Chapter One
Sharon Carter entered the Fort Grant Outpost on a not-so-wonderful day in 1868. And the teasing of the men who looked down on her was easy to ignore. She has grown accustomed to them lately. They laughed and mocked her and continued to drink their ales as the blonde made her way to Mr. Dix, who ran the outpost. She placed her bags upon the counter staring at the man.
“ No more Ms. Carter. ” Came the southern drawl of the older man.
Blue eyes flashed violently as she altered her stance in front of the man. Her dark eyebrows knit together. “ Is there a problem, Mister? ” She asked with the anger clear in her Virginian accent.
The man laughed at the young woman. “ Yes, yes Ms. Carter there is a problem, you are a Goddamn loon. ” He had no respect for her. That was clear from day one. He would not pretend she ever had any of his respect. And Sharon knew she would never get it. He did at one time have pity for the woman, but that pity was now long gone. “ I took all your money Carter, you ain’t got nothing else to offer me. And your tab, oh, your tab is high and it keeps on building itself up, now doesn’t it? I won’t have any more of it Ms. Carter, I won’t. ”
Sharon shook her head angrily. “I’ll pay, Mr. Dix, I swear it.” A promise she had made time and time again to the man. “ I saw a man, and he’s seen the cave now…” She was interrupted by the booming laughter of the men at the outpost. As frustrated as she already was, she tried her best to not let it show how the simple sound of their laughter made her blood boil. She just kept that hopeful and sweet Southern woman’s smile plastered on her face.
Mr. Dix interrupted her, and the laughing men. “ No! Sharon, no more. Not one more word. Stop with this nonsense about you silly little cave with gold. ” He was pissed off now. And she could tell, first names were saved for people that he was far past forgiven. First names meant serious business.
The men around the outpost burst out laughing again. “ Oh, now, now, Mr. Dix. Show some respect! It’s the evil spider cave of gold! ” Their snickering started up again, and the young blonde could only glare at them as they teased and mocked the widow.
“You’re cut off Carter. Go home. I don’t want you here no more. ” Dix said. “ I don’t want to use my force to get you to leave, especially not on such a pretty young woman like yourself girl, but I will if I must.”
Sharon was in no rush to leave. She stood there for a good while before the previously snickering and laughing men stood around her in a circle. She was not blind to the weapons the men carried on their person. They were trying to intimidate her, but they should know by now she did not scare easily. “ Now, I do believe, he done told ya to get on out of here, little girl. ”
She looked away from the men staring only at Mr. Dix. “I’ll leave when my bags are full.” She stated rather stubbornly. Before then men had a chance to draw their weapons on her, Sharon took the first move. She reached for a metal disk hanging from the ceiling of the outpost, using it to knock the man to her right down as the disk hit his head. The man behind her, she kicked, taking him off guard, she punched the remaining man, before taking her gun from the holster and placing it against Mr. Dix’s cheek. She switched the gun to her right hand and cocked the gun, as her left hand went to her pocket. She pulled out a small bar of gold with a design of a spider engraved onto it. She tossed the piece at Mr. Dix. “ I found it two days ago Mr. Dix. This ought to cover my tab, and then some. I told you I’d pay. You should have trusted me. I make good on my promises, I keep my word. ” She said lowering the gun and leaning across the counter towards the old man. She stood back placing distance between herself and Mr. Dix, she put her gun back to his cheek. “ Go on, fill the bag. I expect everything on that list, in the bags Mister. I don’t think you want to make the mistake of disappointing me. ” She said pointing her free hand at the list. “ The first item is beans.”
The sound of footsteps caused the blonde woman’s head to turn away from the man who ran the outpost. Cavalrymen. “ Aw, Shit.” She mumbled with a shake of her head and a chuckle.
“Sharon Carter? Your presence is requested up at the Forte, I suggest you come peacefully. ”
Sharon smirked, taking her gun away from Mr. Dix’s face. “Oh, do you now.” The blonde woman would have fought them too. She didn’t get the chance as a cavalryman snuck up beside her and knocked her out before she could properly think about starting a fight.
The blonde woke up to water being thrown upon her face. She coughed up some of the clear liquid, lots of it as she began to take in her surroundings. Looking around the room. Four men surrounded her, she sat in a chair, free from anything to keep her bound up, and there were two windows in front of her, and a door behind her. She would need a good distraction if she were to try and escape. It seems they got her now, she, at the moment could not think of an easy way out of this office. She stopped looking around the room as a man began speaking. Based on his uniform Sharon guessed him to be a Colonel.
“ You are a difficult woman to find. Ms. Sharon Carter. ” The man paused. “Or should I say, Captain? That title was given to you. Well, to your husband, Steven Rogers? You did use your husband’s name and pretend to be him in the war, did you not?” Sharon looked down at the ground not wanting to talk to the man. Certainly not about her past. And definitely not about her beloved late husband “You’re from Virginia, aren’t you Ms. Carter, but you didn’t fight for the confederates. You fought with the north. ” Sharon huffed at the man as he folded up paperwork on her. Was he just going to continue to tell her facts about herself? As if she didn’t already know about them. “ Good to see you are a beloved American, through and through. The good of the country over the beloved Southern mentality.” The smile the man gave to her sent rotten chills down her spine.
“ I am Colonel Mace, welcome to the Seventh Cavalry, Carter.” He bent down to be at her level and as he bent towards the woman who sat on the chair, Sharon looked at him with angry eyes before butting her head up against him. She sure did like causing a scene. Her action left them both with bloody noses. She was going to take the shock of her action as a chance to escape before the men that circled her came towards her and handcuffed her and forced her back to sit in the seat on the Colonel’s desk.
The Colonel now took this as his chance to stay farther away from the woman. “ They have you noted as an excellent horseman, and a fine swordsman, though of course, that was before they knew you were a lady, Carter, and not, in fact, your husband Rogers. ”
Sharon looked from Mace to his men, not caring for what he had to say, and not enjoying when the man brought up her husband. Looking back to the glass window behind Colonel Mace, a wicked smile grew on her face. She stood up from the seat suddenly and ran towards the window, her hands still cuffed. She made it out, but once she hit the ground there were more cavalrymen surrounding her. Looks like she was not getting out of this one. A quiet “fuck” fell from her lips as the men gathered around her, grabbing hold of her and dragging her away despite her squirming and her resistance.
The men threw her into a jail cell and locked it so that she and Mace could continue with their pleasant little chat. “People, even when they found out the truth about you, called you a natural-born fighter Ms. Carter. And in the eyes of Uncle Sam, that makes you a necessary defender to our territories. ”
“ No. ” She stated as she slowly began to stand up in the cramped little cell. Her cell reeked of cheap ale and piss.
“We are up to our chinstraps Ms. Carter. We would not come to try to find you unless we were desperate.”
Sharon shook her head as her knuckles turned white as grabbed the bars of the jail cell and held them tightly. “ I said no. This isn’t my concern. ”
“It is your concern, folks around here being attacked and slain in their own homes!”
Sharon scuffed at the man. “ You started it. You are taking their land, their homes. They are only defending what they knew to be theirs. Maybe if you all kept yourselves from being so greedy, with your taking, and your taking, they’d stop. If you just found peace with what you had instead of taking more and more of what doesn’t belong to you maybe you would get some God damned peace.” She commented on her unpopular opinion for the time period. “ You started this, if you have a problem with it, you finish it, I’m not here to fight for people, especially when I don’t believe in the fight.”
“Well, aren’t you rather progressive and political? That’s a whole lot of opinion for a woman.” Sharon spat at that man for his comment. “If we get ourselves into another little war, how about you go fight with them, huh?”
“ I am not fighting any more wars, Sir. I am done with fighting. I won’t fight for you, for them. I won’t fight for anyone but myself. I do not owe you, this country, or any good cause anything. I have already paid my price. And I have paid in full!” She argued, as her blue eyes fluttered to the two wedding bands around her ring finger on her left hand. Tears welled in her blue eyes. She shook her head before looking back up at the colonel.“So, do not go asking me to fight. Especially not when I know how yous feel, and how yous would treat a woman once she fought for you. Yous dug your grave, now you should lie in it! ”
The man hit her in her stomach. She knew it was due to her attitude. But she did not care. “ I’m finding it difficult to reconcile the person on this piece of paper with the one I'm looking at. Now, I suggest you find a horse and sense to accept my offer before I give into better judgment. ”
The woman scoffed at the man. “I’d rather die, than fight with you.” She paused. “Sir.” She may not hold the same beliefs as her fellow Southerners, but she sure did through in that Southern charm and hospitality here and there.
Sharon Carter was seventeen years old when she married the love of her life Steven Grant Rogers. His parents were poor Irish immigrants. He did not have a lot of money, not like her wealthy Virginian family. Steve was also a sickly boy, his health was hardly ever at a good spot. But she fell for his optimism, his smile, the way his blue eyes would look at her. The society around Sharon could not understand what led the young woman to marry a boy so sickly. A marriage that caused her to cut ties with her the majority of her wealthy family. A marriage that led her to leave a poor life. Their lack of understanding is what led to the rumors that spread like wildfire around Richmond. Rumors that, at often times, were unbearable for the blonde pair. The young couple would have moved as far from Richmond as they could if they had had the money to leave. But with a baby on the way, they needed every penny they could get.
She was happy. She would not have changed a second of her life with Steve Rogers. Baby or no baby, she would have married the young man either way. She would have given up the fortune, she would have cut ties from her family, to be with him. The affluent, judgmental Virginians, would never have approved of the couple, even if they were older, even if they had waited, so their circumstances did not change the way their life would have turned out, it just sped up the inevitable. Sharon did not feel one ounce of shame when it came to her and her husband, and the little family they were expecting, why should she? The world around her should be the ones that are ashamed. They certainly did not live perfect lives, so why should they have put themselves upon some pedestal as if they were so high above Steve and Sharon? Or any other human on this earth, even.
It was seven months after their wedding when Eleanor Sarah Rogers was welcomed to the world. She was a rather large baby, which came as a shock to both Sharon and her husband. They had both feared that the little blonde girl would inherit her father’s poor health. But they got lucky with Ellie. She was their little gift.
Ellie was three years old when Sharon had heard that rumors of the north needing more soldiers to win the war. And Sharon got an awfully ambitious idea in her head. The little blonde girl was napping on her parent's bed as Sharon and Steve were washing their dishes from their dinner earlier that night. “ The North needs more soldiers…” The twenty-year-old woman said softly to her husband. “ Peggy sent me a letter that Gabe was allowed to join the cause... ”
Gabriel Jones was Peggy’s husband, in every way but the legal sense. Sharon was not the only Carter sibling who did what their southerner neighbors would call wrong. Although, Peggy and Gabe’s life and their love were viewed as a danger to those small-minded Virginians and family members. As horrible as that was. Even up north, people would likely look at them the wrong way, and do them harm. There was not a safe place for them, not in America at least. And Sharon, along with many others, wished for an America that was truly free for everyone.
“ She must be worried for him. ” Steve started quietly looking over at his wife. There was a silence as the scrawny man stared at her for a bit, taking a break from drying the dishes currently in his hands. “ Maybe, I should take a trip up North. I could-”
“Steven, that isn’t what I’m saying,” Sharon muttered cutting him off completely. She knew he wanted to fight. She knew he wanted to help. “You and I both know, you go up there, they will take one look at you and turn you away. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right but it’s true. ” She continued to scrub at her dish before passing it along to her husband for him to dry.
He didn’t dry the dish she handed him, he just stared at her. He put the dish down on the counter along with the towel. The blonde man turned towards her, giving her his full attention. “Well, then what are you trying to get at Sharon? If they need more people to help win this war and give people their freedom, shouldn’t I at least try going up north and try to join the fight? It is the least I could do for them. For the betterment of the country.”
Sharon frowned, she knew he was going to say that. “ I am not saying you should go.” She let out a sigh and stopped washing the last of the dishes, and turned around to look him in the eyes. “I think I should go.” She started slowly.
Steve was silent. He was silent for a while The only things Sharon could hear were the critters outside the house and the gentle snores of their toddler. Sharon didn’t like Steve’s silence. She also did not like the look her husband was giving her.
“You’re gonna get yourself killed.” His voice came to as a harsh whisper when he finally did speak. He could no longer look at her. He forced himself down to sit in one of their chairs at their table. As angry as he may have been, Sharon knew that he was more terrified than angered at the idea she proposed. After all, that was his greatest fear, losing her. Sharon and Ellie were his only family left.
“Well, isn’t that hypocritical? Like if you were the one to go, you couldn’t end up hurt either.” Sharon argued, placing her hands on her hips, it was a low blow to attack him back when he was just worried about her, but Sharon has always been rather stubborn and defensive.
“We are progressive people Sharon, but the world around us is harsh and cruel, they would never let a woman on the battlefield. They wouldn’t let her fight for her country, especially not now. We know these people, they won’t treat you as their equal, not in our current world.” He tried to reason with her. Thinking her even trying to join the fight would be the death of her.
“ I wouldn’t be going as a woman.” Another sigh as her hands fell from her hips. “And I wouldn’t be going as myself,” Sharon said softly. “I’d be going as Steve Rogers.”
Steve looked back up at her as she admitted that. “No.” He shook his head, standing up violently, causing the chair he was sitting on to push back behind him. “No. I won’t I won’t let you.” He shook his head.
“You won’t let me?!”
“Sharon, they will kill you if they find out the truth, if the war doesn’t kill you itself.”
“Then, then, they won’t find out the truth.” Sharon gathered her long blonde hair behind her holding it tight. She scowled slightly. “I, Steven Grant Rogers, am offering my service.” And just like that her well-known southern accent was gone and replaced with a low voice and maybe a hint of an Irish accent. She dropped her hair, giving Steve a teasing smile as she stepped back away from him. “ I’ll admit the accent needs some work. I’ll have to chop my hair and bind, and maybe dirty up my face a little bit, borrow some of your clothes. But Steve, women have gotten away with going to war before, I know they have. Steve, I could do this. I could help them. I could do something for this country. For people who just want to be free. ”
The small blonde man looked away from his wife once more and looked towards their sleeping daughter. Sharon’s gaze followed his, and she frowned. She did not like where he was going with this, “And what about Ellie? She needs her mother. She needs both parents. With my health, we never know how long she may have me? If you die out there, and she'll eventually wind up an orphan. Do you want that for her?”
Sharon pointed her finger at Steve. “ Don’t do that, don’t use her, or your health against me. That is not fair. You wouldn’t bring up your health like that unless you knew that this was a battle you were losing. The doctor said that you are in a good state right now. You're in the best state you’ve been in since we were kids… And what you are healthy enough to fight this war instead of me, but not healthy enough to stick around for our daughter? What kind of, what kind of logic is that?”
Steve looked down at the floorboards. “ Sharon, I don’t want to lose you.”
She took a step forward towards her husband, she placed her hand on his cheek, forcing him to look up at her. “Then you won’t lose me. I will make it back to you both. ”
Steve was silent before he nodded his head. “When do you plan on leaving?”
Sharon took a step back from her husband. “As soon as I can. I am going to meet with Peggy to tell her my plan, so she can cover for me, and so you can say I’m with my sister up north if anyone around here begins to ask about me. I’m gonna need your papers so that when I get up there, the people can believe that I’m you.”
“It’s all so risky.”
“I know. But fighting for what is right, fighting for a better future, isn’t that worth the risk?”
She had left for the North two days later, she chopped her hair, and from then on pretended to be her husband. The only contact she would have with her husband for the next two years would be through letters. Letters she would send to Peggy, and then have Peggy forward to Steve. She didn’t know she would never see her husband or her daughter face to face again. She was twenty-three years old when she became a mother without a child and a wife without a husband.
The twenty-five-year-old woke from a nightmare to find herself still in the cell when night had finally fallen. Sharon looked down at her finger, tears in her blue eyes, thinking back to her late husband, and child. The rings were the only thing she had left, besides the memories and the nightmares. Yes, she had certainly paid her price, she didn’t owe the world a thing.
What she needed to do was get the hell out of here and then get her gold. She needed to get filthy rich and live the rest of her life alone, with more money than she needed, and enough going on around her to forget the pain that came along with the loss of her family.
The twenty-five-year-old was not impressed with the man who sat keeping watch of her. He sat eating his soup. It seemed he thought as long as she was behind bars, that she would not be troublesome. It was a foolish thought. But these men often underestimated the value of a woman.
“ Whatcha eatin’ soldier? ” Sharon asked, placing a soft smirk on her lips, hoping the man would bite. “ You wouldn’t mind sharin’ would ya? I haven’t had anythin’ to eat since yesterday morning. It would be awfully nice of ya if you shared some of that. I’d be mighty grateful. ”
The man bit into the trap she was setting. Walking over his way with the bowl in his hands. She smiled. It seemed she was still good at playing pretend. As he offered her a spoonful, Sharon grabbed his arm pulling him quickly towards the bar of the cell. The force of his head hitting the bars was enough to knock him out. She bent down to where he laid slump on the floor, she reached her arm between the cell bars and took his keys, so she could taste that sweet taste of freedom. Once out of confinement, Carter took the man’s gun and his coat for cover and protection. She made her way to the stables. Taking the horse that, figuratively, had Mace’s name written all over it. She saddled up and went in the direction of her evil-spider cave of gold. That is where she went.
She hadn’t gotten far when the cavalryman started to come after her riding the rest of the horses. But she was confident enough on her lead, that she was sure even with the open grounds of the Arizona territory, she would be able to get to the caves and the mountains, and lose them. It was dark enough, and the caves were repetitive enough that she liked her chances against the men. She encouraged the horse to go faster, and once she was deep enough in the mountainous area, she hopped off, and ran on foot, as fast as she could. She hid in a cave till morning, she stayed up all night, gun-loaded and ready to defend herself if any of the men were to find her. She listened for them all night, but none of them made it her way.
When the sun began to rise she crawled out of the little cave and made her way searching for the spider that would tell her she finally made it.
The sun had not been out but twenty minutes when she came across the same spider that had been engraved on the gold she had tossed to Mr. Dix earlier the other day. She let out a gentle laugh and shook her head as she climbed her way up to the cave just below the symbol on the Arizonian mountain. She entered the cave, the gun now tucked in her holster. Her left hand grazed the wall of the cave, enjoying the feel of the mountain’s features on the tips of her fingers as she traveled deeper within it.
The sunlight only lit so much of the cave. She was grateful that she kept matches in her pockets when the cave was starting to get too dark for her liking. Carter struck a match and allowed herself to laugh again as she noticed the gold that coated the cave wall above her. “Well, I’ll be damned. Gold.”
The moment of peace and joy was not present long. Sharon could hear someone or something walking on the cold stone of the cave floor. Small pebbles skidded across the ground as Sharon turned her back to the entrance of the cave, putting her arms out in front of her to stop the strangely dressed man with the shining knife from attacking her. The man must have been hiding somewhere in the cave because there was no way he snuck in from behind her that fast. Sharon blocked the man as he tried to stab her with the glowing blue knife multiple times and eventually threw the man to the ground. Her blue eyes widened as the man somehow threw her back against the cave wall, without even touching her. It hurt like a son of a bitch. Sharon let out deep and heavy breaths as she took her gun from the holster and shot the man before he could get to her and stab her.
The man-like creature, which she will later discover to be a Thern mumbled where it laid, and Sharon went to its side, kicked the knife far from its hand, as she kept the gun trained on it. There was a medallion glowing blue in their hand as the creature mumbled. She took the medallion from it and held it in her right hand. She couldn’t make out all that he was saying. She leaned towards the creature as it whispered in her ear. “Barsoom.”
She pulled away from him. Looking down at the medallion as it glowed. “Barsoom?” She repeated as the medallion’s blue glow transformed to project an image of the stars and the planets. Sharon felt a force pulling her to lie down on the cold cave floor. And then, blue light consumed her, her eyes forced shut, and she was out.
When she came to, she was no longer in the cave, but in some sort of yellow and orange desert. It didn’t look like she was in Arizona anymore. She sat up very quickly, this didn’t even look like any place on Earth she has ever seen.