Chapter 1

Elizabeth Philby jerked awake as the train reduced speed and the gentle rhythm of the clack-clack that had put her to sleep changed. She had leaned against the window in her sleep and the book she'd been reading was in her lap where nerveless fingers had dropped it.

She looked out the window to see more of the featureless grassy plains that had been there when she'd fallen asleep. They must be close to the mountains by now. Elizabeth stretched her seventeen-year-old body, extending her arms and luxuriating in that special feeling that only comes from a nice stretch.

Her bonnet had been knocked askew by the window of the train, and she straightened it, sitting back in the seat. She'd wanted to take it off, but other women on the train left theirs on, so she did too. Besides, this was the first hat she'd ever worn that her mother hadn't made for her, or that she hadn't made herself. The fact that she'd spent a nickel of her last dollar on it at the dry goods store next to the depot in St. Joseph didn't enter into things.

She was on her way to live with her aunt in the big city of Sacramento, California - a fact made necessary by the fever that had killed a quarter of the residents of St. Joseph, her parents included. The townspeople had gone a little batty trying to stop the killing disease and had burned the possessions of those who died of it. Everything Beth owned, in fact, was currently packed in the two suitcases stowed under her seat. The unsmiling banker back in St. Joseph had looked at the book on his desk and, despite the fact that there were numbers next to her father's name in that book, said he could not give her the money until the courts "worked things out". The banker had been willing to provide money for a ticket to California, assuring her he'd forward "the funds" from her parents' probate to her "when they become available."

Meanwhile, her parents' landlord demanded rent and neighbors had piled all her parents' things in the street and burned them.

In short, Beth had nowhere to live. She'd thought of Aunt Maureen only because, while she was sifting through the ashes of her life in the middle of the street, she'd found the remains of what had been a tintype picture of her mother and aunt. A book had lain on top of it and protected it from the flames.

A sign reading "Beaverton" flashed past the window.

She'd never heard of Beaverton. From her studies she knew it was a corruption of "Beaver Town", but there wasn't a tree in sight. Why would anyone name someplace with no trees and no beavers something like Beaverton?

The train was slowing and obviously going to stop. The porter came striding down the aisle calling, "Beaverton, Nebraska, ten minutes, Beaverton, rest stop, ten minutes."

Good, she could use an outhouse about now. She gathered her skirts and grabbed her parasol, the only thing of her mother's she'd been able to save, and that only because she had snitched it and hidden it at her friend Annie's house. The girls loved to parade up and down Broadway as if they were in the big city and her mother would never have allowed her to use the parasol for something so silly. She felt a twist of pain in her gut as she thought about her mother who would never scold her again ... or hug her either.

The train groaned to a stop and she stood up. Several of the other ladies stepped into the aisle, heading for the steps that led down to the platform. By the time she was in line there were four other women in front of her, waiting to use the old wooden structure that sat fifty dusty yards from the train station.

Fashion being what it was in those days, and taking a long time to undo and then do back up, Beth knew she didn't have much time when her turn finally came.

She might have made it, had the fat woman who used the outhouse just before her told the porter that Beth was in there.

But she didn't.

Even then, she could have run along the tracks and caught the slowly accelerating train once it left the station ... but for the actions of three boys who would become significant in Beth's life, though neither she nor they knew it then.

Said boys, named Chauncy, Benjamin and Michael, and all being thirteen years old, had decided to have some fun. The boys were together by virtue of their fathers all attending the same stock auction at the other end of town and couldn't resist trying to liven up the dusty place that they only got to visit once every two or three months. Hiding in wait with a rope and Michael's horse, they watched the pretty girl at the end of the line of women go into the outhouse. The idea was to throw a loop over the outhouse, whack the horse on the butt and thus tip the outhouse over. They would then abandon the rope, which was old and no good for herding cattle anymore anyway, and scamper off to chortle about their exploit.

The first part of their plan went well. Michael was good with a rope and dropped his loop over the peaked roof of the privy neatly. It caught on the latch that kept the door closed.

His horse however, was a newly broken mustang and while he was used to cattle and the boy who rode him, he was not used to a building coming crashing down right behind him. Consequently, memories of the open range flitted through the horse's limited intelligence and he decided to go there.

With no rider to stop him, the horse managed to drag that outhouse three quarters of a mile before he came to a gasping, lathered halt, spraddle-legged and dripping foam from his mouth.

As for Beth ... her first clue that something was amiss was a loud yell of "Yeeehaaaawww!" outside the privy. This occurred shortly after she had finally gotten through all the petticoats to her underwear, which she untied by feel, and had just sunk gratefully onto the wooden hole that was about to bring her so much relief. She was in fact in the middle of a nice long stream when the world turned literally upside down. The frightened horse pulled so robustly that the outhouse toppled and actually rolled up onto its roof part way, before slamming back down on the dry, dusty soil.

Beth, of course, was hysterical. There was nothing she could do. The rope held the door closed and the structure slid first on its back, then on one side, before rotating in a complete circle as it hit bushes and clumps of grass on its short ride to infamy. And Beth just bounced around inside it, trying to protect her head and screaming her lungs out.

For the boys it was hysterical too - hysterically funny. At least until Michael realized his horse was running away and he had no way to catch him. He would not be able to explain this to his father if he didn't get that horse back. Besides, it had a thirty dollar saddle on it.

The incident didn't go unnoticed. It was a Friday, which was the day the stage came in with the mail and parcels ordered from back east, and passengers for the townspeople to fleece before they rode on. The train was faster, but it was also a lot more expensive than the stage line, so there was still competition there. And, when the train stopped, which wasn't often, there were economic possibilities there too.

So there were a fair number of people out on the streets. One was Bessie Robinson, the Mayor's wife and a very important woman in town, at least in her own eyes. Hearing a crash, she gaped, astonished and secretly delighted, as the outhouse bounced out of town. Here, at last, was something worthy of gossip. She rushed toward her husband's office, where young Tommy Ralston was lounging on the porch. When he saw her, he hurried in - obviously to announce her, as befitted her station.

Tommy Ralston was in fact announcing the Mayor's wife, but not for the reason she assumed.

"Yer wife's a-comin', Mr. Mayor," he said, poking his head inside the office. This was his one opportunity to see the naked naughty bits of his sister, Mabel, without anyone yelling at him. She worked for the Mayor, sometimes writing things down, and sitting prettily behind a desk. She also got the honor of raising her skirts and receiving the Mayor's seed occasionally, meaning every chance the Mayor thought he could get away with it.

Like now. He was pretty close, and wanted to finish.

"Tell her I'm in an important meeting and can't be disturbed," he rasped, sawing his duly elected erection in and out of Mabel as she wiggled under him.

"She looks a mite excited," said Tommy, thinking back to how Mrs. Robinson's breasts had been bouncing all about as she hurried toward the office.

Mayor Robinson groaned. He was so close. "Use the spittoon," he gasped. Then he socketed his cock deep in the willing young woman who was quite sure the Mayor would cast aside his shrew of a wife and marry her just as soon as she was pregnant with his child. After all, Bessie Robinson had only given him one daughter, and that one had run away, to get married to a cowboy, of all things! Plus, she was a lot prettier than Bessie was, and half her age too.

Tommy, knowing what his mission was, went to the front door, stepped outside and "accidentally" kicked over the spittoon that sat right by the door on the porch. Its contents splashed across the entryway, making an evil, brown slick spot just as Bessie stepped up on the porch.

She jumped right back off the porch. "You clumsy boy!" she yelled. "You could have soiled my gown!" Tommy looked at Mrs. Robinson's gown, which everybody else in town would have called a dress. That she was excited was easy to see, since there were two nice hard points in the bodice of that gown.

"Ah'm sorry ma'am," he drawled. "Ah'll clean it up. Won't take me but a minute while you wait."

Bessie fumed as the boy wiped at the mess with a rag he found somewhere inside. Her husband came to the door a few minutes later, his face red. "Sorry dear," he said.

"Why do you tolerate this clumsy oaf, Henry?" she complained.

"He runs errands for me, Bessie, now what seems to be the problem?"

Bessie told him what she'd seen and the two of them joined a crowd of people who had started out on foot to follow the trail of scrapes, broken bushes and dust that the outhouse had left.

What they found, when they arrived, made their blood run cold. Lying amidst the fragments of what had once been the outhouse were two bloody legs. That the legs were wearing high topped women's shoes identified the gender of the body, but nothing more could be seen because the rest of the structure had collapsed on top of the unfortunate woman.

"Look!" yelled Mr. Simpson, the storekeeper. He was pointing at an odd sight - that of a boy running alongside a horse that was saddled. The horse and its non-rider were heading away from the crowd and it was impossible to see exactly who it was, but it was clear that they had something to do with the outhouse.

"That's the horse that was dragging the privy!" shouted Bessie importantly.

Ralph Dugway, owner of the Beaverton Hotel, was pulling at the boards that had sheathed the outhouse, trying to uncover the body inside.

"Is she dead?" called Annie Buckminster, one of the few girls who had kept up with the crowd on its run to the scene of the crime. She was only thirteen, but could run as fast and far as any of the boys.

As if in answer to her question, there came a groan from the pile of wood in front of them.

"Get her out of there!" yelled another man.

A voice screamed, "Somebody go get Doc Fisk!"

There was a general milling of people who mostly just got in each other's way as Beth's limp body was slowly uncovered.

She was, to put it lightly, a mess.

On her 'ride', Beth had bounced against every possible protrusion that could tear her dress, puncture her skin and snag her hair. Her attempts to cover her head probably saved her life, but her arms and legs were a bloody mess. Her injuries were not actually life threatening, though everyone who saw her that day was quite sure she would expire any second. In fact, she had only one serious injury. That was a thick splinter, about the size of a man's little finger, that had penetrated her dress and the skin under it, near her hip and about two inches above the edge of her glossy, raven pubic hair. The tip had bounced off her hip bone and torn its way back out of her body before the whole thing broke off, leaving what looked like the impossibly thick piece of a broken arrow piercing her body.

The crowd, however, did not know that at the time, probably because her efforts to protect her head had not been entirely successful. Several sharp raps had left her mercifully unconscious, though she groaned several times as she was pulled from the wreckage. Upon getting her free, though, the men noticed she was both silent now and limp as a wet rag. They let go hastily, letting her drop limply in the dust and stepped back, horrified that the woman had died while they held her arms.

Thankfully, one of the other people who had seen the outhouse being dragged off had already realized the implications. She was known to the townspeople of Beaverton only as "Boots." She had arrived in the town one day, some years back, on a trapper's wagon, covered in bruises and welts. Her thin dress was in tatters and she was barefoot. Once the trapper had conducted his business, and despite the fact that she was only thirteen, at best, she calmly picked up a handy, broken wagon spoke and brained the man, announcing that he had beaten and raped her for the last time. She had then stripped the man's boots off his body and put them on herself, along with his six shooter, which she appeared to know how to use. She took the money he'd just received and asked the store keeper to show her some clothes. No one had argued with her. In the five years since then, she had taken up residence in an abandoned sod house on the outskirts of town, and hired herself out as a scout, tracker and hunter. Boots was the kind of woman who, when she saw the outhouse being dragged away by a rope on a horse, knew instinctively that there was someone in it. She also sensed that it was a rough ride, and that the doctor would be needed. To that end, she ran to George Watkins' Livery Stable, harnessed up a wagon, and went to pick up the town doctor.