Annie Oakley's Girl Read Online Free Page B

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.
    â€œTarnation, 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.
    Annie and I walk the city for weeks. Some parts of it she’ll recognize, or tell me what used to be at this address. She reminisces about performing in the Wild West Show with Buffalo Bill at Madison Square Garden. She can’t believe how the city’s grown, how many cars and lights, the height of buildings, noise and speed of everything. She loves the accents that she hears in delis, clothes stores, on street corners. But her favorite things are movies.
    The first Western I take her to see is High Noon . We have a great time and start haunting old movie houses and taking in all the Westerns. Pretty soon, that’s all we do. We see Shane, The Great Train Robbery, The Gunfighter, Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Covered Wagon, Man With a Gun . At first she laughs at them, she can’t believe we take them seriously. But after a while she’s fascinated. We have to see one every night. Every night when we hit a theater, Annie dresses in her cowgirl best and I in something chic and new. And though sometimes we get glances, this is the city and people don’t look twice.
    After a while she gets restless during the day. The city is too crowded and fast and loud for her. We buy a video cassette machine so she can always have a Western on hand.
    I start to get concerned. Is she unhappy? I throw a huge party and invite all the most interesting people I know. This is the first night we don’t go see a Western. I hope that she’ll be happy. The night goes beautifully. My friends all think she’s great and we have fun. Annie tells stories of her growing up, her early career, the nation’s adolescence. Everyone’s entertained. “Oh, Annie,” they say, “you should write a book.” Everyone thinks her clothes are just right and ask her where she found them.
    Late that night we start a hand of cards. I urge Annie to challenge everyone to poker and she does. While I refill my guests’ daiquiris, Bloody Marys and Perrier-and-limes, Annie measures out her own shots of whiskey. They all lose to her and love it. At the end of the night they owe her millions, but Annie says, “Y’all have already paid me more ’n enuf in kindness.”
    Early that morning when the