What Really Happened
by Mike Golden 

Cold wind on the high plain. You can smell it a hundred miles away. Whether it's rain or snow or death waiting over the next hill. We've been riding hard ten days now, Quirk and me, but not a soul out here. The silence coming down from the ridge is deafening, almost like an avalanche we got buried under up on the Iditarod Trail three years back, looking for fool's gold. 

Quirk's mad, totally mad out of his mind waiting for something to happen, but he 
doesn't care what. "Fuck The Boss" is his motto. "Let the bastard have what he deserves!" I don't think I've ever met a totally honorable man, and Quirk is no 
exception, though Lord knows he has his qualities. Motherfucker can ride for one thing, rip the fangs out of a wolverine with his bare hands and thread the eye of a needledick at 50 yards, yet there is this thing inside Quirk, this desire to bring the house down without taking responsibility for anybody else inside it. Though I have no excuse other than the desire to see what's over the next hill, I never should have let the silver tongued devil talk me into riding for Custer. 

A week earlier, sitting across the poker table from Aces and Eights I should have 
known vanity, vanity, all is Custer. For him there is no defeat. He cannot accept defeat. No such thing as an inside straight flush telling the fop to fuck off. 

He has to stand, lecture, strut like a peacock across the room, his long silk dressing gown flowing behind his golden tresses like a trail of ferry dust. "The Boss is beautiful," Custer sings, "because he is good, and noble and true to the truth. You cannot hold back progress, these savages have to get serious! We are coming with our Iron Horse, we are coming with our utensils and our God, and we will not be denied." 

"You're shy two thousand, you slut," Quirk says. "Put up or shut up." 

"Custer's credit is good!" he squeals. 

"Georgie-boy, have you ever been butt-fucked by a buffalo?" Quirk eyes him coldly. "You owe The Fat Man 2000 big ones, sweetheart. Don't tell me what you're going to do for me when you become President, tell me how you're going to balance his books before I turn White Buffalo loose on your ass." 

"You wouldn't dare!" Custer rises up indignantly. 

"Wouldn't I? Chink!" he yells. "Send down White Buffalo!" 

Custer shrieks like a schoolgirl as the amazon enters the room. She must be three 
hundred pounds, God knows how tall she is, with a face like the inside of a barber shop. 

"Stay away from me!" Custer squeals again, this time as he runs around behind the poker table. 

With speed unbelying her size, she shoots one huge paw out and grabs his long flowing blond hair, then yanks him across the table like a rag doll into her arms. Pulling up his dressing gown, she throws him over her lap and starts spanking him. 

Like a baby, Custer crying like a baby, getting what he needs. Five, 10, who knows how long before the tears start falling in a puddle on the dirt floor as he begs for mercy. But no mercy for Custer, fuck him! Which is what the buffalo woman plans to do with the barrel of his own long rifle, right up the old A-ho. 

Suddenly out of nowhere Quirk's hand intrudes, stopping her before she can shove it home. "Do you want us to watch your humiliation, George?" 

"Is it extra?" Custer whines. 

"You bet it is, you slut! There are no bargains in hell!" 

Custer shakes his head, and The Fat Man motions for us to rise. "Come on, boys," he says, "We've got to go see a man about a horse. Or is that a horse about a man?" 

The squaw shoves the barrel up Custer's ass then! A scream of pleasure cuts through time. Custer starts whinnying as she pumps the gun in and out, in and 
out. Sweat pours down his face, his eyes hollow, sucking up his pain like a vampire swills blood. George Armstrong Custer, in this one moment, embracing his ultimate terror and surrendering, surrendering, surrendering in order to face his greatest fear like a man. 

"What a geek!" Quirk laughs as we saddle up. 

The Fat Man swings his weight up on Old Paint, and points the brush at Quirk. "He who casts the first stone usually gets it between the eyes, Julius." 

"I know, I know - don't tell me again, man. I got a big mouth. One day, some day, 
I'm gonna shut the fuck up and not say anything for 10 years, do nothin' but sit and watch the shit in my head fly by." 

We ride then, hard ride, two or three hours into the dust. Up ahead in the future, on 
the other side of the river, Crazy Horse waits. 

Not patiently though. 

Stalking back and forth across the chaparral like a shadow bouncing off the great 
waters, he disappears in the light, then sits down at the bargaining table and examines the guns. "Many ponies, Quirk. I give you many ponies. Too many to count." He stands up then and breaks the rifle over his knee. Stares hard at The Fat Man across the table. "Today is a good day to die." 

Unshaken, Quirk leans across the table between them. "But tomorrow is a better day. This is bigger than both of us, Horse. I trust you, babe, so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, we'll put it on your account." 

The deal is done then. Almost. Almost. 

Almost done. . . 

Horse has some reservations. "Like, what about, how'm I gonna tell, whether or not--" 

"'Cause I'll be there, Chief," Quirk pipes in. "Me and Method'll bring the sissy to you." 

Sure we will, Quirk! 'Cause a deal is a deal is a deal and a mouth is a mouth is a mouth. And up in the hills, oh Jesus, they're looking down on us. Five minutes after we report to "The Boss" the coast is clear, the biggest fuckin' audience you've ever seen charges down to see the show, but I don't believe they'll be callin' for encores. 

"Holy shit!" Quirk says. 

"They're with us, right?" 

"Holy shit!" Quirk gasps. "Make a run for it!" Then turns, rising high in the air on two wheels, and makes like a bat out of hell over the hill, back towards Custer! "Run you stupid son of a bitch!" he hollers back over his shoulder. "Run!" 

But I don't think I will. Don't think I can. Instead, take a deep breath, pull out my binoculars and look up at the hordes whooping and swooping down on me. Up on the ridge, Horse looks down at me with absolute disdain as I lift my fist high above my head in defiant salute, and repeat slowly, "Today is a bad day to die. . . but tomorrow might be worse." 


Then charge into the breach!

