Everyone feared the Giant Widow in the Cage, until the Cowboy bought her and said…
Everyone feared the giant widow in the cage until the cowboy bought her and asked, “Will you marry me?” What kind of woman terrifies an entire frontier town? They cage her up like a wild animal. And what kind of man sees her and thinks of a wife? The sign said 10 pesos to touch the beast.
But when the cowboy peered through those bars, he didn’t see a monster. He saw the loneliest woman in the West, and he was about to make the most shocking purchase of his life. Dust swirled around Willow Creek’s main square as Jack Morrison urged his horse on to keep the crowd from pressing in too hard.
Children on their fathers’ shoulders, women clutching their shawls, everyone staring at the iron cage, sitting right there in the middle of it all, like a twisted carnival spectacle. Inside those bars was a woman who could break his neck. to a man. Her bare hands. Martha Kane. Six feet tall, arms as thick as fence posts, shoulders that could bear the weight of the world.
Her blond hair hung loose around a face that might have once been beautiful before the world decided she was too much, too strong, too dangerous to walk free. Jack had heard the stories on his way to town, how she’d killed three men in a bar fight after they insulted her dead husband.
How could she lift a full-grown horse? How had she gone mad with grief and rage, terrorizing anyone who crossed her path? The townspeople whispered that she wasn’t quite human anymore. But when Jaque approached, pushing his way through the throng of onlookers and thrill-seekers, something twisted in his chest.
The woman in that cage wasn’t growling or threatening anyone. She sat perfectly still, hands folded in her lap, staring into space. Her eyes would color a winter sky, Cold and distant. But beneath that coldness, Jaque saw something the others couldn’t: pain. Raw, aching pain that he recognized because it lived in his own chest.
Every day, a boy no more than 10 years old picked up a rock and threw it at the bars. It clanged loudly, making the crowd laugh. Marta didn’t even flinch. She kept staring at that same spot on the ground as if training herself to feel nothing anymore. When Jaque clenched his jaw, his hands curled into fists.
“She killed my cousin Billy,” someone shouted from the crowd. “Beast deserves worse than a cage. She should have been hanged,” another voice yelled. The sheriff, a potbellied man with tobacco stains on his vest, waved his hand for silence. “Now, now, folks, the city council decided that a cage was punishment enough.”
“Besides, it brings in good money. Dollar, look, 10 by touch. Helps pay for the new school.” More laughter, more cruel jokes. Marta Kane, the woman who had once been the Someone’s wife, someone is everything, reduced to a circus attraction. Jaque felt sick, took a step forward. His boots clicked on the wooden platform around the cage.
The crowd fell, sensing something different about this tall stranger in the dusty coat and wide-brimmed hat. Marta looked up then for the first time since he’d arrived. Her eyes met his, and Jaque felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. She wasn’t a beast, she wasn’t a monster.
She was a woman broken by loss and twisted by the fear of other people until she forgot who she used to be. Jaque had known that feeling after Sara’s death, after fever took her and their unborn child. He’d spent two years drinking himself to death in saloons from here to California.
He’d picked fights with anyone who looked at him the wrong way, hoping someone would pull him out of his misery. The only difference between him and Marta Kane was that no one had been strong enough to put him in a “Cage. How much?” Jacke asked, his voice cutting through the afternoon air like a knife.
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “10 to touch,” as if the sign said no. Jacke pulled out his leather satchel, laden with coins from his last cattle drive. “How much to buy her?” The crowd fell silent. Even the flies stopped buzzing. Marta’s eyes widened. The first real emotion Jacke had ever seen in her.
The sheriff laughed, but he sounded nervous. “She’s not for sale, sir. She’s serving her sentence. Everything is for sale.” Jacke placed his satchel on the sherif’s small table. The gold coins spilled out more than most of these people saw in a year. “How much?” The sherif’s eyes widened.
His tongue darted out to moisten his lips. Jacke practically…
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