Explaining Herself Read Online Free PDF Page A

learned about the factory slums in New York and Chicago, that wariness had very likely saved all their lives.
    Extended them, anyway.
    Instead of slaving in a slaughterhouse or mill for inhuman hours at cruel wages, the Lauranovic family found enough employment to save pennies and educate the children as Americans —Filip, Jul ij e , and Dra zen became Philip, Juli e , and Ross. By 1884, the family called themselves "Laurence," leaving off the telltale "itch" sound at the end. Joseph Laurence filed for a homestead in what was then part of Johnson County, near the new town of Sheridan. And like most people in Wyoming, they'd tried raising cattle.
    They'd started small, although Poppa had the usual dreams of profiting from the beef bonanza. He'd recognized the signs of a bad winter the year of the Big Die-Up. Because of his foresight, the Laurence family's losses were slight and the next year saw them on their way to real success.
    The kind of success that won them enemies.
    Blinking out of his memories, Laramie stared down at the paper in front of him. RUSTLERS LYNCHED! proclaimed the headline, and he did not want to read it. At that moment, he wanted to do almost anything else —take another bullet, dance in public, kiss Victoria Garrison in front of her threatening father— except read that newspaper article.
    At that last unexpected thought, Laramie slid his gaze toward the lady. She was still working with the wooden frame and the metal bits, dwarfed by her canvas apron. Sunlight through the plate-glass window reflected off motes of dust, surrounding her in golden sparkles. Her curling brown hair reflected the sunlight
    back in twists of copper. He was starting to think he'd never seen so pretty a girl.
    And she'd held his hand!
    But she lived in that sweet, white-with-blue-shutters ranch house —in a whole other world from Laramie's. If she went to the sheriff complaining of a crime against her family, people would believe her. If she were discovered d oing something that looked ille gal...
    Damn it, he might as well read about that night. He could never forget it —and yet he still wasn't sure who, in the end, was most to blame. This article might offer names or information that Laramie—having been young, confused, and imprisoned at the time—could not have known. And if not. . .
    He did not know what to do if this didn't work, but he would think of something. He'd thought of this.
    Pained by more than his still-healing bullet wounds, Laramie began to read:
    RUSTLERS LYNCHED!
    The foothills outside of town became a place of death Thursday night when rustlers who have been terrorizing the open range for several years were captured and brought to vigilante justice. According to Sheriff Howe, he received information about the outlaws from a leading member of the community who asked to remain anonymous; and a posse, largely composed of ranchers, including Boris and Bram Ward, Hayden Nelson, Jacob Garrison, Colonel and Alden Wright, rode into the perilous foothills to see justice done. The men split into two forces to better cover ground. The group including the Wrights, the Wards, Nelson, and Deputy Butler got the drop on the stock thieves in a small box-canyon before the desperadoes could escape.
    To the surprise of all, the rustlers were themselves local ranchers —the so-called "Joseph Laurence" and his sons. The immigrant family, whose real name is Lauranovic, had earlier brought unfounded complaints of rustling to the sheriff. Now, with proof of the Lauranovics' crime surrounding them—including running irons and stolen cattle, many from the Wards' Lost Pines ranch—the enraged posse took the law into its own hands, lynching first the father and then the older brother. The younger boy might have met the same fate but, instead, the night saw further tragedy. During the lynching of his seventeen-year-old brother, Phil, the youngest Lauranovic grabbed a rifle, shot Boris Ward, and held the group at bay before the