****** Hero by sbeaty@zianet.com ******
===============================================================================

Hero


I couldn't believe it. A kid driving a real nice little Accord that he had put
into a killer stereo and hundreds of dollars worth of trim and chrome and shit
hits me while drunk and running a red light. My Harley was totaled, and I wound
up in the hospital for 10 days. I had a concussion, dislocated shoulder, and
broken cheekbone, collarbone, and several ribs.

Not to mention the warrant the cops found on me for too many tickets.

To make a long story short, I got 30 days, the state got the wreck of my bike,
and nothing happened to the kid. His parents didn't have to pay for a damn
thing. He got a warning for running a red light, but I was left with nothing.

I lost my job, bike, current girl friend, and 30 days because of that kid.

The cops were nice enough to give me a ride from the hospital to the Sierra
County Jail, but I had to walk out of the jail with no home, no bike, no cash,
and no idea what to do next.

I walked around all day to try to find a job, but I was so busted up, nobody
would hire me. So I walked to I-25 thinking maybe I could get a ride anywhere.

When I was still a couple of miles from the interstate, an old friend was
stopping to gas up his hog. We slapped hands and hugged like we hadn't seen
each other in several years, which we hadn't. Then he gave me the bad news.

Two weeks earlier, my best friend in the whole world had died when he took a
nasty spill on a rainy night in Texas.

Pack Rat had been my best friend since fourth grade; we learned about cars,
bikes and girls together; got our first jobs together; buried our parents
together; and I was the best man at his wedding.

Now, I love Kate, don't get me wrong, but when Rat had to choose between
partying with me, or providing for his family, he made the right choice and
stayed with Kate. He also started his own bike shop in the panhandle of Texas.
Rat had always been a great wrench (unlike me, I just wanted to do enough to
get on the road), so his business took off.

Kate's parents were from that area, and when they died (a lot of people dying,
huh?), Kate took over the ranch.

Kate has always been a strong gal, but there was no way she could keep
everything going by herself. The biker, Midas (his daddy was loaded and Midas
never wanted for money) said Kate was gonna work herself into an early grave.

"I'd go help her if I could get there, but I'm busted flat, just got outa jail,
and still trying to heal." I told him.

"No prob, bro. I just saw a bike for sale up by the interstate. Ain't much, but
if yer goin' to help Kate, I'll spring." Midas also has a big heart.

So I ride this P.O.S. (Piece of Shit) Cow-asaki most of the way to Rat and
Kate's. I'm still about 150 miles out, when the motor seizes up. As I said,
it's a P.O.S.

I manage to hitch a ride into town and went straight to Rat's shop. There's a
kid there working the counter so people can order parts and stuff, but he don't
know nothing about working on bikes. I started to tell him who I am, but he
already knows. There are like hundreds of pictures of Rat, Kate, and I
scattered around the walls of this joint. The kid, who's name is Kent, calls
Kate and tells her I'm in town.

After hanging up, he tells me that Kate is terribly busy at the ranch, but I'm
welcome to crash at the shop for the night and she'd see me the next day.

At closing time, Kent locks up and leaves me to explore the shop that Kent and
I put together nearly seven years ago. I looked at all the pictures and
remembered the times the three of us had together. Some of them had whatever
girl I was going out with at the time in the pic with us. Rat, or maybe it was
Kate, even wrote in the girl's name. Most of them I don't even remember.

That was just the way it was. Rat and Kate started going together as freshmen
in high school, and I just bounced from one unfulfilling relationship to
another. I was always jealous of their relationship, but I loved them both
enough not to try and fuck it up.

Kate was usually the one that set me up with half of them. I know she liked me
a lot, kinda like a brother, so she wanted for me the same happiness that she
and Rat had found.

After the tears had gone away, I went back into the service area. A few bikes
that Rat had been working on when he died still stood on the stands, waiting
for the owners to come and get them. In the back was a bike under a tarp. I
thought it could be Rat's, then I realized that the wreck out in the yard was
his.

I lifted the tarp and saw an antique '46 Flathead that looked like it had been
kept in a barn for the last 30 years. I figured it was a project that Rat never
did or would get around to.

Even after the day of travel and the trips down memory lane, I was too exited
to see Kate to sleep right away, so I started looking at the bikes that Rat had
been working on. Nothing I couldn't handle.

So, with the lights on and doors open, I dug in. Tune up here, oil changes, new
chain on one, and a ring job. As I started to set the timing on the ring job, I
fell asleep sitting on the stool and leaning against a '91 Fatboy.

"Scott? Is that you?" woke me up from an exhausted sleep. It was Kate come in
to pick me up. I jumped up and ran to see her. We met in the hall and I picked
her up in a bear hug while spinning her around.

"What were you doing back there? There's a sofa in the office." she said.

"I was just finishing up some of the bikes in the back and I fell asleep." I
said kind of sheepishly. We were looking into each other's eyes, so we didn't
need to say that they were bikes that Rat had been working on.

A silence lingered between us as we looked at each other. After several seconds
I burst out crying, blubbering like a baby.

"I'm so sorry, Kate. He was the closest thing to family I've had for years. And
I'm sorry for missing the funeral. I was in jail and didn't find out 'til a
coupla days ago. God, I'm sorry."

She held me like a mother comforting a little child in a thunderstorm.

After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the kid, Kent, come in. I quickly
dried my eyes and went into the bathroom to throw some water on my face. Kate
went to tell Kent that I had finished the work on some of the bikes in the
service area, so he could call the owners to come pick them up.

Finally I grabbed my bag of possessions and left with Kate to get some
breakfast.

During breakfast she told me all that had happened in the last five years since
I had seen them. No kids, her ranching was booming, and the bike shop had
become a center for biker throughout the panhandle. I had seen some of the
shop's tee shirts on passing bikers and at rallies over the years, but never
went back.

After finding out all about the accident and funeral, we just sat and looked at
each other for a while.

"Why did you leave?" she asked me.

"I had to. You've gotta understand. After that last night, we could never be
what we were before." I was staring at my hash browns. I couldn't look her in
the eye.

"I know." She said and then paused to get her thoughts together. "You and Keith
(Rat's real name) had always shared everything, and with all the alcohol in us,
it just seemed the thing to do. I'm as much to blame as either of you. I
started the strip tease. What did I expect to happen?"

"But you were married to my best friend! I should have known better to egg you
on, and when things started getting weird, I should have left. I still can't
believe some of the thing you did and that we did to you that night. Sometimes,
when I'm real drunk and alone, I still see you and Rat and all that happened
that night." I was running out of steam, but she didn't speak. After several
minutes of silence, I continued. "I had to leave. If I would have stayed, it
would have been awkward for all of us. You for knowing that you started it, me
for having done to you what I did, and Rat for knowing that he used you the
same way we used some of the girls from school. The whole situation was fucked
up. So when I woke up before ya'll, I just packed up and left."

"What do you mean what you did to me? You mean anal sex? You mean coming in my
mouth? Or do you just mean having had any sex with me at all? I loved that
night. I still dream about it today. Keith and I discussed it every so often.
He never held it against you or me for what happened that night. He loved you,
Scott. He loved you more than anybody, and I think that included me. When Keith
would get drunk, sometimes he would start asking me what HE did to run you
off." This time it was her that ran out of steam.

"I - I - I- I didn't know." I stammered. I just hung my head and started to
think about the wasted years between us.

A tear started to form in one eye when the waitress came to give us our ticket.
I shook off the tear and the guilt and looked up at Kate. She was getting the
ticket.

"Don't ever give it a second thought, Scott. It was in the past and it can stay
there. I just buried my husband, I can't afford to loose a friend, too." She
went to pay the tab and I walked out to her truck.

The rest of the day she showed me some of the ranch. Two hundred square miles
of grazing land and the 25 acres of houses, sheds, barns, and utility
buildings. It was beautiful and I could understand why Kate had been unwilling
to just sell it and live on what Rat brought in at the shop.

Her house was a five-bedroom ranch that kind of reminded me of the house in
"Giant" that Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor had. It was that ornate.

She told me that she had eight cowboys working for her at that time, and that
she was mostly a businesswoman, not a cowgirl.

"Oh, I can still ride a horse better that you can ride a motorcycle, you can
bet on that. But there is so much more to a ranch than that. I only spend a
couple of hours a day outside. The rest is spent in the office." She droned on
about the business side, but I started to wonder what I was really doing here.

Kate was 30, the same as me, 5'10"; slender with D sized breasts. But they
didn't look huge on her, her being so tall and all. She was wearing tight
Wrangler's, which I found she wore all the time. Her waist was incredibly small
so that it made her look like she actually had hips.

She had always been that way. Back in school, we used to joke that she had no
hips, I had no butt, and that Rat had sense of humor. Kate and I hadn't
changed.

Over dinner (Grilled burgers) I asked her if I could keep the shop open for
Rat. It was her turn to stare at her plate and think of a reply.

Just as I was about to leave the table (and probably town), she looked up and
smiled at me. "I can't think of anything that would do more to keep Keith alive
more than that. I want you to have the shop."

"No way. The shop is yours," I said. "I just want to work there for a while.
Maybe I can get back some of Rat that I lost over the last five years."

"Oh, yeah, and I'll need all of Rat's biker rags. He was always the mechanic. I
just made the beer runs and watched." I said with a smile. The mood had gotten
too heavy for me.

We both laughed at that and went out to the porch. We sat there way into the
night talking over old times and I caught her up on what had happened to me
over the last five years and all the girls I had dated.

"Some things never change." She said with a laugh.

"Yeah, but I'm not getting any younger" I told her. "I've gotta settle down one
of these days." Kate started to interrupt, but I cut her off "and don't you go
trying to set me up. You lost too many friends that way. Didn't you ever feel
like my pimp?"

"No" she said. "I never set you up with any of my girl friends, just some girls
that thought a rebel would be cool. Do you remember Michelle Carlson? I just
got tired of her being a fucking bitch and I was kinda mad at you for
something. So I set you two up. What did you do to her anyway?"

"You mean that short red-head? She was bad mouthin' you all night and teasing
me, so I gave her what she was lookin' to buy. The first time was her first
time and she screamed through half of it, then had her first orgasm. She "made"
me do it two more times before she told me she loved me and wanted to marry me.
What was I supposed to do? I didn't want that bitch for my WIFE. So I did what
any other coward would do: I fucked her ass 'til she couldn't walk. She never
said another word to me, either."

We laughed over that for a while, then went to bed. Separately.

The next morning I got to start working in the shop. Kate let me use one of her
trucks. Nothing major at the shop. Just routine kinda stuff. A couple of the
old timers stopped in, so they put out the word that Pack Rat's shop was still
open. I knew many of them from my days in the area, so we caught up on old
times. Some of them knew Kate from our wild days, and asked me to pass on their
sympathies.

Bikers are really great people. Most folks think they just ride around drinking
beer and causing trouble. Sure we can raise some hell, but there is a sense of
family between us. Just because Kate was always busy with the ranch and Rat
didn't party every night like the used to, doesn't mean that the bond was
broken.

Things went great for a couple of weeks. Then Kate told me about the big rodeo
a couple of towns over. She needed my help to get some of the stock there
because all of her cowboys were gonna compete in the rodeo, and she couldn't do
it by her self.

After getting all the stock loaded, transported, and unloaded, I got to hang
out in the back and watch the other side of a rodeo.

As the opening ceremonies started I got a wink and a smile from the gorgeous
blonde cowgirl carrying the American Flag. I asked one of the cowboy's what her
story was, and they said everybody thinks she's lez because she won't date any
of the cowboys and she stays away from the rodeo crowd for the most part. I
found out her name was Liz, and that she was easily the best cowgirl in the
region.

The ceremony was nice, but as they were leaving the ring, the blonde's horse
got a start from something, nobody ever found out, and took off down the chute.
When it got out into the open, it bucked the blonde off, but her boot got stuck
in a stirrup. With Liz on the ground, the horse started running to freedom,
right past where I was sitting on the coral.

As it ran by, I jumped for the saddle, but could only grab the horn. I, too,
started to drag behind it, and it stepped on my leg. I not only felt it break,
but heard it, too. But the girl was still dragging behind, so I didn't let go.
All I had was one hand on the horn, so I took my right hand and unbuckled the
saddle. The whole rig fell off, taking Liz and I with it.

She was a mess. There was no telling how many times she had been stepped on by
that damn horse.

The rest of the cowboys were on us in seconds. A couple came to help me, but
most tried to help Liz. I tried to be the macho biker and tell them I was fine,
but the moment I tried to move my right leg, I passed out from the pain.

I woke up in the ambulance. Liz must have been in another one, becasue she
wasn't in mine. I asked if she was OK, but the medic told me to be quiet and
relax.

As they were casting my leg at the hospital, I picked up bits and pieces of
what was going on with Liz. She was in surgery. She was in bad shape. She was
lucky to be alive. She'll be lucky to live.

By the time Kate came to get me, Liz was out of surgery. All we could get from
the nurses was "wait and see."

Kate told me I was a hero. All the cowboys wanted to buy me drinks for what I
did for Liz. I was dirty and all, but Kate took me to the bar for the party
anyway.

I was greeted with a hero's welcome. All the cowboys wanted to shake my hand
and all the cowgirls wanted to kiss me and shower me with affection. The table
they sat me at was quickly covered with beers and shots of anything imaginable.
Not wanting to be rude, I did my best to drink all of them throughout the
night.

One redhead in particular would not leave my side. She flirted with me the
whole night and kept handing me drinks when I couldn't reach them my self.

When I passed out, Kate took me back to the motel room we were sharing.
Separate beds. Get real.

The next day, she told me who the redhead was. That's right. Michelle Carlson.

"Did she remember me?" I asked.

"I don't think so, but she does remember me. She did her best to keep me away
from you, and put up a fight when I started to carry you out. You almost got
raped last night" Kate said with at smile.

"You can't rape the willing," was the only thing I could think of to say.

The rest of the rodeo, I sat in the stands. I did get an ovation when
introduced to the crowd. The announcer then asked for everybody to stand up,
remove their hats, and have a moment of silence for Liz. It turns out she was
gonna make it, but it would be a rough recovery.

The rodeo was great. Competition was fierce, and the stock was more than a lot
of the cowboys could handle.

Many of the cowboys pitched in at the end to help Kate load up the stock. They
were helping her both because of what I did for Liz and because many of them
knew Rat and they missed him too.

I still went to work at the shop every day, but I couldn't get around at all,
so Kent did all my fetchin' and steppin'. He learned a lot and I started to let
him do more and more in the shop.

Business was picking up again, now that word was getting out that I was doing
good work. As the weather was starting to turn, business really started to pick
up. I was fixing the little things that the bikers had let slide cuz they
wanted to ride and a lot of the guys wanted their motors rebuilt after a hard
year of riding and before spring.

That was fine with me. I needed to stay busy. Kate was busy with the ranch, but
we managed to see a lot of each other around the house. We were getting real
close again, and I was afraid that one of us would do something stupid.

So I found a release for that urge. Michelle Carlson. I called her up and less
than 15 minutes later, I had her clothes off her and her ass in the air. She
didn't want any foreplay, but I did manage to get her to start getting me ready
with a blowjob while I was fingering her pussy getting it wet. When I was
ready, I pulled out of her mouth and moved in behind her. With one strong
stroke, I bottomed out. Not much to the quality of that pussy.

I remembered how tight it was when I was the first in there, but I also
remembered how loose it was by the third time. That's how loose it was now.

I knew that there was no way I was gonna get any relief this way, so I started
to think of other options. I ran a finger over her anus as I looked at it. That
looked like one well-fuck asshole. Gone was the little pink rose bud, replaced
by a scarred up brown sphincter.

Slipping my finger into her pussy along side my cock, I got it good and wet,
then proceeded to stick it in her asshole. It was no where near as tight as it
had been thirteen years ago, but it was still tighter than that sad pussy of
hers.

Just as she was staring to cum, I slipped out of her pussy, and rammed it home
in her ass. She started to scream, begging for more. Harder. Faster.

She and I reached to point of no return at the same time. I squirted and
squirted into her well fucked ass.

As I started to soften, she turned around and took my limp cock in her mouth,
cleaning it really well.

After it was clean, she went into the kitchen, pulled out a glass from the
cupboard, and filled it with the cream from her ass. The gross brown and white
liquid looked like swirled ice cream.

Michelle then stirred it around with her finger before putting the finger in
her mouth and pulling out a "clean" finger. She smiled and made those "yummy"
sounds as she offered me the glass.

"Fuck no, you sick bitch," I said in disgust.

With that, she downed the whole glass like a martini.

I grabbed my clothes and got dressed. She walked me to the door and tried to
get me to kiss her good bye.

"Not a prayer, not a chance, bitch. By the way, you don't remember me, do you?"

When she told me no, I told her I was the one that took her cherry and first
fucked her ass.

Then she told me that every since that night, she hasn't been able to get
enough. She said that when she was in college at A&M, she took on an entire
frat house. That night she was fucked by 32 guys in every hole imaginable. She
worked her way through college by "catering" bachelor parties. Her largest was
132 guys.

She said she owed it all to me, and thanked me. What a sick, fucking whore.

My bad-ass biker persona and rumors and memories of my youth had a terrible
effect on my social life in town. Even with a broken leg, the guys stayed clear
of me, and the women ignored me. Some even crossed to the other side of the
street to avoid me.

So with a choice of Michelle or nothing, I looked for a third option. I shared
my problem with Kate. I know this sounds funny, but when we were younger, the
three of us discussed everything. Rat and I learned about feminine problems and
Kate learned about guy things. Nothing was off limits.

When I told her about my problem, she introduced me to the internet. Between
the pics and the stories, I started going blind, but my terminal case of lack-
a-nookie was under control.

Then about three months after the rodeo, Kent came back to the service area and
told me someone out front wanted to see me. I followed him up front and got the
shock of my life.

The gorgeous blonde from the rodeo was there, but was different. Her face had
several long scars though it, one starting at the corner of her mouth and
extending back towards her ear. It made her look like she was smiling. She was
very thin, probably twenty pounds lighter than the day I first saw her. And she
walked with a limp.

"Hi!" was all I could manage to say.

"I just came here to say thank you for helping me. I heard that your leg was
broken, too. I'm sorry for that."

"No problem. I'm really glad to see you up and around again." What the hell is
a guy supposed to say?

"I would very much like to buy you lunch and get to know the guy that saved my
life." It sounded like she had rehearsed that line for the last three months.
So I said yes.

We went to the café down the street. Everybody turned and stared as we walked
in. I still had a limp from my brake, but hers was much more noticeable.

Throughout the meal, the waitress and other customers stared at the scars on
her face. I stared at her too, but I was staring at the strength in her eyes. I
could see that she had been down a long hard road, but that she fought every
step of the way. Just to come and see me had to have been hard for her, but she
did it.

As lunch and the conversation wore on, we both loosened up. She got to know all
about me, and I learned a lot about her. The reason she stayed away from the
rodeo people was because her mother had once been just like her: The best
cowgirl and the prettiest woman. Then fell for a cowboy that just loved the
rodeo more than the woman carrying his baby.

Liz vowed this would never happen to her. So she stayed away from the cowboys,
turned down their romantic advances, and concentrated on her own little ranch
and being a champion roper and barrel racer.

Then she started to cry. She said all that she had every worked for was gone.
She couldn't ride anymore because of the injuries to her head and body. And she
had to sell the ranch to pay for her hospital stay and all the other bills that
had piled up. She was living in a small trailer on welfare, trying to heal up
enough to get a job, anything that would support her.

We connected that afternoon. I never did get back to the shop, but I did take
Liz home to have dinner with Kate and I. Kate insisted that she stay the night,
because it was too late for her to drive back to her town, about a hundred
miles away.

Kate turned in early and left Liz and I to talk. As it got late I helped her to
her room. I told her good night at her door, but she reached out for my head
and kissed me.

Long and soft she kissed me. It was like she had waited her whole life for
this, and now all of the pent-up feelings were being poured out in this one
kiss.

When she ran out of breath, she pulled away, took my hand, and led me into her
room. She started to kiss me again, only harder this time, as she started to
pull up my tee-shirt. Then she started to unbuckle my jeans.

I took her hands, and told her she didn't have to do this. When she started to
cry, I wanted to kick myself.

"Is it because I'm ugly? I know it is. It's because I limp and I'm skinny, and
I'm ugly," she cried.

"No. It's not that. I've slept with ugly before. This has never happened to me
before. The reason I said that is because I do like you. I respect you. I just
don't want you to do this because you feel you owe me something. You don't. All
I want from you is you friendship. Please think about this."

I don't know where this came from. It used to be a woman was just nice to me, I
wound up in bed with her and never thought twice about it. But this was
different. For once in my life I was interested in someone because of who she
was, not just as a sexual object.

"Then I think I want to make love to you for what you just said. All my life
men have wanted to give their left arm for a chance to sleep with me just for
my looks. Now I might have found a true gentleman."

With that she started another kiss and fumbling with my belt. She started to
slide my jeans down over my hips as I started to unbutton her blouse. I pulled
it over her shoulders and let it hang from her jeans by the tail. Her bra was
next, then her jeans found their way down to her thighs.

Liz then knelt down and began to take off my boots before she reached for my
cock. Like a child with a new toy, she looked it over, touching and exploring
it before taking it all into her mouth.

I started to grow in her mouth, the end of my cock moving towards the back of
her throat. The longer I grew, the harder she worked to give me the blowjob of
my life. But that wasn't what I wanted. That is what I expected of a saddle
tramp or a bar pick up.

I wanted to make love to her. Not fuck her. Not find out if she swallows. For
once it was love and not sex.

A soft pull of her head and she realized what I wanted. She began to stand up,
but I had to reach for her arms when she couldn't do it by herself. When she
was standing, I led her to the bed and helped her off with her boots and socks.
I pulled her jeans off the rest of the rest of the way. I studied her closely
head to toe. The scars a maze, crossing for one side to the other and from top
to bottom. If her insides were damaged even half as badly, there is no way she
would have lived.

But I found them fascinating. Beautiful not in the classic sense, but beautiful
to me none the less. I started to kiss my way along them, covering them lightly
with my tongue. I wanted her to know that I found them beautiful too.

I kissed my way up to her breasts. Clearly they had been much larger and firmer
in the past, but tonight wasn't about boobs, but about Liz. Tonight I wanted
Liz to experience as much pleasure as she had pain in the last three months.

Gently I kissed and licked her nipples. Taking each bud in turn between my lips
and teeth a tenderly pulling them and causing Liz to sigh softly with pleasure.

When Liz's nipples her hard and tingling, I started the voyage down her stomach
to scar-bisected hair of her womanhood. Around the bush, across her thighs, an
up to her waiting pussy.

It was already starting to flow with passion. Her scent was strong, but
pleasant, as was the taste of her lube. I lapped up all that had started to
drip, then went inside for more. Parting her lips with my tongue first then my
fingers, I probed deeper into her sex with my tongue. The further is got, the
more she moaned and squirmed. Finally I moved my attention from the depths of
the fold to her clit. As my tongue touched it, her first orgasm struck her. As
she continued to reach her climax, I began to nibble on it, driving her further
over the edge.

I continued to slow my work on her pussy as she came down from the orgasm, then
moved up beside her. The look of passion and love in her eyes was the greatest
source of happiness I'd ever know.

Again we kissed. And as we did, she reached down and began to stroke my cock
again. When I reached my full potential, she rolled over on top of me and
guided me into her. Slowly she traveled down for about five inches, then I ran
into a barrier.

"Is this your first time?" I asked. She nodded. "You don't have to do this now.
We can wait and see about building our relationship first."

"Shut up. I know you've probably had virgins before."

"Yeah, but I didn't love them. I want it to be special for you."

"It is special." With that she relaxed her legs and let her body weight sent my
cock piercing through her hymen. Liz bit her lip to reduce the scream to a
whimper.

She laid there for a couple of minutes getting used to the intrusion into her
womb before starting the slow journey up. Then down. Faster and faster she
repeated the journey. Before long, she was a blur. Her small, emaciated breasts
wiggling up and down as she rode me like she was once again the queen of the
rodeo.

This was too much for her and me, and we both let go at the same time. Her
entire body in spasms and my balls emptying themselves deep inside her.

She collapsed on top of me, laid her head on my chest and fell asleep. She had
not much time to build up her stamina since the accident. I pulled a sheet over
the both of us and fell asleep with her in my arms. I never even considered
moving to my own bed like I had done a hundred times before.

The next morning, I let Liz sleep in and had breakfast with Kate. She knew what
had happened and was happy for me. She said that Liz could stay as long as I
wanted her to.

Liz and Kate became great friends. Their common love of horses and ranching the
thread that held them together. That and their common love of me. I helped Liz
with her exercises and a year later neither of us limped any more. The scars on
her body faded quickly. Before long, the stares of the townspeople were no
more.

Liz and I married a year after we met. We bought a nice trailer near town. I
still run Rat's shop and Liz works for Kate, doing much of the business end of
the ranch, allowing Kate to be a cowgirl.

Kate gave us that '46 Flathead that was in Rat's shop as a wedding present.
I've since restored it and even put on a backseat for Liz. Since she can no
longer ride horses (one of the blows to her head affected her balance), her
riding behind me on the Harley is a special thrill that we love to share with
each other.

If you have and questions or comments, feel free to write sbeaty@zianet.com