Cowboy Time-Loop, Part I

Linton Bosick rode, on the look-out for strays, in the year eighteen hundred ninety-eight, he had a job in fair Santa Monica working the ranch of Big Eldon McCray. He made his way above a dry ravine that rambled straight ahead to the sea, when down below he saw a blinding light, “Now what in the blazes could that be?” Slowly he and his horse picked on down, until they stood mere feet from the site, he shielded his eyes as they drew near, like the sun, it was blindingly bright. Then he found himself on the others side, his horse had somehow ridden right through, but what met his eyes when he got there was not the dry valley that he knew. A house rose high, a hundred yards ahead, bigger than any that he’d ever seen, behind it rose a hundred-odd more, all the way to the Pacific’s bright gleam. He pushed ahead slowly, coming upon a road made of some smooth black stone, and what looked like those new automobiles up and down the road quite quickly did go. Riding cautiously down that strange street he came upon a group of young women, dressed in small undergarments with pockets, all displaying less clothing than skin. He thought it bizarre they’d be so brazen, His own wife had once worked that trade, and she never went out looking like that, no town would tolerate such open shame! Then he spotted a boy who needed a belt, ’cause his pants were half-way to his knees, with bleary eyes the boy did look at him, laughed,”Hey cowboy, it’s two thousand eighteen!” The words struck Linton with sledge-hammer force, could there truth in what the hoodlum declared? Was this why this village ran across a ravine that he knew had been bare? He pressed on further, passing more young girls, playing music with words quite profane, a half-dozen autos passed him on the road, their drivers honking horns at him in rage. Linton finally rode on up to a home that stood out as a familiar thing, ’twas Boss McCray’s house, but it had grown, and where were all the out-buildings? Pausing to look, he gazed to the porch, where a young women her coffee did stir, Linton couldn’t say, but somehow he thought that this woman looked vaguely familiar? He saw that she dressed much differently, in boots that ran all the way to her knees, she wore what looked like men’s denim, and a blouse that preserved her modesty... CONTINUES IN PART II.