Alone

     She was alone. More than a thousand miles from friends, relatives, all that was familiar. She was sitting alone in the forest, knowing only that her husband might be injured or dead and that she had let her son go off into the night, and that he might be killed.

    She had the shotgun. She looked at the charges, still in place - unfired.

    She snapped the gun together again and waited. She forced herself to be strong, forced herself to be calm. Panic, someone had once said - had it been Vallian? - only enters an empty mind, and panic was what she must fear now - only panic. She steeled herself for what might lie ahead, and slowly the loneliness and fear left her. Although she was still alone, she was prepared for what might come.

(from The Quick and the Dead, by Louis L'Amour)