February of 1963

"President Kennedy is OK, but that Lyndon Johnson is awful. I don't trust him at all."

Irene and two of her friends sat in a diner in Blackwater and ate as they discussed world and local events.

"I wonder if women voted for him because he's so handsome?," Lisa asked.

"Lisa, he's not handsome," Irene replied. "Jack is handsome."

Irene, now at sixty-seven years old, looked only fifty. She was doing great at keeping herself so youthful appearing, as was Jack. Except for a little snow on the roof for them both and the fact that people knew who they were, you would never guess their true ages. Jack was now at the age of sixty-nine.

The 1960's entertainment industry was glorifying the Wild West, but it was not the west that Jack and Irene knew. The movies and television depicted "Cowboys-and-Indians" stereotypes. Jack and Irene knew the truth; that this was not at all a common occurrence. Cowboys had only one job: to move and watch the cattle. They didn't have time to be fighting anyone but cattle rustlers. Some rustlers may have been Indians, but that was rare.

The United States government sent the Army to move Indians onto reservations and put the Indian children into boarding schools was what really happened. The government forced the Indians to be Catholic and ripped their religion away from them. They tried to make the Indians white. The government were the ones who almost annihilated the Native Americans, not cowboys.

Jack and Irene both recalled a Yahi Indian man, named Ishi, who had been found near Oroville, California, when he tried to steal food. He was the final one of the Yahi Indians and one of extremely few "wild" Indians left in the United States. He later lived in a museum. He died in 1916, not long after Jack and Irene had married. They remembered reading about him in the newspaper. They felt sorry for him and almost understood his plight with the government. Like Ishi, the government had taken their families from them. They felt for him once they read about him then.

Irene and Jack were still not feeling their ages yet. They still felt young, vibrant, and energetic. They now had two grandchildren, Angela's six-year-old daughter and two-year-old son.

Jack now considered himself retired. He no longer gave speeches at schools and colleges, but Irene did.

The 1960's were crazy. Jack and Irene wished it would hurry through. They missed their days; horses, public hangings, dirt roads, and many other things that they thought about often.

Jack stood on the hill behind the barn, not far from the fenced-in graves of his beloved parents. He stared over the fence and lost himself in thought. Approaching the age of seventy made him think. When he was a child, seventy was an age that seemed unreachable. Now, it seemed to be coming too fast.

"When did I lose track of time?," Jack asked himself aloud. He sighed and looked at the cloudy sky. Jack's gray-streaked brown hair was now long and often ponytailed. He still had the same goatee he had kept since he was twenty.

"When did we all do that?," Irene asked as she approached him. Her long gray-streaked brown hair was braided in a single braid down her back. "Time marches on, baby. We can't fight it."

"The last thing Dutch told my father was that we can't fight change," Jack said. "Guess he was right."

"Even a cold-hearted criminal can be right about some things," Irene said, remembering what she had been told about Dutch. Irene leaned on her husband and hugged him. He put his arms around her and rested his face on her head.

The couple's dog, Lexi, was closeby and wagging her tail.

"We grow up, we get married, we raise children, they move out, we spoil grandchildren, and we sit around until we die," Jack said. "Is this some kind of test?"

"Jack, we're all here for a reason," Irene said. "You and I have brought in dangerous fugitives, educated people, and raised good kids into good adults. We've done very well."

Jack sighed. "You're right," he agreed. "We should be proud."

"Yes, indeed," Irene agreed. "I have enjoyed every moment I have been with you. I love you."

"You brought me back to life, Irene," Jack said. "I can never thank you enough for that. The day I fell in love with you was the best day I ever could have had." He kissed her head. "And you married me," he said with a smile. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I was going to have a good life with the good man that I love," Irene said. "And it's been just that. Yes, we've had some difficult times. But we came through them all."

"I just hope no more of those times are coming," Jack said. "I need the rest."

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