Kate Redleaf and the Red Cap

Kate Redleaf was no stranger to violence. She was born from it and, by it, orphaned. So, watching her attacker, a man from whom she'd just won a considerable amount of money playing poker, shooting arterial spray from his carotid all over the boots she'd won from another man, did not shock her. Perturbed, is the word she'd use. The boots were worth no small amount and given the sudden shift in her future prospects, not something she was like to come by for some time. An Indian, Lakota Sioux, if such specificities are important to the discerning legal mechanism currently in place, combined with her gender, granted her no tenable protection from adjudication or from the unwelcome outcome which would surely follow. Kate Redleaf was now, for all intents and purposes, an outlaw. And she wasn't the only one who knew it.

There are incidents in life that are so austere as to be recognized by the most basal functions of human understanding to be significant enough that the implication is understood by all who bore them witness. Kate was in trouble. The saloon in which she'd just taken a man's life, was filled with patrons of a nefarious and pugnacious disposition who would not hesitate in meting out a penalty most grievous upon an outsider who had taken from them the surety of their place in a world that had hitherto cantered toward their position in it. They also knew and worked with the man.

So, Kate ran. With urgent intent, she fought through the crowd that was gathering at first out of curiosity but which she knew would turn vengeful when the full scope of her actions was realized. It would not matter to them that the man was trying to hurt her, kill her, or worse. Once outside, she took a moment to catch her breath. It was almost the last one she ever took. The dealer at her table who had witnessed it all, reached through the swinging doors and managed to grab her elbow. Luckily, she was still carrying the knife she'd used on her assailant, and drove it into the dealer's hand. He let go with a yelp, but when he pulled away, took her knife with him. "Damn it," she thought. She heard him yelling to the assemblage as she sprinted down the slat wood porch to her horse.

She got to her horse, a Palomino that would suffer no other rider, and hopped on. It shook its golden mane indignantly at the rough treatment but quickly realized that something was wrong and acquiesced to Kate's prodding. The horse, who Kate had named, Revanche, bolted down the street and was soon lost to the gathering dark. She didn't know where to go so decided to go nowhere and left the road for one less traveled.

Three hours away, a United States Deputy Marshal, known as Harold Jones, received a telegram alerting him to the whole affair. He should have passed on the information to his commanding officer, but where was the fun in that, he thought. He was brought to this country for a purpose. Tilting his blood red cap upon his head, he strode out into the moonless night with a smile that would cow a grizzly. "Miss Redleaf," he said to himself, "we're going to have a cracking good time."