The young girl sat on the rickety old bed in the drafty two room shack, a tiny cracked mirror cradled on her lap, a large pair of scissors in her tiny work roughened hands. In all of her fourteen years she had loved and cherished her hair. Even in the family's hardest and leanest times she had always managed to keep her beautiful waist length ebony curls healthy and shiny.

Tears that were never far away these days welled fresh in her luminous sky blue eyes. Allowing herself a moment of self pity before she put her plan of vengeance into action, she dropped the scissors into her lap and clasped her arms around her knees, resting her head atop her hands and cried like a baby. Her life seemed to be full of if only, if only her mother hadn't died giving birth to her, if only her father hadn't died of the grip last winter, if only her brother hadn't decided to take on a gunfighter, if only she had been born a boy, if only...

She took one last hiccupping gulp of air and raised her head, filled with a new resolve. Lifting the scissors with trembling hands, she grabbed her waist length braid at the base of the neck and using the blunt scissors she chopped at the braid. Gripping the detached braid by the top she tied a tiny pink ribbon around it and laid it on the bed in front of her. Not yet willing to look at herself in the mirror she rose and lifted the pile of clothes from the floor beside her.

Placing them on the bed, she carefully unbuttoned her dress and removed it and her feminine underwear exchanging it for unflattering and slightly uncomfortable textured woollen longjohns. Pulling on a pair of men's trousers over them, she shrugged into a coarse broadcloth shirt, buttoning it she smiled wryly to herself. For the first time in her young life she was glad for her somewhat boyish figure. Pulling one of her fathers old belts through the belt loops on the trousers she cinched it tightly around her tiny waist.

Walking slowly to the large mirror over the dresser, she looked critically at her appearance. She had transformed herself into a skinny young boy, her thick black hair hacked at a ragged angle, just touching the collar of her shirt, the thick ebony tendrils hanging limply, hiding the delicate line of her neck. Her thick fringe shadowing her long black lashes and crystalline blue eyes. Her translucent skin pale and wan.

She lifted her hat and her braid from the end of the bed and walked to the door of the shanty. Opening the saddlebag which lay on the floor beside the door, she lifted her brothers two treasured colts from the bag and wrapped the length of braid around them. Pushing the guns back into the saddlebags, she hefted the saddlebags and bedroll to her shoulder. She took one last glance at the two rooms that had formed the basis of her existence for as long as she could remember. The only things she could take with her were her memories and her destiny.

Walking without another backward glance at her childhood home, she fitted her saddlebags and bedroll onto the back of her saddle, Tears again welling in her eyes as she mounted her beautiful black stallion and prepared to ride our and meet her destiny. She had vowed a little more than a year ago that she would make her brothers killer pay for the injustice he had heaped on her young life by killing her beloved brother and only living relative. It had taken her this long to locate him, but now that she had found him he would pay for his crime at her hand. His family would know the suffering that she had known and endured. She had one enemy in this harsh wild territory and his name was Wild Bill Hickock.

Chapter 1