Chapter 12

“Cheap metal,” she mumbled. “It’s a sad day when you can’t even beat up a bunch of cowboys without it tearing.”

She stood there trying to bend it back into shape, but the more she fooled with it, the worse it looked until the thin metal tore. She was about to throw it away when she wondered if maybe she could find someone in Whiskey Hill who could fix it. So, instead of throwing it in the trash can, she threw it back down in her dresser drawer.

Maybe tomorrow, she thought.

5

Who were they, these men who surrounded her? Why were they dressed in buckskin and boots, their kisses cruel and ravishing? Why did she allow them to touch her with hands that roped steers, pulled triggers, fought in fistfights, and made love with women of questionable virtue? If she preferred the soft, tender strokes of a Boston man, why was her body responding to the rough handling of the kind of man she hated?