to meander through all kinds of fantasies as he fed and watered the weary team of horses. And while Forney was tending to his business, Letty was tending to some business of her own.
The lantern light shed a pitiful beam through the dark as Letty rounded the side of the building. She held the lantern high above her head in hopes of lighting a broader area, and followed her nose to the outhouse. The door was hanging on one hinge and she thought she caught a flash of something furry scurrying out the door as she went in, but she couldn’t be bothered. She needed to pee and there wasn’t any kind of creeping denizen that could be worse than some of the men that she’d bedded. What did slow her down was the realization that if she took the lantern into the outhouse, her every action would be backlit for the world to see. Reluctantly, she set the lantern down a few feet from the door, gritted her teeth, and stepped inside into the dark.
Between the scent, the heat, and the pressure on her bladder, she was about to pass out. The smell emanating from the dark hole was only a degree or so worse than the inside of that stagecoach had been, but she’d only been a proper lady less than a year, and this was no time to become delicate. She hitched her skirts up around her waist, pulled down her drawers, and aimed toward what she hoped was the hole in the seat.
About the time her water started to flow, she heard a snort, then a snuffle. To her horror, there was a thump and then the little shed started to sway. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stop what she’d started, but there are certain things that, once begun, are almost impossible to stop—one being the emptying of a very full bladder.
In the middle of her panic, the snorting stopped and the outhouse settled. She shifted her position just enough to peer out, but all she could see was darkness.
Relaxing, she continued her business with an easier mind until the hole over which she was bending suddenly shifted out from under her. She heard pee hit the floor at the same time the walls started to lean.
Instinctively, she dropped her skirt and slapped her hands against the opposite wall, putting all her weight against the rough, hand-hewn wood in an effort to settle it back, trying to ignore the fact that she’d peed in her shoe. As she did, the tilt of the outhouse stopped, rocked once, and then started to sway back and forth on the uneven foundation.
“Lord have mercy,” Letty cried, and was reaching for the door when something hit the back wall with a thud.
Even as she was falling, she began to scream. She’d heard of being shit-faced, but never thought it would happen to her.
Eulis was dipping into the stew when he heard the first shriek, and when he did, his blood ran cold. He knew there were all levels of female screams. There was the high-pitched squeal that signaled anything from the sighting of a mouse to something that crept or crawled. And there was the scream of joy upon being presented with an unexpected gift. But neither of these fit what he was hearing. It was a gut-wrenching, spine-chilling scream of mortal fear, coupled with a rage he didn’t want to consider. He’d heard women scream before, but the only woman around here was Letty, and he didn’t want to think about what it would take to make that happen. He dropped the ladle back in the stew and bolted for the door, horrified to even consider what might have set her into such a frenzy.
Eulis came out the door as Forney and Big Bill were running from the corral. Boston Jones and Morris Field came out of the dark where they’d been reliving themselves, as well.
“What in hell?” Big Bill yelled.
“What’s happenin? Where’s your sister?” Forney asked.
“Sister? I don’t have a sister,” Eulis said, and pushed past him as he ran.
While Forney was trying to assess the confusion of facts, Shorty appeared out of the dark with a rifle in his hand.
“What’s happenin’?” he shouted. “Is it injuns?”
“It’s the woman,” Big Bill said.
Eulis ran behind the building, following the glow of the lantern light and the sound of Letty’s screams.
The others followed, but it was Eulis who grabbed the lantern from the weeds and held it