The End of the Ride

Arrival at the destination
came after a trip so wracking...

The stars still swam
and the night breeze still blew
but something changed for this man
his frantic trip was now through

~Mike F.

It was past sundown when the lone rider sped towards the final station on his route. The next rider was mounted and waiting eagerly. In just a few moments the leather mail bags were transferred to the next rider's saddle and he was off... like a bullet from a gun.

Having finished his ninety-mile route through Comanche territory, over the North Platte river, and across the Badlands, the rider dismounted wearily as the station master led the pony into the crude wooden stables of the lonely wilderness station.

"Howdy!" the station master nodded with a companionable grin. "How'd it go? Ya shore look tuckered out!"

"Roughest ridin' I ever did," the rider bent over to brace his hands on his knees, still breathing hard from the exertion of the eight hour ride.

"Ain't s'prised," the station master grunted. "Ya've got the roughest route in this part o' th' country. Think ya'll stand it from here on out?"

"Don't worry 'bout me," the rider laughed. "I'll make it, all right."

"Wal, git on in here. There's a hot meal an' a bed waitin' fer ya."

"Sure is quiet out here," the rider commented as he followed the older man inside. "Beautiful."

"Lonely," the station master grunted with a shrug. "Tell ya somethin', young man. Ya'll see a lot o' things out here... every infernal animal known to God... plenty o' savages... but ya'll never see ya a girl. A civilized white girl, that is. Purty lonely life out here."

The rider laughed.

"I saw a girl today," he answered in a low voice.

"Huh? Tryin' t' prove me wrong, eh? What sort o' a girl?"

"Just a plain girl."

"Plain?"

"Wal, say a pretty sort of girl. But a regular girl all the same."

"What'd she look like?" The station master was grinning in a way that was rather irritating to the rider.

"I was ridin' fast. All I saw was that she had big brown eyes. An' long brown hair."

"North Platte? That's th' only town, fur as I can figger."

"Yes. North Platte."

"I guess ya'll be seein' her often enough."

"Can't count on that." the rider was by now eagerly devouring the plate of rather soggy meat and potatoes with coarse brown bread that the station master offered him. Rather poor fare, but better than the young bachelor was used to.

"Ya live all alone, boy?"

"Yup."

"No family a'tall?"

"None."

"Wal, that's th' case with most o' our riders... Sad, that. They want orphans. Guessin' that's because o' th' danger." the older man seemed almost to be talking to himself by now. The rider was paying more attention to his meal than to the steady stream of quiet words. "Ya don't seem much like the descriptions, though. Ya ain't really skinny... slim an' fit but not skinny or wiry."

"I kin ride good."

"Guess so... but ye're older than eighteen, I'm guessin'?"

"Twenty, last month."

"Ha! They're not much filling the description, eh? But I saw ya comin' in and yer ridin' is enough to fill in if ya lack some o' the requirements. But off t' bed with ya now. Ninety miles is a purty wild ride."