It had been a hot and dusty ride from Kansas into Colorado en route to my new posting as the postal agent and sutler at Fort Hayden. I’d ridden all day with the Rocky Mountains tantalizingly near without having reached the river they told me was still more than a day’s ride out from the fort. I now saw the river ahead, cool and inviting, but I knew I wasn’t going to make Fort Hayden today. So, I rode down the side of the river for a couple of hours, thinking about one more night on the trail and about how hot, dusty, and smelly I’d gotten.

The river beckoned to me—clean and clear and shallow enough to be safe. At last I gave in, deciding to camp out for the night at a place where the land gently slanted down to a quiet section of the river well away from the central current. There was a small grove of cottonwood trees to one side and smooth rock outcroppings to another side, where I could lay my clothes out to dry.

I tied my horse to a tree in the cottonwood grove and laid out some food and water for him. I set up camp at the edge of the grove and laid my rifle up against a tree there. My saddle had gotten pretty smelly, so I scrubbed that down good and dropped it in the sun between the rocks and the grove to dry. Next I stripped off all my clothes, scrubbed them real well, and stretched them out on the rock cropping to dry. After that, it was my turn. I dove into the river and luxuriated in the cool, clean water rolling over my body. I splashed around a good bit and did some hoopin and hollarin out here in the world all by myself and eventually stood and walked up out of the water until it just reached my knees. It was time to get serious. I took up the bar of lye soap I’d used on the clothes and then soaped myself up real well. I felt so good when I got to my cock and balls that I did some extra soaping there and pulled on my rod for a few minutes, enjoying the moment of freedom after weeks in the saddle as well as surfacing fond memories of my romp in the sack with that cowboy in Abilene that night not long ago.

I heard an unfamiliar horse whinnying, and I froze solid. There, fanned out before me between the rocks and the cottonwood grove was a small band of Indians riding fine-looking horses bareback. I have no idea how long they’d been watching me, but they’d had the drop on me for some time.

There were five of them, all young bucks—any one of them with enough muscle to easily handle me. Besides that, the one who evidently was the leader, a particularly impressive looking bronzed specimen, was holding a bead on me with a rifle. The other four strapping bucks had bows and arrows at various stages of readiness.

They weren’t wearing paint, so at least they didn’t appear to be on the warpath about anything. In fact, they weren’t wearing much of anything beyond loincloths, moccasins, and thin beaded bands with leather fringe at the top of their bulging biceps and calves. The apparent leader, though, was also wearing a breastplate made of feathers and turquoise beads. My immediate assessment was that they were a hunting party that had been attracted by my foolish