Chapter 12
Once chores were done for the day, Johnny took Susan’s hand and led her behind one of the outbuildings and began setting cans onto a bit of fence there.
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
He smiled. He loved when she called him that and more everyday he felt like he deserved it.
“Well Princess,” he said as he went on about what he was doing. “You asked me to teach you something and I know you ain’t forgot so I figured to just do it before you starting asking again.”
Susan thought for a minute and then remembered the only thing she had asked of him recently. She had been horribly upset but asking for this was less a part of her upset than her curiosity. Johnny hadn’t ever really said for sure if he would teach her or not. She knew he came out here to practice nearly every day. She would sometimes be allowed to sit and watch and in time the sounds reminded her more and more of time spent with her favorite person and less and less of the day her other family was taken from her.
“You will teach me how to shoot.”
“That’s the aim.”
At last he was finished setting cans up and stepped back to where he had left Susan. Her eyes followed him intently as he brought one of the pistols from its housing.
“First, you got to be real careful with these and don’t ever use ‘em when I’m not around…least not ‘til you’re grown.”
She nodded at him somberly, or at least he thought it was a somber expression. It was so hard to tell with her.
“First you take aim and pull back on the hammer, like this,” he demonstrated, “All the way back. You gotta hear that second click sound and then you squeeze steady on the trigger.”
A shot rang out and a can went flying from the fence. Susan jumped at the noise but her eyes never wavered from Johnny. He looked at her with an ounce of hope left that she would no longer want to use the gun. That hope was dashed quickly when he saw the fascination she held with the firearm. And he couldn’t even blame her. He’d felt the same about guns since he’d been even younger than she was now.
“You want to try?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He motioned for her to come over to him and knelt behind her, knowing that she might have trouble firing it on her own. Even if she managed a shot, she’d likely end up on her backside from the recoil if he wasn’t there. He placed the weapon in her hand gently and saw her briefly adjust to its weight in her small hand.
“Might need to use both hands,” he said softly.
She clasped the gun with both hands and was able to steady it and then moved her thumbs to bring the hammer back. Johnny raised a hand to help her but she shook her head and managed the task herself.
“Good,” he encouraged. “Now settle on your target and squeeze slowly. Don’t pull the trigger so much as just tighten your fist around it.”
She did as told and missed everything and fell back against Johnny for her trouble.
“You okay?” he asked and saw her nod, “Should have probably told you there’s a kick from these. You get used to it after a while. You want to try again?”
He hadn’t intended to encourage her curiosity so but he spent so much time with these guns. Sharing them with her seemed much the same as a blacksmith teaching his son to make horseshoes.
“Yes.”
“Well, alright then. See if you can hit that big one in the middle there.”
She had an easier time chambering the round this try.
“Take a deep breath,” Johnny whispered into her ear. “Let it out slow as you squeeze the trigger.”
She did as she was told and was rewarded when the can she had aimed at flew from its perch.
“You did not just teach that sweet little girl to shoot a gun!”
Johnny jumped at Alice’s voice. There was a time that tone of voice from her would have been a reprimand and he’d have acted like a boy getting a tongue-lashing from his mama but there was a different tone to her words today. Even if there hadn’t been, Johnny knew himself to be her peer and equal now. He probably he had been for some time. He wasn’t a child anymore and had never been her child really no matter how she treated him or how he thought of her. He calmly turned to face Alice with a proud smile, because there was no hiding how proud he was of Susan right then.
“Sure did. She asked and around these parts it’s something everyone ought to know.”
“From the looks of it you’re as good at teaching as you are at shooting those things.”
Susan looked to Johnny unsure if she needed to say anything to defend him but he spoke first.
“No, she’s just a natural is all.”
Alice rolled her eyes at him but still thought to herself that nothing looked quite so beautiful as that look of fatherly pride on the face of Johnny Calder. Maybe that boy could be saved after all.
“If it’s all her,” she chided him, “Then why are you looking so pleased with yourself?”
He holstered his gun and lifted Susan into his arms.
“Because that was my little princess that just shot that can down.”
“Well, I need to borrow little Princess Sharpshooter for a bit. I’m trying to explain some of Carl’s schoolwork to him and I’m not having any luck. For not having any real schooling, that child is sure bright.”
Johnny looked to Susan, “You want to go help Carl?” She nodded. He leaned his face to hers, “Butterfly kiss?”
Alice furrowed her brow and watched as Susan fluttered her eyelashes against her daddy’s cheek and then as he sat her down and kissed the top of her head before sending her on her way.
“Oh, and Johnny?” Alice called as she walked away with the little girl. “Cora’s looking for you.”
Cora wasn’t hard to find. She was sitting on the front porch of the main house rocking and shelling peas for their supper that night. Johnny walked up and sat down next to her.
“Alice said you were looking for me.”
Cora pondered what to say next, or rather how to say it.
“Did I just hear a shot?” she finally asked.
“Unless your ears are giving out, you should’ve heard three,” he answered matter-of-factly. He knew that she hadn’t come anywhere near whatever she wanted to talk to him about.
“Was Susan with you?”
“She was,” he answered beginning to get annoyed with these questions that he was fairly certain were nowhere near the point his friend wished to make. “She asked me to teach her and since I was younger than her when I learned, I didn’t think it was a bad idea.”
The last bit was said with a defensive tone as if defying her to call him out for how he chose to raise Susan.
Cora was quiet for a bit and looked very interested in the bowl of peas in front of her.
“I want you to know that I think you’re a real good father to her,” she said at last. “I know you don’t need my approval or anything but I wanted you to know I thought that.”
Johnny turned toward her in disbelief, “I appreciate it, Corabelle, I really do. But you wasn’t looking for me just to tell me that.”
Cora turned her eyes up to his questioning ones.
“No,” she answered. “I wanted to say something else but I wanted you to know that first. I wanted to talk to you about how you take care of yourself. Like how you got shot and didn’t take care of it proper. Now suppose you got an infection or something, she can’t lose you. You know that, right? She’s already lost more than…”
Cora’s voice trailed off as she blinked back moisture in her eyes.
“You are all she has, Johnny,” she said firmly. “She loves us in her way and we adore her. But you have to work at sticking around for her. I know how things happened and I’m not saying you could’ve done anything about it. But when you got back, you owed it to her to look after yourself a bit. You should’ve had the doc look at that wound at the jail when he was patching up that other fella.”
Cora’s eyes dropped to the bowl of peas on her lap.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you like that. Like I said, you’re a real good daddy to her. She’s awful lucky to have a man like you to look after her. I think it was nice you taught her to shoot…”
Her voice trailed away as she realized she was rambling and really didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t a parent and she knew she really didn’t have a lot of business giving anyone else advice on being one but she had good parents before they died.
If her own parents had taken better care of themselves then certain bad things might not have happened to her. Maybe that wasn’t fair to her folks but they were supposed to keep her safe and dying like they did left her vulnerable. When the nightmares came or she found herself shying from Pat’s touch, she couldn’t help being angry with her folks for leaving her behind. She didn’t think this had occurred to her dear friend and she was hoping he’d take her words in the spirit they had been given.
For his part, Johnny had grown very quiet as he pondered Cora’s words to him. His first inclination had been to tell her to butt out and mind her own business but then he got to thinking that she had a point after all. He hadn’t thought of it before. He allowed himself to think with fear of what might happen to Susan if something bad happened to him. He wondered where she would go and if she would ever speak again…or draw…or anything else that made her happy.
Cora looked over at Johnny to see he looked almost as if he was about to be sick.
“Are you alright, Johnny? Is it your side? Or did I upset you? I didn’t mean it. Can I get you something?”
She was standing over him. He just shook his head, rose to standing and wrapped her in a hug.
“Thank you Cora.”
He walked away pensive but not outright brooding and left Cora standing alone on the porch wondering what had just happened and even what he was thanking her for.
Author's Note: I apoloigize for the lag in posting. This story is entirely written but some chapters require more re-editing than I plan on. Hopefully there will not be such a large gap in posting in the future.