Read It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) for Free Online Page A

live through it all.”
    “That’s one positive thing you can say about it.”
    “And we got nothin’ when we’re through. Our life is pr eserved so we can go on gettin’ nothin’. But Suzanne Cedar, she—”
    “Who?”
    “That dead lady up in my room. We was visitin’ a little last night. She had everything to live for. A rancher who wanted to marry her, a nice home, a future. But she’s dead, and we’re alive. It just don’t add up.”
    “Add up or not, personally I’m glad it’s not me lyin’ dead up there.” Danni Mae shrugged.
    “When you get tired of doin’ this, what will you do, Danni Mae?”
    “Marry some cowboy, I guess .  . . I don’t know. I just sort of take it one day at a time. Speakin’ of stabbin’s, Selena’s still threatenin’ to knife you.”
    “I’m goin’ to take that sticker from her and cut off that black hair if she doesn’t calm down.”
    “Watch out for her, Pepper. I hear she got run out of Central City for stabbing one of the girls.”
    “Danni Mae, nobody ever got run out of Central City for knifin’ someone. But they might have got carried out in a box. I’ll watch out for her.”
    “What you goin’ to do with that body in your room?” Danni Mae held out the front of her gown and fanned it back and forth. She stood up and refilled the two coffee cups and then pulled her chair back away from the wood stove.
    “I guess I’ll get Stack to help me bury her out back. Then I’ll send a letter to her mama. If I can find an address.”
    “Stack might be late gettin’ around. He had a run-in with Jordan Beckett last night. Several of Beckett’s boys tried workin’ him over.”
    “Beckett was here?”
    “Yep.”
    “Drunk?”
    “Yep.”
    “He’s a jerk.”
    “And he was lookin’ for you. That’s what made him so obnoxious. He wanted to promenade with his ‘golden-haired princess.’ He insisted that you were standin’ him up. You know how mean he gets when he’s been drinkin’. It’s all Stack could do to keep him from bustin’ upstairs.”
    “I’m glad I missed him.”
    “Oh, he’ll be back. April told him you’d be back on the floor tonight. And he’s threatenin’ to shoot any man who gets between you and him.”
    “Yeah .  . . that certainly gives me something to look forward to. Look, Danni Mae, I’m going to take this hot water upstairs and have a sponge bath. If you see Stack, tell him to build us a pine box and dig out the shovels.”
    “Someday it will be me and you up there under a scrawny cedar, Pepper.”
    “Not in a dump like this.”
    “Sure .  . . I can think of a lot of places worse than this one.” Danni Mae shrugged.
    “That’s where you got me beat.” Pepper scooted toward the doorless entry. “I can’t think of many places more d epressing than this.”
    “Girl, you sure got a bad case of the sours.”
    “I think I’m just tired,” Pepper called back toward the kitchen. “Real tired.”
    Stack Lowery and a boy named Johnny had dug a hole up on Pingree Hill and left a pine box in the hallway when Pepper finally exited her room dressed for the day.
    Pepper dragged the box into her room and scooted it over by the bed.
    “Honey, we’ll just put you out on the mou ntain until your kin claims ya. It’s the best we got out here. You were travelin’ mighty light on dresses. I suppose they’re back at Fort Collins with your baggage. I want you to look nice. Now I know you ain’t never worn a dress like this green satin, but I want you to be buried in it.”
    It took her a good hour to pull the dress onto the body of Suzanne Cedar, wrap her in an old quilt, and lay her in the pine box. She was nailing the lid down when Stack Lowery a ppeared at the door.
    “Miss Pepper? You ready for me and Johnny to put her under?”
    “Yeah . . . I’ll go with ya,” Pepper announced as she picked up a black Bible from the dresser.
    “You goin’ to read over her?” Stack asked.
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “A man