The Legend of Cora Flint

Part I: The Woman Who Wasn’t Afraid

Some say she is just a legend. But I was there. She was the stuff of legends alright. But she was also very real. I first saw Cora Flint the day she pulled a man off his horse by the throat.

Midday heat had settled like a wet rag across Split River, and most of town was either napping or drinking. I was mopping the church vestibule, wrist aching from the work, when I heard shouting through the open windows. Real shouting, not the drunk kind.

By the time I ran to the porch, a crowd had formed outside the livery. And there she was. In a blood-colored riding coat, hat cocked sharp, boots dusty from the trail—and one hand fisted tight in the collar of a man twice her size.

He was wheezing like a bellows, one boot tangled in his stirrup, the other scraping for footing.

“I said,” she hissed, her voice carrying like a lash, “you don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you.”

He managed to gasp, “I was just—”

“You were just warned.”

Then she let him go. He hit the dirt coughing, red-faced and stunned. She turned her back on him like he was no more dangerous than a fly.

That was the first time I saw her.

That was the first time I wanted to be anyone but me.