Foreword

The EP Pony Express occurred in November of 1964. The Political climate of that year saw the defeat of Barry Goldwater and the election of Lyndon Johnson. The Cold War was very much in force even though Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from power, primarily due to the influence of Mao Tsetung of China. The U.S. was bombing North Vietnam. There were major strikes in the railroad industry, primarily over work rules which were drafted during the age of steam, and now were outmoded by the new diesels and electrics. Automobile workers also struck, primarily because of practices in scattered local plants.

The country honored the first anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination and passed a massive Civil Rights Bill. Dr. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in civil rights. The Gateway Arch was rising in St. Louis, marking St. Louis contribution as the Gateway to the West.

The FCC asked for a 15 percent rebate on phone bills because of soaring profits and required manufacturers to make all new televisions include all 70 channels rather than the 12 heretofore.

This was the background in 1964 when the Equal Pay for Equal Work Committee, a grassroots organization, fueled on the women's Equal Pay for Equal Work successes, and the Civil Rights progress of Dr. Martin Luther King commissioned the EP Pony Express.

As in the railroad industry and the automobile industry, the telephone industry was touting their image as a nationwide giant, but treating each town it served differently. A wage system commonly called the Community Wage Theory was used to justify discriminatory practices.

The Equal Pay Committee called the Community Wage Theory as outmoded as the Pony Express, and ran a recreation of the Pony Express from Brownsville, Texas, to St. Louis, Missouri, 1600 miles, to prove and dramatize the point.

EP Pony Express must be called fiction, because most of the names have been changed, and character backgrounds have been added. Most of the incidents and the time line are accurate.

To the men and women who rode the EP Pony Express and made this book possible, the author respectfully dedicates this book to you. If you see yourself in any of the characters, or someone you know, that is good, because that is what was intended.

The EP Pony Express was not conceived as a duplication of the Pony Express of 1860 and did not cover any of the original route, except a few miles near and through St. Joseph, Missouri.

Symbolically, it contrasted the communications of the age of horse delivered mail when communities were separated by long distances and had to depend primarily on their own production and economy to survive, with that of 1964. A time when mass media made the world everyone's neighbor, and made overnight deliveries of merchandise from across the country possible.

Chapter 1

The sun, a huge yellow orb in the western sky, was casting long mysterious shadows as it plunged to that place where it must go each night, taking with it its warmth and golden rays as it slid behind the mountains. Admiring and feeling awed as it painted the world with its colors, was Billy Wolf.

Billy sat tall and easily in the saddle as he rode through Uiyabi Canyon. As he gazed back over his shoulder, his mind locked on the splendor of the sunset, seeming not to notice that his mount was moving constantly forward on a treacherous mountain trail, and indeed he did not. Instinctively, every motion was interpreted by his slender body, tuned to every move of the mount beneath.

The trail had turned east again and the rider, after riding north all day to avoid the high peaks of the Deep Creek Range, felt glad to be on this section of the trail and ahead of schedule. From his vantage point at the bottom of the canyon, the North Peak on his right, and the South Peak just beyond appeared almost as foothills to the nearly eleven thousand foot peaks ringing the horizon. To his right stood Ochre Mountain, looming upward and casting a darkening shadow over the canyon below. Ahead somewhere, the mournful notes of the howling coyotes, then a silence broken only by the sound of the locust and the shod hooves of his mount ringing from contact with the stones in the trail. Then suddenly, from all around, the coyotes were tuning up for their nightly chorus. To Billy, it wasnt disturbing; it was things as they should be. The trail curved to avoid a ravine and as he cleared the shadows, Blood Mountain lay straight ahead.

This part of the trail was in Utah Territory. In Billys mind it was a contradiction. How could a few white men come into what had always been Indian Territory and rename it? Yet, the white men kept coming, and like army ants, by their sheer numbers, were taking over the land. Billy was half white; he knew the white mans ways and knew they would keep coming. His Indian brethren were right, and they were brave, but being right and brave would not save their tribal land. Gossip at the fort claimed that for every white-eye killed by the tribes, one hundred would take their place, and fifty Indians would die. On what authority such assertions were based eluded him, but to Billy it was illogical to fight and die when the numbers were stacked overwhelmingly against you. There was plenty of unused land, why couldn't they just divide it up? Why was one particular piece worth dying for?

Billy grinned to himself, realizing that these were pretty profound thoughts for a sixteen-year-old, but out here, you had to learn to be old beyond your years.