Storm and I are writng a Western for Howard, who is a fan of ours. (When you are 90 and one of our biggest fans, you get to ask us to write cross-genre.) The plan is that we're going to have a Lulu book printed up and ready to give to him for his birthday in march. Imryne, i'm afraid, is going to take a back seat for a month or so while I write the Western. I don't have a title yet, unfortunately, but I'm working on it.

So here is the first chapter.

Chapter 1

Near Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, late August 1863

Leta stood in the doorway of the house, shading her eyes, trying to see the place where the route off the farm became an actual path, where it rounded a hill and was lost to sight. “John? John! So help me, if you're hiding from me, I will hide you to within an inch of your life!“

There was no answer. Leta rolled her eyes and stepped out onto the porch, banging the door of the house closed behind her. House was really a glorified term for this little cabin built in the lee of the hill, backed by a good barn. In a few years, Thomas promised, they would start to build a proper house. For the moment, the little house was big enough, and John was small enough still that it was no trouble to tuck him into a trundle bed at night. It was more important to plow more fields, buy seed wheat, keep the garden going. Fifty acres, Thomas had said. You’ll see. Fifty acres of good red wheat, and we won’t want for anything.

She smiled at the memory. Five years ago, a sweet-talking Yankee had started flirting with her over the counter at the dry goods store in St. Paul, where she had been born. “Thomas Howard,” he'd told her when she asked him his name. Then he'd asked her to go out walking with him.

Four months later, she had plucked up her courage and introduced Thomas to her mother. “I have something to warn you about,” she had told him. “My mother...well...”

He had just looked at her. “I know, Leta. I know she's a Negress, and so are you. I've heard the talk. It doesn't matter to me.”

I am going to marry this man, she thought.

They were married two months later, and she was pregnant only a few months after that. How they had dreamed together, curled up on the narrow bed under the eaves! Her mother had been so happy and so proud. You listen to me, Leta, she had said. You love him, I can see that. Not so many get that chance. Lord knows I didn't. Go with him. Come back to visit when you can. I will be all right.

Her mother worked as a washerwoman for one of the rich families in St. Paul, had since she had come north. She would never tell Leta what she had escaped, if she had been freed or if she had simply picked up and left in the dark of night. Leta didn't even know if she'd gotten pregnant in St. Paul or wherever she had been before. She would only say, “It wasn't by my will, little one. I am glad to have you, but I hope you never meet your father.”

Whoever Leta's father had been, he had gifted her with skin fair enough to pass for Italian and hair in that uncomfortable place between white-folks curly and her mother's kinky hair. She had asked her mother again and again when she had been small why she looked different. Her mother was beautiful, and she had longed to look just like her.

Her mother had always shushed her. “It's God's blessing that you look the way you do. You won't be a washerwoman. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

And she hadn’t been. First she had sold cloth and nails to men heading West, and then she had fallen in love with one of the customers. Thomas always said he wanted to go West, and when John had been born and had taken after Leta’s mother in his looks and coloring, they had decided to seek refuge by heading West, where nobody would ask too many questions.

She and Thomas had come out here the spring after John had been born. She had helped Thomas put up the cabin, helped him plow and plant with John strapped to her back or in a basket nearby. They saw very few people, and when the neighbors did make the trip to visit, Leta made sure that John was safely hidden away. This was the safest place in the world for them, out under the big blue sky.

She heard childish laughter to her right, and turned. There was John, his bright eyes peeking out from under the trough in the corral. Ginger, their red mutt, was crouched next to him, and a couple of the horses were peering at them curiously. Leta rolled her eyes. “Young man, you are not allowed in the corral without shoes on! Get out of there right this second!”

Chortling, the boy came out from under the trough and slipped through the fence rails, running across the dusty yard to Leta. “I fooled you, Mama! You couldn't see me!”

“Naughty thing!” She swung him up, hugged him. “Didn't you promise your Papa you'd be good for me?”

John nodded solemnly. “When is Papa going to be home?”

“Tonight, you know that. So come help your Mama in the garden, so we can be all ready when he comes home from town.” At least, she hoped he would be home tonight. There was so much work to be done, and doing Thomas's work as well as her own was wearing her to a thread, and it was so hot, everything was sweaty, burdensome effort. She’d be glad of what he was in town to buy, tea and coffee and salt, but she missed him. The dog ran in a circle around them and barked happily, and she set John down.

Then she felt it, the skin-crawling feeling that she was being watched. She turned, frowning, looking up the hill.

Nothing.

“Go to the garden, John,” she said. “Mama will be right there.” He went, Ginger at his heels. Leta went back to the house, picked up her rifle, slipped a box of shells into her apron pocket. She kept the rifle nearby as she weeded, John helping in a haphazard way. Lord knew it might only have been one of the local Sioux watching them, but she was always aware of the possibility of Indian attack, especially when she was alone.

Thomas will be home soon, she told herself. It'll be all right.

The big blue sky looked down, and gave no answer.

*****

Thomas rode in that night just after sunset, and Leta ran out to meet him, claiming a kiss before taking the packages he held out to her. “Got everything,” he said. His voice was warm as the day had been. “Even got you a little something. Take the stuff inside, I’ll take care of Olmie and wash up.”

“Papa, Papa!” John hurled himself at his father, who laughed and swing him up into his arms.

“And were you good for your Mama?” he asked the boy.

John was all grins and innocence. “Yes!”

Thomas chuckled and set his son in Olmie’s saddle, the tall gray horse giving them a sidelong look. “Come on, then. You can help me unsaddle Olmie and tell me all about the last few days.”

Leta looked at the boy’s bare feet and sighed. But father and son were so happy to see ecah other, and the day had been so long and hot, that reminding her son about the rule about shoes in the corral seemed like too much effort. She carried the packages inside, carefully unwrapping the supplies and putting them away.

From outside, she heard the voices of Thomas and John, both of them laughing. She went to the open window, leaned on the sill. The earth was still radiating a fierce heat, and if the smell of the breeze was anything to go by, they were in for another night of thunderstorms tonight. The thunderstorms had been coming at least weekly this whole summer, and when they came at night none of them would sleep.

Had anything ever been more beautiful than this place, with the last fire of sunset still in the sky and the sharp promise of lightning in the air? She had been born near the mighty Mississippi, a river child all her life, but now that she was out on the wide plains, with no worries that someone would see through her guise and decide to string her up for the crime of marrying Thomas.

She shook herself out of reverie and went to finish unpacking. She was interrupted by Thomas and John coming in. “Did you find it?”

“Find what?” she asked.

He patted his pocket, and chuckled. “Guess I kept it.” He dug out a packet and handed it to Leta.

She raised an eyebrow and unfolded the packet, then gasped. “Oh, Thomas, you remembered!” In the packet were ten shining steel sewing needles. “I thought you were going to have to order them somehow.”

“Man was coming through town, selling odds and ends,” Thomas said, and pulled her close. “Call those a promise. We’ll have more, one of these days. Maybe even a sewing machine like we saw before we left St. Paul, some day. A few hands to help in the fields, and maybe you won’t have to break your back all day long, Leta.”

“I don’t mind much,” she said, and meant it. She kissed him, closing her eyes. “I’m just glad you’re home. Did you eat?”

“Had a bite in the saddle when I figured I was going to be too late for supper.”

Leta released her husband. “Well, there’s bread baked this morning, and honey. I’ll fix a plate, we can sit on the porch. Too hot in the house to sit.”

So they passed the evening. John kept his eyes on the flickers of lightning to the south; he was afraid of the wicked thunderstorms they got in the summer, and Leta and Thomas would hold him when they came, telling him they were safe, that the storm wouldn’t hurt him.

The storm passed them by, and John dropped right to sleep when they tucked him into bed. “I missed you,” murmured Leta to Thomas after they blew out the lantern.

His chuckle was familiar and dear. “Are you going to show me how much you missed me?”

Leta’s hand found his shoulder, and traveled down his chest. “I will.”

After that, there was no need for talk.

*****

The next day dawned bright, hot, and sticky. There was no way Leta was going to cook, and after they did the bare minimum of chores, all three of them settled down in the shade of the bur oak tree out back of the house. The horses and cows dozed, seemingly too hot to try to graze, and even the chickens sought the shade. Ginger stretched out off the blanket, asleep.

Another storm was building in the southeast. “Looks like it’ll make it to us,” Thomas said, shading his eyes. They were sitting with John on a blanket under the tree.

“Might make things a little more tolerable.” Leta was lying back, and turned a little. John’s light checkered shirt was damp with sweat, as was her dress. “Cool it off a little.”

It was John, playing at the edge of the blanket, who spotted the riders first. “Papa, horses.” He pointed.

Thomas was on his feet with a swiftness. Ginger gave one warning bark and was on her feet as well, her tail up and wagging. The riders had come around the hill; the dust that should have announced them had been minimized by the recent rain. Leta scrambled up, scooped up her son, and ran for the house.

Thomas came to stand in front of the house, and Leta put John on the floor, out of sight of any outside. “Stay here, John,” she whispered to him. “Stay quiet.” Then she went to the doorway, and watched.

The men were white, most of them on decent horses and in good tack. All were armed, of course; you didn’t go riding in Sioux country without at least a sidearm. She narrowed her eyes; there were William Ford and his brother James from the big Ford place to the west, George Brennan from a homestead to the south, and Charles Conway, whose land bordered the Fords’. She recognized four of the Fords’ hired hands, and the other two men looked like they might be Brennan and Conway’s hands.

Her heart was thudding hard. This might still be a friendly visit. They might want Thomas’s help going after some Sioux. But looking at their faces, at the hard light in every eye, she thought not.

They pulled up in front of Thomas. William Ford was out in front, and it was he who spoke. “Afternoon, Thomas.”

Thomas nodded to him. “Afternoon, William. What can I do for you?” Ginger stuck close by Thomas, watching the men and horses with a sharp eye.

The horse shifted restively under William. He was a lanky man, about fifty years old. “Been some talk around town that we would like to clear up.”

“And that is?”

“Rumor around Sioux Falls is that you have a black boy. Your wife is a Negress. That true, Thomas?”

Leta should have been terrified. Instead, a strange calm was coming over her. Thomas answered, “She's Italian, not that it's any of your business. And I don't appreciate you coming out to my place to make accusations.”

“Can we see the boy, Thomas?” William asked.

Thomas’s answer was sharp. “No. Go home, William, and take your boys with you. You can't come onto my land and order me around.” Leta was moving very, very slowly, reaching for the rifle by the door.

“Thomas, make this go easier,” William said. “If your wife is a Negress, just claim you didn't know and you stayed after you had been fooled into getting her pregnant. It’s not legal to be married to a Negress. Not yet anyway, but it might be if the fool Lincoln gets his way. You can turn her and the boy out, and be done with it. Find yourself a nice white girl to start over.”

Leta’s hand clenched on the barrel of the rifle. She saw Thomas’s shoulders square. “I say my marriage is none of your business, you don’t look like the law, and I don't appreciate you trying to tell me what I can do. Get out.”

William’s mouth twitched. “You have a fierce loyalty, Thomas, but I knew that about you.” He hauled on his horse’s reins, turning the roan sharply. The rest of the riders followed suit, or were about to—

A shot rang out, and Leta bit back a scream. It seemed to happen so slowly, Thomas spun around by the shot, his wide eyes staring at Leta. He glanced down at himself, and on his checked shirt bloomed a red spot, with a dark center.

“Leta. Run.”

She did not hesitate. Rifle in one hand, she scooped up John in the other arm and ran for the back door, banging out of it and flying off of the porch. As she ran, she heard Thomas spit a curse and then two reports close together, one from each of his sixguns. There was a pause, then the roar of gunshots filled the air, almost drowning out the heartbeat in Leta’s ears. Ginger barked furiously, and then fell silent.

So many.

Just run.

The woods were close, but there was field between her and the thin safety of the trees. Wheat tried to tangle her feet as she ran, the heads of grain slapping her thighs. The gunshots stopped, and for a moment Leta thought she was going to be all right.

Keep going.

Behind Leta, hoofbeats approached. She poured on panicked speed, willing herself to run, to fly. There was a report of a gun behind her, and a bullet whined past her. Then more gunshots. She was almost to the trees.

Not close enough.

Another gunshot sounded and pain tore into her left shoulder. She stumbled and went flying, landing facedown in the wheat. She’d let go of John as she landed, and he was wailing, screaming, “Mama, Mama!” He pulled on her, trying to get her up.

It was so hard to get up, and she was so cold. “John, run. Find a place to hide.”

He obeyed, taking off as quickly as his little legs would take him. But before Leta could take a breath, she heard another gunshot and saw her son spasm, screaming, and then topple over.

Rage blew through her like a storm wind, and she rolled, trying to sit up. Her rifle was in her hands, and she found and sighted one of the riders. James it was, she thought. There was no time for careful aiming, just a shot at him, and she thought she saw him wince, and definitely heard his horse scream.

Then he raised his sixgun once more, and the sound of it going off was as big as the whole world. Fire exploded along the top of her left ear, and she felt her body fall back, hitting the ground.

She smelled gunpowder and crushed grass, and then nothing.

*****

Leta opened her eyes and stared, trying to make sense of what she saw.

She was somewhere out of the sun, somewhere cooler. Above her, walls sloped upward to a point. She blinked. The walls were hide, stitched together. She was lying on a blanket, and her head and her shoulder hurt.

She remembered what had happened, and drew a breath in.

Her head had something wrapped around it—cloth bandage, she thought. Her arm was bound across her body, and when she sat up, her left shoulder hurt fiercely. She was able to get up well, though, and found the flap that would let her out of the structure she was in. She heard a voice, male, chanting something in a language she didn’t recognize.

Leta shoved the flap aside, and gasped.

There was an Indian dressed in buckskins, kneeling by a prone John, wrapping a bandage around his leg with his back to Leta. “Oh, my God.” She rushed forward, dropping down next to John, reached out a trembling hand to touch his face. His dark skin had a strange gray tinge, and his eyes were closed.

She looked up at the Indian who was still bandaging her son’s leg. Standing, he would be tall and lean, and his clothing was covered with blood on his front and arms. He had probably carried John, then, to wherever they were now. She took a breath, and hoped the man spoke English. “Will he be all right?”

The Indian’s dark gaze lifted, and he met her eyes. “Maybe. It’s a small wound for an adult. Passed through his thigh, took large chunk of flesh with it. I don't know if it will heal well enough that he won't limp. He lost a lot of blood with it.”

Leta swallowed. “Did you see Thomas? My husband?”

“Yes, I have his guns.” He nodded towards a horse grazing nearby, a paint with Thomas’s belt draped over his back.

You have his guns. Gunshots echoed in her memory. She bowed her head, struggling with a moment of incomprehension. “He's dead.”

“He was more lead than person anymore.”

“Merciful Lord.” She felt her shoulders sag under the weight of the knowledge that she was a widow. She sat for a moment in silence, reached out to touch her son’s brow. His skin was warm, and his curly hair crinkled under her fingertips. Then she looked up again. The Indian was tying off the bandage around John’s leg. “I'm sorry. My name is Leta Howard. Who are you?”

“Chayton,” he said. “Nakota Sioux.”

She hesitated, then decided to ask. “Why are you helping us? I appreciate it, but...”

Chayton shrugged. “Outcast just like you.”

“Can I ask why?”

“White man's fire water.” He saw her questioning look. “The Sioux are not known to tolerate drunks. If you don't pull your own weight, they leave you behind.”

Leta looked around; she could hear the river from here. They weren’t too far from the homestead, maybe a few miles. “So you ended up here, alone, like us. You carried us all this way?”

“She did.” Chayton pointed at the paint horse. “Wakanda.” He used the blanket that was under John to wrap the boy up.

“My son's name is John,” she told him, realizing that he didn’t even know the boy’s name.

“John and Leta. This boy yours?”

“He is, yes. Thomas and I's only child.”

She saw him look down at John, then at her. “The father a Negro, or do you have the blood of the black race?”

The question almost made her wince, though it had none of the loathing that another, say William Ford, would have put into it. “My mother is a Negress. John takes after her. It's why the Fords and their posse tried to kill us.”

“William Ford.” It was clear that Chayton knew who he was, and didn’t like what he knew.

“Yes. He heard some talk and came to demand that my husband give us up.”

“And he shot you all because you your blood is not all white.” He shook his head briefly. “He forgets that all blood is red. What do you do next, Leta?”

Leta took a moment to think about it. Somewhere under incomprehension and sorrow, an enourmous rage was beginning to burn in her. They had killed Thomas. They had shot her. They had shot John. They had destroyed her life and the future she had been looking forward to.

They had shown her the illusion their safety had been.

“I will kill them,” she said quietly. “Every last damned one of them.”

“I will help you.” Chayton carefully picked up the blanket-wrapped John and got to his feet. “ Rest for seven days. We start then.”

She stared at him for a moment, then stood up. “You'll help me?”

Chayton turned away and went towards the tent. “Yes. We will train you.”

A soft breath escaped Leta. “Thank you.”

He ducked into the tent and laid John down, still using that quiet care. “You won't later.”

“Why not?”

“It’s going to hurt a lot. Outside, and in.”

He’d come out of the tent, now, and was standing very still, looking at her. She shook her head. “It would hurt a lot more to not be able to do anything.”

“We will cause them a lot of pain, that you can be sure of. How many were there?”

Leta closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember. “William Ford, and his brother James. George Brennan. Charles Conway. Four of Ford's hands, I've seen them all before. Two other men, probably hands from Brennan and Conway's place. Ten in all.”

“Ten is a good number,” he said. “Rest with your child. We need food, I will be back.” She watched as Chayton picked up his bow and a quiver of arrows, and left, silently. She went to sit again next to John.

It will be all right, she told him silently. I’ll get the men who killed your Papa.

Chayton returned with a brace of rabbits and some wild greens, some time later, and built a fire away from the camp a bit. It was still blazingly hot. Though she was not hungry, she ate anyway, not tasting a thing.

It became a routine. Chayton would bring and prepare food, check in with Leta, and then walk away from the camp a ways. He would depart on Wakanda a few times a day, probably to make sure nobody had come too close to the camp. He did tell Leta that the tent was called a wickiup, though other than that and checking in, he didn’t speak. Leta’s shoulder hurt constantly, overwhelming the pain from the sound in her head.

At night, she and John would sleep inside the wickiup, and Chayton would sleep outside, across the entrance. On the third morning after they had been shot, John woke.

He was in a lot of pain, she could tell that from the tension in his small body. He wanted his Papa, and Leta had the unloved task of explaining to her son that Papa was never coming to see him again. She tried to explain death to him, and was met by more wails. She finally ended up holding her son as he sobbed, crying that he wanted his Papa and that his leg hurt and that the bad men were going to come again.

He cried himself out and slipped into sleep again, and when he woke there was a rabbit stew to eat, which he applied himself to with good appetite. The next few days were difficult; both Leta and John hurt. John woke screaming about bad men every few hours during the night, and during the day, he kept asking Leta questions about his Papa, where he was now. They got through it, and Chayton was a silent presence through it all.

Within Leta, the rage was going cold, and hard.

She was going to kill them all, if it were the last thing she did.