Evora Tangeline

Mi abuela was a pistolera. A hired gun. Unheard of, for her day, when the only acceptable professions for women were wife, school teacher or saloon can-can dancer. They had not yet won liberation enough to be stage-coach drivers, cowhands or bartenders.
Mi abuela, though, was not seeking fame or glory, though both haunted her through her short, tragic life. Haunted her with shame.
She grew up the only child of a blind farmer, maimed at the Alamo. Maimed by the Alamo, a bit of exploding brick struck his handsome visiage. Now marred, mi abuela's mother left him, and left mi abuela to shoot the jack rabbits who sought solace from the scorching sun in the grasses twisted hard as wicker. The droughts were terrible, as was the shooting. Her father wiped away the tears he knew, without seeing, streaked his child's silent face. It was appropriate, he said, to kill to eat. To kill for independence, even. She was not convinced.