Buffalo Girls (24 page)

Wish me luck in the show Janey, I don't know why I ask, of course the show will long be over before you read this. Still it is comforting to think my daughter would wish me luck. I just hope the stage don't turn over, I have always been nervous when riding in stagecoaches.

Your mother,
Martha Jane

L
ORD
W
INDHOUVEREN, ATTENDED BY SEVERAL GUN
-handlers, several journalists, his footman, his valet, and six boys from the kitchen—the boys were to set up a splendid picnic lunch for himself, the Prince of Wales, and anyone noble who might show up—waited in perfect confidence for the arrival of the American team, if a single girl and a few rough attendants could be called a team. There was a rather stiff breeze from the south, but Lord Windhouveren—generally acknowledged to be the best shot in England—expected no difficulty. Let the Oakley girl worry about the breeze.

A shooting match was scheduled, each gun to shoot at one thousand thrown targets. At his club the night before, there had been some discussion of the number. Several experienced guns were there, men who had hunted in every corner of the Empire, and all doubted that the number would ever be reached. Seldenham, himself a notable shot, felt sure the young lady would have enough before they had even thrown two hundred pigeons. All the gentlemen were perfectly polite and none had any wish to insult Miss Oakley; she had comported herself far better than the other Americans who came with the Wild West show—possibly excepting Buffalo Bill himself. He was clearly a presentable fellow, though the lamentable horse race at Ascot in which the
English jockey was disgraced had lodged resentments in many breasts.

Lord Windhouveren felt a modest pride in having been chosen to avenge the silly horse race—he had always felt that horse-flesh was unpredictable, nothing the nation should place its confidence in. Once a horse had stepped hard on his foot; three of his toenails eventually had to be removed, and the aggravation had caused him to look askance at horses ever since. Guns were another matter. Point a gun correctly and it would do its work; of no horse, so far as he knew, could the same be said.

Now, as he watched the American party approach in several buggies, followed by their own team of pressmen, he had no doubt whatever that his marksmanship would prevail, and he felt a distinct impatience to get on with the event. He
did
hope the Prince of Wales would arrive promptly, but he had known Prince Edward for many years and knew that, while he might hope for a prompt arrival, it would be foolish to expect it. Prince Edward was known throughout the world for his princely unpunctuality.

Annie Oakley had forbidden old Bartle to speak to her on the way to the match; Jack Omohundro was also warned to let her be, and Billy Cody had been consigned to another carriage, since there was no hope of keeping him quiet. Annie detested chatter before a match, and didn't welcome it after. Men might fall in love with her as much as they liked; she had no objection to bouquets and sweets and would even accept a muff or a pretty fan now and then, but she always made sure it was clearly understood that they all had to stand back and stow their sweetheart talk when she was preparing to shoot. She was, after all, a married woman, and happily married, too. She didn't want silly words pouring in her ears—she wanted to concentrate. When she concentrated she saw sharp mental pictures of herself making perfect shots. There would be the sky, then a target would fly across it, a gun barrel would quickly catch up with the flying target, and the target would break to bits. Her mental pictures were
soundless, and her shooting was as soundless as she could make it by fitting cotton plugs of her own devising into her ears. Once her eyes found the target the gun would swing precisely and the target would explode.

Bartle thought Annie Oakley was as pretty a woman as a man could want—of course there was Lillie Langtry, but Lillie Langtry might as well be an angel for all the chance he had with her. Annie was not in heaven, she was right there in the buggy, pretty and pert, if rather steely in her demeanor. Of course, she had her match to think of, whereas he could take a more relaxed approach and mostly think of her.

By the time they had the guns unpacked, the ammunition laid out, and small barrels of water to cool the gun barrels rolled into place, quite a crowd had gathered. Stanley was there, and Buntline, and Russel of the
Times
. Stanley shadowed Bill Cody—his interest was, in the main, stars—but Russell of the Times preferred to interrogate the mountain men. He was an unkempt fellow in a shabby brown coat, himself not much different in appearance from a mountain man. Texas Jack regarded him with distaste and walked off upwind so as not to be required to smell him.

“Men, do you think Miss Oakley has a chance?” Russell asked.

Bartle considered the question impertinent. “What sort of gent are you?” he asked.

Jim Ragg was loading Annie's gun. He ignored the palaver.

“I am no gent, I'm a reporter,” Russell replied. “If Lord Windhouveren loses, he will have to leave the country—the disgrace will finish him. Is Miss Oakley up to it?”

Annie herself was pulling on her shooting gloves. She had nodded politely to Lord Windhouveren and then stepped away from the crowd. She wanted to keep her mental pictures sharp. She put the cotton plugs in her ears, arranging them carefully so they wouldn't give her an earache. Texas Jack had positioned himself near the trap containing the clay pigeons. By focusing
just to his left she would see the targets the moment they left the trap. She didn't need to hear anyone say “Pull!” She only needed to see the targets promptly. Texas Jack wore a black shirt, which would contrast well with the white clay targets. Annie felt quite relaxed, as she always did when it came time to shoot. The mountain men might look old and dirty, but they knew guns. They knew when to cool a barrel. All she had to do was take the guns and break the targets.

Bartle felt that Russell of the Times must be exaggerating with his talk of the English gent having to leave home
if
he lost—though it was true that the crowd at Ascot had jeered the poor jockey brutally when he lost the race. He was just a poor jockey, though, not a great gent like Lord Windhouveren.

“Annie's up to it,” Bartle said. “I hope the gentleman has got a nice place picked out to move to, if he's that set on moving.”

“Lord Windhouveren once killed nine hundred grouse in a day,” Russell remarked.

“Oh, well, Billy Cody killed six hundred buffalo in less time than that,” Bartle said, exaggerating considerably out of national pride. “And Annie Oakley can outshoot Billy Cody blindfolded, or folded any other way you want to fold her.”

“I can outshoot Billy Cody,” Jim Ragg said, annoyed by Bartle's tendency to always brag on Billy. “And I'm just a tolerable shot.”

Fifty birds had been thrown when Prince Edward and his retinue drove up. Prince Edward felt sleepy and a little dyspeptic; still, he was determined to witness Windhouveren's triumph. The man had often had him to Scotland to shoot, and the arrangements had been excellent. Miss Oakley, of course, was not unappealing; at moments the Prince found her
quite
appealing, but that was another matter. She could hardly expect to triumph over Windhouveren, a man who had brought down nine hundred grouse in a day. It gave the Prince a bit of a start to have it whispered to him that at fifty pigeons Windhouveren had missed three times, while Miss Oakley had yet to miss.

“Perhaps he had a late night,” Prince Edward said to his companion, Daisy, Countess of Warwick. “I'm sure he'll brace up presently.”

Lord Windhouveren did brace up. He broke forty-eight targets in a row before missing twice more. Unfortunately, Miss Oakley had yet to miss. She
did
miss the hundredth shot, but that still left him four behind.

“She handles her gun admirably,” he said to his handlers. “I expect I'll catch her this hundred.”

Still, he didn't feel quite right. His Purdeys refused to swing quite as smoothly as they always had. Changing guns seemed to make no difference. There was something about the small figure of Annie Oakley that he had begun to find vastly irritating. She never looked at him—she never looked at anyone. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the Prince of Wales had arrived with the Countess of Warwick. She seemed to have no sense of the importance of the occasion, or to have taken into consideration that he was the best shot in the nation, perhaps the best shot in the Empire. Her lowbred practicality was beginning to annoy him—to annoy him quite considerably. She said nothing, never smiled, never looked around, had not even bowed to the Prince; she just took her gun and broke target after target.

They had agreed to a short rest after each two hundred and fifty targets. When the count was reached, Lord Windhouveren had missed ten targets; Annie Oakley had only missed three.

Out of deference to his sovereign, Lord Windhouveren walked over to the Prince's tent and accepted a glass of champagne. The Prince looked stiff and displeased. The usually ebullient Countess, chief flirt of her age, showed no signs of ebullience. She was thinking how difficult it would be to get Eddie in a good mood again if Windhouveren, a pompous braggart, actually allowed himself to be beaten by a snippet from America.

“Brace up, Windhouveren!” Prince Edward said. “No nonsense now! Break your bird.”

Lord Windhouveren went back to the line feeling distinctly uneasy. The Prince of Wales rarely rose so early, even for a sporting event; it was plain that he would not look kindly upon defeat. Windhouveren glanced at Annie Oakley to see
if
he could detect signs of fatigue; he saw none. She had not bothered to sit down, had only taken a little tea. Still, he considered that she might tire. A gun that felt light at the beginning began to feel deucedly heavy after seven or eight hundred swings. Let her keep her lead for now; he would take her in the last two hundred.

Never in his long life of shooting had Lord Windhouveren concentrated as hard as he did on the second two hundred and fifty targets. He concentrated as if his life depended on it—as if he were firing at advancing Zulus or shrieking disciples of the Mahdi. Yet a sense of injustice rose in him in proportion to the intensity of his concentration. Instead of shooting better, he shot rather appallingly worse.

When the five-hundredth target had been thrown, Lord Windhouveren had missed twenty-nine targets. Annie Oakley had missed eight. The shocking thought that he might actually lose could not be forced out of his mind. He wanted to strangle the girl. Why wouldn't she miss? He had never supposed for a second in his life that any woman could outshoot him; now one was doing it, and doing it quite casually. The filthy old men in their smelly buckskins loaded her guns and handed them to her as if it were the simplest business in the world—she might have been shooting sparrows, not being matched against the finest shot in the kingdom. An appalling calamity was occurring, and the deuced thing was, Lord Windhouveren had no idea how to stop it.

In the circumstances he thought it best not
to
approach his sovereign during the halfway break.

The thought that Windhouveren might lose had occurred to others, too. Stanley had stopped pestering Buffalo Bill and stood in amazement, watching the girl shoot. Russell of the
Times
sat with his back against the wheel of a buggy and scribbled on a
pad. Before the match began, Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack had ambled among the gentry, smiling and accepting large wagers at long odds. The gentry had unanimously bet on Lord Windhouveren; now a number of the men were scowling. What did the man think he was doing? His shooting was an appalling embarrassment. A number of pale ladies, jolly only hours before, foresaw a difficult evening—none more so than Daisy, Countess of Warwick.

“I was never fond of Windhouveren,” she gently pointed out. “I've told you so, Eddie.”

Prince Edward was at a loss for words, though far from at a loss for indignation. With every Windhouveren miss he flinched; it didn't help his dyspepsia at all. It was inconsiderate—indeed, impertinent—for the man to go on missing. Windhouveren had ample estates, too; he usually produced excellent arrangements. It was a very great nuisance that he continued to miss.

“I am not a man to overlook a nuisance,” he remarked darkly to Daisy. He was not telling the Countess anything she didn't know.

“She's a nice shot, ain't she?” Bartle remarked to Russell of the Times. Champagne flowed liberally among the observers; despite his attention to the guns, some had flowed into him.

“She's better than that,” Russell said. “I'd choose her for my regiment any day, if I had a regiment. Windhouveren's finished—that's how I judge it.”

“I admire your beard, sir,” Bartle said—he was picking up a little English style.

At the end of seven hundred and fifty targets, silence prevailed on the field. Only the quick pop of the guns and the occasional stamp of a buggy horse broke the silence. Even the breeze seemed to seize the sound of the guns. Lord Windhouveren had missed forty-seven targets, Annie Oakley only ten.