[RCL]

Stagecoach Mary

Unlike some storied cowboys of the plains,
Mary Fields’ Montana makes her day.
A liberated slave, south far away,
she’s rare in white Cascade, where smoker’s stains
on six-foot girls are rare. She also pains
a few by swearing and bearing guns. LeMay,
the liberal mayor, lets her drink and play
at cards in his saloon. Despite harsh rains,
she beats out men for stagecoach routes and leaves,
a first for women, making rounds through suns’
bite and devil winds, transporting sheaves
of mail and sundries. Through laughs and whiskey breath,
she smokes, spins yarns of wolves on nighttime runs
through snow—her knife and shotgun dealing death.