Not to mention....mentioned #i)

The land settled for a moment in time. The city was captured by the heat, roped by the American River, and surrounded by patchwork farmland spotted by cattle and dogs, and graced by the horses. The land, by the turn and dawn of the new century twenty one, was blessed with horses. They would be cared for religiously, obssessive-compulsively, if not set freed to their native state like they ought to be. Many were still fortunate to run wild over Montana and the Dakotas, and Canada above us. These ones looked upon most others with a fair contempt. Like wild anything will do.

 Over the course of the twentieth century, their predecessors had been shoed and put to the grind relentlessly. They were equally, if not more markedly, responsible as the railroad for giving means toward the making of such a drop dead beautiful American city as Sacramento. This our seat of the great state of California. You need only go stand within a few hundred feet of the Capitol to feel it. The electricity rushes up and down the spine with a nice hushpuppy finish. The calm of the center, that is. Thank your gods and lucky stars for this place.

And for the horsepower behind it all (not to mention rounding cattle and working courier on the side) ((and just did)). The only relief granted the horse, in this century or last, came in the form of one man's vision become reality. Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit, Michigan (and his many forgotten associates, of course). He made the machines that made offroading and joyriding and donuts possible. Not to mention drive-bys and drive-throughs and drive-ins. Now mentioned. Henry Ford, he satisfied our deepseated longing for speed. He offset our collective human discomfort with gravity. The automobile  will always exist in the hearts of men and women who have the courage (and lack the sanity) to strap themselves to engines. These the sons and daughters of those who lacked the sanity (had the courage) to strap themselves to wild horses formerly saddled by the poor sons of bitches who had the stupidity to contemplate taming these powerful wonderful creatures. Those lives were short-lived indeed. One hoof to the head and its history! Watch a lineage, long extended,  end in a moment in a day. The human will always exist in the hearts of the horses who shook him and chased the sun to freedom to no ends of the earth.