Chapter 1

 

It was a cold, quiet morning as Shadow emerged from her small tent. She looked around at the surrounding plains, seeing a few pronghorn deer grazing in the distance. This land was far different from her native Mexico. After stretching a bit, she began her morning routine by checking on her horse, a black Thoroughbred mare she had named Midnight Rosa. After making sure the mare had water and was resaddled, Shadow moved on to rebuilding her campfire, the embers barely visible. As the fire crackled back to life, she huddled further into her brown leather jacket, which didn’t offer much in the way of warmth. Once the fire had fully come back to life, Shadow pulled a piece of stringy meat from her satchel and began to cook it. The smell of cooking meat and smoke drifted through the crisp morning air.

 

It’s quiet, almost too quiet, Shadow thought to herself.

 

She stood up as she began to hear the rhythmic hoof beats of a horse in the distance. Shadow quickly placed her hand on her cattleman revolver as a horse and rider appeared over a hillside heading straight towards her. As they got closer, Shadow could tell the horse was a Kentucky Saddler based on its gait. The rider must have been a woman or at least a very confused man because they were wearing a dress.

 

“Mornin’,” Shadow called out as the woman rode closer.

 

“You got any food?” said the woman as she stopped her horse nearly in the middle of Shadoiw’s camp.

 

That’s a strange way of greeting a stranger, Shadow thought.

 

“I do, just cooked up some coyote, in fact,” replied Shadow, her hand still resting on the handle of her revolver.

 

“Thank God,” said the woman as she jumped off her horse.

 

Now that the woman was on the ground, Shadow could get a better look at her. She was young, probably a few years younger than herself, maybe 19 or 20 years old with fiery red hair pulled back into a single braid and a pale complexion. The young woman dropped her horse’s reins as she walked quickly yet slightly unsteadily towards Shadow. As she got closer, Shadow saw how gaunt the redhead was, making Shadow take pity on the poor thing.

 

Here, sit down,” commanded Shadow as she grabbed the cooked meat from the fire.

 

The young woman obediently did as she was told, sitting on a small stump. Shadow handed her the stick with meat skewered on it.

 

“You must be cold,” said Shadow as she grabbed her spare blanket and placed it over the woman’s shoulders.

 

The woman, who was only wearing a previously white dress now brownish gray from dirt, barely even acknowledged Shadow as she was so intent on devouring the piece of coyote meat.

 

“Thirsty,” asked Shadow.

 

The redhead furiously nodded her head. Shadow handed her a water jug, which the woman readily took, not wasting a second before drinking greedily from it. Shadow put another couple pieces of meat on the fire to cook. She moved her own stump to sit nearer the young woman.

 

“Don’t eat so fast you’ll give yourself a bellyache,” commented Shadow as she handed the redhead another hunk of meat.

 

The woman nodded her head as she took the chunk.

 

Shadow let the woman eat her fill while she herself ate slowly.

 

“What’s your name?” asked Shadow after a time.

 

The woman stiffened, the skewer of meat halfway to her mouth.

 

“Don’t worry I won’t turn you in,” stated Shadow, having seen the flash of fear cross the redhead’s hazel eyes.

 

“Kyla is my name,” replied the young woman.

 

“Nice to meet you Kyla,” said Shadow as she reached out her hand, “my name is Esmeralda Reyes but you can call me Shadow.”

 

Kyla reached out her own hand and shook Shadow’s.

 

“Shadow,” questioned Kyla, “that’s an odd name, but it goes with your odd accent.”

 

Shadow chuckled.

 

“I could say the same for you.”

 

“Where you from,” questioned Kyla, “obviously you ain’t from here.”

 

Shadow’s lips twitched into a half smile.

 

“You are very funny and very blunt, Mexico is where I am originally from.”

 

“Oh well that explains the accent,” blurted Kyla.

 

“Smart too I see,” said Shadow drily.

 

“Hey it ain’t my fault I never heard a Mexican speak English so well.”

 

Shadow shook her head before taking a sip of some boiled water from her tin cup.

 

“And what about you? Where or should I say what are you running from?” asked Shadow plainly as she grabbed a stick and unsheathed her hunting knife.

 

“A…um…unwanted marriage,” replied Kyla slowly.

 

Shadow sat quietly, whittling the stick as Kyla, on her own, launched into the tale of how she fled from the 7th generation cult.

 

She had been set to marry the leader, Virgil Edwards although his followers called him The Shepard. Kyla said she would have been his fourth wife had she not been able to convince the native guarding her to let her go.

 

“I don’t know his real name but everyone called him Space,” explained Kyla.

 

Space had been the one guarding Kyla the night she was set to marry The Shepard. For some reason Space had taken pity on Kyla and instead of escorting her to a cave north of Annesburg, he had given her his horse, the Kentucky Saddler, with the command to run southwest as though the devil himself was hot on her heels. From that moment on Kyla had been riding hard for at least four days and five nights.

 

“I was so hungry that when I smelled the smoke from your fire I just followed it and now here I am,” concluded Kyla.

 

“Now here you are,” murmured Shadow more to herself than to Kyla. 

 

‘Where exactly are we,” asked Kyla eventually.

 

“I believe this area is called the great plains, the nearest town is just to the east called Blackwater,” replied Shadow, waving her knife as she spoke.

 

“Ah ok.”

 

“If you plan on staying here, you’ll need to pull your own weight,” said Shadow after a while of being quiet.

 

“You really mean that,” asked Kyla in shock.

 

“Of course I mean it, I’m not going to wait on you hand and foot all day when there’s things to be done,” stated Shadow as she stood up and began breaking down camp.

 

“I can handle myself just fine,” snapped Kyla.

 

Shadow looked at her pointedly.

 

“Then prove it.”

 

Shadow spent the rest of the morning instructing Kyla on what to do as they broke down camp.

 

“Are we heading to town,” asked Kyla as she settled in her saddle.

 

“We are going to enter the horse races,” replied Shadow as she swung into her saddle.

 

“We?” asked Kyla as she turned her horse to follow after Shadow.

 

“Yes, ‘we’ meaning you and I.”

 

 “But I have never raced a horse,” protested Kyla.

 

“You raced against your fate and out ran the devil, did you not,” said Shadow over her shoulder.

 

“But…I…”

 

Kyla couldn’t finish her protesting as Shadow had nudged her horse into a trot and was already a good distance ahead.

 

*************

 

As the two women rode through Blackwater, the townspeople couldn’t help but stare at them. The fiery redhead with a pale complexion and the tan skinned brunette made quite an odd pair to say the least. Let alone the fact that the Mexican girl was wearing pants and boots as though she were a man!

 

Shadow led the way to where the local races were held. She dismounted and started to untie the bedrole and tent that were secured to the back of her saddle.

 

“Your job is to place bets while mine is to win,” said Shadow in a hushed voice as she tied the tent and bedroll to the back of Kyla’s saddle.

 

“Oh ok that makes more sense.”

 

“I’m pretty confident I can win with Rosa here,” said Shadow as she patted the black mare’s neck. “The bets you place will be small but with any luck others will bet on me as well once they see you doing it, plus if we spend the majority of the day here, we can come out with some good money.”

 

“Ok,” said Kyla uneasily, glancing around at the mostly men gathering nearby.

 

“Again don’t worry,” reassured Shadow, “it’s my money you’re betting with anyway.”

 

Shadow placed a small brown bag in Kyla’s hand before she led her horse towards the signup area.

 

As Shadow was signing up for the next race, an older man stepped up next to her. The first thing she noticed about him was his lack of a shirt, then the bushy gray beard he had that was split in two and tied to either side.

 

My God, people in this country dress strange, she thought to herself.

 

Although, as she listened to him talk to the race register, she noticed he had a very different accent than any she had encountered before.

 

He must be from the north then, she concluded.

 

Shadow’s plan was playing out perfectly at least until the last race of the day. After having proven her expertise at racing, more and more people had started betting on the Mexican girl with the black horse to win. By the time the last race rolled around, Shadow and Kyla had made enough money to split comfortably between them. The last race of the day was the one with the biggest purse to win and Shadow was confident she would win. However, fate had a very different plan for them.

 

Shadow was in the lead as she rounded the corner of a building, one more checkpoint before she would be crossing the finish line. As she galloped, Shadow noticed a flash of white pass her on the outside. 

 

It was Punta Bitch. The only other woman to compete in the races in the later part of the day, had been a thorne in Shadow’s side every time. She was a blonde woman dressed in a sparkling white dress, riding a white Arabian. 

 

As Punta Bitch raced her little Arabian past Shadow and Rosa, she started to guide her horse in towards Rosa. Shadow, fearing the horses would clip ankles causing a wreck, started to guide Rosa more towards the left. As the horses were neck and neck heading down the last stretch, Punta Bitch pulled an underhanded move. She sharply yanked her reins to the left, her horse forced to follow, crashed into the side of Rosa, jostling Shadow and causing Rosa to stumble. Luckily for Shadow and her mare, Rosa didn’t tumble to the ground, however the bobble in her stride gave Punta Bitch the edge she needed to get ahead of Shadow and ultimately win the race.

 

As Shadow slowed Rosa to a halt, the normally level headed woman was seething with anger. Not only had this bitch risked Rosa and Shadow’s life, but she had won causing Kyla’s slightly larger bet to be a dud. Shadow leaped from her saddle as she spied the race official, who was dispersing the winnings to the betters.

 

“Hey, you really call that a fair race,” bellowed Shadow as she got nearer the official.

 

The startled official looked at Shadow in confusion.

 

“It was a fair race as far as I saw,” the official stated.

 

“Then you must be blind,” shouted Shadow, “that bitch should be kicked from the race and disqualified.’

 

“And why would that be,” questioned the official, who had a horrified look on his face after hearing a lady swear.

 

“Because she intentionally rammed into my horse in the last stretch!”

 

“Well if I didn’t see it then there is nothing I can do.”

 

Shadow had been so intent on yelling at the official, she hadn’t noticed another man walk up to them.

 

“Hey calm down there young lady, if the official didn’t see it then the winner shouldn’t be disqualified,” said the man in an unfamiliar accent, his words slightly slurred.

 

Upon hearing this Shadow rounded on the man and began to shout at him. The official, seeing his only opportunity to escape the wrath of the tall Mexican girl, wisely slipped away into the crowd.

 

With her full focus now on the poor fool, noticed it was the same shirtless man from earlier in the day, however that didn’t matter as she was in such a rage. What made it worse was that by the time she finished shouting at the man, mostly in English with a few choice words in Spanish, he hadn’t even fully comprehended what she was angry about to begin with. This shirtless man with wire rimmed glasses, a strange beard and long silver hair kept in a braid, then proceed to launch into a monologue about how people have the freedom to do what they want and that by disqualifying someone, you would be taking away their freedom and so on. At some point, Shadow stopped listening to the shirtless man, who definitely had had a few too many drinks in him. She was just about to leave the soapboxing man, when she heard Kyla pipe up on the subject.

 

“Oh for fucks sake,” sighed Shadow as now Kyla and the man were now debating each other.

 

The only benefit from this was that Shadow’s anger had cooled by the time the man seemed close to finishing his rant.

 

“Sir, my friend and I better be on our way so we have time to find a place to camp,” interrupted Shadow.

 

“Oh well that’s ok there bud, what are your names anyway eh,” the man asked.

 

“The name is Shadow.”

 

“Oh well that’s different, and what about you eh,” he said turning to Kyla.

 

“Kyla.”

 

“Nice to meet you two ladies, my name is Christian N. Vous.”

 

“Likewise,” said Kyla.

 

“You two stay around here?”

 

“Ugh,” said Kyla and Shadow in unison, glancing at each other.

 

“Sounds like a ‘no’ then,” said Christian, “well I’m usually not one to stay around here either, but my fur trade contact wanted the goods delivered here so oh well eh.”

 

“Fur trade,” asked Shadow, now genuinely interested in what Christian had to say.

 

“Oh yeah up in Canada there’s a ton of beavers, mink and other critters people down south want to use,” he explained.

 

“Sounds like you make good money from trading if you’re coming all the way down here,” stated Kyla.

 

“Oh you betcha,” said Christian, “I can even help you two get started with the trading business, hell I’ve got two good buddies I can set you up with.’

 

Both Shadow and Kyla bristled at the last statement.

 

Christian continued on to explain that his contacts were over in the Lemoyne area, completely oblivious to the fact that he seemed to have implied that more would be required of the two ladies than just business opportunities.

 

“You do realize that it would be just trading business between us, right,” informed Shadow, who had sensed how uncomfortable Kyla was at the thought of having just escaped an arranged marriage.

 

 “Well of course,” replied Christian, who was still oblivious, “what do you think I meant?”

 

“Um.”

 

“We thought you meant we would have to sleep with them too,” said Kyla bluntly.

 

Well she’s certainly not a delicate flower, thought Shadow as a hint of a blush crept into her cheeks.

 

“Oh,” said Christian as the realization struck him full in the face as a deep red crossed his cheeks, “you won’t have to do that I’m sure of that.”

 

The three of them worked out a plan for Christian, or as his friends called him Nuvus, to take Shadow and Kyla to meet his contacts in Lemoyne, specifically in Bayou Nwa.