Page 153 of The Widow and the Wanted

He does.

She takes one step forward. Her boots sink in mud. “My name is Lula Clay. I was with the Bowering expedition on the Verdigris. We were not surveyors. We were not soldiers. We were botanists, note-takers, assistants, working people, and women who had the audacity to write down what men with money wished hidden.”

The crowd holds still.

Behind me, I feel Okee lower his rifle a fraction. Lula’s hands tremble, but her voice does not.

“Hollister Timber was cutting land it did not own. Their maps were false. Their contracts depended on fraud. Dr. Bowering’s expedition documented stumps, damaged soil, flora, boundaries. Proof. We did not know we were witnessing a crime until the crime came for us. They came at night. Armed men. Hollister men. Men hired under orders. They attacked our camp. They meant to kill all of us and burn what we had gathered.”

“These men,” Lula says, turning to us, “Boone Maddox and Okee Collins, rode with the party that attacked us.”

The crowd stirs. I feel the old shame rise hot up my neck.

Lula does not spare us. “They rode with them,” she says. “And then they turned on them. They shot the men who tried to drag us into the dark. They fought their own party. They saved my life when they could have fled. They carried me through winter. Fed me. Taught me to defend myself. Protected me from Hollister’s men, from weather, from fear, and from every consequence they could shoulder in my place.

“They are not innocent men. They have killed. They have stolen. They have done wrong. They will likely do wrong again⁠—”

“Hey,” I say, stopping her. “You’re defending us, remember?”

Lula turns to the crowd fully.

“They did not murder my friends.”

She lifts her chin.

“They loved me when it would have been safer not to. And I love them.”

The street goes silent.

There it is. No place to hide from it now.

Just Lula Clay standing in the mud before God, Goldie, Fort Gibson, and every bastard hungry for a hanging, telling them she loves two outlaws.

Somebody gasps. Somebody says something ugly.

Goldie’s voice cuts from above. “Any man with commentary may bring it to my office and read it aloud while I locate his page.”

That settles that.

God bless that terrifying woman.

Everett starts laughing. Or trying to. It comes out wet, broken, red.

“Well done,” he rasps.

All attention returns to him.

Everett tries to rise. Fails. “But Hollister still owns half this camp.”

Lula kneels beside him.

My heart lurches. “Lula⁠—”

Without looking back, she raises one hand that says Stay.

Damn that woman. Damn us for loving her enough to obey.

She looks down at Everett. “Tell them.”