Bledsoe that she— Ellen—and her daughter, who Mary evidently thought was older than fifteen, would have all the latest word on fashions of the day.
As Ellen and Elizabeth—quite valiantly, fantastic bullshitter that Lizzie could be—tried bluffing their way through talk of bustles, hats and hemlines, Ellen silently wondered if she would go mad here. A bustle would have been great at the moment, had she been able to sit on it; hats were something she wore with less frequency than aprons; hemlines, in the era from which she hailed, could be anywhere from the ankle to just south of the crotch. And Ellen Naile could not have cared less.
Ellen had a terrible thought. If the photo of Jack, Lizzie and Davey—her own image conspicuously absent— hadn’t been taken by her, her being behind the camera the accepted explanation within the family, had she died of boredom? Or merely been institutionalized among the insane?
David was given a turn at the reins, and the only time before that he had driven a horse-drawn conveyance was when he had just turned eight. The occasion involved a horse-drawn carriage in New Orleans and a driver who had become fed up (albeit, good-naturedly) with David kibitzing his driving techniques. That David was nine years older and driving two horses this time instead of one did not inspire Ellen Naile with that much confidence.
Bledsoe and Jack were talking about manly stuff, most pointedly about Jack’s revolver. “Yeah, a friend fixed it for me, Tom. And another friend refinished it. It has a fourteen ounce trigger pull.”
“I’d admire tryin’ it when we rest the horses, Jack.”
“And I’d admire trying that thumb buster on your hip, Tom.” Bravo, Jack! Ellen thought. Don’t let that guy hold your pistol unless you’re holding his. She was going crazy, Ellen decided; aside from the fact that her thoughts could have been some sort of perverted sexual reference, they were certainly paranoid. The Bledsoe family had been marvelous to them and there was no reason to suppose that any malicious thoughts had crossed any of their minds. Still, caution was a good thing.
His father had been practicing, David Naile decided. Jack Naile, who had been writing about guns and shooting since 1973 (a ridiculous contradiction, of course, knowing that it was only 1896), had always, with admirable honesty, portrayed his own marksmanship skills as mediocre, which they always had been. That his father had taken steps to correct that was obvious.
Firing the seven-and-one-half-inch barreled Colt Single Action Army at a deadfall tree from a one-handed dueling stance, he had just placed five earsplittingly loud shots into a circle of about four inches at what David estimated as just a little less than fifty feet.
David looked back toward the wagon. His mother, sister and the two Bledsoe women were holding their hands over their ears.
When Jack Naile reloaded the revolver and handed it to Tom Bledsoe in exchange for Bledsoe’s less spectacular looking and shorter barreled Colt, Bledsoe eyed the gun almost reverentially.
“Watch that trigger pull. Really light.”
Bledsoe raised the revolver and the first shot went off into the air. “Dang! That ain’t like nothin’ I ever shot ‘fore.”
This time, the revolver was lined up before Bledsoe even cocked the hammer. There was a reassuring mark on the dead tree. Bledsoe fired out the last three rounds and, David had to admit, wasn’t as good with the gun as his father had been, but hit what he aimed at.
David watched as his father made to fire Bledsoe’s revolver.
The gun barked, a puff of gray smoke emanating from the end of the barrel (his father would, correctly, call that portion of the revolver the “muzzle”). The bullet hit the dirt in front of the tree.
David’s ears rang so badly that he was certain it would be hours before he’d be able to hear properly. He was used to wearing ear protection on those occasions when he did any shooting; ear and eye protection were safety considerations that his father and mother had always driven home with both him and his sister.
His father changed the way he held the gun: if memory served, it was called a “Weaver stance.” He held the revolver in his dominant hand, pressing against his left hand, his left shoulder turned nearly toward the target.
The revolver discharged again; the tree was struck this time. Three more shots—David’s ears felt hollow, somehow—and the dead tree was “killed” three more times.
David watched as his father and Tom Bledsoe exchanged revolvers, exchanged pleasantries