<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/f0/Marguerite_Tuerny02.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Marguerite Tuerny<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 2, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Night<br/><strong>Location:</strong>On the road to Vigilance Ranch<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Nathan Hunter, Closed<br/><hr/>Such hysteria is draining, and she frankly didn't have the energy to keep it up.  The laughter never did quite degenerate into crying before it finally dried up and ceased.<strong>"Well then."</strong>She replied to his comment about the marriage license, her voice dripping with a level of acid sarcasm that completely obscured the normally soothing tone of her voice.<strong>"If he has a license, we must be married."</strong>She agreed with patently false agreement.<strong>"I mean, maybe out here in the west, they give out marriage licenses to people who push girls off of a train .  Because the last time I saw Alfred Eklain, that's what he did.  And I certainly don't remember telling him I do."</strong>Well maybe not deliberately pushed, her honest instincts prodded her conscious, but the effect was the same.<br/><br/>The horse trod on, plodding along the trail with his double load as she considered how to answer his last statement.  Finally, she replied.<strong>"I was married."</strong>She agreed.<strong>"But I don't think I'll ever see him again.  The last thing he told me..."</strong>He'd told her through an intermediary, but she was sure the message was genuine.<strong>"...was that it was best if I forgot about him, and that we were ever married."</strong>If it had only been that informal little service in Mormon Territory, she might have been able to do that.  But they were properly married in that quaint old Spanish Mission, and she didn't know how she was supposed to forget about that.<strong>"I don't think he's coming back."</strong>Not unless he escaped a prison run with the efficiency equal to everything else the Mormons did, then crossed three deserts and two mountain ranges and all the hazards they contained.  A journey she wasn't entirely sure he'd attempt even if he had the chance.<strong>"I was married."</strong>It was all so sad.  She lost his child - why would he bother finding her?