Lonesome Dove, Volume 2: Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

WHEN MAGGIE WAS AWAKENED in the first gray light by the high, wild cries of the Comanche warriors, racing into Austin, she didn't even wait to look out the window. Their war cries had been in her nightmares for years. She grabbed a little pistol Woodrow had left her for her own defense and raced barefoot down the stairs. The house she boarded in was on the main street-she knew they would catch her if she stayed in it but she thought she might be able to squeeze under the smokehouse behind it. An old sow had rooted under the smokehouse so persistently that she had dug out a shallow wallow under the back corner of the shack. Maggie raced down the steps and, moments later, was squeezing herself under the smokehouse. There was room, too: the black sow was larger than she was. She clutched the pistol and cocked it to be ready. Woodrow had long ago taught her where to shoot herself, to spare herself torture and outrage.

Once Maggie had squeezed herself as far back under the house as she could get, she heard, from behind her somewhere, the buzz of a rattlesnake, at which point she stopped and remained motionless. The snake didn't seem close, but she didn't want to do anything to irritate it further.