Annie Oakley's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

They rode another hour after the ditch. Annie tried. She kept her hands on the reins and her eyes on the paint's ears. The trail dipped into pine shadow and her stomach dipped with it. She swallowed twice and lost the second swallow. Lainey heard the sound and pulled up. "Off," Lainey said. She caught the bridle. Annie slid down and knelt in the pine needles. There was nothing left to bring up. Her ribs ached from trying. She pressed her forehead to the back of her hand. "I can't get back on," Annie said. "Not today. Maybe not tomorrow." Lainey crouched. She looked at Annie's color. She looked at the trail ahead. "Then we don't," Lainey said. She walked both horses. Annie walked beside the paint with one hand on the stirrup leather. The trail bent and opened into a small town Annie had not known was there. A single street. A well. A few shops with their doors propped open. Lainey stopped a woman sweeping a porch and asked a short question. The woman pointed past the well. Lainey came back. "Two empty cottages. End of the lane. Owner wants them lived in." "Lived in," Annie said. "Ours if we want them. He said yes before I finished asking." They walked down the lane. The first cottage had a thatched roof and vines climbing the front, pink flowers in the window boxes. The second sat beside it, darker wood, a covered porch, timber posts a cowgirl would know how to sit on. Lainey stopped between the two and looked at Annie. "That one's yours," Lainey said, and nodded at the flowered one. "This one's mine." Annie pushed open her door. The room smelled like clean wood. A small bed stood against the wall, made up with a yellow blanket and soft pillows, low enough that she could fall into it without climbing. On the pillow sat a big plush moose with wide antlers and a stitched smile. Annie stared at it. Someone had been ready for a child. She sat on the bed. She pulled the moose into her lap. Her stomach was still bad. Her hands were shaking. But the floor was not moving under her. Lainey stood in the doorway. "This town sits between four bigger ones. Half a day to each. You ride out. You come back here." "Back here," Annie said. "Every time. Same bed. Same door." Annie looked down at the moose. She thought about the mining camp, still waiting, and the sister's town, still ahead. They were closer now than they had been this morning. She could reach them from here and come home sick if she had to. "Okay," she said. "This is where we live." Lainey nodded once and went next door to open her own.