pointed to Maggie and shook her head in mock sadness.
“He doesn’t think I can make it out here. He doesn’t think I can do anything?”
Lenny nodded slowly.
“Will you teach me?”
Smiling, the girl held up the flour again. Lesson one.
* * * *
Without Lenny’s guidance the biscuits would have been in flames, cooked until they resembled unappetizing hunks of black coal. Thanks to her, the biscuits didn’t taste half bad and mopped in molasses with a side of fried eggs, breakfast was just this side of heaven.
After they’d had their fill, Lenny took her riding. She didn’t show her much, other than to adjust her posture, but they went on a long ride around the ranch. Perhaps both to give her time in the saddle so she could adjust to riding again, and to become familiar with the place she would now call home.
She’d explored the land in her youth, but it was something more with Lenny, who pointed out rock formations jutting from the craggy earth, creatures that were invisible to the untrained eye, and followed indiscernible trails.
Behind Lenny, she ducked branches and sidestepped rocky terrain and when her escort pushed her to take Buck up a steep embankment, squeaked in fear. As terrifying as it had been, upon reaching the top and experiencing the view, oh, what a feeling of accomplishment. She could see for miles. A view like this didn’t exist in the city. Clusters of bright green trees dotted the landscape and a river wound through the land like some great serpent.
By the time they dismounted in front of the house, her muscles ached from the combination of riding the day before and the long ride around the ranch. Lenny laughed as Maggie strode tenderly into the house. She must look every bit the bowlegged cowboy. If one ignored the fancy dress, of course.
Lenny packed up a lunch of leftover biscuits, cheese, dried beef and an apple for each of them, careful to show her where everything was, then took a couple of long-barreled rifles off the sturdy hooks that held them. One lesson on how to hold the gun safely wasn’t nearly enough, but the Indian girl headed out the front door, leaving her to follow clumsily behind.
Lesson or not, she held her weapon like it was a snake. The rifle looked even more dangerous in her soft, unpracticed hands, and when the barrel of the gun snagged one of her perfectly pinned curls and threatened never to let go, Lenny stepped in and put an end to her frantic flailing. Kindly, her experienced teacher only rolled her eyes once.
They plodded around the side of the house and headed in the direction of Roy’s place, and the thought of him had her sinking in despair. He should’ve been here to show her how to shoot, encouraging her with his kindness and dry sense of humor. By the time they stopped at a lane where a wooden table had been set up, she was close to misery.
Lenny took the gun from her, set it upright against the rickety, weather-worn table, then holding Maggie’s hand, led her to a giant cottonwood. In the shade of the sprawling branches, she sat with Lenny and ate lunch.
In the wake of the rifle trying its best to maim her curls, her hair had fallen from its pins and likely resembled the nest of some deranged buzzard. Perhaps Lenny worried she’d be privy to another such incident; the girl sat behind her and deftly weaved her thick auburn hair into a single braid much like hers.
With the most admirable calmness and efficiency, Lenny showed her how to load one of the guns, stand, and aim. She placed sticks in divots carved into the table and when she motioned, Maggie aimed at the first one.
How hard could this be?
Crack! went the gun, and would have made her jump if the stock slamming into her shoulder hadn’t beaten the noise to it. She stumbled backward, crying out.
Eyes screwed up and shoulders shaking, Lenny appeared like she tried not to laugh.
“Bollocks, that hurt!” Shocked, she rubbed her throbbing shoulder. There had been no warning for the gun’s kick. Both the blasted rifle and her new friend had betrayed her.
Lenny hurried to her and made her hold up the gun again, and pressed the rifle’s butt tightly into her shoulder. That hurt. She held it more loosely, and the Indian girl put it firmly back.
“Tightly? Won’t that make it hurt more?”
A shake of the head from her tutor only renewed her skepticism. “Fine and dandy. Since you are the professional gunslinger, I suppose I shall have to trust you.”
At the thought of enduring such pain willingly a second time, her heartbeat hammered but she pulled the sight to the sticks once again. Fear caused her to jerk the trigger. The shot went wide and high, missing the target.
Lenny breathed slowly, once, twice, and holding her breath on the third inhalation, mimed pulling the trigger gently. Then standing behind her, showed her how to caress the trigger while she stilled her breathing.
It took exactly seventeen shots to hit the target, but oh, the feeling of that final success! She’d weathered the pain of each shot, braved every pull of the trigger, knowing the gun would ram into her injured shoulder. All of that, well worth the feeling of empowerment when the bullet finally splintered the wooden target. “Ha!” she yelled.
Out in the uncertain wilderness where men lived by their guns, it was a great feat. Lenny even let her celebrate for a few moments. Then eyebrow arched, the girl handed her another bullet. Never before had Maggie shaken from happiness, but there, in that moment, she was brave and no one could take it away from her. And without Aunt Margaret or Garret around, no one tried.
For the rest of the lesson, she fought through the pain and by the end had become a fair shot at this short distance. After they unloaded the last of the ammunition, she and Lenny headed back to start on the chores around the ranch.
Working a ranch was different from what she remembered. The boundless energy that fills young children had fled her in the years of pampered living. Barely able to lift the saddle from Buck, she exhausted her arms trying then shook with fatigue as Lenny showed her how to muck out the horses’ stalls.
But she would earn her place, so hefted pitchforks of dirty, heavy hay out of the stalls until her back wouldn’t let her bend anymore. Perspiration soaked her dress through, strands of moist hair were plastered to her forehead, and her once smooth nails were lined with filth.
When the stalls had been spread with fresh hay, she stumbled after Lenny and hauled buckets of feed to the animals in the barn. Then she loaded small bales of hay with the Indian girl into a wagon and rode with her on the seat out to the bellowing herd of breeding cattle that had been left behind.
Back again to the barn. The two giant and fully intimidating brown milk cows seemed completely unimpressed with her withered grip as she stabbed her non-working fingers at their full udders.
“Muaaah!” then a clunk was her reward as the second uncooperative beast—perhaps having got the idea from the first through bovine telepathy—kicked over the bucket with a piddling amount of milk in the bottom.
With a sigh, Lenny nodded toward the bustling chicken coop. A generous-hearted girl indeed, to take pity on her.
Collecting the eggs, she dropped three. She simply couldn’t find the strength in her attractively clawed hands to get the eggs safely from the nest boxes to the woven basket hanging from her arm.
Feeding the chickens was her favorite chore. That feeling when dumping the grain onto the floor, and then when she left... Oh, blessed victory. From the sheer volume of the animals’ grouching, it was apparent she’d need to help with these chores earlier in the day from then on.
In the house, she kicked off her high button leather shoes, which now lacked polish and smelled suspiciously of whatever came from the south end of a northbound horse, and slumped into the chair closest to the fireplace with a loud groan. Every muscle and bone ached, from her swelling ankles to her pounding head.
She had never worked so hard in her life. The blisters on her