Lizbeth lives in the southwestern country now known as Texoma, a place where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted.
The author has exclusively shared the cover forAn Easy Deathwith EW, as well as an excerpt.
Read on below, and pre-order the book ahead of its Oct. 2 releasehere.
Credit: JB Lacroix/WireImage
Tarken and Martin would be tinkering with the truck, which was our livelihood.
Galilee would be watching Martin, because they had started seeing each other before and after work.
Or she would be cleaning her little house, or washing her clothes.
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I never saw Galilee bored or idle.
That morning I was pleased to get rid of my hair.
Shed done a good job.
When she was halfway done, she said, Why you want to cut all this off?
It gets all sweaty and sticks to my neck, I said.
It was only spring now, but it would be the hot season soon.
You better wear you a hat so your head wont get all red and tender, Chrissie said.
You want it so short I think the sun might get your scalp.
Ill take care, I said, holding up the only little mirror Chrissie had.
I could see part of my head at a time.
Shed washed it, so my hair was wet.
I thought it was about an inch long.
Looked like the curl was gone, but I wouldnt know until it dried.
You heading out soon?
I saw them farmers at Martins place, when I was coming back from the store.
Chrissies trousers had long tendrils of dark hair all over em now.
Shed have to brush em.
Yeah, were leaving as soon as its near dark.
Sure, I was.
Of course not, the only ones should be scared are anyone who tries to get in our way.
I smiled, my eyes and lips shut against the soap trickles.
Youll kill em dead, bang, bang, Chrissie said in singsong voice.
Bang, bang, I agreed.
Why are they going to New America?
The part of Texas they live in got swallowed up by Mexico a few years ago.
She shook her head.
Chrissie looked even dimmer.
Their land is getting taken.
Dixie was so poor and so dangerous youd have to be desperate to flee there.
Anyone ever go to the HRE?
Chrissie, I said.
She bent around to meet my eyes.
Oh, sorry, Lizbeth.
She began to work on the right side, following her own whim.
I tried to remember if Id ever seen her cut anyones hair besides Nortons.
I forgot you dont like them grigoris.
I did not like magicians.
Tarken know youre doing this?
she said after a moment.
No, he doesnt have a say in my hair.
Dont you go telling.
Hell see it this afternoon.
Yeah, its a surprise, I said.
Chrissie gave me one of those looks that reminded me she was older than I was.
He aint gonna like it, Lizbeth.
I raised up my shoulders, very carefully, because I didnt want to jolt her hand.
Nothishead, I said, and that was the truth.
She gave me a big smile before she carried the chair inside.
I gave her a hand.
When the dirt didnt look like the sky had snowed black ringlets, I went uphill to my place.
Getting ready to leave didnt take long.
We should only be gone maybe three nights, at most.
And we might even spring for a room in one of the hotels in Corbin .
providing Tarken was speaking to me by then.
Wed get the farmers up to their waiting family, then wed come right home.
Theyd moved all the big rocks and trees, scouted out the likely ambush sites, and so on.
Corbin was over the border in New America, which was where almost all our cargo was bound.
The first time we went to bed, he told me hed been waiting until I was old enough.
I hadnt even realized he was looking at me.
Im slow that way.
But Im quick with a gun, thats what counts.
The first time I held a rifle in my hands, I knew Id found my calling.
Id fill my canteens before I left.
Next I cleaned my old 1873 Winchester, a lever action and a great rifle.
It had been my grandfathers.
Hed called it Jackhammer, so I did, too.
I could fire twenty-seven bullets with all three, had extra magazines ready for the Colts.
If I couldnt bring our enemies down with that much firepower, our enemies had an army.
Galilee would bring her rifle, a Krag, since she was better at long shooting.
Id use the Winchester for closer work.
She and Martin and Tarken all had pistols, too, though Tarkens was less than a great tool.
Our truck and our firepower had worked for two years.
Wed made this same run often.
I set off down the path to town.
she called in her soft voice.
I passed Rex Santino.
Easy death, he said in his gruff way.
Thats what people wished gunnies.
It made me feel good.
I nodded back at him.
I didnt want to walk down Main Street.
There were too many people.
One of them was my mother, who lived with Jackson in a real nice house just off Main.
She didnt like to see me leave on a job.
That weakened me, too.
Martins chickens squawked in their pen as I came into the yard.
He was strewing feed and smiling, just a little.
He sure liked those stupid chickens.
His neighbors kids would come in to feed them while Martin was gone, in exchange for eggs.
We do a lot of barter in Segundo Mexia.
The setting sun struck Martins head with a golden glow.
For the first time I noticed that Martins light hair had a lot of gray sprinkled in.
I would pick my time to tease him about it.
Galilee wasnt there yet.
After a minute he closed his eyes, shook his head, and started back to working.
Id hear about this later.
It was going to be fun.
Most of the cargo was sitting on the dirt of the yard or on Martins front porch.
Two of the children were playing a game of hopscotch on the grid theyd drawn in the dirt.
I nodded in their direction.
I would talk to them when I couldnt dodge it.
I couldnt handle meat before a job.
Galilee came in to sit with me, her Krag under her arm.
My friend, you look a sight, she said when she got a good look at me.
You had the prettiest white-person hair I ever saw.
Whyd you do it?
Tarken liked it too much.
So you decided youd show him what was what.
Sometimes I can tell you are so young.
I didnt know what that meant, so I didnt answer.
Galilee talked about other stuff.
Freedom built a chair for his little house, she told me.
Now hed built his own place.
(And a chair.)
He going to find a carpenter to apprentice to?
I couldnt think of anyone around whod be ready to hire.
Bobby Saw already had a girl working for him.
Galilee lost some smile.
That boy cant stick with nothing.
At least, not that hes found yet.
That boy and I were nearly the same age.
At least Freedom had stuck with the tannery job.
Though he didnt like the work, it was steady money.
He kept looking for something else, but nothing had suited him yet.
Last time Id seen him in a bar, hed groused about it nonstop.
He was lucky his girlfriend was sticking with him.
Complaining is not attractive.
Martin came in to get a drink, kissed Galilee on the cheek as he went by.
My eyebrows tried to climb into my hair, what was left of it.
Well, I said when hed gone back out.
Youre out in the open with it.
When did that happen?
She didnt meet my eyes, but she was smiling again.
Just seemed like it was time.
Were getting along good, we want to spend more time together than we are.
Aint no big thing.
Yet, she agreed.
Lizbeth, Tarken called from the yard.
It was spring, days lengthening, and the sun didnt want to give up the sky.
I had my place, standing here on this dirt.
Tarken gave us the nod.
He and Martin were taking one last-minute look at the engine.
Galilee and I turned to the cargo.
Time to load up, I called.
Sit in the center, looking out.
I had to be clear.
Tarken would cover the straight-ahead from the passenger seat in the cab.
The cargo had brought too much stuff, but theyd tried to pack it all in.
They hated to leave things.
This was all they had in the world.
Provided a little protection, too.
And that gave Galilee and me a stable frame to lean on.
We would go in last.
The families were standing, milling around, putting it off.
Load up, I called with a little more push to my voice.
The younger couple had a baby and a couple of littles, maybe six and four.
The men were brothers.
Their older brother, theyd told Martin, was the one paying for their trip to New America.
It seemed to take a long time, but finally they were all in.
Galilee and I scrambled up and took our places.
It was Galilees turn to talk.
Hear me, she said, and they all turned their faces to her.
Dixie people wouldnt have listened to a black woman, but these farmers did.
She had the way and voice of someone who knew what she was doing.
Her rifle spoke for her, too.
Galilee gave them the usual lecture about staying low and helping us keep watch.
They all nodded, even the littles, scared just about shitless.
The guns and goods could be used or sold.
The humans could be robbed or raped, and then sold to a bordello that wasnt too choosy.
If the New America patrols stopped us, wed be fine.
People were legal cargo, and respectable people like this were even welcome in New America.
But if bandits caught us, well, that was why Galilee and I were on duty.
Martin had climbed into the drivers seat, and Tarken had taken the shotgun position, as usual.
I stretched forward to rap on the cab roof, letting them know shed made the speech.
The engine began to rumble, and we lurched out of the yard.
See you soon, son!
I could feel the farm peoples eyes going from the boy to his mother.
The two were not exactly the same color.
Galilee had gotten pregnant by the son of the landowner her parents worked for.
Her parents had sacrificed to help Galilee run away.
In Dixie, kids who didnt look like their black mothers were in for a very hard time.
After many adventures, mostly bad, some good, Galilee had ended up in Segundo Mexia.
But along the way, shed learned to shoot.
She had a skill.
I trusted her with my life.
We were on a good part of the road, one that hadnt been broken.
There were still stretches around like that.
It sounded like a fancy dream.
Since we were with the cargo, Galilee caught my eye and raised her rifle just a little.
She was asking if I expected trouble.
Kind of to my own surprise, I nodded.
Galilees eyebrows went up.
She was asking me why.
Full moon, I mouthed, with a tiny point upward.
Galilee shook her head, looking exasperated, her puff of hair flying around her face.
She held up three fingers.
Nothing had happened for the last three trips.
I held one hand palm up.Anybodys guess, I was telling her.
I didnt want to jinx us.
Most likely, nothing would happen.
Wed done this run dozens of times since Id joined the crew.
Wed had firefights, sure.
Wed lost one crew member, an older guy named Solly.
Hed taken a bullet to the stomach.
His had been the opposite of an easy death.
But wed always gotten our cargo where they intended to go, except for two souls.
One boy had been snakebit, and we couldnt control snakes.
So we had a good record.
I clamped down hard on my bad feeling and stuffed it away to nowhere.
I had to be all in this moment.
You dont look any older than my seventeen-year-old, said the older farm wife.
Her husband had called her Ruth.
Ruth glanced at her daughter with pride and fondness.
By barely two years.
Ruth wanted to say more.
She was trying to look at my shorn head without making a federal case of it.
She decided against comment.
I didnt want to talk to them, get to know them.
In less than a day, theyd be gone.
I remember running my hand over my short hair.
Thinking my skull felt clean and cool as the air whooshed over it.
But Martin had laughed.
You better buy a dress, hed said, so we can remember youre a girl.
Youd never mistake this one for a girl, Galilee had answered.
And shed looked down at her slim body.
But Martin had looked as though he liked her just like she was.
Same as everywhere around Segundo Mexia.
There were rocky outcrops here and there.
Lots of bare dirt.
As Martin usually did, he followed the remains of the north road.
After an hour he had to go slower.
Wed reached a section in much worse shape.
Might have been laid sometime in the late twenties, never repaired since.
The little kids had been talking to one another or asking their parents questions that couldnt be answered.
At first the adults tried to say cheerful things, and act like all was easy and well.
But gradually they began to snap a little, and the kids shut up.
Two hours into the run, there was no talking or laughing.
I didnt like my view of the sky being blocked.
I ran my thumb over it.
I told myself Id see to that when we returned.
Because of the clouds, Martin was running with headlights, had to.
So even if the engine noise didnt announce we were coming, the headlights did.
That was our job.
And we were doing it just as well as usual.
Some clue, some warning.
Tonight the bullets came out of nowhere.
as I fired back, working the lever immediately to chamber another round.
Id marked the flash pretty accurately.
The bandit was close.
A scream told me Id gotten him.
He didnt die before he got a bullet through the cab.
Later I figured the bandit killed Martin with that shot.
Because the truck started veering all over and I had to grab the slats to stay in the truck.
No way I could fire back.
I guess she couldnt grab hold in time.
One second Galilee was there.
The next she was gone, without a sound.
Tarken had shoved him out to take the drivers seat.
When Martins body hit the road, it kind of bounced and then lay still.
Even as I fired at the bandit, I saw hed stopped and aimed.
