The Red Avengers

By E.W. Farnsworth

E. W. Farnsworth's westerns continue the unique vision of his earlier stories, only with expanded scope and characters.  Forgotten historical tales are resurrected here. often with the assistance of memory figures who put their own spin on what they relate.  The frontier Arizona Territory, with its shifting population and lawlessness, contains the remnants of the failed Confederate succession's leadership in "The Thirteen Apostles" while "The Black Bear of Payson" tells of a gritty frontier woman's heroism against tribulations fighting the largest black bear ever.  "Metamorphoses" suggests the mythic transmogrification of individuals as they are absorbed into the western landscape.  Fanciful adaptations of current nineteenth-century events form stories like, "Arizona Exposition of 1855" and "The Bloodless Dodge City War," and fictional battles in critical passes are central to "Pass to Lemmon Mountain" and "Fighting Through Apache Pass" wherein Farnsworth recounts the bloody difficulties of the so-called Indian Wars.  Farnsworth tells ghost stories of the old west in "Ghost Rider" and "Ghost of the Vulture Mine," also known as "The Varmint Man."  Myths are blended into "The Woman Who Became a Triceratops" and "Fastest Gun in the Games," both of which play subtle games with history.  Throughout this eminently readable collection, Farnsworth's wit and allusiveness sport with intelligent readers' minds inviting their participation in his recreations of cowhand reality.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Celestial Ink Publishing
• Release date: Sep 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393067801

Book preview

The Red Avengers

A Novella

E. W. Farnsworth 

CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1. The Gore Mistress: The Beginning

Chapter 2.  Joanna Takes a Stand

Chapter 3.  Hildegard, Joanna and the Red Avengers

Chapter 4.  Hildegard and Joanna at the High End of the Trade

Chapter 5.  Hildegard’s Red Rage

Chapter 6.  Red Avengers

Chapter 7.  Revenge on Red Justice

Chapter 8.  Aftermath of the Red Avengers

Study Questions

About the Author

Foreword

We live in an iron age often resembling the worst imaginings of apocalyptic writers.  Conventions of all kinds are being turned on their heads in ways that never surfaced in the roaring 1960s in the USA. Sexuality has become an arena of particularly acerbic public contention and graphic analysis.  No one can protect the young from the worst visions.

The #MeToo movement has outed sexual abuse against women, primarily.  The abuse of men, women and, particularly, children has been publicized in Hollywood and (gasp!) the Catholic Church.  The abortion controversy has uncovered unsavory opinions of all kinds, even from seasoned politicians, who should now fear being unseated at the earliest possible date. 

Yet instances of criminal prosecution have been rare, and punishments for sexual crimes have been minimal or non-existent.  Accused offenders have gone scot free without trial, and accused egregious abusers have sometimes been defended in our mainstream press.

The stories in this volume were conceived and written five years ago—before the #MeToo movement started.  Inspired by personal accounts or taken from headlines and fleshed out as suggestions of what might happen if women became defenders of themselves—as vigilantes in an unspecified city that could be in any country, these tales are meant to be cautionary.  When law and order fail, people will seek justice however they can.

Hildegard and Joanna had models in the real world, but they have been fictionalized beyond all recognition of their originals.  To their spiritual sisters, I earnestly hope these stories are taken as sources of both solace and shock.  Hildegard says she enjoys sex as much as any woman, but there are limits to her tolerance of evil, and the blood-anointed Red Avenger pursues cases where traditional legal remedies are not possible.

Not all enforcers are tyrants and abusers and not all men are macho, but power breeds excesses in direct proportion to the disconnect between natural impulse and the constraints of law.

A purposed advantage of these stories is their brevity.  Readers will recognize the situations, but they may be repelled by the explicit blood and gore in the following pages. 

Jesus once said, Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.  And in the Bible story, no one casted a stone.  Contrariwise, I wonder how many wronged women today would object to Hildegard’s asking their aid in an emergency and how many others would be complicit in a plot to bring her down for their own benefit.

We have not yet become the bloody jungle depicted as the milieu of these stories.  Yet, in balance, those who infringe have the advantage at present writing.  Historically, in such instances, the status quo often prevails.  Do we want continued abuse? Or do we want vigilantes like Hildegard and Joanna to sort things out for themselves and for us? Perhaps there is a third alternative, but I frankly don’t know what it is.

If you read these stories and pitch aside their content or messages as irrelevant or inappropriate, perhaps you’ve led a privileged life of blissful ignorance.  I congratulate you if that is the case.  If, however, you discover you are mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore, I urge you not to stew on your discontent but DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  Life is short, and there is so much left for you to do before it’s done.

E. W. FARNSWORTH

Gilbert, Arizona, USA

June 1, 2019

Chapter 1. The Gore Mistress: The Beginning

HILDEGARD’S HAIR STOOD on end as the cold breeze played with her back.  The only light in the room came from an electric clock with a luminous display.  She had awakened after only two hours’ sleep.  She felt the sides of the cot and reached one hand down to the cold, wet tile floor.  Figuring she must be in the