GOOD NEWS!

The great news right now is that I have finally completed the manuscript for my historical romance novel, From Now Until Forever! Now I’m finishing up the Proposal on it for a prospective agent, in the hopes she will agree to represent me in marketing the book to publishers. Pray for her heart to be receptive and for wisdom for my mind as I try to market myself as well as my book!

Today I’m trying an experiment so let me know what you think. It is a serial of seven parts called "Cherokee Star". Set in the Old West it is a short story about the harsh realities many women faced back then and explores the choices one in particular made in order to cope with them, yet it offers hope even at the end of life.


CHEROKEE STAR
Part One

“Well, come to stare at the condemned woman, have you? You won’t be the first man to have stared at me, so go ahead – stare away. I don’t care any more.” She set her chin and glared at him, the hatred in her blue eyes causing even a hardened man like him to have to work at fighting back the shivers running up his spine. He was grateful she didn’t have a gun.

“Sit down, Cherokee. I didn’t come to ‘stare’ as you put it, just to talk to you a bit. Occurred to me that you have never really talked about your crimes and I would really like to understand you before it’s too late.”

“Understand? What is there to understand? I killed ’em all, pure and simple.” The young woman stalked over to the tiny barred window and gazed out at the gallows being hastily constructed in the courtyard below. “People are going to have themselves a party in a couple of days, aren’t they?”

When she didn’t move, quietly the man sat down at the table and with his boot shoved the other chair toward her. “Sit down, Cherokee. Let’s talk.”

“About what?”

“About your life and how you got to this point. Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

She whirled around to face him defiantly. “You mean, when I was born?”

“No, not that far back. Come on, sit down, will you? When was the first time you realized that your life was taking a wrong turn?”

“The first time I shot a man.” And she plunked down in the chair with a smug smile on her face. “But it definitely wasn’t a ‘wrong turn’. I knew what I was doing and I’m glad I did it.”

There was silence as the man tapped the key to the cell on the table, turning it over and over in his hand. He just stared at her as he waited, hoping she would continue.

“I was only twelve years old. It was my father. Hated that man more than anyone I’ve ever known. And I guess I do have to start when I was born, because as long as I can remember I had suffered from his drunken rages. If he came home giggling like a kid then we knew we were safe, he’d just go to sleep without lifting a hand against any of us. But if he came home sullen . . . ”

“That’s when the beatings would start?”

The blue eyes bore into the man’s heart until he felt like a tomato plant withering in the hot sun and he had to look away. Quietly, so the words could barely be heard and he had to strain his ears to be sure he caught each one, she continued.

“No, that’s when he’d drag me out of my bed and into the lean-to, while my brother would cover his ears with a pillow to shut out my screams. Or, so he told me later.”

“What was your mother doing?”

“Same thing, I guess. At least, she never tried to stop him. Why didn’t she at least try?”

“Wish I could answer that, Cherokee. But I can understand you’d like an answer, deserve one, too. So you finally just had enough one day and shot him?”

“It was for the money.”

To Be Continued . . .