Annie Oakley's Girl Read Online Free

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