The Witch, the Christian, and the Outlaw

By M. Benjamin Woodall

After a U.S. Marshal passes out at a saloon, a teenage cowgirl with magical abilities takes him under her protection. Little does she know, but the tenderfooted young man she meets who comes into town the next morning on a stagecoach stole the map to a famed goldmine. The marshal, still out like a light, nonetheless rides along with them for the day to go on a Wild West adventure, followed by a ruthless outlaw, to find the gold. The gunslinging witch and the card-swindling Christian, both depraved of love, come of age when she realizes her unique gifts and teaches her partner to turn from his crooked ways and shows him how to be a real man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Benjamin Woodall
• Release date: Jun 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463702017

M. Benjamin Woodall

M. Benjamin Woodall was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1972. He studied filmmaking at Columbia College Chicago and has worked in the independent film industry in the 1990s to 2000s as writer, script consultant, producer, and other roles. Mister Woodall is the author of Raiders of the Dawn, a young adult fantasy series, Archives of the Witch, a young adult paranormal romance series, and other works. Since Nov 2020 he has been host and producer of Pure Steam 2.0, a steampunk themed talk show which first aired on Youtube.Mister Woodall has held residence in many states in the U.S.A. He loves travel, books, and movies. As of this writing, M. Benjamin Woodall can be found in the Atlanta metro area with his wife and two boys, drinking coffee at his desk, working on his next novel.

Book preview

The Witch

FLAMES CRACKLE AND rise into the dusty air, a bittersweet yet earthbound scent. Wisps waft of burnt Arbuckle’s coffee brewed less than an hour before in a rusted, iron pot hanging over the fire. The night air has no more chill to it than any other upon the vast prairies of Montana. Nonetheless, Roy, a teenage cowhand, pouring himself a cup of coffee, is in full gear, woolies on each leg.

Man at the pot! yells Zeb, another cowboy amongst three more sitting leisurely around a larger fire.

Roy nods, grabs another tin cup, and fills it with coffee. He takes his and the other cup back to the others, handing one to Zeb.

All this, Blacksnake watches. She watches the nine cowhands sitting all around the two fires near the chuck wagon, watching Cookie tossing the dishes into the wreck pan while one of the cowboys spins his tin plate covered in scraps through the air at the pan, bouncing off it, spilling beans over Cookie’s boots. Hey, Old Lady! the cowboy snickers. Wrap it up! I want my bedroll!

Blacksnake slides the last of her salted pork through her beans and gulps it up, lavishing the last of the flavor. Cookie picks up the tossed plate, wipes the last of its scraps into the squirrel pan, and drops it onto the pile of other plates in the wreck pan.

Blacksnake, darlin’, Kenny says, you want the last of my dessert? I’m stacked to a fill. He rubs his stomach and hands over his plate, having a few strips of dried apple left.

Thanks, Kenny, Blacksnake says, taking the plate and biting the apples.

Kenny, one of the point riders on the drive, keeps her company, but has been awfully quiet after another long day driving the two thousand heads of cattle along the Bozeman trail. He and Russ, the young teenage boy wrangler of the now ten remuda, after one of the horses stepped into a groundhog hole and got itself trampled over, are the only two dudes she trusts out here. It’s a strange thing not being able to trust any of the others, being the trail boss and all, but considering she’s a girl of eighteen and these lust-minded, hungry men haven’t seen a woman, at least not aware of it, in so many weeks makes her apprehensive. Not scared, mind you—she can take care of herself. Just edgy.

She looks over the undulating pond of the sleeping longhorns over to Russ who now helps Cookie grab some bedrolls of wool blankets from the wagon. They go over to the fires and toss them to the cowboys. Some immediately unroll them and lie down, heads on their saddles. Russ and Cookie go back for more.

Why let them bully you so much? asks Russ.

Cookie scratches his sun-chapped, scared chin. I reckon it’s because I get paid nearly four times anybody else. And when we get to Bozeman, and I collect, all these boys are gonna be jealous. Might make me some new friends. He chuckles. And on this drive, with Blacksnake, I got a much easier time than on most. Much easier.

Russ helps Cookie pull the last of the bed rolls off the wagon. How do you mean?

Well, says Cookie, on most drives, I got to point the chuck wagon to the north star at night, so come morning, the boss can figure his directions. But Blacksnake, she always knows just which way to go. Like it’s magic or somethin’. Always knows where the water is. Guess that’s one of the many things makes her such a good trail boss.

Wait, Russ recollects after they hand out the rolls to the cowboys, who laugh and snicker and pull off their boots. "Did you say she?"

That’s right, Cookie says. "He is a she. I know she keeps it undercover, but I’m surprised you ain’t noticed yet, riding up alongside her like you do."

Russ glances across to Blacksnake with curious eyes. Blacksnake knows she’s broad-shouldered, having good, sturdy muscles for swinging a lasso—but not so strong to carry a stray calf without help sometimes. She looks down over her body, past her virtually unnoticeable, small breasts undershirt, down her smooth-hipped, slender legs, preferring to wear leather chaps instead of woolies. Her feet, sweaty and knotted. She takes off her boots—one, then the other, showing off her feet, long for most girls but still narrow. She looks down over her body and back across the way to see Russ, still staring, jaw dropped—not respectable a look for a gentleman, but then Russ is no gentleman in any sense or gumption. Just, she hopes, he remembers the cowboy code.

She ain’t but eighteen-years-old, Cookie says. Nineteen at the oldest.

No, says Russ, denying his own pecker (which can be now clearly be seen impressing into the inside of his jeans). Can’t be. His face blank of all emotion, Russ moseys on over to Blacksnake and Kenny.

Blacksnake turns her soft, translucent eyes up to Russ, peepers which bare a stark contrast to her dark, tough skin—a little red, yes, but not Indian red—the kind of color one might expect a cowboy to have after several hot summers on long cattle drives. A girl, yes, but a girl clearly used to hard work through all her teenage years, if not many before.

Looks like we got ourselves a real Cattle Kate, Russ says, dropping his eyes over her heavily. A Calico Queen.

She twists. Lever clicks. Russ blinks, only to find the barrel of her Henry model rifle snipping at his nose.

You best be moseyin’ along, Blacksnake says. Kenny’s the only dude out here I care to socialize with.

My apologies, miss, says Russ.

No harm done, she says.

Russ steps backward. Blacksnake lowers her rifle.

Rit-tit-tit-tit-tit-tit. Russ skips a step, nearly tripping, past a rattlesnake slithering up from behind a rock. Blacksnake kicks up dirt, scrambling backward. Kenny jumps up.

The snake’s head strikes, but Kenny grabs it under its jaw, holding it up over the fire.

Land sakes! Blacksnake says.

Looks like we got us a bite to chew, says Kenny.

That snake got you all riled up, Blacksnake, Russ says.

Russ, she says, I just have this dream, since I was a filly, that I’d be bit by a rattler one day.

Buck up, purty gal, says Kenny. Not while I’m around. I love ‘em too much.

Love? Surely, Kenny wouldn’t imply a love for her, in avowing his love for rattlesnake meat. No. They’re friends and nothing more. He’s like a brother she never had. He looks after her—whenever she needs looking after, that is. When it comes to the advances of men, who only want one thing, she can trust her adopted brother not to fool her for the sake of that feeling. That feeling and impressing aura she herself craves but can only give to herself when all are asleep on long cattle drives, when she looks up at the starry heavens and ponders the meaning of it all. No man, no woman for that matter, could ever want to love her for the sake of her, to be attracted to her, so to make that feeling real—to come alive.

Kate Winslow never considered herself attractive. Why would she? Even by thirteen she was as flat-chested as could be when all the boys she played with all those many years before then turned their eyes on her budding peers. They turned back when she picked up a gun or whip, fascinated by her unusually quick reflexes, but not for long. Not long enough. Early on, she ran away from her pioneer village and ever since then, took care of herself for herself, making friendships carefully, adopting the name Blacksnake as a means to intimidate others, from her skill with a blacksnake whip.

Her one mentor, more a life teacher than either of her parents could ever be, was her grandmother, who, when Kate was six, set her aside and assured her she was special. Her gifts, as she got older, would frighten some folks and anger others, especially those fearing Sam Hill and hellfire tarnation. She wasn’t accursed by God nor a savior by Him either. She was instead a child of the Earth, having inherited a craft which could either help others or hurt them. It was her choice between the two but was given a warning against using her talents for selfish ends. She is a child of nature, after-all, and the law of nature is reciprocal—all that you do comes back to you.

A coyote howls. Some of the longhorns stir. The cowboys slow their blather and listen. The coyote howls again. One of the longhorns moos. Cookie starts singing softly, I ride an old paint, I lead an old Dan…

To calm the cattle, the others sing along:

I'm goin' to Montan’ to throw the hoolihan,

They feed 'em in the coulees, they water in the draw,

Their tails are all matted, their backs are all raw.

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are rarin’ to go.

Old Bill Jones had two daughters and a song,

One went to Denver and the other went wrong.

His wife got killed in a poolroom fight,

Still he keeps singing from morning till night.

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are rarin’ to go.

When I die take my saddle from the wall,

Put it on to my pony, lead him out of his stall,

Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the west,

And we'll ride the prairie that we love the best.

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are rarin’ to go.

Listening to the cowboys’ soothing melodies, Blacksnake is lulled to sleep.

Blacksnake rides along the incline of a hill under the mollifying rain of the morning sun. She stops her horse past