Saturday, June 25, 1998, 2:46 A.M.

I am really scared now. I don't know what's happening to me, or who I can talk to about this, but the dream.... It came back, but it was different, and so I write. I don't... I can't....

It was the same dream. Let's say that now. But it was in a different location. This one had nothing to do with ancient Rome. Or Greece. Or wherever the heck I was. No, this one was in America.

And as usual, it started out in history class. Only this time, Mr. Horst was talking about the Old West. He was telling us about the Pony Express, and the untamed west, and the Indians.

Then, came the song again. As always, it came from nowhere, and yet everywhere, but I was the only one to hear it.

"I. Met you. Before the West was won." Then it was gone, the words echoing crazily in my head.

I met you before the West was won.

I met you before the West was won.

Then came the weird dream shift again, and I was riding the Pony Express. The town I was delivering to was just up ahead, and I rode in, safe from any Indians that might suddenly attack.

I rode up to the post office, and surrendered my mailbags over to them. I stepped out of the Post Office, and walked down the dirt street. I Came to the general store and stepped in. It was relatively cool inside the building. I breathed a sigh and took off my hat. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and shook my hand. Large drops of sweat smacked against the floor.

Whap. A towel hit my face. "Clean that up, Marcus Cramley!" the proprietor of the store told me. I turned to her with (I hoped) a lady-killer smile.

"Why Mrs. Holcutt, you're looking admirably well today, and... Oh! Have you lost weight since I was last in? You look quite ten years younger."

"Don't you try to charm your way out of this one. You clean that mess up right now!" She used a tone that brooked no delay. I immediately dropped to my knees and began mopping up the drops.

Footsteps behind me and a snicker brought my hand to a halt. I turned, and looked into the face of the ugliest guy I had ever seen. A memory that I could only have in a dream clicked, and his name popped into my mind.

Kyle Thompson. The town drunk. You could always count on him to give you a hard time. He smiled down at me, and then spit on my freshly cleaned spot of floor. Then walked across, making sure to leave a big dusty footprint right there. I really didn't like him.

I cleaned up his footprint, and his saliva, then stood. I walked across to the counter and put the towel on it. Mrs. Holcutt made it disappear with the efficiency of a well-practiced proprietress.

I came to the counter and asked Mrs. Holcutt if she had any Sauerkraut.

No, she didn't.

"Will you have any on my next trip in?"

It was possible, but she couldn't say for sure.

"Is Tara around?"

She believed she was in the doctor's office.

"Thank you very much Mrs. Holcutt." As I turned to step out of the general store, Kyle put his hand on my shoulder and spun me around.

"You best watch yourself, both now and later, you ain't seen the last of me. Ever since the war, I've been itching to get a second chance at you, and its comin' soon. Just after you and her meet. It's been promised by the Random."

I had no idea what he was talking about. None of it made any sense.

Wait a minuteÉ let me go back and check somethingÉ.

Yep, I was right. Huh. Interesting.

Anyway, I shook my arm free of Kyle, and walked out into the heat and light. I looked down the dirt road that ran through the center of town and found the doctors office. I began to walk in that direction, when Tara came up behind me, and put her hand in mine.

"Hey there, cowboy. How you doin'?" I turned and looked at her, and was immediately struck by how much she looked like Talryn. I smiled, though, since it seemed the most normal thing in the world at the time. Why shouldn't she look like Talryn?

Isn't dream logic great?

We strolled down main street, until we came to the blacksmith's shop. A couple weeks back, the last time I had come in, in fact, I had had him create a ring made out of her initials. I paid him for it when I asked him to make it.

I asked Tara to wait out here, and went inside the blacksmith's shop.

"Hello Mark," he said, then lowered his voice, are you here for the ring?"

"Yep, that would be what I came in for."

"Okay, got it right here." He reached into a drawer and pulled out a cloth wrapped velvet box. Inside was a beautifully formed golden ring, half of it in a T, and the other half in an F. It was exactly the way I imagined it, and I could imagine what would happen when I asked her to marry me.

She would look at the ring, gasp, and hug me, maybe cry a little, and then say Yes, I would love to. I wouldn't say no for the world! The thought filled me with joy.

I turned to thank the blacksmith, Oscar was his name, and jumped almost about a foot in the air. Oscar was gone, and Kyle was in his place. He smiled a gruesome smile that didn't touch his eyes, and spoke.

"You failed before, and you will fail again. We are linked, you and I. Just as you and her are linked. Just as I and her are linked. We have always been together through out time, and always will be. I, come to destroy, and you to protect; yet you always failed. You have yet to succeed, young whelp. It is not over between us, and never will be, until I destroy you. You will never see the last of me. I will always triumph." He gave a maniacal burst of laughter, and was gone. Evaporated just like vapor.

I turned and ran out. Right into Tara. I nearly bowled her over into the street, but I caught her arms, and held her steady.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean toÉ I mean, I didn'tÉ never mind. I'm sorry."

She patted my cheek. "Awwwww, it's okay my little chili bean, I forgive you." I colored in embarrassment. I hated when she called me that. She took my hand and began walking down the street again. I stopped, and turned to face her.

She looked at me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Not a thing in the world. I just have something I have to do. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the velvet box. "Tara, when I first met you, I was falling. And I knew that when I hit the end of my long fall, I was going to die. I thought that nothing could have saved me. The only thing that would have stopped me was a miracle.

"And then I met you. You stopped my fall Tara. You brought me back to the world, and saved me from myself, and from my fears. I love you so much, and I thank you just for that. You turned my life around, and I will always love you. Now, and forever, time interminable." I got down on one knee, right there on main street, travel dust still clinging to my boots and chaps.

"Tara Tonya Freeport," I opened the box, "will you-"

She put her fingers to my lips, and shushed me. Again, she took me by my hand, and started walking down the street. I had no idea what she was doing. I knew she loved me. She had told me so. She knew I was proposing to her. Where were we going?

We walked along the wooden tresses that made up the sidewalk until we came to the corner of the walk. A coach passed by raising enough dust to block the other side from view. Somewhere off in the distance, a firecracker went off.

She turned to me. "You should know, my love, that I cannot accept your proposal." What? Why not? "I cannot accept, because now is not the time. Soon though, we will be together. It's all been done before. It will all be done again. And I promise, soon, you will triumph, and all will go as it should. But now is not that time. Rest assured that the love I have for you, is for you alone. There will not be another, ever. Only you."

She stepped off the sidewalk. Into the dust cloud that, insanely, was still blocking the view of the other side. Then, I heard the song start up again.

"You go your way. I go mine. But I'll see you next timeÉ Ooo-oo-oo-OOO It's all been doneÉ" Then it was gone. If Tara heard it, she gave no notice.

Then came the ticking again. It was louder, and faster this time. I still didn't know where it came from, or what it was.

Then, the cloppity cloppity of horses hooves on the packed dirt road.

I heard the rumbling of a stagecoach coming up the road, and the dust cleared as if that was what I had needed to know.

I watched, frozen as Tara stood her ground in the middle of the street. She looked once to me, and mouthed the words "I love you." Then, the cart was on her, and over her.

I closed my eyes against the crunching of bone, and the scream of the dying. I kept them closed until there was silence, and only then did I open them. The driver of the couch was standing in the road, looking down at my beautiful lady's poor broken body. He turned to look at me.

Kyle Thompson was grinning. "I told you I would always triumph. You will always fail. You stayed true to form. I'm proud of you." That toothy grin slid over his face again, and something happened inside me.

I don't know what it was, or where it came from. Normally, I'm not a violent person, but that grin just set me off. I screamed an ululating animal growl, and charged him. I hit him with my fist right in the mouth, and he staggered back against the wheel of the stagecoach. It broke into pieces.

He got up again, and charged me. I ducked down, caught his hip with my shoulder, and flipped him. He landed on his back in the dirt and lay stunned. I grabbed his collar, and yanked him up. I threw him against the wagon and readied myself to beat the tar out of him. I swung and missed. He had moved. He danced around behind me while I was off balance and hit me in the back of the head. I fell among the splinters of the wheel.

He grabbed my collar and threw me across the street. Now I was the one dazed.

"I told you," he said, "you can never defeat me. I will always succeed." I dragged myself up to a sitting position, and got a sudden idea. I staggered the rest of the way up. He looked at me with something akin to wonderment in his eyes.

My legs gave way and I flopped back down. He did what I had expected him to: laugh, and turn his back, supremely confident that I was defeated.

As soon as his back was turned, I jumped, and simultaneously pushed and tripped him. He fell onto the wagon, and let out a high piercing scream. I had never heard it's like. He screamed as if in mortal agony, and then I saw a pool of blood start forming beneath him.

What had happened? He flopped over and landed on his back. Then I saw that one of the splinters of wood from the wheel had stuck in his eye. My gorge rose explosively, and I vomited on the ground.

The doctor, who I guess had heard the screams came running out and examined him. He did a little street surgery, and then asked me to help carry Kyle into his clinic. Once he was there, a nurse came in to assist, and since there was no room left for me, I went back outside.

Tara's body was gone, but that didn't surprise me in the least. She had spun out, just like I had expected her to. Though I had no idea why I had expected that. Or even what it meant. It was like there was a second person in my brain. I can't explain it anymore then that.

There was another weird dream shift, and I was sitting in a courthouse. The judge was rapping for order, and there was a man standing before the bench. When order had been restored, the judge sentenced the man to Life without possibility of parole. (L-WoPPed as I like to call it).

The man turned, and looked right at me. It was Kyle Thompson. He smiled that wicked smile again, the one that didn't touch his eye. His other eye was covered by a patch.

"It's all been done," he said. "I'll see you again. And next time, I will win."

And I awoke. The smell of sweat was back in the air. That final haunting threat-promise rang in my ears as if someone had said it aloud in the room. I threw back the covers to let the ceiling fan blow cool air onto my body.

I reached over to my desk and flipped on the radio, eager for any noise to drown out that ringing threat.