E by Kate Wrath Read Free Book Online

her actions and her
body language.  I wonder, could I do that?  Could I pull that
off?  Look scary enough that everyone would leave me alone?
    My stash of coins slowly builds up, and as it does, I begin to
think of my long-term plan.  What exactly will I do when I have
enough?  How much will I need to buy a new life?  There are no
certain answers to these questions.  But one day I sit on the curb in the
cold, in front of the Rustler, a bar that reminds me of an old-style cowboy
saloon.  The bar is a hub of news and gossip, so it's worth hanging around
out front, but I don't spend a lot of time here because the place is usually
crawling with Matthew's thugs and other scary characters.  As I pause for
just a moment today, I can see through the open front doors to a table where a
group of men are playing cards.  I watch them briefly, and as I do,
something clicks inside me.  I can see the cards of the man whose back is
to me, can read the faces of his opponents.  I know exactly what I would
do if I held those cards.  He does something different.  The others
take his money.
    My heart skips a beat.  My body turns, unconsciously, toward
the door.  I watch them deal the cards for the next hand.  The man's
cards are good this time.  Bet more, I'm thinking, but he doesn't. 
He wins, but he could have taken a bigger pot.  My mouth is hanging open
as I watch them deal the third hand. 
    This time, his cards are decent, but he doesn't know what to do
with them.  The others' faces are stern, set, but a glance here, a shift
of weight there, gives away their uncertainty.  He could bluff his way to
a win.  Instead, he folds.  Wrong again.  I'm sure now, beyond
all doubt, that I could have played it the right way, if those had been my
cards.  If.
    My mind reels.  Some of Matthew's men appear around the
street corner and walk toward the saloon.  There's a pig trailing along
behind them-- wearing a silver necklace!  I do a double-take, get to my
feet and hobble away, but my thoughts are racing.  I have to get in on one
of these games.  There's no question of it.  I simply have to. 
But how?
    The following days are filled with a sort of feverish madness in
which I'm consumed with the idea, plotting and planning, but never exactly
figuring out how to accomplish it.  I consider and discard a number of
plans.  I can't walk into the Rustler as a poxy beggar.  I can't
simply discard my disguise.  This struggle between who I really am, and who
I have to be, has consumed the whole of my existence since I woke up in the
Outpost that first day.  I begin to despair that I will never be able to
move on.  That I will always be like this.  Every plan I can conceive
of is full of risk.  Every plan could end in disaster.  I am frozen
by inaction.  Afraid, always, of being watched.
    Then I remember the idea I once had.  I am far more afraid of
remaining like this than I am of losing my life.  Even the threat of
slavery does not seem all that much more horrifying than being like I am. 
Perhaps because I'm already a slave, in so many ways.  I feel relieved--
soothed, even-- when it dawns on me that I am not beyond doing something
desperate.
    Embracing the madness, I form a plan.  It will take far
longer to enact than I would like.  I have to make myself wait, force my
own patience.  I will only have one chance, and I can't screw it up.
    I continue to save my coins slowly.  Hanging around the
fringes of the marketplace, I price a new set of clothing.  It will take
me at least a month more to save for the cheapest thing I can find, and I'll
need some stake money on top of that.  I feel sick at the thought of
waiting so long, but what can I do?
    Then one afternoon I'm collecting trash as usual when I hear a
scream from an adjoining alleyway.  I can't stop myself from peeking in to
see what the source of the scream was.
    As I look into the cross-alley, I see a dark figure running
away.  And lying with her head in