A Glibertarians Exclusive: Mystical Child Part VII
From the diary of Robert “Cairo Bob” Allen, 1841-1928
November 22, 1886 –Pyramid Peak
Got back to our camp way after dark to find Evans sitting there by the fire. He didn’t look so good – face was all red, like. He was smoking a cigarette, like always, and coughing, again like always. Told him what I’d found, and he just perked right on up, saying that had to be it, was just like the Indian he talked to described it. Now I’d been thinking he put an awful lot of stock in the word of some old Indian whose name he didn’t even seem to know, but sure as hell if that description didn’t fit, except for that God damned ice covering the whole thing. Told him about that, and he just went to the packs laying on the ground near where the pack animals were picketed and pulled out an axe. “We’ll build a fire under the ice,” he said to me, “and then knock it loose with this.” I didn’t have any better ideas that didn’t involve coming back in the spring, so told him we may as well try it.
***
November 23, 1886
During the night, the weather worsened.
Bob awoke with just the hint of lightening in the sky. He shivered in his bedroll. The fire had died down, but once in a while the remaining coals would flare up as the wind ripped across the land. The crude brush lean-to was shaking in the wind. Bob sat up and felt a pellet of sleet hit his cheek.
“Oh, hell,” he heard Evans swearing. The short man sat up. “This sure as hell don’t look good.”
“Let’s see if we can get the fire built up.” Bob stretched and reached for his old canteen to rinse out his mouth, but the water was frozen solid. He shrugged and climbed out of his bedroll and, shivering, pulled on his old trooper boots and his overcoat.
Evans was guddling around in the remains of the fire. He added some kindling that he had wisely kept dry under his bedroll, but the wind wouldn’t allow anything to catch.
“Hell with this,” Bob said. “Let’s saddle up, load the pack horses, and move up to the tomb. It’s in a box canyon, maybe sheltered enough to get a fire going there.”
“Fuck,” Evans spat. “Sure do hope our luck ain’t turned bad.”
Bob scowled. “Don’t talk like that. Doesn’t help anything.”
“All right.” Evans lapsed into another coughing fit, a bad one, one that bent him double. He spat blood and stood up, face red, gasping. “All right,” he managed to gasp out. “I’ll see to the pack horses.”
They were an hour getting ready, during which time the wind picked up and the sleet turned to a hard, driving snow. The temperature had dropped noticeably by the time they climbed into their saddles.
“Hope to hell we don’t freeze to death,” Bob said, teeth chattering.
“Let’s got on the way,” Evans snapped. “Sooner we get there, sooner we can get a big old fire built.”
The day before Bob had spent four hours in the saddle returning to the camp from the tomb. Today, riding into the face of a growing blizzard, it took eight to reverse the route. Bob led them by mistake into two smaller side canyons he hadn’t noticed the day before, which made Evans angrier.
Finally, as the dull gray sky was beginning to grow dark, they arrived at the tomb.
Remembering an old trick from a winter campaign during the War of the Northern Aggression, Bob cut brush and built a small reflector to block the wind, another small lean-to barely big enough for the two bedrolls, and finally managed to get a fire going. All the while, Evans was glumly examining the apparent entry to the tomb.
“Goddamned if there ain’t six, eight inches of ice on that son of a bitch,” he groused, returning to the fire. “It’s like we weren’t meant to get in there.”
“I told you, don’t talk like that. You’ll jinx us, damn it.”
“Fine, fine.” Evans huddled close to the fire. “I think we ought to take turns sleeping. Fella who’s awake can keep the fire up, so we don’t freeze to death.”
“Sensible,” Bob said with a shiver. He dug in his saddlebag. “Here,” he said, handing Evans a venison steak cooked the night before. “Put ‘er on a rock by the fire. At least we can eat something halfway warm. No water, so no coffee, I guess.”
“Fill the coffee pot with snow,” Evans suggested, “And put ‘er on the fire.”
Bob slapped his forehead in annoyance and reached for the pot. A short while later, they had coffee perking.
“Ahh,” Evans said after his first long drink of hot coffee. “That’s better. That’s much better.”
“How much gold and so on you suppose is in there?” Bob motioned towards the tomb.
“I got no idea,” Evans admitted. “But bound to be a good amount. And, you know, I been thinking. A few years back I was in this place in San Francisco, fella there was talking about building a place to house and show off all sorts of antiquities and so forth – a ‘museum’, was the word he used. I bet if we brought that Spaniard’s bones out, and whatever armor or gear might be in there, that would fetch a pretty fair price too.”
“Something to think about, anyway,” Bob agreed. He was starting to feel slightly less miserable with a belly full of tepid venison and hot coffee.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him: How come he never mentioned that museum or whatever before now? Maybe he’s full of shit about the gold? Maybe the old Indian or whoever never said anything about that, and that’s why nobody’s ever got in there before?
Across the fire, Evans was coughing again.
No point in worrying about this now, Bob reminded himself. We’re here. The tomb is here. Tomorrow – tomorrow we’ll see what’s what. Long as we don’t freeze to death first. Damn, and I thought northern Virginia was cold in the winter! This surely is a God-forsaken land.
“You want to sleep first?” Evans asked.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Bob replied. “If I can sleep in this damn cold.” It had gotten good and dark now, and in the guttering firelight Bob could see snow, driven sideways by the wind. Evans tossed a few more sticks into the dull blaze and piled some more brush to dry off near the low flames.
A thought: “Evans, you got a watch?”
“Yeah.” He pulled out a cheap pocket watch. “I make it six-thirty. Two-hour watches?”
“Spoken like an old soldier,” Bob agreed. “Very well, then, Colonel, wake me at eight-thirty.”
“Count on it, General,” Evans said with a faint chuckle.
Bob had thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but exhaustion claimed him before his heart had beaten a hundred times.
***
We came to the pyramids all embedded in ice.
He said “There’s a body I’m trying to find.
If I carry it out it’ll bring a good price.”
It was then that I knew what he had on his mind.
I wonder if there are any woodchipper rental joints near the Franklin Co courthouse.
Fuck this judge in the ass with a rusty chainsaw. In a state with supermajority rule the legislature has not been allowed to make or change any laws that give the governor unilateral power in the state. Not even a full year after a declared “state of emergency.” And all because of this 1 fucking judge.
https://www.wlky.com/article/fact-check-no-a-legislative-measure-did-not-invalidate-kentuckys-mask-mandate/36066503
Why does it keep going to him? Because Frankfort is in Franklin County?
Because the people asking for an injunction know he’ll sign it.
Yep.
One would assume that there is more than 1 goddamn judge in the capital, but somehow all the Covid cases just keep landing in his docket.
Well, it is a crappy little town, a literal hole in the ground.
So maybe it can only support 1 judge.
In a state with supermajority rule the legislature has not been allowed to make or change any laws that give the governor unilateral power in the state.
Impeach him.
Already tried.
There is no mechanism in state law for a referendum. It has to be done by the legislature, which they declined to do when given the opportunity in January.
Just as I settle into the story, it ends.
*frowny face*
Yep, can’t wait to put them all together and read it in one shot.
Some mighty fine police work there, Lou.
you forget, it;s nyc – t-shirt cannons are probably outlawed.
shit, I’m surprised the hummer isn’t illegal.
Give it time.
Duh. T-shirt cannons work via compressed air. Covid is airborne!
“where he was ticketed for unlawful possession of an air rifle.”
Notice the word air
And the entire article itself, a air gun which shot t-shirt
That’s no air rifle, that is an air musket, as the founding fathers intended.
I dig the pacing, Animal. An excellent yarn!
How difficult is it to chip a hole for ice fishing?
How’s the shingles going?
Itchy, burny, the occasional cactus needle stab, but really not that bad. The worst part about it is the waking me up/keeping me awake parts.
GAH! I should probably go get the damn vax.
I’m apparently not eligible to get vaccinated becasue I’m too young. Even though I just fucking got it.
I’ve been having extremely good sleep hygiene, what with having to wake up at the same ungodly time each morning to let the pup out, and the subseqent fixed bedtime. And I haven’t been drinking at all. So dealing with the adorable fanged poopmachine must be more stressful than I thought.
that sucks. Sorry man. I’ve had a couple of friends that got it (shingles) earlier than you are supposed to. I’m old enough for the vaccine, it just hasn’t been a priority, but it should be.
I just got the first Shingles Vaccine.
It was way worse than getting the J&J corvid shot.
My arm felt like it was gonna fall off.
Honestly, while it’s annoying, I’ve felt a lot more pain in the aftermath of recreational activities.
But the rash is gross AF.
Depends on the tool. Not that difficult with a large chisel. Not sure about an axe, though.
I like the fire idea.
Fire doesn’t work all that well in my experience. Most of the heat goes up, not much remains to melt the ice below.
But isn’t it pretty much a frozen waterfall? Chop a depression at the base and let ‘er rip!
Ice has a surprising amount of tensile strength, and doesn’t absorb radiant heat very well (although the rock-face the ice is built up on might). Should be interesting to see how the story rolls from here.
How thick is the ice? Less than 6 inches is pretty easy. After that a saw or auger is really the only option unless you are in good shape or have multiple people to trade out.
Gah! Red the story!!!
*Read
In my defense I’m at work and can’t really read it right now. Skimmed to see 6-8 inches. A sharp axe or chisel would work fine in this case.
Unless there are… complications.
FORESHADOWING!
Yeah, sorry. I shouldn’t comment without reading.
Man, if thie ends with them taking the loot back to town, and then having it seized for non-payment of the treasure-finding tax, I will be disappointed.
/flashback to Fourscore’s story
I feel like the issue isn’t the ice itself, but the fact that it’s attached to a rock face. It will have a lot more strength because it’s probably frozen very intimately to the rough face of the rock. That will make it a lot harder to break.
Yes and no. Ice and rock are typically pretty easy to separate. A lot depends on temperature. Very cold ice, like well below zero, is tougher to break than ice closer to melting. Living in northern Minnesota gives a person plenty of learning opportunities…
Well, it certainly sounds like you’ve done your research!
I wonder why they didn’t think to bring some blasting supplies–if they knew the cave was covered by a big rock, how did they plan to move it eventually?
Levers and ball bearings?
I wants it.
To each his own. It looks nice, but for me, the SIGs always have had a bore axis that is uncomfortably high for my taste. I can’t get my hand far enough up, and the grip angle is too vertical for me.
But of course, the right gun for you is the one you shoot best and fits you well. They just haven’t fit me well historically.
https://www.guntweaks.com/pistol-bore-axis-comparison-what-is-low-bore-axis.html
I have a Steyr L9-A1, which has a very low bore axis. I shoot a classic Sig much better.
Interesting. I had not read of the concept of “alignment index” before. I find 1911s and Glocks about equally well-fit to my hands and arm geometry, so I can grip and sight them with relatively little effort.
With SIGs and HKs, I feel like the sights are always a little too high, and the grip angles are too vertical for my comfort.
I remain skeptical of attempts to quantify the ergonomics of handguns (and long guns) as purely a function of the tool and not considering the tool-user combined system. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing at all, but there’s more to it than just the dimensions of the gun. If it works for you, then it’s good.
Not all hands are built the same, so there will be differences in ergonomics between people.
I like the look of the grip by the ratio of the barrel to height looks off.
Mind you I’m only judging the aesthetics.
DAO? Don’t see a hammer.
Striker, it’s a metal frame version of a polymer pistol.
great minds and all that.
p320 is striker-fired.
So a metal, polymer gun
See also: Walther PPQ SF.
Cute. It looks like it will fit nicely in your purse.
Buuuurrrrrnnn!!
jk
It’s a European carry all!
Very cosmo ?
The biggest Sig fanboi at my club showed up to SCSA carrying a SIG 1911 Max.
Fauci is confused.
Oregon says “Hold my beer.”
And also, don’t seem to be a lot of easing of [redacted] restrictions on the vaccinated.
This isn’t a political issue – Spends whole year categorizing people and their actions based on political leanings.
Oh and Sorbo flexing:
It’s just as easy to buy a scientist as it it to buy a politician.
Easier, probably.
Bee bringing the bacon
https://babylonbee.com/news/it-is-still-not-ok-to-go-outside-says-faucis-head-in-a-jar-in-year-2739
Hey random Twitter person. Fauci isn’t confused, he isn’t mistaken, he isn’t speaking in good faith. Want to effectively counter him? Treat him like the prog-fascist apparachik he is.
^^ But I give leeway in that some people are crawling out of his ass and breathing fresh air for the first time in a long time.
Yep. I can appreciate the argument for engaging the guy on the merits for the benefit of malleable third parties. OTOH, random Twitter guy isn’t gonna win hearts and minds going against SUPER DOKTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE. He may win against bureaucratic hack extraordinaire, though.
“good faith”
remember when that was a thing?
This is impressive, especially if you have been to Vegas in the past few years and realize…how the hell did a drunk guy do that…
https://www.fox5vegas.com/news/nhp-driver-arrested-after-car-ends-up-on-las-vegas-strip-pedestrian-bridge/article_feffc336-9f2a-11eb-8de7-b77d2c48b5c0.html?block_id=1002219
Don’t know if you saw, but Viva started listing some bands that will be playing there.
https://reason.com/2021/04/19/team-blue-should-end-its-unhealthy-obsession-with-covid-19-panic-porn/?traffic_source=Connatix
“as well as unofficial members of Team Blue within the mainstream media and public health establishment. Liberals confidently predicted that the masks were coming off way too soon, and COVID-19 would swiftly make a comeback in the Lone Star State.
Well, nope: COVID-19 deaths and cases continue to fall in Texas, even without a mask mandate or capacity restrictions on businesses. The same is broadly true of Florida, which relaxed its restrictions all the way back in September and has managed to weather the pandemic more successfully than super locked down states like New York and California.”
And to Judge Shepard.
https://www.wlky.com/article/fact-check-no-a-legislative-measure-did-not-invalidate-kentuckys-mask-mandate/36066503
Off with his head!
It really doesn’t matter since they have the means of dissemination under their thumb with an overly compliant media backing them. We will get stories and ‘studies’ that the body count would have been much higher if not for the life saving actions of lockdowns and other measures in place.
From the quick hits –
• Planned Parenthood has apologized for founder Margaret Sanger’s association with white supremacist groups and eugenics.
Lol. Her work continues apace with your tax dollars. Suckas.
Lucky for me I don’t pay taxes,
Yet.
And again from the quick hits
The trial of Derek Chauvin is reaching the endgame: Both sides will present their closing arguments beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Monday.
• A verdict could prompt NBA teams to postpone their games.
Stop the wokeness sports
• Minneapolis schools plan to close later this week as well.
I wonder if that’s in correlation to the chauvin case
I don’t blame the schools for shutting down. Minneapolis is gonna be a shit show no matter how it goes down.
I haven’t tooned into the case what so ever, but I wonder how the case will go. If he’s acquitted or found not guilty it’ll be a shit show. And found guilty it may come to the effect of it being where
“It’s not good enough that it was man slaughter!”
Or something along those lines
A verdict could prompt NBA teams to postpone their games.
Lolol. I stopped watching well before they went woke, but how the hell do they expect to expand their fan base when the only times they make the news is for clutching pearls like a bunch of schoolmarms?
I don’t like watching nba, mlb is for me but even the mlb is becoming a woke piece of shit
“but how the hell do they expect to expand their fan base”
1.4 billion Chinese & 1.3 billions Indians: https://crownhoops.com/2019/10/01/nba-india-games-the-latest-move-in-nba-international-talent-nurturing/
I wonder what the ad rates are for games televised in a 80% subsistence living city.
That writing is awful. “Fact checking”, explanatory journalism, non sequiturs. Garbage.
As to the meat of it, might be a little closer to finding out how paper thin judicial legitimacy actually is.
Nice to know that I could be tracked by doing stuff for school, google drive, good docs, google sheets, google classroom, google meet, google chrome, google everything, can’t even download fucking brave or any other secure browsers, or use a vpn.
If you’ve got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Pretty sure using reason and/or Glibertarians is probably pretty bad to use especially when my school tracks me too.
Also that’s like saying if your not breaking the law you’ve got nothing to hide, is full of bs
I would feel awful for subjecting my FBI agent to the breadth and depth of my perversions…
They knew what they were signing up for when they joined the “special” unit.
I’m working very hard here to prove them wrong…
I feel sorry for the one that got Sugar Free. You’re expecting the quiet Southern gentleman librarian. You end up getting Lovecraftian nightmares.
Just because I’ve got nothing to hide doesn’t mean they get to look.
That sounds like someone who has something to hide.
.|.. ..|.
Re: the European Super League, funny piece from British parody site: European Super non-League (TW: Facebook link b/c the actual website won’t let me run my adblocker).
the posing in Texas continues: https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/permitless-carry-of-handguns-in-texas-unlikely-to-pass-for-now/
getting it done in Tennessee: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/547227-tennessee-governor-signs-bill-allowing-most-adults-to-carry-handguns
The notion of Texas remains the ideal; the fact of Texas remains a towering disappointment. I’ll be watching The Last Picture Show in my bunk on my laptop with a case of Shiner if anyone needs me.
TX is now well behind IA in this regard.
Texas is like the NRA. The Left poses it as a big threat, when it seriously lags behind all the other states that support Gun Rights. UT also relaxed the requirment for a permit to carry concealed this year. It’s not a constitutional amendment, but it is something.
And at least we didn’t elect Ziggy “Ima take your guns’ Stardust to the senate.
just my silly version of Do Better, Texas !!
I know, i just like razzing AZ too for electing the Astronaut Kelly.
Email from GOA today:
the fact of Texas remains a towering disappointment
Sad but true. Texans have no particular commitment to liberty.
everyone is tired of my old stories, slights imagined and otherwise, so I’ll skip those and observe
The Place remains something special you can’t explain to anyone who hasn’t looked out the Window or canoed the Caddo. Houston and Dallas are fabulous blends of American greatness; Fort Worth is as comfy as old boots; San Antonio thinks anything is possible while El Paso forgets nothing; Austin is the whiny little brother who somehow always knows where to find good beer and hot girls. It is German and Irish and Czech and Spanish and Comanche et un peu Français and a thousand flavors that don’t so much melt as complement: more salad than soup, maybe a walking talking party mix of pretzels and nuts . . . . but always working.
In a different life, my feet would be soaking in de los Brazos de Dios, Pedernales viejo, or Rio Medina even now.
“What in the world is wrong with a license?” asked Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Dallas). “We have a license to drive a car; we have a license to do so many things. A license is not an infringement of your First Amendment rights. It’s just common sense. And it’s really disappointing that the Republicans have taken a strong party-line stance today to keep to really make it less safe in our state.”
The kinds of idiots who keep this from becoming law.
Texas struggles from having 2 massive metropolitan areas plus 10+ other large cities in it. It’s Virginia in the 90s. Colorado in the early 2000s. The urban and suburban population is eclipsing the rural folks who made the reputation.
That…that is in line with what I posted in the morning links and the whole “The Founding Fathers and the Freedoms They Gave Us. Can We Keep Them” bullshit that conservatives don’t realize what they are saying. Or they do realize what they are saying…I can’t tell anymore.
In which Keith Olberman can’t stomach a Fruit Suishi.
https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1384121185605087240
Sometimes I forget just how angry that guy is.
When Robby can make you go ballistic you might need to get some anger management counseling
You’d be angry too if you came out second best to a squirrel.
Bob had thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but exhaustion claimed him before his heart had beaten a hundred times.
Let’s see if Evans wakes him up.
Hi idiots.
I have been binge watching things that comfort me. So a lot of Ron Swanson and a lot of 1980s Jeremy Brett and David Burke
Best adaptation of Holmes evah.
Haha! I have this bad habit of watching YouTube clips of TV shows and movies to determine if I want to watch them, and I keep doing it until I’ve basically seen the entire thing out of order with bad resolution. Anyway, I got sucked into a bunny hole of watching Ron Swanson clips one night… He’s literally the thing that inspired me to clean up my garage, buy some tools, and start woodworking.
I know, right!?!
He says things that are meant to be punchlines on the show but are really wonderful things.
“Don’t half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
He’s my guru.
“These people are soft.”
That clip actually diverted blood in my body to interesting places.
Fucking millennials have no idea how to be sexy to a woman.
Shows that the Wife and i have been watching lately:
Psych (because i love it)
Chuck (because she loves it)
X-Files (the only “scary” show i can stand to watch)
Psych is a wonderful underrated and terrific show,
Psych, Chuck and Monk were my wife and I’s “shows” while we were dating.
I know, you know .
Other fun fact on psych: actor Corbin Bernsen had a quiet conversion to Christianity and won’t act in anything that he thinks won’t help people. He also spread the word to Cybil Shepherd.
(Cybil plays his ex wife in the show.)
Good stuff:
Our typical shows are:
Letterkenny – Like you can jump to any episode, laugh and not be too out of touch on the inside arcing jokes. Celly boys
Psych and Scrubs is just background filler for my wife
I have been watching Mythic Quest – totally nerdy and a toned down Silicon Valley I think.
Nick Offerman on Hot Ones.
Best adaptation of Holmes evah.
Concur.
It is settled.
In college when I was busy not studying whatsoever (pretty much 24/7), I often went to the library and just watched Apocalypse Now over and over.
Follow your bliss !
I used yogi to the “stacks” at university library . Old books in a weird place. The library was gothic style architecture complete with gargoyles.
When my engineering degree gave me a break, I’d go to the Stacks, find a book, and read it in a corner beneath a watchful gargoyle. Sometimes the thunder rolled in,
Bliss.
??♀️??
Stoopid autocorrect
I figured it out soon enough.
I’m curious, hayekplosives – what’s your take on the Guy Ritchie adaptation?
Apologies if I’ve asked before.
Not that anybody asked me, but my take is “fun movies, nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes, really”.
No apologies needed at all!
I like the Ritchie adaptation for going back to the books to make Watson smart and strong (not a doddering fool as portrayed for a century).
Also, he used the “fact” from Conan Doyle’s stories that Holmes himself was a good boxer.
Anyhoo, as a fan of Watson, from whose point of view the stories are written, yes I like the new Ritchie stuff.
But no one will ever BE Sherlock Holmes the way Jeremy Brett did in the eighties.
“as a fan of Watson, from whose point of view the stories are written…”
Proper and only way to read/view the stories.
Still interesting…I made the mistake of looking up the Dylan lyrics on which the story is based, but I’ve realized that they’re Dylan lyrics so the spoilers are minimized by their confusingness.
Anyway, checking a cave in a mysterious mounting…that never has any downside that I’m aware of. 😉
Mountain, not mounting, gracious, let’s keep this G-rated.
STEVE SMITH CHECK YOUR CAVE! MOUNT YOU WITH MYSTERY!
Oh, come on!
We could all use a little mounting now and then.
Hopefully your husband will be up for that soon.
Love this series! Thanks again Animal.