Jo's Triumph by Nikki Tate

at my side. I might not want to be here, but there was no need to be foolhardy about things. If I was going to do this job right, I had to be ready to shoot and shoot well. Pushing open the stationhouse door, I stepped outside, blinking in the late afternoon sun.
    â€œWell, lookee here,” James said. It was all I could do not to turn tail and run.
    Arnie, on one knee with his rifle to his shoulder, sighted down the bar rel and took aim at a scarred stump about forty paces away.
    James’s stare never left my face. Just as Arnie pulled the trigger, James gave him a sharp poke in the side with the tip of his boot. The gun jumped back and Arnie leaped to his feet. “Who the — ”
    â€œWhy, I bet even this young boy here could do better,” James said, because of course the bullet had missed the mark by a mile. “Right, Joe?”
    I took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted was to be the brunt of James’s jokes.
    â€œGo on, Joe. Give it a try,” Mr. Thomas said kindly.
    The stump hunkered there like a sullen dog, waiting for me to shoot. If I could just ignore James and the others, I might be all right. Pa had taught me to shoot. It would come back to me.
    My pistol slid easily from its holster and I lifted it, feeling its weight in my hand. My arm straight, I leveled my hand and took aim. The tip of the pistol twitched ever so slightly from side to side and even as I pulled the trigger I knew I had missed the target.
    â€œShoots like a girl!” James crowed and I whirled around. “Just like you, Arnie!”
    He was merely letting his cruel tongue wag, but I only just stopped myselffrom saying something stupid.
    â€œWho’s next?” Mr. Thomas asked. James swaggered forward. He fired off two quick shots, both of which hit the stump dead center.
    â€œThat’s how it’s done, boys,” he said. “You keep on practicing and you might get the hang of it.”
    There was much groaning and cussing after he said that, and we kept shooting at the stump out back of the corral until it grew too dark to see. James didn’t bother me any more than he bothered everyone else. Hard though it was, I said nothing in answer to his taunts and jeers. I just kept shooting and gave silent thanks to Pa for teaching me how to handle guns.
    Though I wasn’t exactly excited to go, when the time came two days after that, I headed out again, this time westbound. After that, I had quite a few good runs working the section of the mail route between Ruby and Butte Stations and on as far as Egan Canyon and Schell Creek. The farthest west I rode was to Robert’s Creek, but onlyonce when the westbound rider that was supposed to ride west from Ruby Valley fell ill from some bad meat.
    I was starting to know the trail well. Each week for several weeks I added another twenty-five dollars to my California fund. But with the constant threat of ambush or being shot by confused settlers, the job didn’t get any easier.
    In fact, in the hottest part of the summer, things got a whole lot worse.

    If I could have stopped my mind from wandering back to earlier times, I might have avoided the trouble I made for myself.
    All too often I found myself thinking of Pa, the way he had with the stock, how his eyes lit up when Will first talked about California. Those memories were good, but others were sadder.
    Ma and Baby Grace had died when I was but six. I didn’t remember so much of Ma, but those things I could recall seemed as clear as if they’dhappened only a few weeks before. “Joselyn,” she’d say, pouring a large kettle of steaming water into a washtub, “Always remember: Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”
    When a terrible incident happened in the river not far from Jacob’s Well, I was reminded of those baths that Ma insisted we take each week.
    Cookie Townsend got it into his head he was in need of a bath. He stripped off his clothes and waded