Blessing. Deborah Bedford

out of a cup that was good enough for hundreds of thirsty men. That cup’s been sitting on that rock for five years, and you’re the first skunk to pick it up, refuse to drink out of it and throw it into the bushes. If I ever see you in these parts God made for men—and not your kind—I’ll shoot lower and put a hole in that thick head of yours. Savvy?’”

      Everybody in the place started hooting.

      Parent banged his cup against the podium again to quiet the roaring crowd. His efforts came too late. People were laughing, clapping each other on the back. “Silence,” Parent shouted. “Silence!”

      Silence did not come. Somewhere in the back, somebody bellowed, “It’s got to be Tin Cup! Tin Cup! Tin Cup!”

      Every man in the meeting room took up the cry. “Tin Cup! Tin Cup! Tin Cup!”

      Parent knew he had to preserve parliamentary procedure. “I move we name this town Tin Cup! Do I hear a second? We have to have a second!”

      “I second it!” Uley’s hand lifted above the crowd. “Tin Cup is perfect!”

      “All in favor.” Parent did his best to count hands, but that proved impossible. “All against.”

      In the end, he found it easier to tabulate the nays and subtract them from the number attending the meeting. It worked out—on paper—as one hundred votes cast in favor and three votes opposed.

      And so, this town would change its name. When the paperwork was completed, the officers of Virginia City would sell their rights and seal to the new town for the price of two hundred and fifty dollars. “Tin Cup, Colorado, it is—one hundred to three,” Parent shouted.

      Hats flew in celebration. Stetsons. Wool caps. Bowlers. Even a beret or two. Every hat flew except one. Uley’s. Despite the excitement, Uley stood still, hands propped on hips, hat very much in place.

      Uley wanted to throw her woolen hat into the air. She wanted to let all her curls underneath tumble out and give away her secret. But she was stuck. Stuck like a pine marten gets stuck when it climbs down somebody’s chimney and ends up in somebody’s wood stove.

      “You going up to Frenchy’s?” somebody asked her pa.

      Samuel Kirkland glanced at Uley sideways, the way a mule glances when it’s unsure of its footing. “Don’t think so, Amos. Uley and I’ve got to get home. Tomorrow’s going to start early.”

      “Aw, Sam,” Amos said. “It’ll start early for everybody. Come on over and keep the celebration going.”

      Uley said nothing. A Christian young lady did not enter a place like Frenchy’s, a man’s place, without having her reputation sorely tainted. But what did it matter, anyway? With the deception she was playing on the whole town, she had no right to be counting anyone else’s sins. As long as she and Sam lived in Tin Cup, nobody would know her as a genteel young lady. Things had already gone too far for that.

      “Come on, Sam,” Amos urged her pa. “It’ll be hard work in the mines tomorrow. Tonight let’s cut loose.”

      Uley could tell by the way he glanced at her again that her pa wanted to go.

      “You should come, too, Uley.” Amos clapped her on the back. “They’re gonna start a poker game up there at ten. It’s about time a young fella like you learned to hold his own in a gambling den.”

      “No thanks, Amos.”

      The raucous crowd funneled through the doorway, then fanned out onto the street, heading toward Frenchy’s, the most popular of the town’s twenty saloons. That was certainly a subject a Christian lady shouldn’t know about, she thought, somewhat grimly, as she watched her pa get swept up in the throng. Gambling dens and saloons.

      Uley walked toward the little house where she and her father made their home. The cob-worked cabin on Willow Street suited them much better than the crude shanties most of the miners had pieced together in the hills. She knew her pa had purchased the pretty little place in town because he wanted to do right by her.

      “Hey, Uley!” Marshal Harris Olney called out as he passed by. “Why aren’t you over at Frenchy’s with the rest of them?”

      She thought before she spoke, and consciously pitched her voice lower. “That’s not a place I enjoy going.”

      “Wish everybody else thought that way, too.” Harris shook his head jovially. “I’ll be up all night.”

      Uley figured the marshal probably never got a decent night’s rest. People worked hard all day long in the mines, and at night, when you’d think they’d be exhausted and ready to sleep, they came out to carouse in saloons that never closed, celebrating a few nuggets of gold—which were usually gone by sunup. Oh, Father. It seems as if nothing I could ever do would change this place.

      As she hurried up the street, Uley heard a slight sound to her left. The sound wasn’t much, just a pebble skipping across the dirt. She glanced up, couldn’t see into the shadows. Something about being here alone this time of night with everybody else down at Frenchy’s made her adrenaline flow.

      Just suppose she’d come upon a mountain lion.

      Just suppose she’d come upon somebody up to no good.

      Just suppose.

      Uley didn’t miss a stride. As she rounded the next corner, she spied a stranger standing at the edge of the darkness.

      “Hello,” she said to him, an unreasonable fear knotting her stomach.

      He nodded without answering. As she passed him, all she caught was a glimpse—a black leather vest, legs long as a stallion’s, a dark felt Stetson, a glint of moonlight reflecting in his eyes and in his hands.

      A glint of metal.

      Uley stopped three paces past him. The stranger was holding a gun. She turned to see him step out into the pale moonglow to take his aim.

      This man, all black leather and legs, with a shadow for a face, was going to shoot the marshal in the back!

      Uley didn’t take time to think. She didn’t take time to cry for help. She sprinted toward the man, mud muffling her long strides. She took a racing leap and sprang at him.

      She hit him full tilt and heard his breath rush out of his lungs. The gun pinwheeled out of his hands. He grunted as he went down.

      She fell on top of him and pinned him. She clamped her arms firmly about his neck, not about to let him go.

      He tried to throw her off. She clung to him like the mountain lion she’d been afraid of moments before, her attention riveted to his neck, the only part of him small enough to hang on to.

      For the first time in her life Uley offered thanks for her muscles, which were honed to do the same job as any man’s. She fought for breath. “He’s tryin’ to shoot Olney! Somebody get over here!”

      She heard feet pounding in her direction. Thank You, Father. Oh, thank You, thank You, thank You.

      The man beneath her cursed again and said, “Now I’m going to get tried for murdering Harris Olney, and I didn’t even get to kill him.”

      “You hold still.” She glared down at him. “You don’t say anything.” She realized he was staring up at her now the way a man might stare at someone dead. His eyes got as big around as silver dollars.

      He gasped, “You’re a lady.”

      Holding him down did not frighten her, but this did. He’d found her out. Uley let go of his neck, grabbed her head and, sure enough, the cap had flown away. Her hair hung in sodden, muddy ribbons around her neck.

      She looked alternately from the man beneath her to the woolen cap lying upside down in the mud.

      Every fellow in Tin Cup would arrive within seconds.

      Uley made a fast decision. She figured the stranger would get away, but she had