April 23, 2009
Went home for lunch and whipped out a scene of Mickey Free riding straight into a dust storm:

This goes with the sequence of the cavalry patrol meeting the "open pepper box." Remington comments: "The dust storm rolled towards us and every man braced himself except Mickey Free, who rode out, cursing to meet it."

My take on Mickey is that, although he fails as an Apache, as a soldier, or, as a member of any culture, he rides out to meet every storm.

Or, as Tom Horn says of his compadre: "It's hard to stop something that won't stop coming."

True of the storm. True of Mickey.

"What cannot be changed, must be endured."
—Old Vaquero Saying