“But you need me here,” Annie insisted.
“I have Grandpap Shaw now,” Mama said. “You know he loves to take care of things.”
Oh, Annie knew her new stepfather liked to take care of things. Some might even go as far as to call it controlling. Those same people might even think it was weird that everyone—even Mama—had to call him Grandpap Shaw, as though he were their grandfather. At age seventy-four, he was certainly old enough.
Annie clenched her teeth, caging her sharp retort. She didn’t want to fight again.
It was just . . . Annie was supposed to be the one who took care of things. From the time that she was little more than a toddler her pa had brought her along when he went trapping and fishing. Annie was a fast learner and loved the outdoors, and after her pa had died in a sudden snowstorm ten years ago, Annie had been using those skills to keep her mother and siblings fed and clothed. And she’d been doing an excellent job of it.
“If I got married, I’d have to take care of my own family,” Annie pointed out. She didn’t intend to create her own family, but that was an argument for another day. “Then I wouldn’t be able to help you at all. But with my game and the money Mr. Frost pays for what I send him—”
“All that shooting isn’t feminine. Really, Phoebe Ann.” Mama shook her head and continued kneading the dough. “You should be seeing about marrying that Mr. Frost, not selling him dead animals.”
“Mama!” Annie turned around, horrified. “He’s near forty years old! He’s ancient”—(at this point, your faithful and likewise ancient narrators die inside)—“and he’s already married.”
Annie’s mama bristled at the age comment (she’d recently married a man who was twenty-eight years older than her, after all), but then sighed and bustled out of the kitchen. Annie sighed, too. She loved her family, she did, but no one—least of all Grandpap Shaw—seemed to understand how hard Annie worked to keep the farm. They still owed about a hundred dollars on it, and that wasn’t going to change if Annie got married. What she needed was a job, a regular-paying, honest-to-goodness job, but there weren’t many jobs for a girl with Annie’s very particular set of skills.
“Annie!” Her sister Huldy skipped into the kitchen and laid a newspaper across the table. “You’ve gotta see this.”
Annie washed her hands and hurried over to the paper. “A dog?” she asked, looking to the advertisement where Huldy was pointing. “I’m sorry, but you know we can’t have one.” Even thinking about dogs made her nose itch and her eyes water. She could almost feel a sneeze coming on.
“No!” Huldy moved her finger over a section. “I mean this one.”
“Oh!” Annie sniffled in relief. “All right. Read it to me.” Annie and her siblings might not make it to school every day—there wasn’t usually enough time—but Annie liked to make sure they all practiced their numbers and letters, and the newspaper was one of the best textbooks they had.
“It says, ‘Wild Bill’s Wild West: coming to Cincinnati at the Coliseum Theater! See the magnificent feats of Wild Bill Hickok, the legendary gunslinger, along with Frank Butler, the Pistol Prince, and Calamity Jane, the Heroine of the Plains.’”
A sharpshooting show! Starring Wild Bill! Annie had read everything she could get her hands on about Wild Bill Hickok. Seeing his show would be a dream come true.
“What’s all this?” Mama and Grandpap Shaw came in, followed by Sarah Ellen holding baby John, to find Annie and Huldy hunched over the paper.
Grandpap Shaw glanced at the advertisement. “Show business. Pah. It’s one thing for a man to go out and shoot for his supper, but when he puts on a fancy hat and does it for entertainment? It’s downright unseemly.” He looked pointedly at Mama.
Mama nodded, quiet now that her new husband was here to do the talking for her. Annie felt a pang of yearning for the way life had been before. Sure, they’d been poor in material things but rich in other ways. There’d been late nights when Mama had taught Annie to sew by the fire, cozy hours spent making plans for what to plant in each field or how to get through the winter, laughing and joking and simply enjoying each other’s company. But since the wedding, all that had changed.
Annie’s jaw tightened. She picked up the newspaper and read the advertisement again. They wanted spectators, not another sharpshooter, but maybe . . .
“What are you thinking?” Huldy whispered. She always knew when Annie had something in mind.
“When I was out hunting today, I shot the cap off a mushroom from fifty paces. And I shot the fuzz off a caterpillar from twice as far.”
Huldy nodded, her skinny face glowing with pride. “There’s no trick you can’t do, Annie. I bet you could outshoot that Pistol Prince, no problem. You should join their show. Annie Mosey, the best sharpshooter in Ohio! All your shows would sell out.”
The words stirred something inside Annie—a sense of adventure and importance she’d hardly allowed herself to acknowledge before. She really should be in the Wild West show, she thought. Why not?
“There will be no more talk of show business in this house!” Grandpap Shaw said. “If you want to help the farm, then you’ll think about getting married, like your mama and I did.”
Annie pressed her mouth into a line to trap her disagreement. People liked shows, and she was really—we mean really—good with a gun.
Mama moved to the counter to finish supper. “Sarah Ellen, set the table. Huldy, clear your newspaper away. And Phoebe Ann?”
Annie didn’t suggest that she not start a sentence with a conjunction.
“Stop thinking about running off to join a show.” She wrinkled her nose with utter distaste. “You can’t get a man with a gun.”
“I don’t need a man, Mama. I have a gun.”
“Quit your daydreaming right here,” Grandpap Shaw said. “The show isn’t even looking for help. They have a show. You’d only be in the way. No daughter of mine . . .”
But Annie had stopped paying attention three paragraphs ago. She was going to do it. She was going to join the show. She was going to make her fortune, and then they would never have to worry about money again.
She was already planning what to pack, how much game to leave with her family, and what she’d do if this didn’t work out.
Wait, no. Scratch that. It would work out. Annie would make it work out. Because the only thing Annie didn’t know how to do was take “no” for an answer.
Her plan was simple: take the train to Cincinnati, stay at the Bevis House, where she’d sent ahead word to Mr. Frost that she was coming, and go see the Wild West show for herself. After that, she’d know what they were lacking, and she’d figure out how to persuade the company what they were lacking was her.
Mr. Frost met her at the station. On the way back to his hotel he gave her a cursory tour of Cincinnati—enough to help her get her bearings. It was the biggest city she’d ever been to, but Annie had a knack for finding her way. Even as a child, on the run from the Wolves— Well, more about that later. Suffice to say, Annie was almost never lost.
The hotel was grand, lording its four stories over the corner of Court and Walnut Streets, and when Mr. Frost led her to a beautiful room on the topmost floor, she had to protest.