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B Ain Smacked Down on the Opponent's Scarred Face

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B Ain Smacked Down on the Opponent's Scarred Face B ain smacked down on the opponent's scarred face. There train as it slithered out of Boston was a dull monotonous sound of Station. Twenty year old Sandy thud, thud, thud, as Gabriellc's Gabrielle, or "Kid" as the other fists hammered home. McKenna Rangers called her, hated the sprawled backwards and rolled rain and smiled in satisfaction down the embankment. Gabrielle knowing that once again she was was quickly after her, and dealt travelling towards the non rain her blow after blow with power­ plains of her home in Texas. As ful, stunning force. McKenna's well, it was good to be going blooded face lolled to one side back to the Rangers. The short and she crumpled unconscious spell in the city had made her into the bushes. irritable and impatient to be back Gabrielle crouched low in the on the trail. She missed the sharp bushes where McKenna's body sting of the red dust on her bare lay and she examined the scene. skin, Uic tough smell of rawhide, As suspected, a few cowgirls as well as the drawn fragrance of were unloading the mail bags, sweet, sticky flapjacks that sifted while others searched through through the cracks in the the.m. The train driver lay in a shrunken wood walls of the trussed up bundle near the end of ranch kitchen. She also longed the engine. Gabrielle took a deep to see her partner. Midge breatii and sprinted to the end of McPharland, a slightly built, the nearest car. In one swift though skilful cowgirl, who had motion she hauled herself up its an uncanny ability in wooing the stairs and began climbing up the men. Gabriellc's face crinkled small,iron ladder to its roof. into a wide smile at the memo­ Suddenly as she reached the top, ries. She rolled a cigarette and a splintering jerk of agony drove inhaled deeply as the train sliced through her body. A large boot through the sleet. drove into her jaw. Gasping with No one else sat in the carriage pain, Gabrielle spiralled into the with her. Gabrielle was a half- dust, and the outlaw grinned breed. Her lank black hair fell viciously as she levelled her gun- loosely to her sinewy shoulders, sights on Gabrielle. Bloody and and was swept from her brown, caked with the red dust, friendly face by a faded red and Gabrielle instantly raised herself white Indian scarf. Her long, into a kneeling position and beat lean legs were clad in simple the killer to a thunderous draw. denim, but her coat was beauti­ For a moment, she squinted and fully worked leather - a deep watched the woman fall from the chocolate in a colour depicting top of the carriage, as other shots scenes of her Indian ancestry. now pounded ii) from the dis­ She carried herself proudly and tance. Gabrielle jumped down arrogantly because Gabrielle and dived under the train, was a warrior like her mother before her, and her halt. Gabrielle was annoyed. Buffalo again? painfully moving along the splintered tracks grandmother. Grey Wolf... Yes, her grand­ Impossible. Not here. She strapped her gunbelt on towards the other outlaws. Her perspiring fore­ mother.... Gabrielle remembered the alert, lined her thigh and opened the carriage door. head crawled with flies, as her jaw throbbed with face of the woman who had raised her, and had Everything was quiet. An old woman was asleep the sound of every echoing gunshot. warned the young girl how easy it is for women to in the next compartment, and remainder of that The noise was deafening as a burgeoning gun bat­ cringe and be nobodies, while the warrior must carriage was empty. Gabrielle returned to her seat, always face the world with pride and courage. tle raged at the once peaceful mail car. Gabrielle Gabrielle sat upright in the train seat; love and sullen. She wanted to get home. peered out from under the train, but could see respect for the old Arapaho woman pumping Minutes dissolved and so did Sandy Gabrielle's S^'" « ^^^g^ the haze of dust and the purple through her veins. After a moment she closed her paUence. She strained to look down the length of S'','^"'!^^^ ^^^ f H """^'HS'^I^H ^^'J'''" eyes and slumped downwards. Grey Wolf was L train from her window, and she saw at'least ^^^^^^^^^^ SSldtnlaS f^^^^^^^ dead. The train screamed in pain as the biting rain whipped at the windows, but Gabrielle no longer ten horses standing idly in the gully below the bufshe mssSttie raw cSuraee of ai Indian noticed. track. She urgenUy pressed herself harder against K^ave and^could h^dleTsu^^^ aS aSv of the glass and tried to see further. A robbery? f.^f^f ^^} ^ould handle a gun as well as any of The rain stopped. The sun burned. The train Some cowgirls were unloading a boxcar - bags of SJi%^^^ n•'"''"? h ^o "H?'-P'H''H.' lurched forward, and the sudden jolt sent the young Ranger sprawling across the compartment, mail. A gunshot boomed ana Gabrielle stated, ^^^f^ before rolling out. he gun blazing deadly landing with a hard thud against the seat opposite. She stalked down the narrow carriage aisle and ^'^^ ,1""^^ tongues of purple poison slammet^ Gabrielle forgot her depression as the train slowed ^J^A tu^ ^nH Hr.nr A or,«tnoht r.f c„n hit h^r i^^o the fiercc turmoil. Women screamed and fell to a halt. Cattle or even buffalo on the tracks, she Sdv fn tSfeves ^ ^ ^^^"^ ^^ ^' '^'^ d'«' '' Gabrielle's intelligent thought. The train had to stop three times for this squareiy in me tycs, ^^^ .^.^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ j^ ^^^ impossible to disUn- reason when she travelled to Boston. Even when "Mebbe, yer best go back inside, papoose," a guish the panic-stricken from the wounded out- the solitary gunshot rang out, she sat down and deadly rain of lead. Fingering more shells into the continued reminiscing. Gabriellc's polished and drawlinadjustedg voicshe efoun warnedd hersel. f confronted with a lawColts, aGabriells they retreatede turned, somfrome alreadthe bloody thunderiny sceneg, shinning Colt lay on the seat beside her, and to hatcheGabriellt facee blinked womad desperateln wieldinyg aan double-barrelled as her visiodn crashin^^^y °g" intfrighteneo anothed rhorses cowgiri, tryin, bothg fallinto escapg inteo th aen pass the time away she decided to once again carbine. Gabrielle licked her lips. She knew her. It embarrassing heap from the impact. clean its white pearl handle piece. Tlie train soon was Jen McKenna, wanted by the Rangers for began moving. murder, rape, and now, it seemed, train robbery. "Howdy, Kid", said her friend Midge Gabrielle pulled herself to her full five foot eight. McPhariand, "Who dirtied your pretty face?" The landscape became more rugged now and lf.f!!"B^:^fl!'A^'X\!i'J^TJ:i S^ndy Gabrielle grimed a. her U^ough U,e dus. a. Gabrielle gazed out of the window mesmerized aged an ugly smile and let the gun drop. Suddenly she hauled herself off the ground. Other familiar by the aloof bitterness of the rocky, steep country­ Gabrielle twisted, grabbed the murderer by the faces now appeared on the scene. side. A huge shadow fell over the locomotive as it^ shirt, and hauled her bodily into the dirt. McKenna broke free, and rammed her fist into "Welcome back to the Rangers, Kid". passed through a gorge with steep, chalky* firesh air. A blow from Gabrielle glanced off her slopes,and once again, the train came to a sudden Kathleen Williamson, 1992 Artwork By Matt Dubrowski m4 I don't really ha>^e any ideas about ^ac/hat subject I this edjtor-ial on. There's nothing-much that has ha| past month that fires me up enough to -^x^ax lyric; most pressing concerns are purely personal, aoi 4 FUNDAMENTALIST • ••••^^J-»-r— w. ^ u, ,cy MUli >. r-eciaiiy quanry cnemseives as appropria CULTS - The luhockos ore matter. What this boils dovx^n to Is that, at the "mome out of UUoco ond ore knocking 'something dirfectly affects me and mine, I just don't J it. There are many, vx/orthy causes I could be usinJ i/our tJoor. space'to support. There are Injustices that I coulJ to light and Nx/ars I could be decrying. I should be g. ^^^^, StLEJTERS - R little knouuledge tional, e\/ocative. persuasive and polemical. "Bosni. Is Q dangerous thing - as our corre­ say. "Bougainville!" "Conrad Black!". I could be aetackii .racists and people who insist on labelling other peopjUs spondents monoge to prove. don't care. You can't make me. Isn't there anythin. television? .j ' fo GOVERNMENTS THAT HAVE Considering the editorial pos.ition I hold, apathy is 4 FAILED US - PART 1 - Clinton's First emotional state to,,be in. Editors, after all, are resi . determining what i"*: is that the public reads or seer IDO days .should alNx^ays be interested in the events and attitud li GOVERNMENTS THAT HAVE times. But the Nx/onders of twentieth'.century livinj aged to instill in me a world->x/eariness that enable FAILED US ' PART 2 - The Goss gloss at the photographs,on this page, the letters' page ai. ,^;J loses Hs gleam cover and adopt a "seen it all'before" attitude. The upoo I/,: THE SEARCH FOR GOD I - tion "Dystopia." depict, scenes of violent death, an their attitude from the comic-book surreal^ to tl ^Qfisperatelt^ Seeking Vohoieh graphic. What ^hey don't do, at least not for Ion Clinical camera eyes have probed this territory in n< u KING MISSILE INTERVIEW - The men ujith television and film for so long th^t dispassion i removable ri chords 'more.
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