Hard Country, Harder Woman

The wind cut sharp across the valley, rattling the bare limbs of the cottonwoods and driving the cold deep into the bones. Helen Dyer stood in the doorway of her cabin, a Henry rifle resting easy in her hands. She was a slight woman, but there was steel in her spine, and her eyes—blue as the Nevada sky—meant business.

A year had passed since George rode out that winter’s morning and never came home. She and the boys had searched nearly a month before they found him–lying cold in a lonely draw, his Winchester still in his hands. The tracks told the story—a group of riders, half a dozen or more, had ambushed him.

Bushwhacked–as straightforward as that. Helen buried him where he fell.

That spring, she taught the boys to shoot. “A gun’s no good if you don’t know when to use it,” she told them, “but when you do, you’d best not miss.”

Days later, as the dust cloud on the horizon grew, she reckoned they’d find out if those lessons had taken hold.

The riders came slow, five of them, their mounts lathered from the climb out of the valley. The leader, a rangy man with a scar cutting through his bristly beard, pulled up short.

His name was Jasper Cade, a known troublemaker out of Winnemucca.

“Mrs. Dyer,” he called, touching his hat in mock courtesy, “seems a shame, a woman an’ two young’uns trying to hold a place like this. We figure you’d be better off in town, where there’s folks to look after you.”

Helen’s hands never left the rifle. “We’re doing just fine, Mr. Cade. You’d best turn around.”

Cade chuckled. “Now, that ain’t friendly. Truth is, we ain’t askin’.” His men shifted in their saddles, waiting for the word.

Helen’s finger rested along the trigger guard. “You get off my land, or I’ll put you in the ground.”

The men hesitated. Something in her eyes gave them pause.

Finally, Cade shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you’ll wish you listened.” He turned his horse, spitting into the dust. “See you soon, Mrs. Dyer.”

The barn turned to flames that night, the dry timber catching fast. The boys ran out with buckets, but Helen stopped them. “A barn can be rebuilt,” she said. “We can’t.”

They watched it burn, the light flickering against the cold hills.

At dawn, they took their places—Helen at the cabin window, the boys on the porch with their rifles steady. They didn’t wait for the riders to dismount.

When Cade and his men arrived again, grinning like wolves, Helen’s first shot shattered the morning stillness. Cade never got his hand to his gun.

The Henry slug hit him high in the chest, knocking him backward off his horse. Then her boys opened up, their Winchesters spitting fire.

One man fell hard from his saddle, another groaned and sagged forward, his horse bolting. A third slumped sideways, dead before he hit the ground. The two still in the saddle wheeled their mounts, one gripping his bleeding arm, and galloped for the ridgeline.

Helen stepped onto the porch, chambering another round. The bodies lay sprawled in the dust, the horses snorting nervously.

She watched the two survivors disappear over the rise, then lowered the rifle.

“They won’t be back,” she said.

She was right.