Leading Ladies Anthology [FEATURED STORY]

@ReginaShelley - The Five Dollar Mail Book 2

Excerpt from The Five Dollar Mail Book 2: Lynch's Boys

Runs Laughing carefully picked her way through the shrubby creosote and wind-swept pinions. It was a chilly mid-morning, and she clutched her little water bag with clammy fingers. She hadn't really wanted to haul water. The full skin would weigh quite a bit, and there was nothing fun about hauling it back to camp. She was glad she didn't have far to go to return to her sister's lodge.

Insisting on making the short trip alone had seemed like a good idea. And the entire time she'd quarreled with Still Water Woman over it, as she had insisted she was big enough to do alone, that seven winters was grown enough to do something as simple as fetch a pail of water, she hadn't really believed that her sister would relent and agree to let her go.

So after all those brave words, there was no way to back out when the task lay before her for the taking.

She knew she'd have to be careful. Further upstream, she knew there had been trouble. If the lodge had not been just on the other side of the copse of trees on the low rise, close enough that a shout could be heard, she knew they would never have allowed her to go alone to the creek. White men nearby made everyone nervous. News had traveled fast of fighting and discord, further out towards the place where the sun set. So she knew they wouldn't stay here in this spot any longer than they had to. Their little band would move on and join up with the rest of the tribe soon.

She heard chattering in the trees and a flash of black and white. A magpie angrily warned her away, scolding her from the branches of a nearby willow. Do not fly at me, little sister. I mean you no harm. Throwing up an arm to protect her face should the bird decide she'd come too close, she hurried on, listening to the sounds of the splashing current down below the carved edge of the bank.

Gasping, she stopped, her leather-shod feet nearly skidding to a halt in the sandy, rocky earth. She ducked down into the scrubby brush.

There was a man lying sprawled on the riverbank ahead. His pale skin was colorless and his clothing sodden and heavy with water. She saw no blood on him, and wondered if he'd drowned and been washed up by the creek. She drew her knife, the one Eagle Bone had given her. It was small enough to fit easily in her hand, but it was sharp. Does he breathe?

The river would not have put him up here. She leaned forward, holding her own breath and listening to her heart pound. What if he is not dead? The other man her brother had found was not dead. Dying. But alive. She remembered the yellow scalp Eagle Bone had brought to the lodge. He had said it was from the man called Galloway. They had dealt with Galloway before. He was not a good man, and she was glad Eagle Bone had made sure he was dead.

He is not breathing. She raised up, straining her eyes to see a bit further, to see if he was moving at all. He is dead. Look at his face, it is the color of the sky on a cold, wet day. She crept forward, crouching and gripping her knife, ready to run. I have never been this close to a white man. Unlike the short, sandy colored scalp her brother had brought home, this man's hair was long and straight like the hair of the People, but the color of sunshine. Did he know the Bad Man? Did they come here together? Were they brothers? Friends?

A fine, golden fuzz roughened the man's jaw and she stared at it, curiosity making her reckless. He didn't look like anyone she'd ever seen. She reached out a trembling finger and felt the strange, silky down on his impossibly pale, blue-lipped face, her boldness making her feel brave, as if she was counting coup. What if his eyes open? What then? His skin was icy. No. He is dead. White man cannot open their eyes when they're dead any more than we can. Can they?

His hands were sprawled to either side of him, empty and limp, and his blue fingernails showed clearly against the whiteness of his skin. She started to wonder if he'd died of cold, and then she noticed his wrists. Bruises and angry abrasions marred the skin peeking out of his coat sleeves. A swollen cut gaped in the heel of one of his hands and his knuckles were bruised and scraped. She gasped, looking around worriedly. He has been bound recently, and struggled. Maybe he fought with someone. He is an escaped captive. Whose? What if they're still here?

What if they are looking for him?

She glanced back down to his still face, then jumped back with a startled cry. The sodden buckskin coat buttoned over his chest had risen with faintest hint of an inhalation. Scrambling backwards, she landed on her rump, holding her knife out before her. This one is alive.

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About Gina

Man, these "about me" things are so awkward. You ain't here to read about me.

Okay. I love westerns. I love straight westerns, weird westerns, space westerns, westerns with ninjas and aliens in 'em. Westerns with dwarves and dinosaurs in 'em (cookies for that reference).

When I'm not writing The Five Dollar Mail, I'm usually either tromping around the woods with something foul in my pocket, kayaking, or playing folk/Irish music with friends. I had the good fortune to meet the most awesome man alive, and not being a fool, I married him. We have a clever, sweet daughter, and a naughty house rabbit named Max.

So, anyway, I decided to start writing. Well, no, that's misleading. My whole life, I've always written. What I mean is that I started writing as a regular discipline and creative outlet and posted it online. Just to keep me motivated. I had a western genre historical-romantic-adventure sort of thing I wanted to write, and I didn't want to be shoehorned into common formulas or whatever. I wanted to tell a fun story my way and at my own pace, in an episodic format reminiscent of the old dime novels of the period. And so, The Five Dollar Mail series was born.

About The Five Dollar Mail

Five dollars to mail a letter seems like a lot of money to shy farm girl Lily McMillian. When she's hired in the spring of 1860 by Old Man Lynch as a cook for his stagecoach and Pony Express station, she finds out why it's so expensive.

Dropped into a whirlwind of rowdy men and boys, fast horses, and frightening conflict, she inherits more than a busy kitchen and a pile of dirty laundry. She gains an unlikely band of brothers, a motley collection of rounders, miscreants, and troublemakers, all of whom are in sore need of someone to keep them in line.