Maybelleen

by Kathleen Wallace King

1902 - Maybelleen MacGregor, accused of murder, faces a Texas jury. The charge is unproven, but she is found guilty and sentenced to hang. 1958 - Margaret Dye flees New York City for the family farm in Kentucky and makes a desperate bid to reconnect a link with her great-aunt, Maybelleen. The story of two memorable women who lived half a century apart, this lyrical novel revives the legend of Maybelleen, a spinster schoolteacher in rural Kentucky who in 1899 shocks the community by going off to Oklahoma Territory with a visiting missionary. They get married, and Maybelleen teaches at a reservation school. But soon, utterly disillusioned with the mission's attempts to suppress the native culture - and with her marriage - she runs off. On a dark road she collides with Mexican Bill, a notorious outlaw, who becomes the love and passion of her life. Margaret, as a child, was obsessed with the mystery surrounding her great-aunt. Now, through the unraveling of the truth about Maybelleen's lif