Dear Arthur and Johnny,
In case you have not had your quota of dime novels this month, I am sending you a true account of our First Adventure:
Our two brave heroines are Helga Estby, a Norwegian immigrant homesteader, and her daughter Clara. For two weeks they had walked through heavy mud, swollen rivers, and rugged mountains, determined to reach New York City to win a wager that would save their family's farm.
Only the day before, the valiant women walkers had crossed the Blue Mountains in a ferocious blizzard. When the next morning dawned clear, they had no presentiment that this day would be other than an uneventful walk into La Grande, Oregon, where they hoped for the reward of a long, hot bath.
Late in the day, they came out of the foothills on the far side of the Blue Mountains. Looking down on the wheat growing in the Grande Ronde Valley, they could see the ruts left by the thousands of wagons carrying courageous pioneers westward on the Oregon Trail.
Still concentrating on their footing in the loose rock slicked by melting snow, they did not notice the slow hoofbeats behind them until they heard a man's voice. "You headed into La Grande?"
Helga Estby quickened her pace. She did not answer.
In a quick glance back, Clara observed the man's straight dark mustache, oiled hair, bowler hat, suit, and once white shirt.
"How far you two been walking?" he asked.
Clara, innocent as she was of the darker side of human nature, started to reply, but her mother warned her to keep her silence.
The man was willing to do all the talking himself, however. He slid off his horse and walked along behind the two women.
Though travel-ravaged and less clean than was their wont, their proud carriage still identified them as paragons of decent womanhood. In the gentle wind blowing southward through the valley, a strand of Clara's fair hair pulled loose from her decorous bun and glowed like a golden filament halo in the solitary ray of sun, which pierced the billowy cloud.
"Why you out here by yourselves?" His voice was coarse and menacing He paused, inviting a reply, but the women remained silent. "You got a boyfriend, titmouse?" He drew abreast of Clara and poked his elbow into her arm to make sure she knew he was addressing her, but Clara still did not answer.
He dropped behind again and continued his one-sided conversation.
"Sure would like to see what's in them satchels. Run off with your old man's loot?"
When he shoved her mother, Clara's eyes widened in horror. Would she have to use the gun her father had insisted they carry? Her face grew hot as she fumbled in her bag to bring her gun to the top where she could grab it if she had to.
The dark-mustached man shoved Clara's back this time. As she lurched forward he jabbed her again, harder, and she fell to her hands and knees across her satchel. He grabbed her chin from behind, like a cougar snapping a sheep's head around to break its neck. As Clara flailed helplessly, he leaned over her to growl, "When I talk, look at me like you're listening"
Clara's frantic mother grabbed one of his shoulders and tried to wrench him off her daughter, but he swung one scarred fist, which landed with a thud on her brow. In spite of the trickle of blood now running into her eye, she held steadfast to the villain's arm, straining with every ounce of a mother's courage to drag him off her daughter.
He tried to shake her loose, but she would not release her grip, so he stooped to his boot, where Clara was alarmed to see the hilt of a knife. As he pulled out his glittering dagger, she pulled her gun from her satchel and before she could lose her nerve, she shot.
A hole bloomed red in his lower leg, just above the line of his boot. He howled and fell back on his posterior.
"Get on your horse and get out of here," she commanded.
She kept her gun trained on him while he limped to his horse, swearing oaths too coarse to commit to print. As he put one leg in the stirrup and swung his other, bleeding leg over the saddle, he issued a warning: "The sheriff in La Grande will throw you both in jail!"
"I doubt it," said the valiant Clara. Soon he was nothing but a dust cloud.
Clara tucked the ripped top of her skirt into her waistband and washed the cut above her mother's eye. As they walked the last two miles into town, Clara's mother took over the gun. "If there's any problem over this shooting, I'll tell the sheriff I did it" she said. "I'll not have you hung for protecting me"
Clara anxiously scanned the horizon for any sign of a posse out looking for a would-be murderess and her mother. With faith in the power of truth and the fairness of justice in this land, however, she and her mother strode directly to the sheriff's office.
As they entered the office, the man who had accosted them jabbed an accusing finger at them from his position on a rough-hewn bench. "That's them!" he shouted. "Put them in jail!"
Clara's mother slammed her satchel on the sheriff's desk and jabbed her own finger at her assailant. "That's the man who should be in jail—assaulting defenseless women..."
"Defenseless!" The man started to stand and groaned as his leg oozed fresh blood through the rags he had bound around it. He collapsed back on the bench and pointed to his wound. "There's all the proof you need on who should be locked up"
"How dare you..." Clara's mother started.
The sheriff held out one open palm against Clara's mother and the other against the man on the bench as if to physically stop the accusations and counter-accusations. "Both of you, quiet! The judge'll be through here next week, and we'll hear both of your stories then."
"But we can't stay here a week," Clara said. "We'll miss our deadline!"
"And look at us, Sheriff," Clara's mother said, pointing to her bleeding forehead and Clara's ripped skirt and bloodied hands. "We were only virtuous women defending our honor"She sorted through her bag to find her letter of recommendation from Mayor Belt of Spokane and the clipping from the New York World.
"Well," the sheriff sighed as he finished reading the article and handed it back. "I think you women are crazy for trying to walk across the country by yourselves, but it looks like you were provoked into using your gun, so I won't lock you up. In fact," he said, turning to the villain on the bench, "I am going to keep you here for a day or two. You need to keep off that leg anyway, and I'm sure these ladies would continue on easier in their minds if they knew I was keeping an eye on you"
The sheriff escorted Mrs. Estby and Clara to the door and pointed the way to his house. "My wife will see you cleaned up and mended before you're on the way. Try not to use that gun again between here and New York"
And so ends the first installment of the adventures of Helga and Clara Estby. Do you think I should change our names for the book? Helga and Clara sound more plodding than dashing.
Love,
Your gunslinging sister;
Clara
As I put down my pencil, the grim smile on my face collapsed. My arm still jangled from the recoil on the pistol, and I shuddered and gagged at the smells of gunpowder and blood, which still clung to the inside of my nose. I darted out from our host cabin long enough to retch and wash my mouth out at the pump. I could have killed that man. Or he might have killed Ma and me just to see what was in our satchels.
After a few minutes of breathing fresh air, I was ready to revise the draft of my letter to Arthur and Johnny. By this second retelling—three, if you counted the time I explained what happened to the sheriff—my heart still quickened, my ears still rang with the sound of gunshot, the bile still rose. I had an adventure to write about, but I hoped this would be the last one that nearly landed us in jail.