Page 59 of Deathmarch
The audience listened.
“By the time I was ten, I was bounded out to some people to do household work. Payment was supposed to be fifty cents each week and an education, but they paid me in beatings and starvation. Worked all day and all night. One time…” She shook her head. “I fell asleep in the corner of the kitchen, darning socks. They beat me within an inch of my life and shut me out in the snowstorm all night. Cold as I’ve ever felt. Wind near blew the skin off my face. My teeth chattered so hard, I thought I’d chip them. Got frozen through, fell so sick afterwards, I thought I’d die. I survived. I survived two years of the darkest hell I have ever seen, before I ran away.”
She could feel the energy build in the room, people falling into the story, beginning to be right there with her.
“I lived with some nicer folks for a spell, but then I went back to my mother. I hunted before, but I began hunting ten times harder. Now you might think it ain’t right for a girl to go hunting, but I paid off the mortgage on the family farm when I was fifteen with all the game I killed.” She stood up and demonstrated her stance, the way she held the hunting rifle. Then she lowered it. “I was the best hunter around them parts until Frank Butler came to Cincinnati. A shooting sensation, they called him.” She put some sass in her voice. “This I had to see.”
The audience roared.
“Well, wouldn’t you know, Mr. Shooting Sensation offered a hundred dollars to any of us local yokels who could outshoot him. You can bet I volunteered. And then I outshot the man!”
The audience cheered, and Allie took a bow.
Acting out parts, telling parts, Allie went on with her story about how Frank Butler courted Annie over the next year until she agreed to marry him. Then their adventures withBuffalo Bill’s Wild Westshow, where she—a woman!—was the highest-paid act next to Buffalo Bill.
The men and women packed into tight rows in front of the stage listened with rapt attention.
When, two hours later, she finished, they were on their feet, clapping with abandon, eyes lit with wonder. She’d won them over.
As always, Annie Oakley stayed for an hour-long question-and-answer session. For this, the spotlight was turned off and the overhead lights on, so she could finally see the full room and the people speaking to her.
Harper smiled at her from the back, wearing a black shirt and a Western tie with a silver clasp. Must have decided to get into the spirit of the performance. Allie appreciated when people went to the trouble.
She answered questions one after the other, quite a few about Buffalo Bill and almost as many about Sitting Bull, who had also been part of theWild Westshow.
Then, once the questions ran out, she stood by the front door with Ginny Knapp, like a preacher after service, to shake hands. Annie’s story got nothing but smiles, so Allie considered the performance a success.
“I learned a lot.”
“Excellent show.”
“Did you know that Annie Oakley…”
Yes, she did. She pretended she didn’t. “Is that right?”
“It’s nice to have you back in town.”
Those were fewer, but they were there.
Harper waited in the back and reached her last. After he walked with her to collect her props and purse, they left the school together, Ginny locking the door behind them. Then Ginny hurried off toward the parking lot with a wave, and Allie was suddenly alone with Harper. The members of her audience were in their cars already with the heat cranked. The cold didn’t encourage lingering outside.
“That was something, you know that?” Harper’s eyes gleamed with a gratifying amount of sincere admiration. “You’re really good at this. I feel like I just time traveled.” He shoved his hands into his coat pocket. “How about I walk you back to Shannon’s?”
The bed-and-breakfast was only two blocks away. Allie didn’t really need an escort, but she said, “Sure.”
“Can I tell you something embarrassing?” Harper asked as they began to walk.
“You can. But I can’t guarantee I won’t use it against you later.” She was in a good enough mood for joking.
Harper stopped and leaned closer. “I always had the hots for the heroines of the Wild West. Annie Oakley. Calamity Jane.”
Allie laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. In Annie Oakley’s voice, she twanged, “It’s the buffalo coat, ain’t it?” It was the warmest coat she owned, and since it’d been returned to her from evidence, she’d decided to wear it. “Admit it, you just can’t resist a woman with the figure of a grizzly bear.”
“It’s the confident swagger,” he told her as they began walking again. “I find the Old West zest for life sexy. Whatever they wanted to do, both Annie and Jane, they just went and did it.” He paused and looked at her. “Kind of like you. You went off, left the past behind, built a life, made it work.”
“Are you saying I’m sexy?” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think we can go fromyou’re under arrestto personal compliments this fast.”
“Point taken. I’ll pace myself.”
