An Unwilling Husband by Tera Shanley

had fallen from its pins and likely resembled the nest of some deranged buzzard. Perhaps Lenny worried she’d be privy to another such incident; the girl sat behind her and deftly weaved her thick auburn hair into a single braid much like hers.
    With the most admirable calmness and efficiency, Lenny showed her how to load one of the guns, stand, and aim. She placed sticks in divots carved into the table and when she motioned, Maggie aimed at the first one.
    How hard could this be?
    Crack! went the gun, and would have made her jump if the stock slamming into her shoulder hadn’t beaten the noise to it. She stumbled backward, crying out.
    Eyes screwed up and shoulders shaking, Lenny appeared like she tried not to laugh.
    “Bollocks, that hurt!” Shocked, she rubbed her throbbing shoulder. There had been no warning for the gun’s kick. Both the blasted rifle and her new friend had betrayed her.
    Lenny hurried to her and made her hold up the gun again, and pressed the rifle’s butt tightly into her shoulder. That hurt. She held it more loosely, and the Indian girl put it firmly back.
    “Tightly? Won’t that make it hurt more?”
    A shake of the head from her tutor only renewed her skepticism. “Fine and dandy. Since you are the professional gunslinger, I suppose I shall have to trust you.”
    At the thought of enduring such pain willingly a second time, her heartbeat hammered but she pulled the sight to the sticks once again. Fear caused her to jerk the trigger. The shot went wide and high, missing the target.
    Lenny breathed slowly, once, twice, and holding her breath on the third inhalation, mimed pulling the trigger gently. Then standing behind her, showed her how to caress the trigger while she stilled her breathing.
    It took exactly seventeen shots to hit the target, but oh, the feeling of that final success! She’d weathered the pain of each shot, braved every pull of the trigger, knowing the gun would ram into her injured shoulder. All of that, well worth the feeling of empowerment when the bullet finally splintered the wooden target. “Ha!” she yelled.
    Out in the uncertain wilderness where men lived by their guns, it was a great feat. Lenny even let her celebrate for a few moments. Then eyebrow arched, the girl handed her another bullet. Never before had Maggie shaken from happiness, but there, in that moment, she was brave and no one could take it away from her. And without Aunt Margaret or Garret around, no one tried.
    For the rest of the lesson, she fought through the pain and by the end had become a fair shot at this short distance. After they unloaded the last of the ammunition, she and Lenny headed back to start on the chores around the ranch.
    Working a ranch was different from what she remembered. The boundless energy that fills young children had fled her in the years of pampered living. Barely able to lift the saddle from Buck, she exhausted her arms trying then shook with fatigue as Lenny showed her how to muck out the horses’ stalls.
    But she would earn her place, so hefted pitchforks of dirty, heavy hay out of the stalls until her back wouldn’t let her bend anymore. Perspiration soaked her dress through, strands of moist hair were plastered to her forehead, and her once smooth nails were lined with filth.
    When the stalls had been spread with fresh hay, she stumbled after Lenny and hauled buckets of feed to the animals in the barn. Then she loaded small bales of hay with the Indian girl into a wagon and rode with her on the seat out to the bellowing herd of breeding cattle that had been left behind.
    Back again to the barn. The two giant and fully intimidating brown milk cows seemed completely unimpressed with her withered grip as she stabbed her non-working fingers at their full udders.
    “Muaaah!” then a clunk was her reward as the second uncooperative beast—perhaps having got the idea from the first through bovine telepathy—kicked over the bucket with a piddling amount of milk in