Annie Oakley's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Annie Oakley stood behind the small stone church and pressed her forehead against her horse's neck. Inside, twelve people waited on the wooden pews for a girl they had never heard sing. She was eleven years old, dressed like a cowgirl, and she had ridden three days across country without roads to get here. Her mother was sick at home and could no longer travel to tell people about Jesus. Annie had decided she would do it in her mother's place, the only way she knew how, which was to sing. "Shakespeare," she whispered. The horse flicked one ear. She had practiced the hymn a hundred times to him on the trail. He never minded a shaky note. People might. The chapel door opened. A blonde girl a little older and taller than Annie stepped out, holding a plate from the refreshment table inside. "You're the singer," she said. It was not a question. "I'm Lainey Willow. I told them you were coming. Now you have to actually come." Annie's throat closed. "How many are in there?" "Twelve. Maybe thirteen if the miller's wife shows." Lainey held out a biscuit. "Eat. You look green." Annie shook her head. "I sing in barns. To four people. Not churches." "Then sing to four of them and pretend the rest are hay." Lainey tied Shakespeare's rein to the fence post. "Come on. I'll stand by the lectern. If you freeze, I'll start clapping like it's the ending." Annie followed her inside. The pews were full of quiet faces. A spotted Appaloosa whickered through the open side door, tied beside a cottage across the yard. Annie fixed her eyes on that horse instead of the people. She stepped up beside the lectern and laid one hand on the slanted wood. She opened her mouth and nothing came out. Lainey did not clap. Lainey started humming the first line, low, under her breath, only for Annie to hear. Annie caught it. She joined on the second line. By the third, her voice steadied and filled the room. She sang about a shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to find one. She sang the verse her mother used to sing at the kitchen sink. When she finished, the room stayed quiet a long moment. Then an old man in the front pew wiped his face with his sleeve and said, "Sing another, child." She sang three more. After, people pressed coins into her palm and asked where she was headed next. A woman said her sister two towns over needed to hear this. A man said the mining camp up the ridge had no preacher and forty rough men. Annie's stomach tightened. Forty men. No walls. No pews. Lainey untied Shakespeare and handed her the rein. "Well," Lainey said. "You've got a route now." Annie looked at the coins in her hand and the road climbing toward the ridge.