Chapter 11
Lula
Ipeek outside the loft window and find the Aces clearing a trench through the snow, lining empty cans along the fence rail for target practice.
Hmm.
I half expected the novelty of playing protector to have worn off by now.
Instead, we have managed a week of quiet coexistence.
We share meals from the hunt over polite dinner conversation.
We step out of one another’s path with gracious little bows whenever we inevitably collide in this blasted coffin they call a cabin.
I find what little privacy I have in the cold loft above, pretending not to hear the two of them giggling like schoolboys until the sound fades into snoring.
Can men stage such convincing kindness? And to what end? My body? My silence? My gratitude?
Perhaps they truly feel guilt, or some other sense of duty, having swept me up in all this mess. The more I turn it over in my mind, the less certain I am of anything at all.
I’ve known bad men. Shiftless thieves, marauders, deviants.
None quite like these.
I dress and join them outside, greeted at once by the sharp bite of cold. Boone stands with his coat open, scarf hanging slack, as if shaking his fist at winter. Okee turns his collar up against the wind.
“Good morning,” Okee says. “I’ve paced the distance to those cans at precisely twenty-five yards. No guesswork required.”
Is that important?
I smile at him. “Very precise.”
Behind him, Boone spins his pistol and shoves it into his holster as if practicing for speed.
“See that?” Okee asks me, gesturing toward Boone. “Don’t do that. That’s a good way to shoot yourself in the face.”
Boone chuckles at Okee’s disapproval and continues his tricks.
Okee steps behind me, and all at once there is less room inside my own skin. His hands rest on my shoulders, close enough that I can feel his breath shift against my hair. He moves me into position and rests a pistol in my hand.
It is heavier than I expect.
“You might button your coat,” I say to Boone over my shoulder. “You’ll catch your death.”
“Well, listen to the pair of you. Next you’ll be tellin’ me how to lace my boots.” He holsters his gun and spits into the snow. “Short on height and long on opinions.”
My fists tighten fast at my sides. The taunt sends a little surge of fire through me, and I plant my boot hard, earning a pleased snort from Boone, who lights up from the inside at dancing on my nerves before breakfast.
“Enough,” Okee says.
He raises my arm and bows closer, looking down the barrel with me.
“Grip high,” he says, folding his larger hand over mine, firm enough to guide and careful enough to irritate me.
“Thumb along the back strap. Keeps the hammer from biting you.” His other hand slides mine into place beneath the barrel, guiding without hesitation.
His voice sounds too near my ear, and my knees lose all loyalty to me.
He lets go, and the weight settles into my palms, unfamiliar and solid.
Could it be this serious gentleman has greeted the morning with newfound charm?
His boot nudges my heel. “Feet apart. Knees soft.” His voice drops. “Bend your elbows, just a touch.”
I do, aware all at once of how close he still is. Of Boone watching from the fence rail, arms folded, icy blue eyes sharp and amused.
“Good,” Okee says, tapping the hammer with one finger. “Cock it smooth.”
I swallow wrong and cough. The tickle tortures my throat, and I try to swallow it down, eyes stinging with choked tears. “What happens if I thumb it too fast?” I rasp.
Okee nods once, approving the question, and takes the Colt back just long enough to demonstrate.
“This is a single-action,” he says. “Means you have to cock the hammer deliberately before the trigger will drop it. Four distinct clicks as she comes back. Listen.”
One. Two. Three. Four.
My chest steadies.
“Sights even,” he continues, and hands the gun back. His fingers graze mine just long enough for me to recognize the choice in it.
He steps to my side now instead of behind me, close enough that our sleeves brush.
“Deep breath,” he says. “Ready?”
I nod. My throat feels tight. The Colt has grown heavier in my hands.
“Try not to get knocked back on your ass, half-pint,” Boone says.
I tighten my grip and plant my feet.
“Boone the buffoon,” I reply, waggling my hips just enough to taunt. I catch his slack-jawed stare from the corner of my eye and am wickedly pleased with myself.
“Mean little thing.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Okee says.
I draw in a breath. Cold air bites my lungs. The world narrows to the front sight, the can dulled by winter light, the faint tremor in my arms.
Four clicks.
I let my breath ease out and hold.
The shot cracks sharp and clean.
The can jumps from the rail, spinning into the snow.
For one proud heartbeat, I can only stare. Smoke curls thin from the muzzle. My ears ring. Everything beyond the gunshot feels far away.
Then the sound finds the place in me where the other shots still live.
I am back in the yard with screams splitting the dark. Back with my cheek in the dirt. Christ, how it stung with cold and cruelty both. Back with blood hot under my palm and my own breath buried so deep inside me I thought it might never come loose. The air. Forced from my lungs.
Run.
Run!
For heaven’s sake, woman, crawl if that’s all you can muster!
The Colt hangs heavy in my trembling hands.
My fingers forget their shape around it.
“Lula?”
Okee says my name sharply enough to cut through the ringing. The barrel dips. He lunges, closing his hand over mine as he turns the pistol toward the snow.
“Mind where you point that.”
The words are plain. Almost stern. It stops me cold.
I blink hard. The fence rail swims back into place. Snow. Cottonwoods. Boone standing near the cans, his grin gone slack at the edges.
“Are you all right?” Okee asks. Eyebrows drawn together, concern settles into the crease between them.
My heart is still racing when I finally manage, “I hit it.”
“You did,” Okee says.
My laugh tries to come and catches in my chest. “Then why can’t I breathe?”
Okee looks at me, and whatever pity crosses his face is gone before I can decide whether to resent it. “Because you have lately had cause to fear gunfire,” he answers, so gently I find myself on the brink of hitting him.
He studies me a moment, the way a man studies an awkwardly shaped parcel he’s required to carry. Like he knows he’s expected to handle this, but isn’t quite sure how he’ll manage to get his arms around it.
“This is so if there comes another time, you needn’t only hide and hope.”
The words strike with such force that I nearly scoff.
Hide and hope.
That was all I had done. Crouched beneath the wagon canvas and hoped death passed me by.
I stare at the Colt. It is a wicked little thing. “I don’t want to hear that sound again,” I say.
“You will hear it again whether you take this pistol or not. Out here, sound carries.” His eyes pass briefly over the white slope and the dark trees beyond. “You ought to know what to do when it comes.”
He is not asking me to be brave.
He is asking me to be useful to myself.
So I take the gun.
“Again,” Okee says. “Five more in the wheel.”
My hands shake less now, though they’re still not quite steady. I cock the hammer four clicks and line up the next can.
The second shot goes wide. Snow spits up beyond the rail.
Neither of them laughs.
Okee shifts closer, until the edge of his sleeve brushes mine. “Don’t run from it,” he says. “Breathe through it.”
He steps behind me, corrects my posture, my grip, the height of my elbow.
“Breathe deep. From here.” His palm presses lightly at my middle, not holding me so much as reminding me where my breath belongs.
I do.
The world shrinks to the weight in my hands and the slow burn in my lungs. For a moment there is only the sight, the can, and the four clicks waiting in my head.
“Now let it go,” he murmurs. “Breath and shot together.”
I thumb the hammer back and feel the give of it, the coiled power. Then I pull the trigger.
The gun bucks. My shoulders jump.
This time I am ready for the crack.
It still rattles my teeth, but I do not flinch away from it.
The can jerks, flips end over end, and vanishes behind the rail.
Boone opens his mouth, likely to say something foolish, then seems to think better of it. He kicks at the snow instead.
“Well,” he says at last. “Can’s dead, anyhow.”
A laugh escapes me, small and broken, but mine.
Okee’s hand leaves my waist the moment the shot is done, as if he has remembered himself.
“Good,” he says, low enough that Boone needn’t hear it.
It is hardly praise at all.
Naturally, I store it away like a fool.
Boone tips his head, eyes narrowing with a slow grin. “You sure you ain’t been lying to us? Shootin’ like that first time out?”
“Beginner’s luck.” My voice comes out thinner than I like. I clear my throat. “Or good instruction.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let it go to Okee’s big head.”
Okee ignores him entirely as he swings open the loading gate and thumbs fresh rounds into the cylinder. “We’ll walk them left to right. Keep your focus on the sights, not your audience.”
My ears go hot at that last word.
Boone saunters closer anyway, boots crunching in the snow. He hooks his thumbs in his belt, hip leaning against the fence so he sits square in my side vision.
“Who says I’m just an audience? Maybe I want to give her a try after you’re done manhandling’ her.”
Okee snaps the cylinder shut and offers me the pistol again, grip-first.
“I don’t need two instructors,” I say, perhaps more sharply than necessary. “One is quite enough.”
Boone laughs, delighted. “Hear that? She’s already sick of you.”
“Feet,” Okee says calmly, as if we are alone. Once more, he nudges my boot out with the toe of his. “Wider. Good. Now—”
“Least let me set the stakes,” Boone cuts in, mischief in his eyes enough to ignite damp wood. “You knock down three in a row, I’ll shut up for a whole hour. You miss, you got to admit I’m prettier than Okee.”
Okee does not even pretend to be offended.