LITMIR.BIZ

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the door and entering the soddy. He sniffed, then cursed. “What the hell’s burning?”

      Lucinda, standing in front of the cook stove with pistol in hand, swung around and shot him a look. She’d never thought the prairie would get to her. She’d never anticipated day upon dreary day of nature pounding at you, days when she couldn’t regulate the cook stove to bake a pan of biscuits, days when her unkempt hair would hang like wet rags from a clothesline on a windless day. She wondered whether windless days still existed. Somewhere, perhaps.

      “Heard the pistol shots,” Hiram said. “Didn’t know but what you’d called yourself quits.”

      “You call me that enough for both of us.”

      He grunted. “Someone has to. You won’t face anything for yourself. I’m surprised you had the gumption to kill that snake. Where was he?”

      “He fell out of the rafters, landed in your supper.” She used the gun as a pointer. “I tried to haul the pot out the door, but the snake was swirling and flailing so much, I couldn’t. I fished it out with a poker, but it wriggled off the poker and slithered toward the bedroom. When it—”

      “Shut up, woman, and put down that gun. I’m not some damned female you can complain to.”

      “Huh. Find me another woman foolish enough to stay out here and I’ll gladly complain to her. No doubt she would be looking for the same thing, having been dragged to these Godless plains.”

      “I said shut it.” He bolted toward her, hand raised.

      She flinched.

      He dropped his arm, told her she was lucky he didn’t have the strength today to give her what she deserved. He glanced toward the bedroom, saw the snake’s severed head, the pool of blood. “How many cartridges did you waste killin’ it?”

      She ignored the question. She’d heard it so many times before, how they couldn’t waste anything. He never acknowledged her gun skills—or didn’t realize them, so assured was he that she was worth no more than the threadbare calico she wore. If her husband had had any clue about her ability with firearms, he might have kept his haranguing to himself. Particularly while she had a pistol in her grip. “Would you close the door?”

      Hiram took his seat at the table. “Not till the stench of burned supper is gone. And you’d better have salvaged somethin’ for me to eat.”

      She gave him the stew, then dug the centers out of the charred biscuits and gave him most of those, too. For her own supper, she drizzled a ladle of broth over the rest of the salvaged centers.

      The man who sat across from her acted more animal than human lately, and she wondered whether this prosperous life out West was affecting him as much as it was her.

      Hiram Messenger wasn’t the man she’d married. At least, she thought he wasn’t. In truth, she hadn’t taken time to get to know him beforehand. She had wanted adventure, and Hiram had said all the right things to get her attention. They had climbed aboard his wagon and headed West immediately after the preacher had declared them joined.

      She realized, too, that she wasn’t the woman Hiram had married. This savage land changed a person, she knew that now.

      Of late, she had speculated over whether Western cities might offer more. She’d suggested that to Hiram, but he was bound and determined to be a farmer. A sod-buster. Lately, though, the changes she had seen in him had been more disturbing. Instead of mending straps or sharpening plow blades during the evenings, he sat and stared. He stared for hours at her while she cooked and scrubbed and mended and fought off rodents and snakes and peered out windows for Indians and checked latches on doors.

      A rattlesnake slithered across the threshold and toward the small pine table where they sat.

      Lucinda yelped, flew from her chair, and grabbed the gun. Hiram seized the snake, moving quicker than she’d ever seen him move. “Only one way to cure your fears, woman. Throw you into the pit.” He flung it toward her.

      The snake sank its fangs into her left arm. Hot pain shot toward her shoulder. She beat at the reptile with the pistol. It let go, dropped to the floor and slithered toward the man.

      “Shoot the damn thing,” he ordered.

      “What kind of an animal are you?” she shrieked. “Who does that to a person?” She was dead anyway, she was sure of it. She aimed the pistol at the man and squeezed the trigger.

      He dropped.

      She turned the gun on the snake and fired. Its severed head slammed up against the wall, leaving its body twitching on the floor.

      She jerked loose her apron strings, used them as a tourniquet, and grabbed a butcher knife….

      A woman called out from the back of the crowded courtroom. “How did you survive that snake?”

      “I shot him,” Lucinda said before she fully remembered where she was.

      Every female in the gathering applauded.

      Judge Stanton brought down the gavel. “Order!”

      Gerber smiled. “I believe she means the bite, Mrs. Messenger. The venom?”

      “Yes, of course. An old Indian couple found me unconscious, made a poultice—I do not know what was in it—and I eventually recovered.

      “I remember thinking that I would use the third bullet on myself, if the poison became too much to bear. Working fast, I cut a cross, drew out the blood.”

      “What happened then?” asked Gerber.

      “I went south to start a new life.”

      Judge Stanton peered at his pocket watch, then at the clock. “Now is as good a time as any for a recess. Court will reconvene at one o’clock. Sharp.” He emphasized the last word with the gavel.

      When they returned, there wasn’t a woman left outside the courtroom for twenty miles. Spotting his wife among the spectators, one of the jurors sprang to his feet. “Mrs. Billings, who is minding the store?”

      “Mr. Billings, you’re the one who insisted on having seven children to help with the work. It’s high time they gave their worn-out mother a break.”

      Laughter swept the courtroom.

      Mr. Billings bowed elaborately. “No one deserves a break more than you do, my dear.”

      The second round of laughter was tamped down by the judge’s gavel. “Mrs. Messenger, please take the stand. I remind you that you are still under oath. Gerber, proceed.”

      “Your Honor?” Halsted said.

      “Prosecutor?”

      “If it please the court, I would like to question the defendant regarding her statements prior to lunch.”

      “Granted.”

      Halsted grabbed his own set of the dime novels—many more than those exhibited earlier by Mr. Gerber—and eagerly approached the witness. He indicated the cover of the one on top. “Mrs. Messenger, do you recognize these weapons?”

      Lucinda studied the image. “I know that the long-barreled ones are rifles, and—”

      “Madam, are these images of your weapons?”

      “No, they are not.”

      “Do you carry a weapon?”

      “Only the tiniest of derringers in my reticule. A lady alone cannot be too careful in the wilds of the West.”

      “Mrs. Messenger, do you deny that you are indeed Lucy Angel?”

      “I have used that name.”

      “I mean to say, are you the Lucy Angel portrayed in these books?” He shook the stack in her face.

      “Step back, Counselor,” the judge said.

      When

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