hand, gentle, so very gentle, stroked down the length of her neck to her shoulders. "The first night at our place, that's when I'm going to make you mine."
"Put a nickel twixt his ears, boy," the mule skinner said. "And quit grinnin' like a jackass eatin' cactus."
Gus McQueen kept a tight line on his mouth, but his eyes creased with laughter as he fingered a coin out of his vest pocket. He ambled his horse to the head of the team and, leaning over, placed the nickel between the floppy ears of the lead mule. The mules, all sixteen of them, stood gray and still as corpses in the middle of the Montana prairie.
His bride watched, perched beside the mule skinner on the wagon's plank seat. The skinner was a woman, although one wouldn't have known it to look at her. Her face was as brown and weathered as saddle leather. She wore man-sized boots and britches so caked with grease they crackled when she sat. Her cropped hair was covered with a battered slouch hat, its brim pinned up in the front with thorns. It was the filthiest hat Clementine had ever seen.
The skinner made a show of taking off her oilskin duster and rolling up the sleeves of her homespun shirt. Her arms were like a man's, knotty and thick as pine logs. She peeled the buckskin gauntlets off her hand and spat into bear-paw palms. Slowly she lifted the heavy braided rawhide out of the whip socket.
Nickel Annie claimed she was a rarity, being the only female in Montana to skin a mule train. Her wagon, built for heavy loads and rough terrain, was piled high with mining machinery, furniture, barrels, a bundle of buffalo hides that gave off a sour smell, and a piano bound for the only honky-tonk in Rainbow Springs, which was the only town in the RainDance country. Annie called her eight yoke of mules her babies. But she drove them the way a man would, by filling their ears with curses and cracking a whip over their heads.
The skinner gripped the whip's lead-filled hickory stock with both hands. She shifted the cud of tobacco in her mouth from one cheek to the other and grinned at Clementine. "You folk ready for this?"
"Ready?" Gus McQueen said. "I've been ready so long I've grown moss on my head."
Clementine pursed her lips to keep from laughing. A hawk hung in the air, the drone of the wind filled her ears. Suddenly the skinner's arm went back and forward in a blur. Twenty-five feet of braided rawhide unfurled and popped like a Fourth of July firecracker. The nickel went spinning up, up, up until it winked like a raindrop in the sun. Gus tried to snatch it out of the air and missed. The mules stood, not a tail flickering, not a hair stirring.
"And that," the mule skinner said with another brown-toothed grin that split her face in two, "is why they call me Nickel Annie."
"Well, shucks. And here all this time I thought it was 'cause you're so cheap," Gus drawled, and Clementine covered a smile with her hand.
"A nickel nurser—ha!" The skinner flung back her head and let out a bray of laughter. "A nickel nurser!" She shot a glob of tobacco juice out the corner of her mouth and gathered up the jerk line. The wagon lurched, and Clementine gripped the seat to keep from tumbling headfirst into rocks and ironweed and prairie grass. Gus nudged his horse into a walk beside them.
"Fetch me back my nickel, boy," Annie said after a couple of minutes had passed in silence.
"That's my nickel."
"Not any more it ain't. I earned it off you fair 'n' square. 'Sides, it don't seem right to leave a nickel a-lyin' there in the middle of the range where just any innocent might come acrost it. Why, a jackrabbit could swaller it, mistakin' it for a thistle, and give hisself a bellyache. Or an Injun could find it, spend it getting hisself all liquored up, and go on a scalpin' rampage and we'd all wind up dead as General Custer. Why, the more I think on it, boy, you owe it to man and animalkind to fetch me back my nickel."
Clementine looked behind them at the ruts that passed for a
"Put a nickel twixt his ears, boy," the mule skinner said. "And quit grinnin' like a jackass eatin' cactus."
Gus McQueen kept a tight line on his mouth, but his eyes creased with laughter as he fingered a coin out of his vest pocket. He ambled his horse to the head of the team and, leaning over, placed the nickel between the floppy ears of the lead mule. The mules, all sixteen of them, stood gray and still as corpses in the middle of the Montana prairie.
His bride watched, perched beside the mule skinner on the wagon's plank seat. The skinner was a woman, although one wouldn't have known it to look at her. Her face was as brown and weathered as saddle leather. She wore man-sized boots and britches so caked with grease they crackled when she sat. Her cropped hair was covered with a battered slouch hat, its brim pinned up in the front with thorns. It was the filthiest hat Clementine had ever seen.
The skinner made a show of taking off her oilskin duster and rolling up the sleeves of her homespun shirt. Her arms were like a man's, knotty and thick as pine logs. She peeled the buckskin gauntlets off her hand and spat into bear-paw palms. Slowly she lifted the heavy braided rawhide out of the whip socket.
Nickel Annie claimed she was a rarity, being the only female in Montana to skin a mule train. Her wagon, built for heavy loads and rough terrain, was piled high with mining machinery, furniture, barrels, a bundle of buffalo hides that gave off a sour smell, and a piano bound for the only honky-tonk in Rainbow Springs, which was the only town in the RainDance country. Annie called her eight yoke of mules her babies. But she drove them the way a man would, by filling their ears with curses and cracking a whip over their heads.
The skinner gripped the whip's lead-filled hickory stock with both hands. She shifted the cud of tobacco in her mouth from one cheek to the other and grinned at Clementine. "You folk ready for this?"
"Ready?" Gus McQueen said. "I've been ready so long I've grown moss on my head."
Clementine pursed her lips to keep from laughing. A hawk hung in the air, the drone of the wind filled her ears. Suddenly the skinner's arm went back and forward in a blur. Twenty-five feet of braided rawhide unfurled and popped like a Fourth of July firecracker. The nickel went spinning up, up, up until it winked like a raindrop in the sun. Gus tried to snatch it out of the air and missed. The mules stood, not a tail flickering, not a hair stirring.
"And that," the mule skinner said with another brown-toothed grin that split her face in two, "is why they call me Nickel Annie."
"Well, shucks. And here all this time I thought it was 'cause you're so cheap," Gus drawled, and Clementine covered a smile with her hand.
"A nickel nurser—ha!" The skinner flung back her head and let out a bray of laughter. "A nickel nurser!" She shot a glob of tobacco juice out the corner of her mouth and gathered up the jerk line. The wagon lurched, and Clementine gripped the seat to keep from tumbling headfirst into rocks and ironweed and prairie grass. Gus nudged his horse into a walk beside them.
"Fetch me back my nickel, boy," Annie said after a couple of minutes had passed in silence.
"That's my nickel."
"Not any more it ain't. I earned it off you fair 'n' square. 'Sides, it don't seem right to leave a nickel a-lyin' there in the middle of the range where just any innocent might come acrost it. Why, a jackrabbit could swaller it, mistakin' it for a thistle, and give hisself a bellyache. Or an Injun could find it, spend it getting hisself all liquored up, and go on a scalpin' rampage and we'd all wind up dead as General Custer. Why, the more I think on it, boy, you owe it to man and animalkind to fetch me back my nickel."
Clementine looked behind them at the ruts that passed for a
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