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62 For Western Violence and Brief Sensuality: A Rondeau Riding up and down Monument Valley, the Searchers are led by John Wayne a man dragging a hollow past behind his horse over the same stretch of sand. His outrage, rising up like red sandstone, towers over him, the ex-Confederate who didn’t surrender. His brother and the coveted wife slain, the homestead burnt, the girls stolen— the outlaw can’t just walk away. We hold hands, watching men inflamed deciding what is civilized and destroying what isn’t. The question is now the niece. We watch the horses going nowhere, feel their sweet exhaustion from riding up and down Monument Valley. My head on your chest, I listen to the horses’ hooves. My brain races ahead, night after night, leading the horses to water, thin streams in dust. Aren’t we the fools, and worse, two women wanting to deliver some innocent, some prairie damsel, from the savage heart? And neither of us captives. Your body and mine are short trips really, with beautiful terrain. Who’s to say how long we’ll last riding up and down Monument Valley? ...

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