Little Sharpshooter

Little Sharpshooter Chap 4

Randy headed west just as the sun was rising on the horizon. It warmed her back. She was overdressed in her pa’s coat, shirt, and hemmed trousers. Even though her hair was tucked up in a hat, sweat already beaded on her forehead. Before long she shivered with chills from her damp, clammy skin. Just like she did the week before when she was sick. There was a town just a day’s journey from her house that they visited occasionally when her pa had business there. She couldn’t wait to get there.

The sunset blinded Randy when she arrived in town. It made her head ache. Al was difficult to leave behind in the stables. She made sure the stablehand put him the strongest stall.

“If you try to touch him, he will bite or shove you away and it’s not gentle.” Beads of sweat formed on her brow and upper lip when she pointed her finger at the young stablehand’s nose.

“You don’t look so good.”

“Well your nothin’ to look at either.” Randy turned on her heel and was too sick to apologize over accidentally insulting the really nice looking boy. Good thing she felt too awful to flirt since she looked like a boy. He might have been put off by that. She just wanted sleep.

Randy raised a few eyebrows when she entered the boarding house. She must have sounded like a twelve-year-old boy when she asked for a room but she didn’t want the attention of being a sixteen-year-old girl traveling alone. All she wanted was a bed.

In the morning when she left, she felt even worse. Her body hurt all over, her leg throbbed. She thought about going to the physician. But her worry over Al got the best of her. She went through the motions of getting him ready while she wavered with her hobbled leg.

“You really shouldn’t leave town yet. You look awful.” The stablehand stood in her way when she struggled to limp out of the stable.

She pushed him aside. Heading out into the bright sunlight made her head throb more. She struggled to get on Al’s back. But she did it and they were off again.

The misery was magnified as the sun baked her already overheated body. Swaying in the saddle, Randy wasn’t sure she was headed in the right direction. As long as it appeared to be west, that was the direction she went. They were headed up a hill with several rocky outcroppings. Randy had to hold on with both hands as Al climbed up more hills with enormous boulders on each side of them. There was a passage that was wide enough for two wagons but Al stopped and backed away. She nudged him again to go through.

Pebbles and sand spilled down the side of the boulder in front of them. Randy’s reflexes were sluggish when she reached for the gun on her hip. Before she could draw it, Al lurched forward when someone jumped her. She fell hard on her back with a boy on top of her. She struggled to inhale and push him off at the same time.

He had the front of her oversized coat in his fists. Randy threw a punch at his jaw. He pulled her up just enough to slam her back and head into the ground. She punched him again with one fist while reaching for her gun with the other. The impact of her fist to his jaw turned his head. He caught her wrist going for the gun. When he slid her arm away on the ground with his weight off to the side, she gave him a solid punch with her free hand into his rib.

 “You’re a feisty one,” he said, holding his rib. Grabbing her coat again, he sat on her. Randy pushed him but she didn’t have the strength. He caught her hands and shoved them against her chest looking intently at her face.

Randy guessed he was probably close to her age as she struggled to wriggle from his grasp. He was tall but rather thin. If she wasn’t sick, she could take him on easily. He squinted to get a better look at her. Randy wilted and lost the adrenaline that helped her almost get free.

He pulled off her hat and his eyes widened. “You ain’t no little boy.” He let go of her hands to throw open her coat. She had wrapped her chest under her pa’s big shirt. Taking advantage of him letting his guard down, she punched him in the jaw again.

“Stop that!” He pulled her up off the ground again. She head butted him. Holding his head, he sat up swearing. He moved off her waist and lost his balance when she pulled her legs out from under him. He fell on her bad leg and Randy shrieked from the pain that shot through her entire body. She sat up so fast that everything closed in quickly turning everything black.

#

Trevor found himself in an unexpected predicament. The most impressive horse he had ever seen in his life belonged to a young boy, that wasn’t a young boy, but a girl. Then she about knocked the snot out of him. There she was, passed out on the ground. He jumped to his feet and had half a mind to take what he had been after, which was the horse. But it was wrong to leave her.

Trevor kneeled beside her. Was she dead? Besides the bloody lip he gave her, her face was flushed and sweaty. He rested his hand on her forehead. She was on fire. Looking her over, he spotted the blood that seeped through the leg of her trousers. He pulled up the pant leg. The bandage was soaked through. The skin all around it was red and swollen. She was sick from the infection in her leg.

Trevor pressed his lips together and quickly regretted it. He rested the back of his hand on his swelling lip. There were streaks of blood on it from his mouth. How was Nana going to take it? He comes home with an unconscious girl, with a bloodied lip, and covered in bruises to show for his nonsense -- which is what she would call it. He looked up just as the horse knocked its head into his. Trevor landed flat on his back.

“Now it’s your turn? I know. I deserve it.” He scooted away from the horse until his back was in the boulder. “I’m sorry. I’ll help. Please let me help her.” He slowly stood up with his hands in front of him as if the horse was holding him hostage. Trevor rubbed his sore head. The horse exhaled in his face.

“I can’t carry her home over my shoulder though.” Trevor cautiously moved over to the girl and pulled her arm to lift her. She was much heavier limp than she had been fighting him. He took both of her hands and pulled her over his shoulder. The tricky part was getting her draped over the horse when she was almost as big as he was. Trevor reached for the horse’s rein but the horse flung its head back and turned away.

“Now you wanted me to help her, you help me.” He reached for the horse again. The horse jerked back its head again. Trevor stepped forward making the horse step back until it stood next to rock he wanted.

“Stay there.” He did his best to climb the rock to the top carrying the girl. The horse moved away.

“Now come back!” Trevor had to set the girl down to go after the horse but the horse turned around and came back perfectly lined up next to the rock. It was tricky easing himself between the horse and the girl on the rock. Not very delicately, he draped the girl over the saddle.

Since the horse stayed put, Trevor examined what the girl had attached to her saddle. Two shotguns in their holders were on each side of the saddle. She had two pistols on her hips. He wondered if she really knew how to shoot them. Her saddle bags were packed full. She had a water bladder hitched on the side but when he picked it up wanting a drink, it was awful light. He opened it and it was full of ash. Puzzled, he closed it and found she had another one full of actual water. Why would she have ash in a water bladder? He kept thinking about it when he picked up his hat and dusted it off. He picked up the girl’s hat and went for the horse’s reins again. The horse threw its head up.

Trevor wanted to throw the girl’s hat at the horse but bottled up his anger turning around in disgust to walk away and think. The horse was right on his heel. He watched the horse’s hooves behind him. Trevor stopped. The horse stopped. He started to walk faster, the horse followed. He set out for home with the horse on his heels.