Charlene had been working at Ma Cunningham's Boarding house and Cafe now for a little over two months. She was helping out Emily Cunningham, who had been suffering from malaria, and was to weak to run the place alone as she had been doing. Fortunately, she was now getting much better, and Charlene would soon be able to return to the Murdoch ranch to be with Emily's sister Cora Murdoch. Not that she didn't love aunt Emily, she did. But Emily Cunningham was too much like Charlene's mother, strict, prim and proper. She wanted to make a "proper lady" out of Charlene, and made no bones about it.

Charlene loved to wear men's clothing thinking it more practical, and comfortable, but aunt Emily insisted that she wear a dress and do up her hair properly while working around the Cafe or Boardinghouse. It simply wouldn't do, as far as Emily was concerned, to have Charlene cavorting around dressed like some wild cowboy off the range.

Charlene honored her aunt's wishes while helping her out at the cafe, but longed for her jeans, boots, shirts and to let her hair hang down freely. She loved horses, cattle, and the great outdoors passionately, and usually preferred the company of the cowboys to that of the so-called "proper ladies" of the town's better element. Such people she felt, were incredibly stuffy, and bored her almost to tears. She could have cared less for the latest fashions from New York, or Paris, France, or who was courting who, or the latest gossip about who did what to whom.

It seemed to her, that the men had it made. They could ride where they wished, come and go as they pleased, and talk about whatever they wanted to without regard for proper speech, posture, or any of the other rigid strictures imposed by society upon its women. Charlene Lancer was just as comfortable sleeping in a bedroll out under the stars on a warm summer night, as in any bed, and as far as she was concerned, she would stay that way as long as she lived. No man, or woman for that matter, would ever break her of that (though her mother had tried her best).

When Charlene had been nearing fourteen, her mother, Eula Lancer, had sent her off to Boston to live with her Uncle Charles and his wife so that they could send her to a proper girl's school where she would learn how to be a lady. Charlene wanted to be obedient, but that was simply too much for her to bear. As far as she was concerned, Uncle Charles was a traitor to the South. He had moved up north to attend college and had subsequently found employment as a banker, and was quite wealthy by western standards. Anyhow, her father, Thomas Lancer, would have strenuously objected to having her attend such a school, but he had been killed during the last part of the war, and thus, was unable to prevent Eula from sending Charlene to live with her rich brother, Charles Danforth in Boston. Charlene had remained for three months before electing to run away.

Although Charles Danforth was a banker, he kept a large sum of money in a safe on the wall behind a portrait of Thomas Jefferson. Charlene had seen him access it on numerous occasions and had even noticed where he kept the key. Although she didn't wish to steal, she realized that she would need money if she were to be able to make it back to East Texas. "Besides," she had reasoned, "bankers such as uncle Charles were stealing the Southerners blind." So as far as she was concerned, she would only be stealing from a thief anyway.

She took $1,000.oo, more than enough to cover train and stagecoach tickets as well as enough to buy a horse in Texas, and support her for quite some time if she was careful. Though only about fourteen, she had been well developed for her age, and had little trouble passing herself off as a grown woman, once properly made up. She traveled alternately by train, steamboat, and stagecoach until she reached the town of Nacogdoches, Texas. From there, she purchased a horse and rode to her mother's little homestead where she'd grown up.

Her mother, nearly fainted when she rode up to the farm. They had had a long argument until Eula finally realized that her daughter would never go back to Boston. Charlene however, promised to pay back the money she had stolen little by little, as she could. Unfortunately, Charlene was in for as much of a shock as her mother had been.

Her brother, Johnny, was now on the run from the law, and was no longer able to take care of things around the place. Not that he had been doing all that much anyway since their father had been killed in battle. The upshot was that Eula would have to sell the homestead and move into a city to try and find work. Failing that, she intended to move to Boston to live with her brother Charles. Charlene had been crushed. She'd only just escaped the clutches of dear Uncle Charles, and had no intention of returning, ever. And the idea of moving into a proper town such as Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio was scarcely more appealing. Appalling, would have been a better term.

She'd been raised by her father in much the same way as her brother Johnny, much to the consternation of her mother. They'd grown up together hunting, fishing, riding horseback, wrestling, and swimming in the numerous water-holes that were common in the heavily forested Northeastern Texas area between Zavala and Jasper. Thier homestead was not far from what is now Boykin Springs Lake. Her mother thought she was as wild as any Indian and this was a constant source of shame to her.

She could tolerate having Johnny raised this way, but Charlene, that was almost more than she could bear. Her husband Tom, thought it was "cute," and claimed there was no place for "high fallutin' city ways" out in the East Texas wilderness.

They had lived primarily off the land, either hunting, or farming. Later, Tom raised livestock and sold it, making enough to purchase a few womanly niceties here and there for Eula's comfort. But Charlene had grown up around boys, preferring both their company, and their activities. She'd never had any love for dolls, dresses, makeup, or any other of the usual feminine playthings or niceties. But in all of this, Tom Lancer had taught both her and Johnny how to live off the land, and made them both work hard when the occasion called for it, which was quite often.

Eula, had seen to it that they learned how to read and write, as well as do their sums. They had had plenty of chores to balance out their fun and games. The point was. Charlene could not bear to leave all of that behind. She began to resent her brother Johnny for getting into trouble and placing them in that position. At that time, she'd hoped never to see him again, but she was to hear his name all too often over the next few years as he became more notorious, and as one man after another, fell before his guns.

Johnny had always been on the wild side. He had a daredevil nature that was always getting him, or someone else into trouble. He was not mean, just fun-loving and reckless. The problem was, he'd begun running with a rough crowd after the war had ended. Now, she remembered thinking, after killing three men in a gunfight, he was on the run from the law. Had his father been around, it was highly possible that Johnny's story might have been very different, and her's as well.

Fortunately, for Charlene, she had another aunt, who lived out west in Texas. Aunt Cora, the oldest of her mother's siblings. She had married a rancher named Angus Murdoch some years back. Her and Johnny had visited them a few times when they had been younger. Most of the ranch consisted of either plains or desert, totally unlike the lush tree and grass covered land around her home. But the house itself was nestled in the foothills of the Davis Mountains in a beautiful spot, and it was still far better than living in some city, and there were other mountains and forests not too many days ride away.

She had moved with her mother to Dallas, and from there, mailed a letter asking permission to come stay for a while with her Aunt Cora. For weeks, there was no reply. Then one day, there was a knock on their door. She'd opened it to find it filled with the towering bulk of Angus "Moose" Murdoch. He was wearing a scowl on his rugged face as though she were the source of some deep aggravation to him. "So this is the little filly that won't stay hobbled huh?"

She had replied, "This filly might stay put if she likes her corral."

She'd seen right through him. When she had first met him, she'd been terrified of him--his size, and his gruff demeanor. But he had rapidly grown to love her and she him. His scowl quickly melted and he had roughly picked her up clean off the ground and hugged her tightly, if not gracefully. "Where's yer mama?" he had asked.

She explained to him how her mother had taken a job waiting tables at one of Dallas' finer restaurants, but was extremely unhappy, and cried often at nights. Moose had merely grunted, and suggested that they go pay a visit to the restaurant and get a bite to eat. When they had been seated, it seemed as if Moose ordered enough for four men, then invited Eula to sit down with them after she had brought their orders. He asked her to fill him in on what had taken place, which she did.

While in the midst of her narrative, the manager of the restaurant walked up to the table and proceeded to berate Eula for failing to wait on the customers. Charlene was never to forget what happened next.

In one fluid motion, Murdoch was out of his chair and on his feet. His huge hand shot forward in a blur of movement, grasping the manager by the lapels and hoisting him into the air, his feet several inches off the floor. "Listen here, you sawed off little runt." he growled. "You watch yer tone of voice when yer talkin' ta my sister-in-law. I've a mind ta bounce ya off that wall, or maybe toss yer sorry carcass through that window yonder." he said, gesturing toward the ornate glass window at the front of the restaurant.

The city-bred man's face turned ashen, and urine began trickling out the bottom of his pant-legs. When he was at last able to recover his voice and composure, the fellow meekly apologized and advised Eula to take all the time she needed. Moose put him down and merely said, "Thank ya kindly, sir, and returned his attention to his enormous meal, which by then, was nearly finished.

He ended up telling Eula that should she wish, he would pay her way up to Boston, where she could live with her brother Charles, or she too, could come out west and stay with him and her sister, Cora. Eula decided on Boston immediately, having had enough by now, of the west and its ways. She had always wanted to be a part of high society and had never understood what had possessed her to marry a man like Tom Lancer in the first place. Impatience and infatuation did strange things to people, she'd concluded. And when she had met Tom her parents had recently passed away and she'd been waiting tables in Austin, just as she was then doing in Dallas.

Tom had been young, and handsome, even if a bit too reckless. But he was enthusiastic and had had big plans, and had convinced both himself, and her, that they would some day be rich. Unfortunately, he had been a much better hand at hunting, and Indian fighting than farming, ranching, or land speculating. Their only steady income had been from the mill he had built near their cabin, and the livestock he was able to raise and occasionally sell for a meager profit. It had always been enough to keep them going, but nothing like either of them had envisioned.

Now, Murdoch had provided her with the opportunity to try and start all over again. Not only that, but he had wanted to know how much Charlene had stolen from Charles Danforth. He had decided to pay that off as well, admonishing Charlene never to pull such a stunt again, and reprimanding her for not thinking to write him for help in the first place. The next day, they sent Eula on her way to Boston, and departed themselves, for the vast Murdoch spread out west.

Thus, Charlene had received the rest of her upbringing at the hands of Moose and her aunt Cora, along with the cowboys, and a few other western characters that frequented the ranch. Her mother soon married a wealthy Bostonian, and her other aunt, Emily, had been invited by Cora Murdoch to visit the ranch a year later.

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