeguard at a pool – yeah teenager. Lifeguard on the busy beaches of LA where people underestimate that 3 footer not realizing there is a strong undertow or rip current? I want someone making more than $13/hour.
Local park system has taken down the “Do your part! Stay six feet apart!” signs and replaced them with ones looking for summer lifeguards.
That’s the happiest news I’ve seen in months.
Then some more good news for you! Las Vegas teens are in for some heavy competition for summer jobs as a large influx see it as a way to “get out of the house”. My kids probably won’t make the cut cause they are doing one application at a time and waiting….idiots.
Teens… working?!
Seriously I think its the psychological effects of the lock-downs and overzealous parents that have locked their teens up for a year. These teens most likely missed out on a summer job last year and probably even a part-time after-school job. So now that people are wising up, its a mad rush to get that job.
I would caution that most reports are fairly inflated, but yes, they make mostly around 80-100k if they’re full time. My salary gets reported on various websites and it’s always 10-30k higher than reality. “Other pay” and “benefits” really add up when they’re fished out of the sky.
“Other pay” and “benefits” really add up when they’re fished out of the sky.
You mean my employer provided health insurance isn’t worth $25k a year?
*hits the speed dial for HR’s benefits team*
They have mine at 43k, lol!
OFFS.
I was on COBRA for a while so I know exactly how much my previous employer was kicking in – divide that figure by about six.
The judge many moons ago used the “other pay” and “benefits” when I went through my divorce while I was in the military. We would get these papers that would try and monetize all our “benefits” so an E-5 in 2005 like I was, showed making something like $75,000/year. Which was horse shit and as you said, fished out of the sky.
Sort of related. A friend of mine from college came to our house this weekend and dropped a bombshell that she is getting a divorce. Apparently her husband who started his own company and made a decent amount of money doing so has been having multiple affairs. He set up a Tinder account and when he wanted to visit the women that hit him up, he lied to my friend and said that he was going on a business trip. A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies contacted my friend and told her that her husband been seeing her and dropped it when she found out that he was married and had a two year old.
I’m fucking disappointed in the guy because my wife and I also considered him a friend because for one thing he was always genuinely nice to us but also because we were at their wedding and thought they were the perfect couple. With the ensuing divorce and the proof he cheated, he’s gonna get assraped by the courts.
Zipper problems. Whattaya gonna do? ?♀️
Yeah, I have a hard time extending pity towards the receipt of those consequences coming his way.
Did she hire Steve Smith Esq. to represent her?
HIM PROMINENT FOREST LAWYER!
Is it in Illinois? I have a friend who’s husband did something similar, though their one kid was grown and not 2. It was in Illinois, and she took him to the cleaners. He deserved it.
Colorado
Just to be clear, I have no sympathy for this guy. He betrayed his wife’s trust and clearly has no integrity whatsoever.
I told my friend to do what she got to do in terms of getting child support but remember that he’s her child’s father and that getting what’s due to you and being vindictive are two different things.
Everybody gets ass-raped in a contentious divorce. Better to voluntarily give up twice what you want to give than pay four times that in legal fees. Besides, there’s a kid and that’s forever.
Exactly. Right now he wants to try to work things out with her but he’s done, but hopefully he plays nice and just get it over with.
Had a friend a while ago whose wife up and announced she wanted a divorce, after being married to him for almost twenty years. Guy was a super-straight arrow, to the point of almost being repressed; she hit him with a pre-arranged set of divorce papers including various spurious allegations, as well as a no-shit, already-went-to-the-judge-and-got-the court-order-for-interim-child-support decree, for approximately 90% (!) of his take-home pay, leaving him effectively destitute. We and others helped him out with a place to stay and loans/gifts of money so he could fight all this in court.
“Ass-rape” sounded mild compared to what she did.
Over the next year or so, he managed to fight his way through the lies, got her and her lawyer (a woman) censured by the courts for suborning perjury, and ultimately won his children’s custody with the exception of the eldest daughter, but still had to pay alimony, all because his wife had a mid-life crisis. She “wanted him back” a few years later, and he told her to go pound sand. Her actions basically cost both of them the total value of their house in lawyer’s fees for both sides, setting them both back financially at least a decade. An insanely stupid “go nuclear” move, for no discernible benefit that anyone else could see. This was over 20 years ago, and she still hasn’t recovered financially.
Some people are just idiots.
That move 20 years ago was the ‘golden ticket’ move at the height of courts overly favoring the mother/wife. Wasn’t a bad gamble, even if she overplayed the hand.
Florida’s divorce laws are reprehensible. They mandate lifetime alimony in almost every case, regardless of the circumstances. My uncle divorced his worthless junkie wife about a decade or so ago, and he’s STILL paying her ass. Had to empty out his 401k to do it. The insane part is that she is a licensed CPA while he’s the deli manager at a Publix who never went to college. She could be making plenty of money except for the fact that she’s a useless opioid addict, an addiction she indulges by living off of a huge chunk of my uncle’s paycheck every month. He can’t marry his longtime girlfriend either because her assets would thus be fair game to the junkie bitch.
So, they’re saying these women can’t take care of themselves? This shit is from another era when housewives did nothing but cook and clean and raise kids. Those days are long gone. They can easily live on 77% of what I make.
@ Beam: I stand corrected. Never heard a crazy story quite like that.
I know a guy who was fooling around with another women while he was engaged to wife#2. The other woman got pregnant before the wedding. I told him he better tell his prospective bride about the other woman – he wouldn’t consider it. Then the other woman found out about that he was engaged and had the date and venue and was threatening to show up at the nuptials. Unfortunately she didn’t show up….would have save him a bunch of trouble. The prospective bride didn’t find out about the other woman until after she became wife #2 – and they had a kid together. It all blew up in his face fantastically – he is paying child support for 5 kids to 3 different women. I think Demotivators.com used his life as motivation for one of their posters – the one with the Titanic sinking and captioned: ‘The purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others”.
Kind of silly, since you can’t sell and then split the proceeds from fringe benefits.
Well when you are making $2K/mo and the courts have set a preliminary child support order of $1300/month, you can’t really pay for a good lawyer. It was a rock and hard place.
Don’t pay the preliminary amount, get assraped by the military for not supporting your family and get assraped by the courts.
Pay the amount, get assraped by the military cause you now don’t have money to pay your debts and get assraped by the courts.
It was the most fun part of my life and made me a much better person.
It’s not cheap to hire Michael Knight to run through the sand.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/03/29/blues-clues-reboot-pushes-transgenderism-on-preschoolers-n1435717
I’m pretty far from being a prude or caring what adults do to each other in their bedrooms, but this ain’t right. No way, no how.
I guess as long as he isn’t hopped up on coke while filming, who cares. Parents just need to decide that this isn’t for them and put Veggie Tales on for their kids…until that is cancelled.
Promoting sexuality to preschoolers ain’t right. It’s perverse.
It clearly falls in “Grooming” territory.
I agree it is, but it exist because people watch it and advertisers are available. Stop watching it, educate those around you. Parents need to make that decision on their own because I really don’t want the Right to step back into their rabid puritanism ways.
It exists because the storm troopers are stomping around and trying to kill anyone who doesn’t tow the lion. Businesses have decided that complying is safest, only because the fascists seem so powerful.
And pull your kids out of most schools, because they’re teaching the same stuff there.
All part of the playbook where the left puts the most outrageous shit out there and then calls you a racist, sexist, transphobe if you object to any of it.
It’s getting bad. We’ve banned a few kids shows in our house (Wild Kratz is the latest for pushing Enviro AgitProp). You feel stupid, because you know kids want to watch something fun, but at the same time, they do pick it up and i’ll be damned if i let my kids passively pick up propoganda, and not lift a finger about it.
Counter it. The kids across the street were helping me wash my car one day. They asked how much it cost. When I told them, they asked why cars are so expensive. I told them that the government makes the car manufacturers do a bunch of stupid stuff to them and they have to pass those costs on to us. If they let us buy whatever we wanted, we’d get way better cars for way cheaper. My other neighbor overheard and cracked up out loud.
I certainly do, i just am not going to invite Her Gobbels to have free reign in my house.
Stay away from the freaks, kid. They’re all gonna do freaky shit to you if they get you alone. That’s the message they ought be giving.
*lowers freak flag*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYHxGBH6o4M
This doesn’t sound nice at all.
If they pull this off, does that mean there’s no such thing as a backlash-provoking overreach?
There are guesses:
A probably-supernatural tale with a Canadian wilderness setting? Could there be a Wendigo in the offing?
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10897/10897-h/10897-h.htm
We’ve already got to the part where the characters prematurely divide the loot, indicating that they’re not going to get the loot in reality.
Are *they* the loot? Deep, man.
7.62×39 back in stock (non corrosive)
Is it the Stockholm syndrome kicking in, or am i right that that isn’t even that bad of a price?
I ordered a case…
That’s downright reasonable. Pity I don’t have a 7.62×39 carbine…
No AK?
tsk tsk tsk
Have you seen AK prices lately? Ugh!
I haven’t but I can imagine.
It’s called “assault pricing” The price is that thing that goes up.
:Opera Applause:
Boo. Boo, I say.
Decent AKs have pretty much always been more expensive than ARs of comparable quality.
I have various ARs, precision bolt guns, shotguns, and lots of pistols. The Klatch doesn’t fill much of a niche for me. I’d like to have one just for training and familiarization, but there’s other stuff on the list ahead of it.
DOOM!
They are scared because people aren’t listening to their bullshit anymore.
Wait, I thought the entire state of Texas was already dead.
30 million down and about 200 million to go to herd immunity (150M if you count the 50M that have been vaccinated).
FYI. Tomorrow is 2 weeks since the wife’s positive test.
She’s been symptom free for more than a week.
Good news.
Good to hear.
It looks like almost everyone in the quilt circle tested positive.
In a really strange coincidence, all the ladies that took zinc and drank tonic water recovered quite quickly. The one that didn’t is still dragging along with symptoms.
Fake NUZ
How many died so that OMB could be wrong in the media?
Another missed opportunity by OMB to make an offhand comment about pennies and their zinc content. He was a complete let down near the end.
30 million down and about 200 million to go to herd immunity (150M if you count the 50M that have been vaccinated)
We’re a lot closer than that. “Positive tests” don’t capture people who were asymptomatic or had mild cases and didn’t get tested.
A recurring feeling of impending DOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm…
Oh fuck off.
Other headline that no journalist will dare write: Head of the CDC Doesn’t Know Her Own Agency Statistics
Clearly we should be listening to the raving fear driven person
I suspect that you’re scared a lot, Rochelle, and probably for equally little reason.
Power…slipping…away…
Must…create…fear…
I think that FEE article and the other one I just read about how the news has their foot to the pedal regarding negative news all the time regarding lil’rona has them trying to put the fear of SCIENCE! back to the forefront of American’s minds.
The more people that go out and draw in fresh air, the more their doom! will go in one ear and out the other while people are out at the bar.
I see they’ve replaced “grim” with “unwanted”.
the country hit the unwanted milestone of 30 million Covid-19 cases on Sunday
They misspelled “inevitable”.
amid a significant rise in new infections
Bringing us back to the level we were at . . . 3 weeks ago.
Great stuff, Animal! Really enjoyed reading it.
Though I do think that in future installments, rather than saying “back to Boise by December 4th” could be replaced by “back to Boise by C. Anacreon’s birthday”.
Promoting sexuality to preschoolers ain’t right.
I think you hit on the important point when you note sexuality. Unfortunately, I also think the people complaining about this most loudly are going to fall into the trap making it about homosexuality or any of the affiliated LGBTQXYZPDQ pressure groups. And then the whole thing gets easily pigeon-holed into “homophobia” or “transphobia” or whatever. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of preschoolers getting introduced to ideas around sexuality generally.
It’s almost as if for millennia human beings had no problems managing the full-range of human sexuality without the bullshit that we’re currently being subjected to.
Like, how did civilization ever make it to this point without pre-schoolers being lectured by idiotic strangers about sexuality?
Not rightly sure how folk can live in a climate like this.
Word.