Maude March on the Run!

One They say my sixteen-year-old sister passes for a man and shoots like an outlaw, and I cannot argue it, since she has done both in her day. Maude has been called a hardened criminal, and of this I must tell you, do not believe it. People say a great many things and only some of them are true. This afternoon I watched from across the street as my sister was arrested. She made a small figure in her plain dark dress, her arms pulled behind her to cuff her wrists. "Maude!" I shouted. She didn't hear my voice over all those so filled with excitement. I felt my blood rush toward my feet, leaving me so dizzy and breathless I nearly sat down. For the crowd only saw my sister as a fugitive from the law, accused of being a horse thief, a bank robber, and a cold-blooded killer. It'd been five months since we found our lost uncle Arlen and settled into a new life with him in Independence. I had begun to believe she might never be discovered to be the infamous Mad Maude, even though a dream came to me over and over, in which I opened a sack to find oatmeal cookies and two train tickets. I always found the oatmeal cookies tasty, and there was no sense of being short of time to catch a train. I didn't yell again. The dream flashed behind my eyes as Maude stepped into the sunlight, head held high, the law on both sides of her gripping her at the elbows. I'd never told my sister about this dream, not even that recent time she tried to talk me out of my determination to be ready for just such an occasion as this. We were getting dressed for the day ahead of us, which was also my twelfth birthday. "When do you plan to go back to looking like a girl?" she said to me. Unlike my sister, I hadn't yet taken to wearing skirts again. Maude said of course I must, as soon as my hair grew in nicely. So long as I could wield the scissors this fate would not befall me. "It doesn't matter how you dress, Sallie," Maude said. "They might still find out. Then again, they might not. I'm meanwhile missing the sight of my little sister." "I'll whisper it into her ear," I said. "See if she don't surprise you one day." "Doesn't," she said. "Is that a few bristles I see under your nose? Why, it looks like the beginning of a mustache." "It's a shame I didn't ask your admirer, Mr. Wilburn, for a shaving lesson," I said. "That fellow had mustache material growing out of his ears." Maude whopped me with her feather pillow and we were occupied with battle for a time. As soon as she wasn't looking, I touched my upper lip to be sure she was teasing. I had begun to think she might be right about one thing--that we might never need to make a sudden run for it. But past events had impressed upon me how fast things could go wrong, and how different life might be after they did. Because of this, I kept some handy items for life on the trail in a sack in the loft. This meant fewer necessaries than you might guess. A horse and a canteen can get you through most anything. The heroes in the dime novels I read were always planning ahead this way. Maude did not read much and so didn't appreciate this fact. That sack prompted her to remind me of a Bible story. Three kings were in the desert and couldn't find water for themselves or their horses. They put their troubles before the prophet Elisha, who said to them what the Lord told him, which was, "Make this valley full of ditches. . . . Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water." Even though it didn't make good sense to those kings to dig ditches, they did it, and sure enough, a big flood came and filled the ditches with water. Which meant you have to get ready for what you want. "Or in this case," Maude had said, "don'Couloumbis, Audrey is the author of 'Maude March on the Run!', published 2008 under ISBN 9780375832482 and ISBN 0375832483.