Annie Oakley's Girl

by Rebecca Brown

  When the only ones left standing are Annie and me, we help Jimbo make the passed-out cowboys comfortable, remove their hats and cover them with blankets. When this is done Jimbo puts his arms around us, “Now y’all please stay as long as y’ can. I had Jimmy take care o’ Kid ’n’ Cowgirl for y’ ’n’ Miz Burnley gotcha’ll a room all ready.” Then he looks at Annie and squeezes her. “I knew yew’d come back, Annie.” The three of us step out on to the boardwalk and Jimbo offer s to walk us over to Mr s. Burnley’s Hotel, but Annie tells him we’ll be just fine. When we walk out into the street alone, Annie takes her hat off and leans her head back to look up at the sky. I look at her face in the light of the moon then I look up at the giant sky. I hear her breathe in a big deep breath. Then I hear the sound of the stretch of her sleeve, the flap of the fringe on her jacket, and then a whoosh and she’s flung her hat in the sky and I see her hat soar high. I see it climb, the brim all white with moon like a spine.

  Every year there was one new statue. You saw the picture of it on the wall when you came in and I was always eager and excited to see it, and part of me wanted to run right to it and find it. I knew exactly where it would be, but part of me told myself to wait and save the best for last. I always wore a dress because it was inside. You went in and the air was cool and it felt very different from the hot heat of the blacktop of the parking lot. My grandmother came because she could, because it was cool and there were places to sit. I wore anklets and the last time I went I carried a little purse. It was a wooden box purse and it had two horses painted on it and they were running on the land.

  You were quiet there and you walked slowly, reverently, you spent time poring over the index cards next to the exhibits behind the glass looking for words you knew. You tried to remember the names they read you or that you could read yourself: Cheyenne, Durango, Cimarron. There were maps and photos and scale models. There were simulated rooms that looked like schools and barber shops and stores. There were movies for free. In the new part there were black and white photo portraits of rodeo champs, and world record holders for bronco busting, cattle roping, bull riding. On both walls of a hallway there were pictures of Best All Around Cowboy for every year. There were big cards on the wall that told you history.

  My grandmother read me the one about the pioneers. That always took her a long time because she told me about her father who was an Indian doctor. At home she showed me things the Indians gave him. She showed me a leather pouch, a blanket of wool, a pipe, a bag of charms, a round black pot, some arrowheads, a jar of painted sand, a necklace of colored beads.

  The last thing in the Cowboy Hall of Fame was this year’s statue. The last year I went there I got upset because this year’s cowboy was just a cowboy singer and I wondered if he was really a true cowboy at all.

  My first horse was a broom that I named Trigger. At first Trigger lived in the kitchen pantry where my mother kept her cleaning things, but then when Trigger became Trigger she moved into my bedroom. Sometimes my mother would borrow her, and when Trigger came back she’d have bits of cat hairs and tiny specks of wilted lettuce in her tail. So I’d brush her tail out and pat her neck. My brother attached long stringy reins to the metal hook that was Trigger’s mouth. I rode Trigger all round the house. You could always hear me coming from my upstairs room because Trigger’s tail always thumped the stairs on the way down. Sometimes I rode her so fast my hat would fall off and thank goodness it caught at the string around my neck. Whenever I needed to stop at the saloon for a snack I’d tie Trigger to the kitchen table. If no one was there I’d rustle up my own vittles, but if my mother was there she’d ask me, “What’ll it be today, pardner, the usual?” and I’d say, “Yup,” then she’d find me cookies or Twinkies or a piece of fruit. “How’s Trigger today?” she’d ask, and I’d say, “Oh, just fine,” and I’d tell her stories about the caves and plains and woods I’d ridden through that day, the Indians and outlaws I had met and saved her from or won over to our side.

  The whole day’s still. It’s hot high noon; the sky’s so blue it’s white. But now I notice almost none of this. It’s only in my memory that I will watch the sky get waved with heat, or see the fine dust film that mutes the color of the cacti, the curled-up snake that’s sunning on the rock.

  Because Annie and I are riding. We’re tearing through the desert on an urgent, crucial errand. I don’t know where we’re going. We break the stillness. Somehow I feel that this is a violation. The hooves of both our horses pound. They run in rhythm, side by side. We travel in one huge cloud of dust. I can hear the gentle slap of our night packs on the horses’ backs. I turn around from time to time to check my bundle’s still intact, but Annie’s tied it tightly. I grip one hand tight on the reins and clutch the saddle horn with the other. The reins relax in Annie’s hands. She never kicks or slaps at Cowgirl. She can say most anything with a movement of her body or a click of her tongue; she moves forward, left or right, and Cowgirl knows. She grips her horse close with her thighs.

  Beside me, Annie leans forward. Her braids stand out behind her. Her jacket billows up. “Annie!” I shout across to her, tightening my grip on the saddle horn, “Annie!” but she can’t hear me above the pounding hooves. We move so fast the dry air hits me like a fan. Only it’s hot, not cool. I think I’m beginning to feel burned from the sun. It’s a healthy feeling, but I wonder if I’ve remembered to bring my sunglasses and Coppertone. The sun glints on her stirrup next to me and it flashes at me every time I look at her. I start coughing from the dust. I lift the loose bandanna around my neck and cover my mouth and nose to keep the dust out. The cloth smells dusty and I know that in just seconds I’ll be uncomfortable from the moisture of my sweat and breath. I must hear something from her because when I turn she’s already looking at me. She says something. I yell that I can’t hear her then I point to my ear and shake my head, “no.” I can see her laugh and nod. Then she points to her nose and chin, not covered by bandanna, then to me. Then she draws her pistol with a flick of her strong wrist. She stretches her arm into the sky and fires and fires again. She shakes her head with pleasure and points her face up to the sky and shouts a long “Hooooooo-eeeee!” of happiness. Her knees press Cowgirl and she races off ahead of me like I was standing still. She disappears in a cloud of dust. The only thing she leaves me with is the tail end of the whoop of joy behind her.

  Annie tries to teach me how to cook above an open flame. She tries to teach me flapjacks, bacon, grits. The bottom half of everything burns and the top half is always raw. I burn my palm trying to grab the hot black handle and dump grease and batter into the fire. She tries to teach me to toast bread on a stick; the bread falls in the flames. I burn the coffee and scorch the beans. She doesn’t even use tinfoil. I want to tell her about adjustable-flame gas burners, but I don’t want to sound like I’m whining. She mixes things without a book. The only seasoning she’ll use is salt. I think of woks and Cuisinarts and frozen vegetables. She brushes her teeth with baking soda. I sneak behind the wagon and press mint-flavored Crest on to my toothbrush. She’s never tasted mint before. I don’t want to confess.

  I’m thrilled. We’re in a stagecoach. I’m wearing gloves and button boots and a long-sleeved dress with lace around the sleeves and high neck collar. I have a hat and veil on. “Now jest who you tryin’ t’ keep outta there anyhow, honey?” she asks and laughs out loud, then slaps her ungloved hands against her knees. “Jeee-umpin’ Jehosefat!” she nearly shouts and looks out the window beside her. “Looks all little bitty when y’ got a window ’round it.” She leans out the window and shouts at the scout who rides his horse beside us. “How’s thangs out there, Willy?”

  “Jest fine, Annie.”

  “Well, I tell yew,” she holler s back, “it shore looks dif ’ernt from in here, Willy-boy!”

  “Now doncha fret there, Annie, ain’t nobody gonna pull nothin’ over on y’!”

  She smiles back and keeps staring out the window until gradually her lips are straight. She
leans her elbow out the window ledge and puts her chin in her hand. I watch her quiet profile against the landscape moving fast and flat behind her. She’s always ridden on horseback outside the coach before. The brim of her hat casts a shadow down most of her face. She’s wearing her fancy skirt and fancy jacket and a bright pink shirt I bought for her when I bought my dress and boots. On the shelf above her, our two suitcases; her beat-up leather bag with the rounded, well-scratched metal corners, and my ladies’ light, sky-blue American Tourister.

  I find a lacy handkerchief in the beaded bag beside me and gently dab at my neck and upper lip and forehead.

  Then I pull out my embroidery and try to teach her how to stitch.

  Tonight I undo Annie’s braids. She sits facing the boudoir mirror in our hotel room, in what is now a ghost town in Nevada. I sit behind her working on her hair. She’s tied the bottom of the braids with leather. The braids are tight and smooth and gold with sun. I undo one and then the other, untying them at the bottom and separating the three even groups of hair in each. Then I shake them evenly and brush her hair out straight and all together. Her hair is wavy from the constant braids but I can tell it’s naturally straight. I brush firmly, starting at the very top of her part and continuing down in strong hard strokes the whole length of her hair. I brush the sides above her temples and underneath the back of her head. Her hair parts naturally in the middle and back. I expect it to be coarse, but it feels like a baby’s.

  I brush and brush until her hair is smooth and soft as silk, and shiny. It looks like still gold water. Then I look up at the mirror to catch her eye and ask her what she thinks. But her eyes are closed. She’s sitting up straight, asleep. I study her face and notice something missing that I’d come to believe was always there. It’s something she can’t tell me.

  But Annie prefers the open range to hotel life. She likes to sleep in whistling distance of Cowgirl. “Thangs weren’t always lahk this now,” she tells me. It’s hard for her to break the habits that she made when things weren’t tame.

  I’ve stopped telling her to relax, to let other people care for Cowgirl, to cook her meals, and wash her things behind her. I think perhaps her work is her true pleasure.

  I started riding lessons when I was five. In the family album there’s a picture of me, tiny and blonde, my light blue glasses with the pointy frames slipped down to the end of my nose. I’m sitting on a huge brown horse. My feet reach way above the middle of the horse’s back. My head doesn’t reach as tall as the horse’s. I remember my seriousness in posing for this photo. I refused to wave or smile because I didn’t want it to look like a game. I wanted it to look like this was something I did every day, quiet and serious.

  The horses I rode had these names: Penny, Marshal, Slim, and Little Bit. Blackie, Kit, Friskie, Nick. Old Tom, Old Paint, Old Gray, Brandy. Roger, Ho-boy, Loosa, Beaut. Carson, Big Boy, May.

  I’m given priority seating at the Wild West Show. I sit between a railroad tycoon and a meat packer from Chicago. The only other women there are wives or gentlemen’s companions. I’m wearing a plastic photo ID on my blouse. I assume that this allows me access, along with the other VIPs and invited guests, to the private quarters and refreshment rooms. But oddly enough, I’m the only one with a tag. And even more oddly, no one seems to notice that I’ve got one. I watch for Annie through a pair of opera glasses. Of course, she is the star. She introduces all the acts and takes care of people before they hit the ring. And I know, though we don’t see this, that she also acts as everybody’s friend, encouraging, counseling, helping out. The people around me in the box discuss the show with terms like “quaint” and “rugged.” I hear myself tittering with them at their urban jokes and holding my teacup with my little finger extended. When Annie races out of the waiting stall and charges into the ring, six-gun firing, I hear the whole crowd gasp then cheer. The people in the booth I’m in clap evenly and nod to one another and say, “charming,” “lovely,” “marvelous.” After the show, when the others in the box tell me of their oil deals in Texas, their railroads in Ohio and their newest warehouse in the city, they ask me, roundaboutly, how I’m with them in the box. I nod and tell them, “I am an acquaintance of Miss Oakley.”

  This time when I come back, I bring her a present. Annie unwraps the boxes and laughs at the paper with the flapper-girl designs. When she first pulls out her newly laundered fancy skirt and jacket, she doesn’t recognize them, then she does. “Well, land o’ goshen, honey, what’d y’ do t’ these thangs?”

  “I had them dry-cleaned, Annie.”

  She looks at me and nods with that tentative nod you give when you feel like you should say, “yes,” but you don’t really know quite why.

  “And weather-proofed,” I add proudly.

  She looks at me and squints.

  “Feel that?” I take her hand and rub it over the newly treated leather. “That’ll protect it from the rain and keep it stronger.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, her face still puzzled. She brings the jacket to her face, looks at it closely, sniffs it.

  “Never needed it before,” she says.

  I nod, “I know, but this is better.”

  Annie takes the skirt and jacket and the three special blouses from the box. She gingerly places them out flat on the table and looks them over again. “Hmmm-mm,” she mutters.

  The ladies at the dry-cleaner had been impressed. They’d ooh-ed and aah-ed at the leather and fine handwork. I’d told them they’d been in the family for many years and asked them to be extra careful. I’d hoped Annie would be pleased they looked like new. I was.

  This night when I wake up it’s not a nightmare; it’s a storm. When my eyes spring open I see Annie sitting by the bed, polishing her boots in the dim light of the oil lamp. When I sit up, she looks at me and I ask, “What are you doing? Why are you awake?” The canvas cover of the wagon heaves with blowing air. Lightning cracks and thunder interrupts her voice.

  “I thought y’ might wake up and git afeared, so I thought I’d be here in case y’ did.”

  I look at her and I don’t know what to say.

  She looks away from me then tries to sound buoyant and matter-of-fact, “Besides, I hadda polish these dang thangs.”

  I pretend that I accept all this for what it is and think nothing more. I close rny eyes as if I were asleep and listen to her breathe, and the swish and buff of her hands at work beneath the sound of rain.

  We’re out in the open and it’s almost fall. I try to read in the changing light of the open fire. The only sounds are the crack of flame and the soft wet sound of Kid and Cowgirl chewing, then the sound of Annie’s boots walking back from checking on the horses. Her boots scrape across the rough dry ground.

  “Nice night,” I say as she returns to the fire and stretches her hands to the warmth.

  She nods and looks into the flame, but I don’t think she’s looking at anything.

  “How’s Kid and Cowgirl?”

  “Oh, fine . . .” She nods. Her voice is tired. I watch her as she sits down by the light. She stoops, puts her hands on her thighs, then on the ground beside her. She exhales as she finally sits then breathes in loud. She brushes back the hair that’s fallen in her face then rubs her eyes. She pulls her hand down over her whole face, stretching her cheeks, then she rubs the back of her neck and twists her head. Her eyes are closed and I can’t tell if it’s the shadow of flame or if it really is bags under her eyes, and wrinkles at the outer edges. And I tell myself that now I will tell her. I say very softly, “Annie?” But Annie doesn’t hear me.

  There’s a feeling you get when you’re away and you think, “If only I was there . . . if only I was with . . .” and you look forward to it and you save up things for when you are. You think, “If I was there, if I was with . . . then I’d say this and this . . .” But then you are there, truly and at last, and you think, “This is what I wanted. This is when I can say those things . . .” but something happens and you can’t or don’t say them. Then
you tell yourself that things aren’t what you hoped they would be. You still can’t speak and now you wonder if you’d have been better off never to have learned this other meaning of “alone.” If it would have been better always to have been able to look forward, or back, and think, “If only . . . when . . .”

  But I don’t not miss her when I go: I do.

  The next time I come back I tell her, “Annie, I want you to come with me. This time. When I go away.”

  Annie looks straight at me, smiles, tells me, “OK, pardner.”

  My favorite show was “Have Gun Will Travel.” The second was “Gunsmoke,” then “Bonanza,” and “Batt Masterson.” Next, “The Rifleman.” You knew what day of the week it was by who you’d get to watch. And the next day the playground buzzed with recaps. We talked about everything, debated points of character, how things could have turned out, “if only . . .” We tried to top each other by saying how early on we knew just who’d done it and how it was going to end. We guessed about the fate of future episodes. We screened our own scenarios and we fantasized a meeting of all the greats together — all of them — Batt Masterson, Matt Dillon, Palladin, the entire Cartwright family. I wanted to be there. I started all these talks.

  “Tarnation, honey, I never saw a damn thang like it.” Annie’s standing on the balcony of my thirty-second floor apartment suite in Manhattan. She’s looking out at the city. I push aside clothes in my closet to make room for her things.