“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” The tone in her voice tells me the licks are feeling worse.
“Whatchoo doing?” I say, lifting my shirt up over my head so I can put on my pajamas.
“Drawing.” She yawns and then inches up some more so she can ask me what I knew she’d been stewing about the whole way back from Mr. Wilson’s. “How’d you know how to shoot like that?”
I shrug my shoulders but deep down I admit I’m pretty pleased with myself.
“How’d you do it?” she tries again.
“I honestly do not know.” And that’s the truth of it.
“Who’s Annie Oakley?” She cocks her head to the side and looks just like Momma when she does it. Up until now I haven’t ever noticed that.
“You don’t know who Annie Oakley is? Annie Oakley? The cowgirl who could shoot better than a man? She’s part of the Old West or something. She wore cowhide skirts with lots of fringe along the bottom and matching cowhide jackets with fringe along the arms and a bandanna round her neck. She was the fastest gun in the West.”
“You don’t have fringe skirts and jackets.” She says it like she’s accusing me of lying.
“Huh?” I say. “Who said I did?”
“Mr. Wilson’s calling you Annie Oakley,” she says. “But you ain’t got no fringe.”
“It’s a nickname,” I say to her. I swear. “Remember those? Nicknames? Gaw.”
“Can we go there again tomorrow so I can try?”
I think about this while I pull my pajama bottoms on. Just pulling the elastic band over my feet and then up to my knees causes me pain in my shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I say to her. “We’ll see.”
It’s tough saying no to a girl with red strap marks cutting across her backside.
* * *
“Mr. Wilson? Why you keep all those old newspapers?” I’m watching him shake three bullets out of a tattered old box that he lets drop to the ground when he gets the right number out. Several of them fall out when it hits the dirt so I kneel down to round them up.
“Why you nosing around my business?” He slides the first bullet into the little round chamber. “Last time I checked, a man’s home was his own business.” The chamber clicks turn, making room for the next bullet.
“I’m not nosing around, I’m just wondering, is all,” I say to him, putting the bullet box a little ways away so no one kicks it during our target practice. “I never seen so many newspapers all in one place.”
“Now, today you gonna prove yesterday wasn’t jes’ beginner’s luck,” he says, motioning for me to come stand in front of him so he can lower the gun over my head like the day before. When I settle it against my shoulder the pain takes my breath away. But once it’s in there good I can breathe normal.
“Hurts, don’t it?” Mr. Wilson spits into the dirt just off to the side and I realize I must’ve made a face. “Goes away after a spell, don’t worry. Hunker down in your feet for traction. Good. ’Member to get that can in the middle of the lines ’fore you take a shot. Anytime after that, fire away.”
But my arm’s shaking from the weight of the gun so I can’t hold the can in place in the crosshairs.
“I cain’t do it.” I put the butt of the gun into the dirt to rest my arms for a second. “It’s too heavy. I cain’t do it.”
“Hold on,” he says. “Let the blood rush back down t’your fingers and then we try again.”
“But it’s heavier today than it was yesterday.”
“Ain’t heavier, girl, your arms tireder, that’s all. Now, hoist it on up and try for it again.”
The minute I get the can in the middle of the lines I pull the trigger back, but it’s too fast and my arms are too weak and the gun slides right out of my hands and onto the ground again after the shot explodes. This time I think I might’ve gone deaf from the sound.
“What in the hell?” he says. “Get that gun out’f the dirt, girl. I thought you said you ain’t gonna do that agin. Dust it off real good and hand it over. That’s right.”
The tears are stinging in my eyes.
“Aw, now, don’t go with the waterworks agin,” he says, rolling his eyes up in his head. “This sissy-girl stuff’s got to git old sometime. Cut it out and let me show you how it’s done.”
He sets the gun up onto his shoulder and squints into the viewfinder and fires off a shot all in one breath. Someday I want to get that good. One then two shots ring out. I don’t even need to run up to the fence to know there’re two cans rolling in the dirt, fresh shots in both of ’em.
“You figure I can do that someday?” I ask after him. He’s hobbling out to the fence to collect the cans.
“You don’t crap out like that again and sure,” he says, swinging his wood leg out and in front of his good one with each step. “You jes’ gots to work on that shoulder. Build it up. House ain’t worth nothin’ if’n it ain’t settin’ on good strong bricks.”
“How’s it gonna get stronger if I cain’t even hold the gun up?”
He shakes his head and spits to the side. Then he shrugs up his shoulders and when he does his whole overalls rise and fall back down again, they’re so loose on him.
“Can I try again?”
“What makes you think your arms can take it after only five minutes have passed?”
Now I shrug and he laughs. Cackles, really.
“Aw-right,” he says. He goes to behind me and I reach up for the gun that’s being lowered over my head. “Remember—”
“I know, I know,” I sigh, “git the can in the crosshair, slide my finger in front of the trigger and pull once the can’s in view.”
My arms shake but this time I make my brain tell them to quit and they almost do. At least long enough for me to settle the can in the middle of the circle of the viewfinder.
Pow!
I smile even before I set the butt down on the ground like I watch Mr. Wilson do. I know I hit that can. I just know it.
He pats me on the head.
“Now go on out there and tell me what you got,” he says.
I tilt the tip of the gun to him so he can hold it and I run out to the fence. Bull’s-eye! I hit the can after all.
“How old you say you are?” he asks me.
“I’m eight, sir.”
“And you never shoot a gun ’fore this?”
“No, sir.”
“You daddy have a gun?”
“My daddy’s dead, sir,” I remind him. “My stepdaddy’s got a gun but I ain’t never even touched it ’fore.”
He scratches his chin just like in storybooks, but usually in books it’s the evil villain who strokes his chin while he’s dreaming up some torture for his victim. But I don’t think Mr. Wilson’s an evil villain.
“Hmm,” he hums more to himself than to me. “I just trying to figure out what to do ’bout you, kid.”
“Will you let me shoot again?”
“I reckon. But if you do the good stuff you gotta do them hard stuff that gets you there. You gots to learn how to take care of the gun so it can take care of you later.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Come on,” he sighs. “You best see for y’self what I’m talking about.”
It’s hard to know what to do when you’re walking with Mr. Wilson. I could out-walk him any day till Sunday but I get the feeling he wouldn’t like that all that much so I walk behind him and off to the side like it’s by choice that I’m moving in s
low motion.
Over to the backside of his house is a shed I never noticed before. It’s rusted-out tin from the looks of it; same material as those cans we been shooting. Through two metal loops attached to the double doors is a chain that’s held together by a giant padlock. He pulls a jangly ring of keys from a pocket in those overalls of his and sifts through them until he finds a small one that looks fake setting there like it does between his big, rough hands. Mr. Wilson’s hands look like baseball mitts.
A little turn and the lock pulls down from the U-shaped bar that’s looped through the chain links. “There,” he says.
I didn’t know what dark was until I saw the inside of this shed. I blink so my eyes can focus faster but even that’s hard since Mr. Wilson’s blocking the doorway and keeping any of this daylight from falling inside. When he goes in farther I can start making out different forms. A lot of shelves. A lot of cans, maybe paint cans but I can’t be sure. A lot of old pots and pans. A mower, which is strange since there isn’t any grass around here. Glass containers for what I don’t know. And a case that hangs on the side where Mr. Wilson’s fiddling around. After a few more blinks and some good old-fashioned squinting I can see there are more guns in the case.
“Wow,” I say. “You got a lot of guns.”
He looks out at me and looks back into the case. “I guess so,” he says. “But not nearly as many as some others out here in these old woods.”
“How many guns do other people have?”
“Dozens,” he answers back, pulling a rag from a shelf right above the case. I look closer and see he’s taking his gun apart. “Ole man Plemmons had ’bout a hundred. He died and they had trouble finding ’nuff people to divide ’em up between.”
It’s funny hearing Mr. Wilson calling someone else “ole man.”
“How many you have?”
“I got six. This here’s my workin’ gun. That one there’s my squirrel gun. They all got they reason for being mine, I reckon.”
“What’s a working gun?”
“Workin’s going out and hauling back food. That’s workin’.”
“Can I try that one?” I point to a littler gun that looks like it wouldn’t hurt my shoulder none.
Mr. Wilson looks to where I’m pointing and shakes his head. “You best stick with this rifle and learn it good. After this ev’rything’ll seem easy, don’t worry. Now, come on over here and help me wit’ this cleaner. We gonna bring it back over to the front so I can set in the light and show you how to clean up a gun good and proper.”
I must be making a face, the face I always make when Momma tells me to help her clean, ’cause Mr. Wilson says, “Don’t be givin’ me trouble, chile, or you ain’t touching no gun never agin.”
“Yes, sir.” I wipe the look off my face as easy as pie.
He hands over a metal can that smells like gasoline for a car, a handful of rags stiff with brown dirt, a bucket and a brush.
“How ya daddy die?” he asks me while we walk over to a tree stump by the front porch. “He die from the drink?”
“Robbers,” I say. “My sister saw him laying there after they kilt him but she was real little at the time and Momma says she kindly won’t remember it.”
“How come you livin’ out here if’n you rich ’nuff for people to steal from?”
“We ain’t rich,” I say. I don’t know what else to add to that.
He makes a “harrumph” sound like he doesn’t believe me.
“We ain’t!”
“They kilt you daddy for something,” he says. “Must be they took it all wit’ them and now you be living out here close to the country.”
I don’t know what Mr. Wilson means by “close to the country,” but if he means we’re living out in the middle of nowhere then I guess he’s right. We ain’t rich, though. I know that for a fact.
* * *
“Come on and help me with the dishes,” Momma says to me. Her chair scrapes against the kitchen floor when she pushes back from the supper table.
She carries her plate over along with Daddy’s and sets them on the side of the sink.
Momma puts the stopper in the drain to catch the water and make the sink fill up while I pull a chair over so I can stand on it to make suds.
The water runs through the tin can Daddy punched holes in the bottom of, but there’s not enough soap to make suds.
“Momma! We need more soap,” I say above the sound of running water.
“All right, all right,” she says. “I s’pose we’ve gotten enough use out of our bar upstairs by now. Run on up and fetch it for me.”
Once the soap gets to be a sliver it goes into the suds can. The bar that we been using isn’t quite a sliver but it’ll do.
I run down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Momma’s putting away the salt and pepper shakers from the table.
“Here.” I try to hand her the soap but she juts her chin out toward the suds can so I climb back up onto my chair and drop it in. Sure enough, when the water runs through, soapy suds come out the bottom and the dishes can get clean after all.
“Careful you don’t use too much water,” she says. “When you’re done you better carry that piece of soap you fetched back up to the bath.”
“Why?”
“We got to get clean somehow,” she says, closing a cabinet door.
“I thought the soaps in the can are for dishes.”
“They are. But t’ain’t near the end of the month yet and we can squeeze s’more use out of that one there.”
* * *
I hurry home after Mr. Wilson shows me how one big gun can turn into millions of tiny little pieces.
Richard’s truck’s still in its spot by the side of the trail that leads to number twenty-two and along the front porch rail Momma’s set out the little rugs that dot the floors so they can come to air out. I better tell her it’s fixing to rain. Brownie lies on her right side when rain’s coming. That’s what Mr. Wilson said when he spied her that way on our way out of the shed from putting the gun cleaning stuff back in. He didn’t lock our gun back up. Says he keeps it by his side in the house “in case.” In case of what I do not know. But if Mr. Wilson’s scared then I guess we all better be.
“Where the hell you been?” Richard sneers at me and makes me jump back from the door handle I’s reaching out for.
“Nowhere,” I say to him. I’m trying to figure out if there’s enough room on either side of him so I can squeeze by without him grabbing me or something. It’s the or something I’m more worried about since he doesn’t just grab, he grabs and twists.
“You thank I’m dumb enough to buy that? You been nowhere. No-where. Now where in the hell you reckon nowhere is?”
Nope. No room on either side.
“I’m talking to you, girl,” he says, pointing the tip of his beer bottle at my chest. “You look at me when I’m talking to you. That’s better. Now you’re gonna tell me where all you been.”
“Just down the road a ways,” I mumble.
“Just down the road a ways where?”
“Where’s Momma?”
“Don’t you be asking them questions. I’m asking the questions round here,” he says, taking a swig off the bottle and then swallowing it and belchin’ real loud. “You been tomcatting round these woods since we landed here and I got a right to know where you been. You answer me or I’m gonna have to find out the hard way.”
I cain’t believe he could hear me. I’s talkin’ r
eal low, just to myself. I didn’t mean for him to hear. It’s just that he don’t have a right to know where I been. We’re studying the difference between rights and privileges in school and when Richard knows where I been it’s a privilege, not a right.
“You sassin’ me? ’S that what you doin’?”
The boot kick comes hard and fast and before I know it, I’m flat out on the floor, doing the one stupid thing I should know better ’bout by now.
“Momma!” For a second I feel like I’m on the ceiling, lookin’ down at myself. My voice doesn’t sound like my own, it’s a hollow holler that comes out before I can help myself.
See, calling Momma is bad in two ways. One, she never comes but if she happens to, she just gets mad at me and Emma for hollering for her like she’s a dog so then they’re both mad and that’s never good. Two, it just makes Richard worse off if he thinks we’re being whiney little babies.
Sure enough, he’s got a handful of the backside of my pants and pretty soon I’m lifted off the ground and shoved to the stairs.
“You git on upstairs, you little shit.” Even though I’m sure he’s right behind me, his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
“Emma?” I cry out.
“She ain’t here,” he says, kneeing my backside up the next stair.
“Where is she?” I’m whispering ’cause talking louder will need more air in me and to get more air I’d have to take a deeper breath and that just plain hurts around my middle.
“Emma?” I tilt my head up and whisper as loud as I can, so the sound can float past Richard.
“I done tole you,” he says. By now he’s got me cornered in my room, blocking the doorframe. “She ain’t here.” He tilts the beer bottle all the way in the air to get the last drops from it. “Now come ’ere.” He motions with the bottle for me to come up close to him but I don’t wait any longer.
Like a bullet from Mr. Wilson’s gun I shoot out toward him, pushing him off balance to the side so I can get past him to the stairs, which I leap down, almost three at a time. The door slams shut after me so I can have more space ’tween me and him if he comes after me, which he is ’cause from the trail that leads to the Diamond River I hear him hollering.