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and “Oof!” behind her.
    Half a day later, Sylvie, the horses, and the
dogs rested beside a lazy creek while Walt prepared lunch with his
all-purpose knife.
    “So, how do you like your ranch so far, City
Mouse?” he asked.
    “It’s bigger than I thought,” she said. “And
smaller, in a way. I expected more ... I don’t know ... corn as
high as an elephant’s eye, amber waves of grain, I don’t know.”
    “This ain’t Kansas, Dorothy.”
    Sylvie gave him a look. He concentrated on
his lunch preparations.
    Sylvie said, “I haven’t seen many cows.”
    Walt chuckled. “Beef ain’t the money maker it
once was. All your friends in the hoi polloi are eatin’ raw fish
instead of steak nowadays. We got a few head of cattle in
partnership at a dairy up at Okeechobee, and we’ve kept one cranky
old bull whose sorta a pet, but I’m doing better with horses. Been
marketin’ to rodeos, polo clubs, Ocala breeders—”
    “Polo clubs!” Sylvie interrupted. “How far is
it from here to Palm Beach? Wouldn’t it boost our profits if I
could get us some buyers?”
    Walt tossed her an old coffee can from his
saddle bags. “Boost lunch if you could get us some water from the
creek. To answer your first question, it’s ‘bout 80 miles from here
to Palm Beach. Take you a good hour to get there if you had a fast
car, which you don’t.” He continued with his lunch chores.
    Sylvie rose, holding the disgusting coffee
can at arm’s length, and walked toward the creek. “We’d split the
profits fifty-fifty if I sold some horses, right?” she asked.
    Walt stood as Sylvie neared the creek bank,
and as he came up from the ground he palmed his pistol from his
boot. He leveled it in Sylvie’s direction as she leaned over the
water. “I’ll regret this,” he muttered, “but I did promise Harry
I’d take care of you.”
    “What?” said Sylvie.
    Ka-boom! Walt fired.
    Sylvie jerked around, stunned, deafened, and
terrified. She stared at him as he walked toward her, still holding
the smoking pistol. Two feet away, Walt stooped and lifted from the
grass the headless, writing body of a deadly copperhead. Sylvie
gaped at the snake. Then she fainted.
    Walt was cooking over a campfire when Sylvie
awoke and found herself laid out on saddle blankets. Maude licked
Sylvie’s face. Sylvie looked around, orienting herself, then spoke
to Walt. “You killed it?”
    “Deader’n dirt. He would’ve done the same for
you, I reckon,” he said, stirring his culinary creation.
    Vaguely, Sylvie murmured, “I don’t approve of
killing.”
    “Maybe I shoulda hung back and let y’all
discuss it.” He dished up a bowl of chili from the pot over the
fire. He brought it to her. “Here. Help ya get yer feet back under
ya.”
    He went back to the fireside, served himself,
and dug into his chili. Sylvie stared at him, food untouched in her
hand. She said, “Did you ever ... have you ever killed a person ...
a human being?”
    He looked at her and at the chili in her
bowl. “Not with my cookin’,” he said.
    He went back to eating.
    Sylvie collected herself and took a bite. She
survived. She took another.

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE GAME
    The ladies in the stands at the Palm Beach
polo grounds looked like Sax Fifth Avenue models dressed for a
photo shoot at Tara. Every woman in the place, with the possible
exception of one illegal immigrant who was cleaning the bathrooms,
looked like a million bucks. Okay, five million, if you added the
value of their jewelry to the cost of their ensembles, mani-pedis,
facelifts, tummy tucks, hairstyles, and stunning wide-brimmed
hats.
    Leslye Larrimore and Sylvie Pace were no
exceptions. Both ladies glowed in the sunshine and basked in the
admiration of envious fellow spectators. Sylvie, newly
impoverished, had been forced to wear a dress one or two people had
seen before, but she was counting on their discretion. How gauche
it would be to announce to the competition that one of the belles
was too slight in