Heresy

by Melissa Lenhardt

  In 2006, the San Francisco National Bank donated two or three trunks of items that had been left in their safe-deposit boxes, never claimed by the owner or their family or descendants. The trunks had been in storage and forgotten. When they were discovered, the board decided to donate the items, some quite valuable, to the museum, figuring if they hadn’t been claimed in one hundred years they weren’t likely to be. Claire Hamilton had a safe-deposit box. Inside were a dozen journals spanning from 1877 to 1905. The museum started digitizing the most recent journals, as they had the most connection to the era of the earthquake, and as with so many projects, money ran out.

  KC: Always the first cut, art and history.

  SB: Yes. The last two journals were bundled together, and were Margaret’s and Claire’s accounts of those five months.

  KC: That is amazing.

  SB: Yes, once word got out, I had colleagues from around the world wanting to take me gambling because I was obviously on a lucky streak!

  KC: That’s one way to look at it. Another is that this story wanted to be told.

  SB: Yes. A thousand times, yes. It is heartbreaking that these women were forgotten. Not even forgotten, but ignored even during their time. I’m not going to get on my soapbox here, but this story isn’t just an exciting, real-life action adventure, but also a lesson in the power of the press to shape history, of people in power to shape what we know so that it fits a certain narrative and preserves their influence. People think that fake news and propaganda are serious threats to our democracy, and they’re not wrong. The difference is that now the counterpoint, or the truth, according to some people, is available. At everyone’s fingertips. That is a very, very recent phenomenon. Today’s historians suffer from a lack of information, large gaps, and downright holes. Future historians will suffer from too much information, and such conflicting accounts it will be difficult to parse it.

  KC: But the winners will always write the history.

  SB: They always have, with the exception of the South and the Civil War. It will be interesting to see who writes the history, and if it will even be possible to quash opposing, losing perspectives. I don’t think it will, and it remains to be seen if that’s a good thing or not. I tend to think so. Our history has been one-sided for too long.

  KC: The white male perspective.

  SB: Mostly, yes.

  KC: But that’s changing.

  SB: It is. There has been an increased interest in these lost women of history, thanks in part to podcasts like yours, and I hope that Heresy inspires more historians to focus on women in history, and inspires nonhistorians to think about history in a different light, not as something that doesn’t impact us, but as a living, breathing part of everything we experience. Women will read this book, and too much of it will be familiar to them. Maybe they’ll stop and think, ‘You know, we haven’t made as much progress as we should have in a hundred and forty years.’

  KC: What is next? Surely this isn’t the end of this story.

  SB: I’m not sure what contemporaneous information is left to be found. There’s always the possibility that Luke Rhodes will turn up in the historical record sometime. But who knows.

  KC: Is it true that Hollywood has come calling?

  SB: Yes, and a New York City publisher has approached me about writing a novel about the Parker Gang.

  KC: As in fiction?

  SB: Yes.

  KC: Don’t they know historians don’t do fiction, only facts?

  SB: They say the story is so outlandish it might as well be fiction, and I don’t disagree with them. I’m halfway tempted to do it.

  KC: Professor!

  SB: Margaret Parker wanted her story to be told, and through a set of crazy coincidences and a huge dose of good luck, I’m the one who has been entrusted with it. I want Margaret and Hattie and Claire and Stella and Joan to have their stories told, to get their due finally, one hundred and forty years later. If that means a movie, a novel, a graphic novel—hell, skywriting, I’m going to do it. I love these women, their resilience, their spirit. The world needs to know that these women were real, and they were magnificent.

  Cast of Characters

  WPA Slave Narrative Collection (1936)

  Henrietta Lee—Ninety-two-year-old former slave

  Grace Williams—Interviewer

  Marshall Pass Stage Robbery

  Grace Trumbull—A bluestocking from Chicago traveling the West to write her memoirs

  Emily Butler—Margaret Parker’s alias during the Marshall Pass stage robbery

  Benjamin Adamson—Callum Connolly’s clerk

  Stella Elbee—Member of the Parker Gang; Joan’s older sister

  Joan Jennifer Elbee—Youngest member of the Parker Gang; Stella’s younger sister

  Toddy—Wells Fargo stagecoach guard

  Jehu Lee—Wells Fargo teamster

  Hattie LaCour—Former slave and Buffalo Soldier; co-leader of the Parker Gang (Henrietta Lee)

  Margaret Elizabeth Standridge Parker, Duchess of Parkerton—British widow; co-leader of the Parker Gang

  Thomas Parker, Duke of Parkerton (deceased)—Margaret’s husband; hero of the Charge of the Light Brigade

  Horace Whatley—Miner

  Timberline

  Newt Valentine—Twelve-year-old son of Timberline’s blacksmith

  Ulysses Valentine—Blacksmith; alcoholic and violent man

  Lou Valentine (deceased)—Ulysses Valentine’s wife

  Sheriff Luke Rhodes—Timberline sheriff who enforces one law: no killing

  Rebecca and Harvey Reynolds—Owners of the Timberline general store

  Opal Steele—One of two whores in Timberline

  Ruby Steele—The other whore; Opal’s “sister”; half-Chinese

  Eli—Bartender/bouncer at the Blue Diamond Saloon

  Salter—Stranger

  The Spooner Gang

  Jed Spooner—Outlaw; Margaret Parker’s former lover

  Hank “Ought-Not” Henry—Jed Spooner’s lieutenant; safecracker

  Domino Jones—Cardsharp

  “Sly” Jack Fox—Pickpocket

  Maurice “Scab” Williams—Explosives expert

  “Dead-Eye” Deacon Jones—Religious fanatic

  The Connolly Family

  Colonel Louis Connolly (deceased)—Colorado militiaman during the Civil War; cattleman; owner of Connolly Enterprises

  Dorcas Connolly—Colonel Connolly’s sister; Callum’s aunt

  Callum Connolly—Colonel Connolly’s son; Dorcas’s nephew

  Poudre River Ranch and Dinner Party

  Zhu Li—Connolly’s Chinese cook; formerly worked for Margaret

  Bohai—Her husband

  Zeke—Cowboy

  Governor John Routt and his wife, Eliza—First governor of Colorado

  Nathaniel P. Hill—A gold smelter

  Lewis and Dorothy Wilson—A dry goods proprietor with stores in Cheyenne, Denver, Golden

  Alexander Bisson—Callum Connolly’s lawyer; helped Colonel Connolly steal Margaret’s ranch

  Evangeline White—His paid companion

  Denver/Colorado Springs/Cheyenne/Black Hawk

  Claire Hamilton—Female detective hunting the female gang; former Pinkerton, hired by Dorcas Connolly

  Dr. Alida Avery—First female physician in Colorado; president of the Colorado Woman Suffrage Association

  Kaye Hunter—Suffragist

  Ashley Perkins—Suffragist

  Sally Dove—Colorado Springs prostitute

  Rosemond—Photographer and portraitist

  Portia Bright—Rosemond’s partner

  Clay Cooper—Cheyenne sheriff

  Frank Chambers—Owner of the Chambers Lodge in Black Hawk, Colorado

  Lana Chambers—His wife; Margaret took Lana and her son, Zeke, in when they ran away from her abusive former husband

  George—Pinkerton

  Wilson—Pinkerton

  Mingzhu—Ruby Steele’s given name

  Yung Su—D
enver tailor; Mingzhu’s uncle

  Glossary

  Afterclaps—Unexpected happenings after an event is supposed to be over

  Arbuckle’s—Coffee; taken from a popular brand of the time

  Blue belly—Yankee

  Bluestocking—An epithet for literary ladies

  Bow up—puffing up as if preparing to fight someone

  Buffalo Soldiers—Black soldiers of the U.S. Army who fought Native Americans and policed the frontier in the years following the Civil War

  Calico queen—Prostitute

  California collar—A hangman’s noose

  California widow—A woman separated from her husband, but not divorced; from when men went west, leaving their wives to follow later

  Cracker—A poor southern white person, named after the cracking whips used by rural southerners

  Celestial—Derogatory term for a Chinese person

  Coulee—a deep ravine

  Curly wolf—Mean fellow; tough guy; sometimes a bit of a bastard

  Hemp—Marijuana

  Filling the blanket—Rolling a cigarette

  Fingersmith—Pickpocket

  Granger—A derogatory term for a farmer

  Laudanum—An alcoholic solution containing morphine, prepared from opium, and used as a narcotic painkiller

  Lynching bee—A hanging

  Owlhoot—Outlaw

  Pancake—English saddle

  Peacemaker—Colt .45; the “Gun that Won the West”

  Penny dreadful—A cheap, sensational novel of adventure, crime and violence; dime novel; pulp fiction

  Pert near—Pretty near

  Peterman—Safecracker

  Pinkerton—a detective working for Pinkerton National Detective Agency

  Poke bonnet—A long, straight bonnet, worn by Quakers and Methodists

  Powder monkey—Explosions expert

  Six-shooter coffee—Strong coffee

  Sodbuster—Farmer

  Soroche—Mountain sickness

  Shebang—General store

  Smock-faced boy—Smooth-faced man; white man

  Sutler store—General store on an army fort

  Throw up the sponge—Give up

  Tignon—A piece of cloth worn as a turban by Creole women of Louisiana

  Acknowledgments

  It’s nothing short of a miracle that you find this book in your hands and are reading these acknowledgments. This was a difficult book to write, for many reasons, some of which have to do with writing, some of which do not. There were many times I thought about quitting, about giving back my advance and admitting the story was too big for me, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was beaten. Basically, I suffered from imposter syndrome for most of the year I spent writing Heresy.

  Well, guess what? I won. This book is a big middle finger to imposter syndrome, among other things, and, in the end, it’s my best work to date.

  I didn’t do it alone.

  Thanks to my agent, Alice Speilburg, for being my biggest champion.

  Thanks to Lindsey Hall, Anne Clarke, Tim Holman, and the Orbit/Redhook team for having faith in me that I could deliver this book based on a very thin idea. I can admit now how very thin this idea was. Razor thin. Almost nonexistent. Hence the Year of Difficulties. Their belief in me, not wanting to let them down, is what made me keep going.

  Thanks to Bradley Englert for picking up my little orphan and offering wonderful editorial insight, and for loving it as much as I do. Thanks also to Ellen Wright for being the best publicist in the world. Also thanks to Gleni Bartels, S. B. Kleinman, Jenna Dutton, and Crystal Benn, as well as the designers at Jouve.

  Thanks to my tribe of writers and pub professionals, who pick up the phone and answer my calls and texts and listen to everything from my “I don’t have a process! Why don’t I have a process yet!” rants (Brooke Fossey) to all my crazy plot ideas (Jenny Martin) to “This book is going to kill me. Will you be sad?” (Mark Hoover) to “Remind me when I have a Great Idea to keep it to myself” (Kendel Lynn/Lindsey Hall/Alice Speilburg). Thanks, too, to everyone at DFW Writers’ Workshop and Sisters in Crime North Dallas for keeping me motivated.

  Thanks to historian Laura Ruttum Senturia for your invaluable help with Colorado history, to Ashlee Clark Thompson for help with the representation of Hattie LaCour, to Mark Hoover for your constant love and support and being the best mentor a writer could ask for.

  Thank you to all the readers who have reached out to me, excited about my work and eager for this book. I hope the wait has been worth it! To Suehyla El-Attar, Suzanne Owen, Christy Ramirez, Diane Fenci, Jennifer Mason-Black, Blake Leyers, Carin Thrum, Heather Wheat, Terry Matthews, the Winnsboro Book Club, and all of my other friends who have offered support in various ways in the last year.

  To my extended family for loving me, believing in me, and looking past my faults and our differences to the soul beneath.

  Last, but never, ever least, to Jay, Ryan, and Jack. Whenever things are darkest, I look to you three—my beacons, my true north—on the other side of the doubt, the challenges and the setbacks, and know that your love is there, waiting to embrace me.

  meet the author

  Photo Credit: Amy Freshwater

  MELISSA LENHARDT lives in Texas with her husband, two sons, and two golden retrievers. For more information about her, visit melissalenhardt.com.

  By Melissa Lenhardt

  SAWBONES SERIES

  Sawbones

  Blood Oath

  Badlands

  JACK MCBRIDE MYSTERIES

  Stillwater

  The Fisher King

  Heresy

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