With an authenticity of emotion rarely expressed in Western fiction, award-winning author Jane Candia Coleman presents two heroines whose spirit, courage and passion no one could soon forget. In the first of the two short novels collected in this volume, Coleman introduces us to Mary Katherine Horony, better known to history as Big Nose Kate, the woman in Doc Holliday's life and the person who knew him better than anyone. And in Mrs. Slaughter we meet Viola Howell, the eighteen-year-old woman who met with New Mexico governor Lew Wallace to dramatically plead the case of John Slaughter, a man accused of cattle rustling?and the man she loved.