The Lives of Hattie Fitzsimmons

Prologue

So there I stood on the gallows for all the world to see, like the common criminal I had become. The hushed crowd waited to watch me hang, but I knew once the trapdoor sprang open and I felt only air beneath my feet, a roar of delight would burst from the onlookers. Guns would be fired. Women would shriek. Men would cheer.

It wasn’t every day the people of Winchester, Nebraska hanged an outlaw, and, I was the only woman outlaw they’d ever captured, much less gotten to execute.

They were delighted.

I wondered if I’d make the local history books or at least a notice in the town’s obituary column.

Having always been a fighter, I figured I would probably struggle, at least for a second or two, and then my limp body would spin three times at the end of a rope then sway gently in the sun until the sheriff or one of his deputies cut it down and tossed it into the rough-hewn coffin I had glimpsed from my cell. Burial would be cheap, quick and outside the city limits.

The crowd stomped, whistled, and yelled as I was led, blindfolded, from the jail to my place on the scaffold. They were not cruel people, mostly just farmers and ranchers scrounging from one meal to the next. But they were tired of the outlaw gangs terrorizing their small town, and since I was the only outlaw they’d ever seen up close, I was the target for their revenge.

I was trembling as much with anticipation as fear. I did not cry. Not because of any strict Code of the West, but because I was numb with shock. The drums which had driven me onward from one disaster to the next beat louder than ever in my brain. Pure terror was a sound as familiar as a lover’s sigh.

Hardly anybody, man or woman, is born into the gun fighting profession.

For me, the descent had been practically straight downhill since leaving my childhood home, Fitzsimmons Manor, Near Nashville, Tennessee, where I was born in 1868.

Like most women, I’d begun my slippery slide into the person I had become with a giant push from a man. Then, with the instincts and morals of vultures circling a nearly dead cow, other men had aided me in my despicable life.

Not that it hadn’t been interesting. I’d been almost everywhere and seen and done almost everything.

I had met the people I had read about in dime novels, and even been written up in one. I had been rich and poor and everything in between I had been respectable and sought after, and on the run and captured.

I could not help thinking that the men in my life, and there had been many, were to blame, but standing at death’s door, I had to take back the responsibility, bear the burden for my sins, because, barring a miracle, I would be explaining myself to my Creator, real soon.

No longer able to expect a miracle, I began to pray. My sins were far too long to list in the moments I had left.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. And, I knew exactly what I was doing.

Chapter One

Love Hurts

Sitting up, I drew my grandmother’s quilt around me. It was a massive affair, supposedly made by her family’s seamstress from remnants of Grandma’s wedding gown and trousseau. I ran my fingers across the satins from her ball gowns, the delicate ribbons like the ones from her bridal lingerie, the starchy broadcloth from her everyday dresses.I had only the faintest recollection of her. A frail lady, she had lived with us the last few years of her life.

A small child at the time, I rarely saw her. She was old and very unwell. I never had time to learn much from her. Now, I wished I had. Just to find out how to do little things, like finding the right man and getting him to marry me. How to keep him faithful and happy once we were married.

When I was little, I had run my fingers across the quilt in a superstitious belief that if I rubbed hard enough and closed my eyes, I would have a vision of my future husband.

Now, all I had to do was open my eyes and there he was! Nicholas Fields! My lover, my companion, my life! Undoubtedly the most attractive man in all of Tennessee, maybe the whole country!

We were destined for a great life, but, for now, I needed to get him out of the cabin where we had spent the night. I had to sneak back to my nice, safe, lonely bed before we were discovered.

Time to go home, I whispered, kissing him behind the ear.

He moaned softly and rolled over to face me.

Can’t we just tell them we eloped? That way, I could stay the night and wake up to you.

I laughed, ecstatic that he wanted to stay with me.

Not hardly. You know the only daughter of Patrick Fitzsimmons could not possibly elope! What would the neighbors think?He kissed me hard, full on the mouth, his tongue reaching greedily into my mouth, his hands holding me so I could not escape. Not that I wanted to be anywhere except where I was.

I’ve never been married, but I think the best part must be waking up together in the morning, he said. Knowing you have the freedom to spend the entire day together doing whatever you please.

Really? And I thought the best part would be having the right to  . . .

I blushed and felt stupid.

Do what we just spent all night doing, I managed.

You are shameless!

It’s what you adore about me!

God forgive me, but you’re right!

We kissed again and plunged back beneath the quilt.

It was nearly daylight when I crawled back into Fitzsimmons Manor. The cabin in which Nick and I had spent the night had been the original homestead for the manor house. It was about twenty feet into the woods on the south end of the property. So far as I knew, it had not been used by anyone else for many years.

The cabin was sparsely furnished with a big bed, a table, and a lantern. There was a fireplace but we had never dared to use it. That old cabin would burn like so much kindling! Moreover, the scent of smoke coming from the woods could have attracted unwanted attention.

Besides, the colder the nights, the closer we snuggled into one another and the longer we waited to get out of bed.

We were riding double on Nick’s horse in the growing light when I gave Nick the news. Ready or not, like it or not, he was about to become a father. First, of course, we would be married. It was only proper.

Even in the dim light, I saw Nick’s disappointment. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to us.

You keep saying you want to be married to me, and everybody’s always expected it. We’d just be moving things up a little bit.

How far along are you?

No more than two months.

There’s still time to call on the services of the good witch.

No!

Hattie!

No!

I nearly vomited just remembering my abortion. Martha Harris, the strangest woman I had ever seen, had aborted my baby in the same cabin we had just left. My memory ha been dulled with alcohol and pain, but it was still clear enough for me to know the horrible woman had knelt between my legs, reached into my body and murdered my child.

Not that she had acted alone. Nick held me down the whole time. Martha was paid handsomely for her services and silence by Nick who had convinced me we could have more children later.

Let me think about it a bit longer, he said. There has to be another way.

There is. You ask my father for my hand in marriage, he kisses your feet in gratitude and we become husband and wife.

Nick did not reply and I wondered what alternatives he could be considering. Whatever he chose, I would have this baby!

He dropped me off a hundred feet from the back door, and then I went up the servants’ stairs to my room. It was decorated in shades of pink and peach, which blended oddly in a cheerful array of lacy pillows, carpets, comforters, and curtains.

As soon as I climbed into bed, the tears started flowing.

Why won’t Nick marry me? I asked myself over and over. It’s not as though I come from a poor family, have no class or manners.

Fitzsimmons Manor had once belonged to a wealthy merchant who lost everything in the Civil War, War Between the States, War for Southern Independence, or War of Northern Aggression, depending upon one’s point of view. Father and Mother bought the estate for ten cents on the dollar, which the merchant was happy to accept since all his money was in worthless Confederate currency.

Father was from Philadelphia and had seen the great beauty and the promise of a better life in the ruins of the south.

He was older than the fathers of most of my friends, having spent a long time getting his life in order before marrying. He had silver-grey hair and was a tad portly, which he claimed was a sign of a life well-lived.

Patrick Fitzsimmons was a very successful business man and his posture always showed great pride and dignity. Being his little girl was like being in a fairy tale, where all I had to do was wait for a handsome prince to come claim me!

Mother was from Kentucky, where her father owned numerous, prosperous horse farms. I always thought she was quite a bit younger than Father. With her blond curls and unlined skin, she was very dignified and proper.

My parents met while Father was en route to Tennessee. Within a month, they were married and heading south for their great adventure.

My brother Derrick was born a year after that and Travis followed six years later. I arrived five years after Travis. I was the last, the little girl they always said they had wanted.

Life had been easy. Too easy, Father said, in that Irish way he had of never believing good fortune, no matter how long it lasted.

The boys had gone to the school in town, but I was tutored at home. I knew everything every other young lady of my social class knew. I had not yet been abroad or even traveled in my own country, but I was educated enough.

My parents planned my coming out party months before it actually happened. It was so extravagant! The finest clothes, music, champagne, food and decorations made it the talk of Nashville for the next whole year!

There were even rumors that some families, knowing they could not out do my party had cancelled their own daughters’ debuts all together rather than look shabby in comparison!

Of course, no other couple had been nearly as perfect and Nick and I! All the women gossiped about how it was just a matter of time before they would receive wedding invitations! The men had looked on in guarded jealousy. Nothing overt. That would not have been proper. Just quietly envious, maybe even a little lustful.

I had no other suitors that season, although, Evan Robbins kept popping up at all of the balls. I think he would have liked to have been my escort but was too shy to ask.

At fifteen, I was quite the one to envy!

Of course, if anyone knew I was pregnant without a husband—

The thought was too horrible to contemplate! I would just have to be certain that no one ever found out! At least not until Nick and I were safely married. Plenty of first babies arrive early. Mother and her friends even joked, Second babies take nine months. First babies come whenever they want!

Perhaps I could do a needlepoint of it. Cross stitch would be easy enough. We could hang it in the front parlor, next to the sampler by Mother’s sister that showed the numbers one through ten and the alphabet. In the center, were the words many of my friends had committed to heart.

Sally Mae Gentry made this sampler in the winter of 1857. Left to her own, she would never have done it. But, Sally Mae Gentry is a good girl and does what she is told. EVEN THOUGH SHE HATED EVERY STITCH!

My sampler turned out such a mess even my own mother could not bear to keep it.

Forcing myself to quit thinking of life neatly reduced to phrases on samplers, I studied the problem at hand.

I was about to have a child whose father had no interest in claiming it. I had a family who would be devastated by the pregnancy. My friends were every bit as dependent upon their parents as I was on mine! I had no work skills.

Not that I was really sure what work skills were! The only women I had ever seen work were either house servants or tutors, governesses, or the ladies who worked in the shops in town.

My brother Derrick was so much older than I we barely had any common ground. He had taken after Mother’s side of the family. He was thinner than most men his age and not very tall. Even though Derrick was nearly thirty, he had never married and still lived at the manor.

Mostly, Derrick trailed after Father, soaking in every word the great man said. He was the firstborn and would therefore inherit Father’s estate, a situation which gave him some power but terrified him as well.

Then there was Travis.

I thought about him for a moment. Of all the people