I liiiiiiiiiiive! Sort of.

This past year has been an absolute and unmitigated shitshow. I'm on enough medicine to kill a horse, and I just keep on getting sicker. I'm in so much pain that some days I can't even get out of bed. Long story short: 0/10, would not recommend.

I do, however, recommend this fanfic. Enjoy the next chapter, and my apologies for the hiatus.

For Tex, the Sabbath did not improve with age.

After church, she accompanied Mr. Neutron on his social calls, which included a conversation with Señor Estevez outside town, followed by a trip to the Wheezer farmstead. Pretending to enjoy the visit took immense fortitude. The house was sweltering, the midday meal was overcooked, and Elke asked enough questions to test even Tex's prodigious lying capabilities. Then, just when it seemed like the worst of it had passed, they retired to the sitting room, and the Sheriff spent the better part of two hours telling Carl about his plans for a new wood-chopping machine. Tex felt like she was losing her mind. The whole town had a death sentence hanging over its head, and Mr. Neutron seemed unwilling or unable to acknowledge the approaching crisis. Did he not understand that she was going to kill him…and that if she didn't, someone else would?

Plagued by these thoughts and others like them, Tex grew increasingly agitated as the afternoon progressed. By the time she and Mr. Neutron finally said their farewells, she was itching for a fight.

The ride home began civilly enough. A chance remark by the Sheriff revealed a mutual interest in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; subsequent discussion, however, escalated into a quarrel. Mr. Neutron argued that Victor Frankenstein, though misguided, was given a disproportionately bad rap. Tex's assessment of the doctor was less generous, and involved words like "hubris" and "complete jackass". By the time they arrived back home, they were so irritated with one another that Tex stormed off to the stables, and Mr. Neutron shut himself inside the house.

They didn't speak again until suppertime, when hunger compelled Tex to skulk into the kitchen and try to make amends. By the time she got there, the Sheriff was already dumping his cutlery into the mechanized wash-basin on the floor, where it joined days' worth of dishes in the greasy water. He nodded in greeting, then gestured toward the plate of food sitting on the table.

"Help yourself. I'll be on the back porch if you need anything." His tone was terse, but polite – perhaps his anger had abated.

As soon as he left, Tex sat down to eat. She stabbed a piece of boiled potato with her fork, then held it up to the light, unable to shake off her habitual paranoia. She felt confident that Mr. Neutron wasn't the type to poison food, but what about a sleeping draught? That wasn't out of the question, was it?

Oh, for heaven's sake, give it a rest, she thought, and took a bite.

The meal was cold, but richly flavored, and Tex wondered where he'd learned to cook. Didn't wealthy families have servants to do that sort of thing for them? Someone in Retro Valley must have taught him, unless children of the Boston elite received culinary training as part of their education.

"What about you, Mr. Table Cactus?" she asked, addressing the saguaro. "Do you envy him? Wish you could've studied at some prestigious institution back in the Old States?"

The cactus, predictably, had nothing to say on the matter, so she finished out the meal in silence. To show her gratitude, she put extra effort into tidying up the kitchen – she scrubbed the table, wiped down the counters, and gave the cactus a good watering. She couldn't make heads or tails of the basin-contraption, so she scoured the dishes by hand and stacked them in the cupboard. By the time she went in search of Mr. Neutron, it was nearly 8 o'clock.

As promised, he was out on the back porch, sitting in a rocking chair. Books surrounded him on both sides – to his left, the volumes were stacked in neat columns. To his right, they were strewn about all helter-skelter, as if he'd grown bored halfway through and tossed them. Goddard wagged his tail and puppy-smiled up at her, but Mr. Neutron failed to acknowledge her approach. He stared intently at the manuscript in his hands, eyes obscured by the brim of his hat. Customarily, a gentleman would cede his chair to a lady, but Tex expected no such courtesy. She hung her 10-gallon on the railing, peeled off her coat, flung it over the floorboards, and slumped down onto it.

She lay on her side, overlooking the vast prairie beyond the fence-line. The grass rippled and bobbed in the evening wind – a great, golden, undulating sea, stretching to the place where horizon met imagination. There were no words to capture its grandeur, or its desolation. A man could wander that expanse forever, and never find what he was looking for.

Thunk. Tex turned toward the sound; behind her, the Sheriff had thrown his book onto the deck. Rising with a yawn, he stretched, prodded Goddard with his foot, and motioned toward the house. The dog bounded over and opened the door for him, but Tex was not the sort to be wowed twice. As master and pet disappeared inside, the outlaw turned her attention to the discarded book. She scooted over to the rocker and picked it up. It was a copy of the British Medical Journal, opened to page 246.

"On The Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery," she read. "…Joseph Lister. Hmm…"

She turned the page, skimming the text as best she could in the gathering dark. Once upon a time, Tex had been a swift reader, and she labored to recapture that skill. The article was easy to follow, at least. The author spoke at length about the need for cleanliness in operating rooms. Beyond that, he seemed to be explaining his technique for disinfecting wounds using a solution of carbolic acid.

She heard the creak of wood, and when she looked up, she found Mr. Neutron standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame and eating a pastry.

"You've chosen an excellent book," he observed. "Though I hesitate to ask your opinion on it, given the trajectory of our last discussion."

Tex ignored the gibe. "This Lister fellow," she said, snapping the cover shut. "He a doctor?"

"Professor at the University of Glasgow, actually," he replied, taking a bite. "His experiments are revolutionizing the way medicine is practiced in Europe. A few more years of refinement, and surgery will be safe. No more dying from suppuration or ward fever."

"Sounds too good to be true."

"The world is changing, Vortex. The United States is woefully behind Europe when it comes to cutting-edge medicine, but Lister first published his findings eight years ago. It'll catch on. Soon."

He sounded so confident, Tex was tempted to believe him. Instead, she revisited the conundrum that had been on her mind all weekend. Mr. Neutron came from the socialite crowd: educated, rich, influential. He clearly took an interest in world affairs. So why was he out here, wasting his talents on the inconsequential problems of Retro Valley?

"So. Joseph Lister," she said, in lieu of her real question. "You ever meet him?"

"Not in person, no. Although we did correspond briefly, a few years back."

"You did? What'd you discuss?"

He walked toward her. "We talked about his research. About Louis Pasteur's ideas. About life in Scotland. At the time, I was considering going to Europe – I was fascinated by physics, and I thought I might research electromagnetism alongside James Clerk Maxwell." He chuckled as he sat. "Heh, good ol' Maxwell. Brilliant man. Hideous beard."

"Why didn't you go? To Europe, I mean. If you were determined to leave home, why not go somewhere decent? Why come here, of all places?"

"Because, Vortex. I finally realized what I wanted."

"And what's that?"

"To get away from everything." He leaned back in his chair and spread his arms wide. "From everyone. You speak of the West as though it were a den of lions, but rest assured, civilization has its own set of evils."

"And what sort of evils plague a man of your station, pray tell?"

His response was uncharacteristically vitriolic. "Society is cursed, Vortex. Give people an inch, and they'll take a mile. Can you fault me for running away from those who would seek to exploit my talents for personal gain? Out here, I'm the master of my own fate. I may never accomplish great things, but at least I won't be a pawn in someone else's game. And I can make a difference, small as it may be, for the people living in this town."

"Why do you care about them so much?"

"Do I need a reason to care about people?"

She pursed her lips. "You know what you are?" she said. "You're a man who threw away a winning lottery ticket. You hit the birthright jackpot: rich, white, intelligent, male. If I'd been born with those advantages, you wouldn't see me wasting away out in cow country. I'd be sitting in a mansion somewhere, knocking back champagne and reading Voltaire in the original French."

"You don't know that, Vortex. In my place, you might have run away too."

Tex thought back over the mistakes she'd made in her youth – the stupid, prideful, life-ruining mistakes – and concluded that maybe, just maybe, he was right. Disheartened, she flopped onto her back.

"All right," she said. "Let's say I run away. What am I running from?"

"Corruption. Greed. Exploitation. Pick your poison."

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You can't escape human nature, genius. If I'm going to suffer mankind's foibles, why not do it in the lap of luxury?"

"What, and sell your soul to a bunch of crooked plutocrats? No thanks – not for all the riches on the planet. My parents taught me that lesson. They took my inventions, my discoveries, and they did terrible things with them. All for a little bit of money."

He fell silent, but the hurt in his voice convinced Tex that there was more to the story. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. After a pause, he got up and walked across the porch, then leaned against the railing with a sigh. She tilted her head to get a better look, and she found herself face-to-boot with an upside down version of him.

"What about you, Vortex?" he asked. "What's your poison?"

When she didn't respond, he turned and gazed down at her.

"Well?"

She lay there on the deck, resting on a pillow of filthy, tangled hair, looking up at him with those mad green eyes.

"Maybe I just like killing people. Ever think of that?"

He raised an eyebrow, and they stared at each other for a long while. "Is that so?" he said.

She should have kept her mouth shut. Revealing her secrets was against the rules; it went against every cautionary impulse she'd ever instilled in herself. And yet, in that moment, she wanted someone to know. It might as well be him.

"I wasn't always like this," she admitted. "I had very different aspirations, back before I – well, before. Like I told you yesterday, my father was an attorney, and my grandfather was a judge. For many years, I planned to follow in their footsteps. I thought that, with perseverance, I might be the first woman admitted to the Bar. A foolhardy notion, in retrospect."

He sounded surprised. "You aspired to the practice of law, but became a career criminal instead?"

"The irony does not escape me, I assure you. If I could change the past, I would."

"You'd take back your crimes?"

"No. I'd take back my aspirations."

He frowned. She looked away. By unspoken agreement, the conversation ceased. The rest of the evening passed by in silence, and that night Tex dreamed of empty courtrooms, flooded white by summer sun.

...

Tex awoke to the peal of nearby gunshots.

Instinct took over immediately – she rolled onto her stomach, flattened herself against the roof, and drew her pistol. Heart racing, she belly-crawled toward the edge and peered over it. Disoriented and bleary-eyed though she was, it only took her a few seconds to locate the shooters. Even from a distance she recognized them, and her alarm gave way to anger.

Mr. Wheezer, Señor Estevez, and Mr. Neutron were down by the gully, sighting in a hunting rifle.

Tex released a stream of curse-words as she stood, jammed her gun back in its holster, and snatched her hat off the roof. She heard the three of them laughing as she climbed down the apple tree beside the house. It soured her mood even further.

Does no one work in this town? she grumbled to herself.

Carl was the first to notice her as she stomped toward them. He shaded his eyes, squinting against the morning light. "Howdy there, Miss!" he called. "Fine morn, ain't it?"

"Gentlemen," she said, keeping her eyes on the rifle, which was currently in the Sheriff's hands. "Bit early to be takin' potshots in the gully, wouldn't you say?"

Mr. Neutron tightened his grip on the gun. Their eyes locked, and she tensed. Easy… she told herself. He's not going to shoot you in front of his friends.

Mr. Wheezer, oblivious to Tex's fears, hooked his thumbs through his suspenders and gave them a tug. "Can't be helped, I'm afraid," he sighed, rocking back on his heels. "Coyotes are harassing my stock again. The brutes attacked a baby llama last night, and when I tried to come to her rescue, my gun misfired."

"He shot the weathervane clean off the roof," chuckled Señor Estevez. "Unlikeliest marksman in Texas."

Carl blanched. "Mr. Neutron's the only one who can mend my rifle, so I brought it over first thing."

"Jim made special sights for Carl's guns, on account of him bein' blind as a bat," explained Sheen. "Ain't that right, Carl?"

"What? Blind as a – I am not!"

"Are too. You couldn't hit the ground with your hat in three throws. I'd pity you if it wasn't so funny."

Mr. Wheezer continued to protest, but Señor Estevez had already left the joke behind. He jerked his thumb toward Mr. Neutron.

"Carl may be the master of dumb luck, but when it comes to marksmanship, Jimmy here is the real deal. Ain't that right, amigo? Best shot in the state, by my account."

Every man has his vice; that much is common knowledge. For some men, it's women. For others, it's cards. Some men take to the pipe. Others lose themselves in liquor. Tex was no exception, although her vice was different than most. Tex's vice was competition. She yearned to win the way a boozer yearns for a stiff drink…and she couldn't let a remark like that go unchallenged. She drew her revolver and gave it a spin.

"Five bucks says I'm better, hombre."

"Oh ho, I like your mettle! How you wanna test it?"

"Got anything you can toss?"

Sheen fished around in his overalls, but came up with nothing. After a moment, Carl reached into his pocket and produced a small glass vial. The label read Dr Bolbi Specail Elixir.

"Caaaarl," groaned the Sheriff. "You actually bought one of those?"

Mr. Wheezer muttered something about headaches as he handed the bottle to Señor Estevez.

"All right," said Tex. "Throw it as far as you can. Angle it toward the gully if possible."

Tex bent her knees and widened her stance, drawing arm at the ready. Sheen reared back and, grunting slightly, hurled the vial with all his might. In the blink of an eye, Tex drew her weapon, and the airborne bottle exploded into a spray of shards. The Señor let out a whoop of delight.

"Hot damn! You see that, Jimmy? Little miss bandida's a trick-shot!"

Tex turned to face the Sheriff, exultant. "Beat that," she smirked.

Mr. Neutron raised his chin slightly. "You misunderstand the nature of my talent," he said, resting the rifle against one shoulder. "You're the quick draw, Vortex. I'm the deadeye."

Gripping the lever, he flipped the gun forward to cock it. He spun it round a couple times before returning it to his shoulder.

"Pick a target," he said. "Something far off. Something you think I can't hit."

Tex glanced around. Her gaze fell on the tree beside the house, and she noticed a tiny red apple dangling from the uppermost branch. She would have missed it entirely if it weren't for the color. The fruit had ripened months ahead of schedule; it stood out against the dappled green of the canopy.

"See that red apple over yonder? The early bloomer, on the top branch. Hit that, without knocking any sticks loose."

"Easy."

Mr. Neutron knelt down, brought the rifle into position, and exhaled. Then, he froze. If it weren't for the wind that tugged at his hair and shirt, Tex would've taken him for a statue.

BANG!

As the smoke cleared, the Sheriff stood, satisfied, and gestured toward the tree. "Go see for yourself."

Tex jogged over, and sure enough, the apple was gone. She circled round, inspecting the grass, until she found a bullet-torn chunk of fruit. She picked it up and held it aloft.

"Told ya!" shouted Sheen from across the way. "Best sniper in Texas!"

Impressive, she thought, but not impressive enough. Accuracy is one thing. Speed is another. I'm still the better shot. The outlaw walked back over, tossing and catching the apple fragment as she went. She approached the Sheriff with her hand held out.

"Your kill," she said wryly, offering the fruit.

For some reason, the color drained from his face. The lawman ignored the proffered apple, and practically shoved the rifle into Carl's waiting arms. She'd never seen a man so eager to be rid of a firearm before. You'd think the damn thing had the pox, she thought.

It took Mr. Neutron a moment to comport himself, but if Carl noticed, he said nothing. Sheen just kept right on babbling.

"Don't run from a sniper, or you'll just die tired. That's what my abuela always said. Which is pretty good advice, coming from someone who fought in La Intervención. It's right up there with my tío's words of wisdom: a big wife and a big farm ain't never done a man no harm..."

Tex realized that Mr. Wheezer was trying to say something, so she tuned out the prospector. "…sure are incredible, miss," came the farmer's voice. "With you 'n the Sheriff around town, I feel safe as a baby in his mama's arms. Thank you."

The outlaw felt a twinge of guilt, then a stab of fear. If the inhabitants of Retro Valley knew who she was, knew what she was, they'd revile her. More than likely, they'd clap her in irons and send her to the hangman's noose. These people are your enemy, she reminded herself, but the thought lacked conviction. Tex felt a headache coming on.

"I'm going back to the house," she said, rubbing her temples. "I could use a brief respite."

"I should return as well," sighed the Sheriff. "That side of bacon in the larder isn't going to cook itself."

"Huzzah! Free breakfast!" celebrated Sheen, without waiting to be invited.

The three men trailed behind her as she headed back, laughing and joking amongst themselves. Their company was amiable enough, she supposed, but her mind was preoccupied. She remained quiet all through the morning meal, barely listening as Sheen relayed his latest gold-hunting misadventure, which involved falling down a hole and getting bitten by a gopher. It wasn't until they were washing up that the conversation finally captured her interest.

Carl had just finished waxing poetic about the bonnet he'd given Elke for her birthday, and talk shifted to the new 'department stores' that were popping up back east.

"It's a real shame about that railroad business," lamented Carl. "Elsewise Retro Valley might've gotten a store of its own someday. Not that I mind going to Marble Orchard and ordering gifts by post, of course. Folks there are, um…lively."

Tex perked up. "What d'you mean, 'that railroad business'?"

"Oh, right," said the farmer. "You don't know on account of bein' new here, Miss, but Retro Valley was almost a very different sort of town. Some bigwig rail baron tried to buy the land off Jimmy awhile back. Said that we'd be part of the first transcontinental line: a bustlin' rail-town fixin' to bust with settlers, entrepreneurs, and travelers. Jimmy turned him down."

So that's why Strych wants him dead, thought Tex.

She turned to the Sheriff. "This rail baron…why'd you send him packing? Imagine the prosperity a railroad would bring. The town would grow. Businesses would thrive. This backwoods mud hole would finally be worth something."

"Worth something to whom?" he shot back. "The vultures back east who call themselves capitalists? A railroad would ruin this town. Trust me: isolation is a blessing, and I aim to keep it."

"But if you just –"

"Look, Vortex. If Retro Valley ever became famous, people would flock here in spades. Criminals. Charlatans. Parasites. And worse still, the self-declared "respectable" folk. And you know what they'd bring with them, besides greed and disease? Their prejudices. You think they'd let a colored woman operate a drinking joint in the middle of town? They'd drive Libby out. They'd open dozens of new stores and force ours out of business. They'd set up farms and banks and cattle ranches and then fight with each other about them. And worst of all, they'd take my irrigation system and my wood-chopping machine and anything else they could get their hands on, and they'd try to duplicate them. Our lives would never be the same again."

It was an impassioned speech, and Tex couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He was the sort of man who stuck to his principles, and he was going to die because of it.

You can't save him, she thought, and you shouldn't want to. Take a walk. Clear your head.

She slammed the cupboard shut after putting away the last dish. "I'm going outside," she said.

And she did.

HISTORICAL SHIT AND BULLSHIT SHIT

- At the beginning of the chapter, Tex and the Sheriff argue about Frankenstein. Fun fact: the author, Mary Shelley, was the daughter of famed 18th century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who I once portrayed during a project in high school. Shelley was only 18 years old when she wrote Frankenstein; it was published anonymously in 1818, then reprinted in 1823 with her name attached to it. The book is considered to be the first great work of science fiction.

- Have you ever gargled with Listerine? Congrats! Joseph Lister is smiling down on you from inventor-heaven. His article, On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery, was a complete game-changer when it was first published in the British Medical Journal in 1867. (And yes, it really did appear on page 246. I did my research). Lister realized that operating rooms needed to be kept clean, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. He developed antiseptic surgical methods; by using carbolic acid to clean wounds and surgical instruments, he was able to prevent infection. Hospitals that adopted his techniques saw deaths from infection fall from 60% to just 4%. Think about that for a second. Before Lister, surgery was so dangerous that more than half of all patients died. After Lister, less than 5% did. What a class act.

- While we're on the subject of medical breakthroughs, the 1860s and 70s saw huge advances in our understanding of illness. In 1870, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch established the germ theory of disease, proving that microorganisms are responsible for sicknesses like cholera and dysentery. Until then, people had believed that diseases were caused by "miasma" (contaminated air) or evil spirits. Of course, none of this information would reach the frontier until years later. Jimmy's just ahead of the game.

- James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish scientist with a genius mind and a crazy beard. In 1865, he demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light. Bam! Electromagnetism. His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for the fields of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Maxwell is largely considered to be the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein.

- Tex mentions her childhood dream of becoming the first woman admitted to the Bar. IRL, the first female lawyer was Iowa's Arabella Mansfield, admitted in 1869. [Tangent: My all-time favorite lawyer is ultimate BAMF Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman admitted to the California bar. After her husband deserted her and their 5 kids, she lobbied through a bill allowing women to be lawyers, then took advantage of it that same year - 1878. She was a spitfire with a knack for witty comebacks. She once retorted to a trial opponent's ridicule by exclaiming: "Counsel intimates with a curl on his lip that I am called the lady lawyer. I am sorry that I cannot return the compliment, but I cannot. I never heard anybody call him any kind of a lawyer at all." Most importantly of all, Clara Foltz is the reason we have public defenders. Have you ever seen a cop show where the detective's like, 'you have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you...' That was Clara Foltz's idea. What a badass]

- Sheen makes reference to La Intervención Estadounidense, which is the Mexican name for the Mexican-American War. The conflict followed the U.S. annexation of Texas, lasting from 1846-1848. It claimed tens of thousands of lives, mostly from starvation and disease.

- Shop talk! 'Department stores' made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century, and permanently reshaped purchasing habits wherever they opened. Famous examples include Chicago's Marshall Field & Company, which started in 1852, and Wanamakers, which opened in Philadelphia in 1877. Both of these enterprises sprung up around freight terminals and were patronized by customers who arrived by rail.

Vocab:

*Old States - eastern part of the country, especially those states that existed before the Louisiana Purchase

*Suppuration - infection so nasty it oozes pus