Indian Chronicles, Book 3
For David
Published: 23 Feb 2026
Chapter 16: The Moon & Stars
True love isn’t always forever love. Lovers who love can’t always be together. Tall Willow and Running Horse have one of those forever loves that don’t end. Even with all that happens in their lives, there is an undercurrent of desire that can only be satisfied by being reunited with their one true love.
Tall Willow and Running Horse have been reunited. Being shot is rarely how true love reignites, but when Tall Willow is recovering from being shot, because Samuel was shot too, a journey home becomes necessary, even when Tall Willow has agreed to go to Denver for his next survey. On the way to Denver, but still weeks away, he stops at the family farm where he was raised to have his father treat Samuel with one of Medicine Woman’s cures.
Speechless, Samuel is alive and responding to the Indian remedy for people inflicted with illness, even when man made, the medicine brings him almost back to where he was before he was shot trying to help the man he calls, “Pop.”
Going to the family farm to have his father treat Samuel doesn’t come without the idea that there may be a meeting with Running Horse. It’s almost a certainty in Tall Willow’s mind.
The power of love is plain to see, when Tall Willow and Running Horse come together after too long a part. Their love is immediately the single strongest part of them. They are drawn to each other as powerfully as when they first met as boys. Neither understood love, but both felt it from the early days in Medicine Woman’s lodge.
As they revisit their love, it’s depth is apparent to them as it is to John and Samuel, who didn’t cross the river with Phillip, because they felt this was something he needed to do alone, and so they watched lovers coming together after being separated for years.
Even with the river between them, the power of the reunion was going to touch Samuel in a way that brought him the rest of the way back from his brush with death.
Love can heal a broken heart, reach the unreachable, and bring Samuel back to the here and now.
Hearing the laughter and seeing Phillip overjoyed is the best medicine of all. It touches the spirit that makes anything possible. Samuel has become one with Phillip’s Indian identity, and John has mixed emotions, after finding out Indians are like any men, capable of good and even savagery when aroused, but these two Indians share something amazing to see..
Neither John nor Samuel have known love. John knows how to make money. Samuel knows the meanness of men. Neither has known love, but they do know it when they see it..
All roads led them to the cabin in the valley where the river runs, where the man they’ve ben with becomes overwhelmed and overjoyed by his love for Running Horse. That love, their laughter, was a wonderful thing to witness. They all knew what it was.
At that moment, when true lovers came together, all their hearts were purified by love.
This was a new time. It was an old love, but not one day passed that Tall Willow didn’t think of Running Horse. Never a day went by that Running Horse did not think of Tall Willow. From when they first met, they felt the connection. Neither could define it or explain it.
Who can explain love?
Certainly not lovers who love. It defies explanation. True love is true for lovers in love.
What else do lovers need to know?
As with all celebrations in the pasture next to the firepit in front of the cabin, Proud Eagle turns the venison slowly over the fire. He is an expert at preparing meat for his guests. He sends no one away hungry, which has become harder with Samuel eating solid food again.
The venison was delicious and the meal went well out by the firepit. As the evening meal came to an end, Samuel wanted to stay outside for the night, but Proud Eagle put an end to that idea, and Samuel came in to get his daily dose of medicine and to sleep in a warm bed in a cool cabin.
It would still drop to near freezing at night, and men in buffalo robes might like it, but it wasn’t recommended for a boy who had a lot of healing to do.
Proud Eagle was no fool.
He knew how much his son loved Samuel, but Running Horse represented a different kind of love, and Samuel couldn’t be allowed to stand in love’s way. There time together was short, and keeping Samuel busy elsewhere was best for the time being.
John had no interest in being in the way of two lovers who wanted to make love. John hadn’t experienced love. He was sure he knew what it was when he saw it, and besides, the bed in the cabin was a comfort, and it didn’t move. When he awoke in the morning, he’d be right where he was when he went to sleep
Anyone who didn’t admit that Tall Willow and Running Horse were making love at night were naïve or they were fibbing. When they were together, the way they looked at each other left no doubt how they felt. They weren’t going to kiss for an audience, but their hand holding told the tale. Neither of them could be caught alone, because they were always together while at the cabin in the valley where the river runs.
As the moon rose above the trees, Tall Willow and Running Horse were locked in an embrace inside the buffalo robe. Touching, being together took getting accustomed to. After a long enough separation, some can wonder if the love had been real.
There was no wondering between Tall Willow and Running Horse.
Aas they merely wanted to be together, touching, feeling the other close. There would be time for love making, this was the time for holding and being held. This was the time for gentle kisses and getting use to the idea of being able to see one another.
“You’re still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” Tall Willow said.
“Not beautiful enough for you to come home with me,” Running Horse said. “I am the cure for your weakness.”
Tall Willow wouldn’t say the words again. He knew the disappointment would pass, and he’d already spoken the words to Running Horse he didn’t think he’d be able to say.
There was no great movement, Running Horse held Tall Willow for a time and then, they’d move a bit, and Tall Willow held Running Horse. He was amazed how muscular Running Horse still was.
He’d not gained weight in the places Tall Willow gained weight, and when he got up to go relief himself, his golden skin glistened in the moonlight. He had hardly aged at all, and the love felt like it only ran deeper, strengthened by the years they’d been separated.
They were together again, and the love hadn’t changed.
As quick as he was back, the kissing started. Tall Willow missed Running Horse after he left him for five minutes. How had he lasted for going on twelve years? How would he stay away from the man he loved, once they’d been together for these days at the cabin?
Leaving Running Horse had been the hardest thing Tall Willow ever did. Doing it a second time would be almost impossible. He wanted to ride back to the village with Running Horse and never leave him again, but Dan was depending on him to do the job he said he’d do. He didn’t know why that was so important to him, but he needed to go to Denver, and Running Horse needed to return to the village where he was chief.
“The cavalry. Tell me about the cavalry,” Tall Willow said. “Did the cavalry come after me?”
“They come. We mourn Lit’l Fox and Morning star. They were lead by lieutenant. No know name. They sat and watched the ceremony. Soldiers went through all lodges. No take anything, looking for Tall Willow. No find. Tall Willow gone from village.”
“Your English has improved,” Tall Willow said.
“Beverly and Angeleno come stay. No speak Pawnee and we speak English. They learn. Running Horse learn. Medicine Woman spoke English. Want us to speak, but most warriors no want speak English. Beverly and Angeleno only speak English. I speak English to them.”
“Beverly and Angeleno?” Tall Willow asked.
“Take from Northern Cheyenne. They come on hunting grounds. We run them off. They run away but leave two white women, Beverly, Angeleno. We bring to village and make plan to take them back to white world. No go. Stay here.”
“No go. You took them to rejoin white people?”
“No go. Like village. No go home. This home now. I not make go home. They want to stay, they stay. They good women. Beverly know herbs and make medicines. Angeleno tended the gardens. It freedom they not have as white women. They no go back.”
“My Pawnee is rusty after all these years. I didn’t dare slip up and gesture with my hands or say something Pawnee. Hard to go back to being white.”
“You too white. Too skinny.”
“The cavalry?”
Running Horse stood and walked away. This was not a subject he wanted to talk about.
“Before Beverly an Angeleno come. They look for you, no find. They watch us, no kill. We knew they’d come, and they kept their distance as we went on with ceremony. If they kill, they kill, we not stop for them. They ride away. No find and ride away. We all alive. Cavalry chase Lakota, Ogalala, no chase us from village,” Running Horse said.
“Cavalry come. Not big cavalry. Maybe ten men. They make camp and watch us. This go on for year, maybe two year. Stop coming. Lakota, Ogalala give cavalry hell on plains. They send all there men to stop Lakota and Ogalala. They not so easy to catch.”
Tall Willow laughed.
“Your English is very good. You speak better English than I do.”
“They learn Pawnee. I no speak English any more,” he confessed. “Crazy language.”
Tall Willow heard what he wanted to hear, and Running Horse laid back down with him. He was agitated, but a few kisses made him forget agitation. Forget name too. He forgot all things, except his love for Tall Willow.
Their lips came together as Running Horse’s body came in contact with Tall Willow. All idea of self control, of going slowly, had lasted long enough, and they were lost into each other. The passion boiled over and they made love that would take them both far away from the cabin in the valley where the river runs.
As they touched and kissed, they soared above the river and took a trip into the night sky to dance among the stars and fly over the moon as they loved each other in a way they’d never loved before. This was where they both wanted to be. This is where they belonged.
This is what they’d dreamed of doing a thousand times. The touch of their lover was electric. The sensations were beyond any feelings either knew. This was the perfect night with the perfect lover. As high as they made each other, they wouldn’t, couldn’t, let go for fear this might be another dream.
They got up early so no time was wasted. These hours were precious, and watching the stars twinkle out one by one was how they wanted to get up every morning. They held hands, walking and talking as daylight erased the night.
They walked and talked and mostly it was Tall Willow explaining what he’d done as a fugitive on the run. He spoke of his meeting with Demon, his coming to terms with Dobbin, his only two friends for years as he rode herd on cattle, drove cattle, and finally knew a man who knew a man who needed a man to ride guard on a gold shipment going to St Louis.
Staying off well traveled trails, except when he was among a few thousand cattle, made him close to invisible. His few brushes with cavalry detachments ended with him riding away with nothing more serious than being faint of heart.
When he arrived in St Louis, his intention was to leave after he saw the transfer of gold from the wagon to the 1st National Bank of Wichita. When he went to eat before leaving town, while trying to Keep Demon from being shot, the president of the 1st National Bank of Wichita noticed him and his dog that was a wolf. It was a lucky break he did, because it was through Dan that Tall Willow’s journey eastward, returned him to the west as a surveyor.
That’s how he ended up being the head of 1st National Bank’s western division that was responsible for doing surveys of western lands the bank had bought. As settlers came to the 1st National Bank to secure their funds, they took advantage of their program that got them a place on a wagon train the bank organized to get settlers west to the land the bank sold them.,
Once he took charge of one of those wagon trains, while going west for the first time to learn how to do the surveying, the bank wanted Phillip to take charge of more of their wagon trains when he was in position to do so. When organizing wagon trains to go west, the most difficult position to fill was that of wagon master, because he had to take responsibility for twenty or thirty wagons of settlers going west.
Phillip knew the trails, and when he came east to report on his surveys, they’d usually plan for him to take a wagon train west. This was how he had met John, who was ill, and using Indian medicine, he helped him get better. After that John stayed on to help with surveying.
“You being the settlers to our land?” Running Horse wanted to know.
“I do, and when I do, no one dies. The settlers get where they’re going, and the Indians let us pass, because they know me, and allow me to pass with a proper show of respect. These people are going to come whether or not I help them. I can protect them, while other wagon masters can only try to protect immigrants wanting to move west.”
Once this was said, they walked and talked as Chief Running Horse reflected on his words. He saw the logic in what Tall Willow was doing, although, he didn’t like it. He’d never experienced the white world, and Tall Willow had. He accepted his actions as sound. What he was doing had led him back to have this meeting with the man he loved.
“You have seen a world Running Horse will never see. I accept it was not a plan. It was because you went east to live in white world. These were the things you could do.”
“When Dan, president of 1st National in St Louis, took me to New York, he dressed me like a cowboy. Hat, six shooter, the whole deal. He wanted me to appear like a cowboy to his partners. You don’t know how hard it was not to laugh out loud in front of them. If they only knew, their cowboy was an Indian.”
“You’ve been white, Indian, cowboy. Time for you to come home to be Indian again.”
“I’ve always been Pawnee. The best thing I ever did, love you, Running Horse. I’ll be home sooner than you think, but I need to finish the work I said I would do.”
Being a man of his word was difficult, no matter what name he went by. He told Dan he’d do the Denver job, and once he was well enough, once Samuel was well enough, they would go to Denver, do that job, and then he’d return to the village he left all those years ago. It would be impossible to stay away after that, now that they had reunited.
Holding hands kept them in touch with each other. They needed to stay in touch. Their time was short, and they both intended to go back to their lives, but this time Tall Willow could see the end of the separation. Running Horse was trying to see the time Tall Willow would once again live in his lodge, but he could not make this vision become clear, which told him there was more waiting ahead.
Running Horse knew Tall Willow had lived many lives in the time he had been away. He knew he was a man of his word. He gave his word to a man, and he would keep it. He gave Running Horse his word that he was coming home after he did the job he signed up to do, and He would not sign up to do any more jobs. Tall Willow was coming back to his village.
“While I was in St Louis, I got myself a store bought haircut. They have shops with fancy chairs and big mirrors. My hair was too long for the image I needed to show. As the man finished cutting my hair, he turned the chair to look into the mirror that was four foot high and three feet wide. I didn’t know myself. I looked in the mirror and a stranger looked back at me. I knew then it was time to consider going back home. Back to the Pawnee village.”
“See, you know it time to come home to village.”
“The job in Denver shouldn’t take a year. I’m picking up where another surveyor left off. Once I’m done, that will be where my life in the white world will end. There is a risk someone could recognize me, but I’ve seen the wanted poster with Tall Willow on it. It looks nothing like I look now. My hair is darker, I’ve gained weight, and only someone who knew me close up would be able to see Tall Willow in Phillip Dubois.”
The sun was up by the time they rolled in the field on the north side of the river. They held hands while walking and talking. When the talking stopped, they stopped, looked into each other’s eyes, and the hand holding wouldn’t do.
They rolled and kissed, and they kissed some more. This was a heavenly gift, even when neither of them thought they’d see heaven or anything that was as good as touching each other. One touch led to another, and the kisses showered over both of them.
When all motion stopped, they lay cheek to cheek, holding on to each other. Words couldn’t convey their feelings. Being in that field, being together, was all they ever wanted to be. They wanted to be together forever and a day, and one more day after that.
While John and Samuel sat on the front porch watching the lovers, they could not know what they were feeling, but they knew what they were feeling was good for both of them. No one couldn’t see that their love was true, and after so many years, they lived to love again.
That’s not to say that Tall Willow didn’t nearly die, but he hadn’t died, and if there was ever a reason to live, this was it. They would stay alive for each other. There was too much to live for, and dying was out of the question, and so they lived to make promises to see the separation end forever.
Living for love was as good a reason as any, but there was one thing nearly as powerful as the love Tall Willow and Running Horse shared. That was laughter, and from all over the farm, laughter could be heard. I suppose laughter might stand for happiness or delight, and there was plenty of happiness and delight felt over those three days Running Horse stayed.
Running Horse didn’t merely walk with Tall Willow, he walked with his uncle, Proud Eagle, and true to his name, his uncle expressed how happy he was for his son and his nephew, because they’d found each other, and regardless of what else happened to them, their love stayed true, and Proud Eagle knew from his talks with his son, there was but one love in his life, and that love was for Running Horse.
Family, friends, and everyone at the cabin in the valley where the river runs was glad to see how devoted these two Pawnee were. It was hard to find someone at the cabin who wasn’t happy to see the two walking and talking together.
They tended to keep their kissing private, except for when they first collided after all the years of separation. They did not care who saw their love on display, while they got accustomed to the sight of the other, the feel of him, and the thrill tat came with the meeting of bodies and minds.
John and Samuel were there for each other, while Phillip was there for Running Horse. It was Phillip who brought Samuel to his father for a cure, and it was Phillip who sat next to Samuel’s side over the winter and into the spring. While Samuel was well on his way to a full recovery, he didn’t mind seeing his pop find happiness in the arms of Running Horse. Happiness, and being loved were strangers to Samuel, but He knew it when he saw it, and when he saw Phillip and Running Horse, he felt good to be lucky enough to see such deep feelings they had for each other.
Each day was warmer than the day before, although the nights were still cold, and the buffalo robe they’d slept in for years was plenty warm for lovers in love. They were able to have the evening meal and enjoy the people they were closest to, while being together, and once they began to yawn, their company left their bedroom under the stars, and they slipped into the buffalo robes to be sure they hadn’t forgotten how to love each other.
Love had a long memory, and while Tall Willow was not fully recovered, the presence of Running Horse was the best medicine ever, although Proud Eagle made sure Tall Willow drank the medicine each day. Drinking his medicine was no problem at all, when Running Horse’s arms were waiting for him. If Tall Willow felt any better, he’d be dizzied by the delight.
Being lost in Running Horse’s arms, in Running Horse, sped his recovery by leaps and bounds. There was no place it was better to be, and when the arms rode away from the farm, both Tall Willow and Running Horse would be counting the days until Tall Willow returned.
On their final night together, before Running Horse needed to return to the village he guided, it was a moonless night. After the loving was done, they lay with their arms wrapped around each other, enjoying how their bodies touched.
The sky was full of stars, There were a million stars right over head, and a million more cascaded behind the first million, and the night sky was full.
“Look,” Running Horse said, as a shooting star passed overhead.
He raised his hand to allow his finger to track the moving star across the night sky.
“Another one,” Tall Willow said with amazement in his voice.
Another, and another star shot across the sky overhead. A meteor shower ensued as the lovers held each other to watch the display.
Neither of them doubted that this shower was proof of their everlasting love. They kissed on it as stars shot overhead. This seemed to demand that they sealed their love with a kiss, and another, and one more for good luck.
There was coffee and buttered biscuits as they got up to face a day they hoped would never come. It was time to say goodbye again, but neither Tall Willow or Running Horse spoke the words. They sat together enjoying biscuits with butter and biscuits with jam. Both boys loved that kind of simple breakfast. His mother’s biscuits hadn’t changed from when he was a boy.
The biscuits were heavenly and the coffee was strong, as they held hands and kept their eyes on each other. Neither of them planned this meeting. It had been in the making for twelve years. Their love had waited as the years kept them far a part, but they’d come back together, which reassured them that their love was right there between them. It hadn’t gone anywhere, though Tall Willow had roamed far and wide..
They held hands, walked and talked, but Running Horse needed to leave time to get to his village before dark, and it was many hours away.
John and Samuel walked to the river with them, as Running Horse prepared to leave. They walked across the river alone, with only Horse tagging along, and they held each other for a long time. They kissed and let go, and Running Horse went to Horse and got on him, immediately using his knees to tell Horse it was time to go.
Horse walked away, leaving Tall Willow standing to watch his lovers departure.
“This time next year, I will return to my village and my love,” Tall Willow told him.
“You not come. I come after you,” Running Horse said.
Now, Running Horse moved slowly away, out of reach once again. Tall Willow didn’t want to part, but in his heart he knew he must honor his word to Dan, because he had treated him with respect, and Dan always did what he said he’d do. Phillp Dubois could do no less.
Tall Willow was going to stand fast, until he could no longer see Running Horse.
Running Horse did not look back. He sat tall and straight as Horse walked along the river.
In a sudden motion, Horse turned, bringing Running Horse back in a gallop.
Jumping off him before he stopped, he grabbed Tall Willow.
John and Samuel came to the river so Tall Willow wouldn’t need to walk back to the cabin alone, and they saw this scene as they waited.
Running Horse held on to Tall Willow for a long time. He couldn’t let go.
He finally let go. He had to let go. They had to say goodbye, no matter how difficult it was.
“One year,” Running Horse said.
“One year,” Tall Willow said.
“Running Horse love Tall Willow.”
“Tall Willow love Running Horse.”
Tall Willow stood and he did not move from that spot, until Running Horse had disappeared. Once he had, he finally went back across the river.
John and Samuel waited for him on the bank of the river. Once he crossed, they walked him back to the cabin in the valley where the river runs.
The end of Going Home.
Don’t miss book 4 of the Indian Chronicles.
We’re Still Here
A Rick Beck Story
Author’s Notes: Robert Redford, not a star, a super nova, and always a gentleman.
Memories From A Queer Mind
We, queer people, live in dangerous times.
We’ve been on troubled waters before. To people of a certain age, the increased hatred and efforts to erase us from the landscape is nothing new. There’s a generation that has grown up not knowing the shame and humiliation we endured.
There’s always a segment of queer people living in fear of discovery.
There are always queer youth who refuse to live in a world that hates them.
In the 1980s and 90s, we were queers and fags. We did a lot of dying. When tens of thousands of men die, without the powers that be raising a finger to help in any way, that’s called genocide.
Our government proudly ignored dying queers. They wanted us all dead.
HIV-/AIDS was an equalizer. People began to realize queers were their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and friends.
Most people didn’t know they knew one.
Sign of the Times
Today, October 7, 1998, dateline Laramie, Wyoming,
This morning a bicyclist was riding in rural Wyoming, outside of Laramie.
“At first I At thought it was a scarecrow. I saw the blood and rushed to see if I could help him.”
Matthew Shepard, 21-year-old college student at Wyoming University had been savagely beaten and left tied to a fence to die.
This report went around the country and around the world by Thursday that week. The story had everything. It involved a man who had his whole life ahead of him. It was a terribly violent attack done by two boys Matthew’s age. It offered the fear evoked by man’s inhumanity to man.
By Thursday, the entire world was watching while praying for Matthew, who was in a Fort Collins, Colorado trauma center.
All we were told was, “Matthew Shepard continues the fight for his life.”
It wasn’t known right away that Matthew was a gay man. It was well known by weeks end. Matthew was still alive on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, according to the nightly news.
On Sunday, he was still alive. People everywhere checked to see how he was today.
On Monday, October 12, 1998, beautiful young Matthew died.
Matthew Shepard, forever 21
It wasn’t a case that baffled the police. People saw Matthew get into a car with Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, well known Laramie boys. They drove off on a nightmare ride that ended with Matthew tied to that fence.
McKinney was found guilty of Matthew’s murder. Henderson testified against McKinney to avoid the death penalty, and McKinney’s trial was a death penalty case.
When it came time for sentencing, Matthew’s father spoke.
‘Don’t give this boy the death penalty. Matthew wouldn’t want the death penalty.’
Grace in the worst of times.
Matthew’s funeral was big and dignified, although the unfortunate members of the Westboro Baptist Church carried signs, ‘God Hates Fags.”
The lowest of the human species making judgement on decent people?
Matthew had his angels that day. As his funeral Procession passed the Westboro Klan, a bevy of friends held high angel’s wings they made for the occasion. They were expecting the display from the Phelps. The Shepards didn’t see the signs behind those angel’s wings.
AIDS
By the time of Matthew’s murder, people knew members of their family or friends who were queer. It was hard to hide the dying. AIDS was taking a large toll on gay men in the 1980s and 1990s. It became impossible to ignore the dead and dying tumbling out of their closets. It could have been a reason why Matthews murder caught the attention of the world. It was the first murder of a gay man so extensively covered in my lifetime.
Attitudes had begun to soften. All people no longer wanted all the queers to die.
My best friend in the 1960s and often my roommate, Donnie Ashworth, died of AIDS. You won’t find his name on the list of HIV- deaths, because he died of a brain tumor, February 2, 1992. He went home to die in his mother’s living room. She bought a hospital bed.
Donnie was the most dynamic and outgoing man I knew. He took careful care of his body, always looking like he just came from the gym. No one didn’t like Donnie. In 1991 he told friends in Atlanta, “I think I got this thing.”
Donnie went home to die. His robust 160 pound body melted to 88lbs when he died. He’d wasted away as gay men often did, but he didn’t die of AIDS. His people instructed the family doctor; ‘Don’t put that awful thing on his death certificate. He died of a brain tumor.’’
A lot of doctors didn’t put AIDS as the cause of death. There were a lot of brain tumors, and pneumonia carried away a lot of gay men. So when you read the statistics about how many gay men died of AIDS. Bump it by thousands and thousands who didn’t die of AIDS.
They forced Donnie back in his closet after 30 years. They saved themselves a lot of embarrassment by doing it. I don’t know how embarrassed Donnie was about dying.
AZT was available in 1992, but it was for AIDS, and Donnie didn’t have AIDS, and so he didn’t get AZT, and he died. If he hadn’t died, he’d have been hell on wheels as a senior.
Donnie Ashworth, forever 49
Civil Rights
A slowly changing attitude about queers made LGBTQ+ people a more acceptable way to go. The Q word was out, unless you were queer, and coming out might not be wise if you lived where preachers and politicians liked encouraging hatred of queers and fags
Jesus would be so proud they named their religion after him while ignoring everything he said and did. Jesus would have been the first to embrace queer people. Jesus would have walked with us, and we probably walk with him.
Actually, getting rights in a place where some people have them, but the people who have them don’t want anyone different getting them, is strange indeed. We are all different.
The Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, John Lewis said, “This is a bill of hatred.”
People were beginning to realize that civil rights weren’t merely a black issue. Anyone discriminated against by the powers that be were in the fight.
By the late 1990s, after a break that went on since the 60s, civil rights became an issue again. You wouldn’t have noticed in California when Prop 8 denied gay people the right to marry on a ballot measure voted on by the citizens of the state in 2008.
California, beacon of liberalism, embarrassed itself that day.
Massachusetts law against same sex marriage, ruled unconstitutional on May 17, 2004.
The first domino had fallen, but it would be until 2015 before the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was the law of the land.
Shortly, equal marriage is going to be sent back to the states. Cases are already being prepared to challenge gay marriage. This Supreme Court will not overturn Obergefell, they let the states decide if they want to keep equal marriage legal or not.
If you are married to a same sex partner, you need to protect yourselves in the event of illness or death, because the usual states are going to override your rights. Your partner’s family will be given the say on his treatment or what to do with your partners body. You might not even be allowed in your spouses hospital room if his people have a backward attitude concerning LGBTQ+ relatives.
One the supremes send this back to the states, attorneys are going to be available to answer questions and help you protect yourself. HRC will probably head this information network so that gay married people aren’t divorced from their rights, if they don’t, force them to respond to the need of gay married folks. It is part of their job.
If you have children with your spouse, they will be coming for you. The usual suspects will take your children away from you. Remember, cruelty is the point. If you are gay married with children, move out of hostile states. Think about staying in place and having your life destroyed as well as your children’s lives. Think about it before it’s too late.
This too shall pass, but until it does this dystopian nightmare is going to destroy lives. Don’t let it destroy yours. When sanity returns, things may reset, or they may not. It took fifty years for us to go from criminals to equality in marriage. It might not be on the top of any politicians list to make equality the issue they tackle first after much of what made America America has been destroyed.
If you aren’t a fighter, find the fighters and assist them. If we don’t stand together now, if might be generations before we dare to stand up again. They want to make homosexuality a crime again. Remember, cruelty is the point. Don’t underestimate the enemy.
Today they came for the immigrant, tomorrow, they may be coming for you.
Queers and faggots have come a long way. We can proudly stand and say we are queer. That once wasn’t a good idea. If we don’t stand together, it may be generations before we dare to be identified as LGBTQ+.
These are the same people who danced on the graves of dead gay men. These are the people who let a bloodborne disease run rampant in America, because it was killing the right people. If you think they aren’t capable of even greater violence against us, you aren’t living in the world I’m living in.
In the past 30 years, I’ve spent my time writing stories that talk of the gay condition as I’ve known it. Rick Beck Stories in a browser will get you a list of sites where my work is posted.
I started writing gay literature because when I went in search of gay love stories on the Internet in the 1990s, I found none. I began posting gay love stories that told the story of gay men I’d known and the places where we could be found. Everywhere!
I’ve been joined by thousands of gay authors. They write truly wonderful tales. Some of these writers have the kind of talent that could earn them the big bucks, but they still take time out to post tales that might offer hope and encouragement to their people.
Don’t allow the history that has been compiled at gay literary sites that document who we are as a people disappear. They may well come for gay literary sites and the people who have defined us and offer positive images of who we are as a people.
Preserve gay literature!. This is your mission, should you accept it. Don’t allow gay literature to disappear into the darkness that threatens all decent people.
Tarheel Writer – My Home
Tarheelwriter.com
Jevic presents wonderful stories young gay people can identify with. Gay adults, friends of gays, or gay curious can find stories that give an honest look at the gay condition. I love Tarheel Writer because of how jevic presents my work. He understands what I’m doing, because he’s doing it too. Thank you Jevic for taking good care of my words.
Castle Roland – Heralds gay literature for all seasons. Al knows what he likes, and he likes stories that give the gay condition depth and a texture that comes from real life. Thanks Al for hosting my work and the work of so many wonderful authors.
IOMfAtS – It’s Only Me from Across the Sea is one of the oldest gay literary sites on the Internet. Timmy was reading my earliest gay love stories. He’s conservative and definitely has his finger on the pulse of what it means to be gay. You’ll smile when you visit his site.
Awesome Dude is where I began posting my first mainstream gay love stories. Mike, was a tough taskmaster. He didn’t take something because I sent it to him. He often fussed about content, before posting what I wrote. I was told by my friend, Jack Beach, “Awesome Dude is where you need to post your stories.” I took his advice. Mike, The Dude, only posted the best author’s tales. His readers expected quality stories. The Dude delivered.
The Dude died in September of 2023. His site still stands with all those tales he selected to present to his readers. He is missed, as cantankerous as he could be, Mike was the real deal. His insistence on perfection advance the quality of the gay literature being written.
Tickie Stories – You need to visit here before the site goes dark. The month before The Dude died, Chuck, a dependable webmaster who posted stories every week for years, stopped posting stories. No one knows what happened to Chuck. He is missed, but as time passes, the old guard, the writers, the webmasters, are aging out. Chuck’s site is worth the time.
Gay Demon – European, as is IOMfAtS – I was fascinated by this website. I posted complete novels when most writers posted a chapter at a time. Of course, as a prolific writer, I have tons of gay novels and stories in my files. I only got part of my library of work posted when Gay Demon became a porn site, no literature. Each time I tried to log on to post, I got porn. Sad but true. Nothing is forever, but if you can find Gay Demon’s literature, it’s varied and worth the time it takes to look it over.
The Story Lovers site is a site I couldn’t resist. Like with other sites, I can’t post there because I’m visually impaired and Story Lovers doesn’t make it easy to post there. I’ve almost completed the three books in my Indian Chronicles, and I’ll once again try to get the to Story Lovers. Who can’t love Story Lovers name?
Gay Authors – Another place impossible to post if you’re blind and of a certain age. I was in Contact with the powers that be there. They said they’d get back to me. That was five years ago. I’m not holding my breath. I have gotten mixed reviews on Gay Authors.
This is my story. I’m sticking to it.
I’ve been writing for you for closing in on 30 years. My longest lasting editor, Jerry, once told me, while we were working on my Gulf Series, ‘If you wrote straight stories, you’d be a well known author.’
I don’t write stories for straight people. I write gay love stories, and if anyone knows I’m here, they’re keeping it a secret, but I keep writing.
When I started this, when I went in search of gay literature and found none, I decided to put something in the emptiness. I didn’t know if I could write. I wrote stories for my people to offer hope and encouragement. I’m still writing to you.
I ask for one thing when I started this, “Please, don’t let me end up living under a bridge.”
So far, so good.
Peace & Love,
Rick BeckThe only payment our authors receive for their efforts are your emails. Rick deserves to hear from you if you are reading his stories. QuillWritersRealm at Yahoo dot Com.
If you are using webmail please include, on the subject line, [CR] [name of story]. This let’s the author know 2 things: Where you read the story and which story you are writing about.
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