She’d been born to parents who were dirt poor, except for the relay station they owned out west called The Last Chance. It was a dry place where dust storms and drought killed the cattle and ruined the crops. She hated the lonely territory where stagecoaches filled with tired travelers stopped to eat or sleep on the trail. It wasn’t a place for the young who were alive and had a future to look forward to, only the old and forgotten could be happy in such a place. But Lila had dreams, dreams that would someday take her out of the squalor she’d known all her life.
Her favorite pastime was hiding in the dark while she watched richly clad people coming and going in front of the brightly lit casinos. She recalled a woman who saw her hiding in a bush one night, threw her a gold coin, and then l
