South of Rio Chama preview

Lyn McConchie “Lilly McLeod, Call me Illy.” She grinned at him. “Everyone else does.”

He looked at Illy an’ his eyes went round. For a minute there I was puzzled. Then it was like I was seein’ her through new eyes myself.

She was tall an’ slender but she had a woman’s shape where it counted.

Her hair hung in long black plaits over her shoulders and you just knew that when it was let down it would ripple in a curtain of midnight almost to her knees.

Her eyes were the same storm gray McLeod’s had been. Here in the mountains she was wearin’ the same as us. Buckskin pants an’ jacket with a black an’ red checked wool shirt, an’ mebbe they fitted a mite snug. Since she hadn’t been doin’ any riding, she was wearin’ knee-high moccasins for scramblin’ up an’ down that bench while she set the snares. She had a gun-belt ‘round her hips an’ that wasn’t anythin’ to take lightly either. Despite her small hands an’ feet, she had wrists like steel. She could draw darn near as fast as I could and shoot every bit as good. As kids we’d pretended to be gunslingers, and practiced for hours although I had a good head start on that. McLeod never knew about the fast draws, but he encouraged us to shoot.

Meanwhile, Illy was chattin’ with the kid an’ he was listenin’ with a look on his face like someone’d hit him from behind. Sort of stunned an’ surprised as all get out. But it weren’t long before he was chatterin’ back to her with us listenin’ as we got food heated. Seemed like Illy reckoned him okay an’ that was almost good enough for me, although Mace an’ me would still watch him any time someone else was about. I weren’t takin’ no chances.

Anyway, from his talk I gathered that he was eighteen, an’ his Ma and Pa were dead. He’d been alone since he was fourteen, lookin’ out for hisself an’ rustlin’ a living, and he hadn’t but one widowed sister left as kin. She was six years older and she’d been married to a storekeeper over in Arizona. Rad hadn’t seen her in more’n a year.

“She’s got two girls, Miss Illy. Her man died an’ it ain’t easy on her, managin’ the store and takin’ care of the kids. They’d have taken me in when Ma died, but they wasn’t makin’ much, an’ I could manage. Then her man died so I send money to her when I can to help out. Fact is, I ain’t sent some in a while. I drew my pay last week an’ I ain’t spent none of it yet. I need to get down to town so as I can send some to Sis an’ the kids.”

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