I WAS STRUGGLING & squirming like a worm on a stick and I knew the toothed blade of the saw was about to bite into my nether bits to make my legs longer & my body shorter so I squinched closed my eyes and prayed as hard as I could.

Instantly, everything ceased & a blessed Silence reigned. I wondered if I had been snatched away to Glory.

I opened my eyes, half expecting to see my Redeemer standing there.

It was not the Lord Jesus. It was Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville in her riding habit and ostrich-feathered riding hat.

“D-mn you and your meddling,” she said. “If Jack finds out I doubled back to help you he will throttle me for sure.”

She came closer and tried to bend to see my ankles tied beneath the log. But her corset would not allow her enough flexibility so she had to kneel to get a look. I felt her dainty gloved fingers fumbling with the knots. “You fool,” she said. “You tightened these knots by squirming. Have you got a knife?”

“Mmmmph!” I nodded & grunted & made my eyes look down towards my neck where my medicine bag was.

She saw that my mouth was stuffed with a balled-up handkerchief. For a moment she hesitated, then she removed that foul and soggy object with her gloved thumb & forefinger, and Expression No. 3—Disgust.

“Flint knife,” I croaked. “Pouch around my neck.”

She found my medicine bag & pulled it out & opened it & fished out my Indian ma’ s flint knife. She had to kneel again to get at my wrists and ankles but after a moment I was free. I tried to get up but she made no move to help me and as my arms and shoulders were numb, I tumbled off the half-sawed log & thumped onto the hard floor & lay there winded with my mouth full of sawdust.

After a moment I sat up & spat out the sawdust & some blood where I had cut my lip.

“Thank you,” I said, wiping my mouth with my hand. My voice was kind of croaky. “Why did you come back to help me?”

“I am not a monster,” she said. “That would be a horrible way for anyone to die, even a misfit like you.”

She was now standing as far away from me as her puffy velvet skirt would allow. She had lit one of her cigarritos and was regarding me through a cloud of smoke. Her pretty violet eyes were narrowed into Expression No. 5—mad or thinking or suspicious.

Maybe all three.

She sucked her cigarrito hard & I saw the fiery tip flare up. “Besides,” she said, “you saved me from a beating at the hand of that man. Maybe something worse. You did not have to do that.” She exhaled smoke. “Also, if people found the body of a sawed-in-half girl dressed as a boy they might make enquiries and that might lead them to me. I do not need that kind of impediment now.” She dropped the butt of her cigarrito & ground it into the sawdust. “That Jack Williams is an animal and should be put down.”

I got unsteadily to my feet. “Then why were you sparking him?” I asked. I felt queasy & shaky from nearly being sawed in half. My shoulders ached and my knees trembled.

Violetta gave a little shrug. “I like gamblers and desperados,” she said. “They excite me.” She opened her reticule and took out a fresh cigarrito & a Lucifer.

I said, “You betrayed Jace. How could you do that?”

She said, “So did you. By spying on him.”

I had no reply.

She struck the Lucifer on a raw plank of the wall & held the flame to the tip of her cigarrito. “I have known poverty all my life,” she said, “and when I was fourteen years old I vowed to make something of myself. The good Lord gave me three gifts: beauty, brains and bravery. My beauty will not last forever so I have got to use it while I got it. I married a dying old man and made him happy for a few months by mopping his forehead and speaking softly to him. He died and left me money. But not enough. So I had to marry a few others.”

“Did you kill them?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “But I did not object if my other gentlemen friends challenged them to duel. I have one last husband to divorce and then I will marry Jace.”

“Jace will never marry you,” I said. “He once told me he would never go to a wedding, especially his own. He is entranced by you but he will soon come to his senses.”

She blew out smoke, hard & down. “You claim to care for Jace but you only follow him around because he can give you something you want. You do not really like him. You only care about yourself. You are a cold and heartless misfit, whose face betrays no expression.”

I pondered this.

It was true that my face betrays no expression.

It was true that Jace had something I wanted: a knowledge of how to read people.

I thought about the first time I had met Jace, when he had caught me in his arms after I leapt from a balcony to escape gunfire. I remembered the time I had run into him and knocked gold pieces from his hands. I remembered how he had started to teach me about how to understand people, and how it had been like a ray of revelation from the Lord. I thought about the times he had let me dine with him and Stonewall and how he let me stay up late at night in the saloons of Virginia City to help him play cards.

“I do like Jace,” I said. “I like him a lot.”

“I suppose you think you can take the place of his children.”

“Beg pardon?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you know anything about Jace?” she asked. “Anything at all?”

“I know his name is Jason Francis Montgomery,” I said. “I know he fought in the Mexican War and that he did not like killing men and that is why he did not enlist in the southern rebellion against the north.”

“Anything else?”

“He has a friend called Stonewall.”

Once again, Violetta opened her beaded reticule. She took out a piece of paper and held it out so I could take it. It was a CDV, a Carte de Visite. It showed Jace sitting next to a woman with symmetrical features & dark hair parted in the middle. There were also two boys and a little girl in the picture. The oldest boy looked to be about eight. They all had dark hair. The little girl was sitting on Jace’s lap. She had ringlets.

“Who are these people with Jace?” I said. But my sinking stomach already knew.

“His wife and children,” she said.

I looked up at Violetta.

“Jace is married?” I said. “With children?” My voice sounded strange in my own ears.

“Was,” she said, and sucked her cigarrito. She turned her head & blew the smoke to one side. “Jace was married with kids. They are all dead now. I thought he would have told you that, you being such good friends.”

“They are all dead?” I repeated stupidly. “Who killed them?”

She took another deep drag. “God killed them,” she said. “Took them all with a fever two Christmases ago.” She blew the smoke down.

It felt like all the air had left the room.

“You might care about Jace,” she said, “but he don’t care about you. If he did, then he would have told you about his dead family. But he is using you just like you are using him. He told me how you sometimes help him win at poker. That is the only reason he tolerates you.”

I could not breathe.

I thought, “This danged pinching biting corset!”

Then I remembered I was not wearing a corset.

Violetta said, “You probably saved my life just now. I certainly saved yours. So now we’re even. Jace does not care about you. He told me you were as bothersome to him as a deer tick. Why don’t you just go away and never come back?”

I never cry, but everything was blurry & my throat was so tight I could hardly swallow & that invisible corset around my middle made it hard to breathe.

I thought, “Violetta is right. I am a Misfit and a Freak. Jace does not care about me. Nobody cares about me.”

Then I thought, “Dang Jace and the rest of them. Dang them all to the fiery place!”

And finally, “I will get on Cheeya and ride away and we will live in the desert like Blue Supper the hermit and never have anything to do with People ever again.”