Name: Penelope Fremont<br/>Sex: Female<br/>Height: 5' 4¾"<br/>Weight: 114 lbs<br/>Hair Colour/Style: Chestnut brown, mid-shoulder length curls, commonly worn loose under a bonnet.<br/>Originally from Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Married to a young farrier, who joined the Union army, was captured by the Confederacy in 1863, escaped in 1864 and made his way home, sick with dysentery and with only one eye.<br/><br/>(http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Kristen-in-Deadwood-kristen-bell-292333_333_500.jpg)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Amienne;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 20pt;">April 1866<br/><br/>This is the Journal of Penelope Fremont, (Mrs). Widow.<br/><br/>I am keeping this journal, because I have seen others keep them and it seems a goodly and Godly thing to do. I cannot confess the sin I am committing, for to do so would leave me stranded, but not only myself but my companions also. And I am not convinced that it is a sin, yet we are committing a subterfuge.<br/><br/>My late husband, may God rest his soul, returned from the war a broken man. Our home was destroyed in the battle that won the war for the Union, but he was taken prisoner at Chancellorsville almost three months before. I feared I would never see him again, but God be praised he returned to me. He was sick and short an eye, but I nursed him back to health. With our home destroyed by the seseshers we lived off charity. I thought to rebuild, restart our business as farriers, but Joseph, God rest his soul, said we should start anew out west.<br/><br/>And so we took train to Missouri. We didn't have much, but what we had we brought with, the farrier's tools and anvil we could not replace out west. My Joseph was never a weak man, never a sickly man before the war. We needed to raise money for the joining fee, and Joseph had bought and paid for a wagon and oxen. We had cattle too, but the Wagonmaster wanted a fee, he says, to cover his own time and expenses, and those of his trackers, two Indians, and his guide, a grizzled old mountain man. We hadn't the money with us, so Joseph took upon himself to have a relative wire us money to the bank here in Jefferson City.<br/><br/>He was on his way to pay the Wagonmaster when ill chance befell. My poor Joseph was set upon by brigands from his blind side. Foul place this, the place of his murder! The law here is none existent, there is no constabulary, and only a minimal army presence. I shall see no justice, nor shall I see the money again.<br/><br/>The Wagonmaster would not take a single lady, even one already signed up. I sold Joseph's prize anvil to try and redeem my place on the train, but the Wagonmaster would hear none of it. It looked as if I were to spend my days in this drear place, as a woman of easy virtue, selling my body to live. When odd chance should occur.<br/><br/>Sitting in the hotel lobby I observed one such street woman hurry in and engage another single lady in conversation, pleading to be hidden. Their talk turned to joining the self same train that I had been so rudely cast out from. It was the street woman suggested to the Sesesher lady that they pose as husband and wife. I was over hearing, no more, and when I heard this I laughed aloud. Their talk hushed, and they looked at me. I in all innocence asked them where they would get a man's chattels to fit the lady. This had them undone for a time. I muttered a prayer, asking forgiveness of my dear Joseph, still cooling in the ground. "Why you are about the same build as my late husband murdered but two days ago", says I.<br/><br/>And it is from this that our plot was hatched</span></span><br/><br/><hr/><br/>Penelope sat in the back of the wagon, Clothed in black as befit a widow. She was not sorry to be leaving the miserable hovel that rejoiced in the grandiose name of Jefferson City. Little more than  a railroad station, an hotel, stock pens, a dozen or so saloons and other dens of inequity, and the merchants who made a living off the flesh of those heading West.  She knelt on the mattress that was to serve as bed for all three, although how they would squeese in she could not fathom. The wagon lurched forward and Penelope fell to her hands with the unexpectedness of it. She scowled and picked up the pots and pans that had fallen from the hooks that she had painstakingly attached to the iron hoops that supported the wagons canvas.<br/><br/>One of the old Springfield rifles jolted from the rack on the inside of the wagon and Penny lifted it back in. They had two of the single shot weapons, both had seen service in the War, and Jessi had bought herself that Henry rifle, for what purpose, Penny hated to think. The Springfields were good enough for hunting. The Sesesher woman, who was posing as her brother-in-law has some strange ideas.<br/><br/>Penny shook her head. She needed to stop thinking of Jessi as a woman. If she thought it she would say it, if she said it she would betray them. She moved to the front of the wagon and looked out past the shoulders of the 'couple'. "Well,", she said softly, "We're on the way. Good. I am happy to leave."<br/><br/>With a snort, she moved to the back of the wagon and spat symbolically into the dust cloud. "A curse on you, Jefferson City, who could not give a widow justice against her husband's killers.<acronym title="Matthew 10:14">I shake thy dust off my feet!</acronym>" She stood, clutching the iron hoop at the back of the wagon and deliberately shook her foot out of the open end, then pulled the flap down to cover it and made her way unsteadily to the front again. "Bastards", she swore softly under her breath.