Marty

My money is on Jean Levesque.

Sorry, Bobby, but God's Away on Business. And the ones who think they've been left in charge are the Killers, thieves, and lawyers.

No. It's we, the readers, who should be thanking you for bringing us on the journey!

@Topher Lydon has another Western you might like. It's called Buckshot, and it's on my reading list as well. 📚

I've added reading it to my to-do list! 😅

Those were my initial thoughts as well, @drpaladin. So I went back and reread the section in Chapter 7. Although we are told that Ephraim pointed his rifle at the centre of the Elder's chest, we are not told that he actually fired...

No. But it's X-rated. To my "genteel" sensibilities at least. 😅

Oh, @Topher Lydon can do X-rated! Have a read of The Asset and The Liability if you don't believe me. 😉

This, from the section where Acosta is saddling Flower in preparation to ride out after Ephraim...

Sandalwood. My favourite incense! The smell of it always brings me back to the 1960s, when we would burn sandalwood incense sticks to cover the scent of the spliffs we smoked in my student days. Mind you, we called them joss sticks in those days. And apparently the term "joss" is a corruption of the word "Deus" - meaning "God". I'm just a mine of useless information, ain't I? 😅

If you read more of his stories, @Jason Rimbaud, you'll find that he does something like that at the start of almost every chapter. Another tendency he has is to start a chapter by describing the smell inside the room the chapter starts in - like this opening paragraph of Chapter 5 of this story: Can't say it makes me giggle, though. It just tends to remind me I'm reading another @Topher Lydon story. 😉

Regarding my comment to the last chapter: As my stepfather used to say: "It's not often I'm right, and I'll put my hand up: I was wrong again."

Richard will tell Harriet tomorrow morning about the meeting, and she will insist on attending. And if she does, I foresee things getting very interesting.

My thoughts are that he will be alone in bed. But I also suspect Jake will still be in the apartment keeping an eye on him, at least until Nick gets home from the party. Jake will probably worry that in his drunken state, Kody is in danger of vomiting and drowning in his own vomit. He's far too nice a person to walk away until he knows Kody is safe. And the new Jake is also not going to take advantage of a drunken Kody (whereas the old Jake probably wouldn't have though twice about doing so).

You know, there really should be a crying emoticon at the end of chapters. I know there's a sad one, but the tears in my eyes as I came to the end of this one were not really tears of sadness - more like tears of happiness.... 😢

Thanks for this, @Mark Ponyboy Peters! As well as really enjoying catching up with Nate, Danny and Jake, I also learned a bit more Aussie vocabulary (smoko, humpy, and bum-fruit, for example)! 😅

Although I learnt to drive with a floor mounted gear stick, the first car I bought around the early to mid 70s was a 12 year old clapped out Vauxhall Victor. It, too, had the gear stick beside the steering wheel, with only three forward gears. One advantage of having the column mounted gear stick was that there was a bench seat in the front meaning (a) there was room for three in the front, and (b) if myself and someone else wanted to park up and "get frisky" we didn't have to move into the back. 😉 It really was a rust bucket, but in the three years I owned it I travelled all round England, Scotland and Wales in it. I've never actually owned or driven a car with automatic gears.

And back in my day, attending primary school in England in the 1950s, it was called joined-up writing. I seem to remember it being called real writing at times, as well. And it was decades before I came across the term cursive. This entry from the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that both terms (running writing and joined-up writing) have historical roots: https://www.etymonline.com/word/cursive

Well said @Enoch!

Reading @Enoch's latest poem Give Peace a Chance made me think of the following poem written by my own mother back in 1935 at the tender age of 13. Peace or War? How must the question be decided, Shall we have peace or war? In this we must be undivided, For war can only mar. The world is mad so people say, And who would have it so? Those who wish it, mad are they, And madness leads to woe. Yet peace, it is a lovely thing − To live with one another As happy as the birds that sing, And everyone a brother. Which will you vote for? Think, think before you say. Remember war can only mar Who throw their peace away. I found a cutting of it from the local newspaper of her home town in her belongings after she died. It was written as part of her English home town's (and mine) Schools' Peace Day on June 28th that year. Sadly, a little over 4 years later, Europe went to war. And now, a little over 91 years later it sadly stands on the brink again.

Wonderful! Thanks @Topher Lydon!!

John? Jonas? Jake? Jeremy? Joseph? James? Joshua? Jeffrey? Jack? Julian? Jude? Joachim? Jason? Jesus!

Great to see some new work from you @Josh Aterovis! Nice start, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this story progresses.

Such sad news! I enjoyed his writings. RIP, @Geron Kees