Mandy Could Shoot

Mandy could shoot. She could shoot better than any girl she ever met, any man too, but you didn’t go around telling men that. Men around here wouldn’t date a girl that was better than them and she did like going out on dates – getting all dolled up with her best outfit and putting on make-up. She liked when they picked her up in their newly cleaned truck and took her to dinner, or the cinema and they paid her way. Men around here were old-fashioned. That was fine with her. She’d smile, showing off the dimple in her left cheek and say, ‘Sure I can shoot. My daddy taught me. I’m pretty good – for a girl.’ And then she’d give a cute little shrug, lifting her tanned shoulder out of her loose blouse.

In this part of the country, shooting wasn’t a sport. They were ranchers and you needed to shoot coyotes that bothered your herd. One old ranch hand had even shot a wolf that had come onto the land. Unfortunately, the wolf had a radio tracker that some scientists put on it and there was all kinds of trouble. It wasn’t the hand’s fault. He was just doing his job, protecting the livestock. The wolf should have known better and stayed in the national park.

Mandy hadn’t shot a wolf and didn’t want to. They reminded her too much of her dog Beezer. He’d been the best dog. Followed her everywhere and looked out for her. He even growled at boyfriends that were no good. Smart dog. He got hit by a car one day and died. That had been a surprise. Mandy thought Beezer knew the highway real well. She had her suspicions that Randy Clark had hit Beezer on purpose with his truck. Mandy had dated him for a few weeks but decided she couldn’t stand looking at his ugly teeth anymore and dumped him right outside the Tasty Freeze. He took it bad. Threw his ice cream cone on the ground and stomped off. She had to beg a lift home from Mrs. Jenkins and listen to her talk about her heart condition for half an hour.

It wasn’t the sort of thing you admitted around here, but Mandy didn’t really like shooting live things. She could shoot a rabbit and had done so more times that most people had hot dinners. She’d shot deer, some crows and once she shot a coyote (again, too much like a dog) but watching that living, breathing thing stop all of sudden and crumple down to the ground, like an accordion deflating made the pit of her stomach go all cold. Practising shooting bottles off a fence was fun, though tin cans were easier to clean up afterwards. Killing animals made her worry. What if she died one day and when she went up to the pearly gates there were all the animals she shot sitting up there, staring at her, daring her to try to get into heaven. It could work out that way. Nobody knew for sure.

Her mother thought Mandy was such a good shot, she should be in the Olympics but Mandy’s dad just laughed. Using a rifle was part of work, it wasn’t a game you played. Besides, Mandy needed to finish her courses at the community college, get a job and get married and have kids. Mandy was okay with this. She didn’t much like school but she’d like a job and to have some money of her own. She figured she’d enjoy being married well enough. Having kids could be okay too. She’d teach them everything she knew.

But before marriage, she’d date a lot. Boys were good fun, as long as they stopped when she told them to. They all knew her daddy and were afraid of him, so they listened, for the most part when she said ‘no’. She’d dated most of the boys around the town over the years. Word had got around that she didn’t put out, so her dates weren’t expecting a quick lay.

She hadn’t dated Jeff Leigh though. He had been several years above her in school and then he went away to college in another state. He didn’t come home much but when he did, she feasted her eyes on him. He must be one of the prettiest things she’d ever seen.

Jeff was tall and lean with high cheekbones. There was talk that there was some Indian in the family. He tanned dark but had blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to look right into her and then through her. She was just a little girl to him, until that summer. It was ever so hot that year. Mandy was wearing her tight white jeans and a cropped top that showed off her belly, all smooth and taunt. She wanted a belly piercing but her mother had gone all irrational when Mandy mentioned it. She would get one when she moved out. She was doing the town that night, with some girlfriends, dancing and drinking. Some of them were old enough to buy alcohol and those that weren’t had brought a hip flask from home to pour some vodka or rum into their cokes. Mandy was having fun, laughing and gyrating all over the dance floor with her friends when she bumped right into Jeff Leigh. He took her by the arm.

“Why, excuse me young lady,” and then he looked her over, from top to bottom, resting his eyes for a time on her bare midriff. “Do you want to dance with me, or are you just drunk?”

Mandy did her little shrug and smile. “I could dance with you. But you’d have to ask nicely.”

He did and they danced most of the night together, even the slow dance. He got her another coke and tipped his own liquor into the glass. They went outside, under the stars and he pressed her up against the wall of the building and kissed her until her knees just about gave way.

“You’re Billy Gibbons daughter, aren’t you? The girl that can shoot.” She nodded. “Good. I know where I can find you then.” And he escorted her back to her girlfriends, not even asking her to get into the back of his truck with him. She was impressed.

He did come to find her and they saw each other most every weekend through that summer. He was smart, talking to her about what he’d learned in school and how he was going to apply it to the ranch his daddy owned, but not yet. First, he was going to work for the government a bit and make some money then come back home to settle down. He was applying for jobs. Mandy didn’t ask him about where he’d end up working. She was afraid it would be too far away. This guy, she wanted to keep seeing.

It was towards the end of the summer that Jeff told he got work in the town where he’d gone to college. He’d be leaving in a few weeks.

“We had a good time though, didn’t we?”

“But you’re coming back, aren’t you? For holidays and stuff. And you said you were going to take over your daddy’s ranch someday.”

“Sure, I’m coming back, but not for a while and besides, there’s

other reasons.”

She felt like someone had thrown a blanket over her head, shutting out the light. “What reasons?” Jeff had the good sense to look embarrassed and turn away from her part way. “Jeff? You going to tell me?”

He still didn’t look at her. “You see, there’s this girl I met in college. We’re sort of engaged.”

Mandy would have slapped him if he had been facing her but being the coward he was, he was turned away, talking to the wind. They’d walked to the edge of town after going to the cinema together and were standing in the prairie night, under way too many stars to count.

“Fine.” She crossed her arms tight across her body, holding herself together. “You can drive me home now.”

And he did. They sat in silence. She slammed the truck door when she got out, not waiting for him to say good-bye. Stupid her. She’d thought it was serious. She had dreamed of marrying this damn Jeff Leigh. Idiot.

 At the end of summer, there was the usual excitement about the annual bison clearance. This was when the bison were herded out of the national park to a special enclosure for culling. the ranchers were keen to help reduce bison numbers because the animals carried a disease that might affect the cattle. None of the cattle had ever caught brucellosis off the bison, but it could happen. It was best to act before it did, just in case.

Bison are huge, coming in at 2,000 pounds, standing taller than a man. These beasts were the super trucks of the four-footed world. When a bison hit the ground, it seemed the earth shook. Dust flew up in a huge cloud of red, like the earth was crying or something all soppy like that. Mandy didn’t go watch after the first clearance she had been to, and she never asked to join the shoot. Women weren’t welcome anyway.

Jeff went though. It was his final week before starting his new job and moving in with his fiancé. Mandy’s dad mentioned that Jeff would be shooting.

“You two not together anymore?”

“He’s leaving, isn’t he?” with an exaggerated eye roll so her father would realise how ridiculous his question had been. 

Her father grunted in reply.

You had to have a special pass to get into the area where they shot the bison. It wasn’t difficult to steal her daddy’s pass. Early on the morning of the planned shoot, Mandy borrowed her mother’s car and drove up to the site. She parked a mile away, leaving the car behind a stand of trees so it wouldn’t be seen. Then she hiked in, carrying her rifle. The official waved her through, only raising his eyes once at the fact that a woman was hunting. She didn’t go to the marked range though. She climbed higher up in the scrub and sat down and waited.

The men started appearing in small groups, talking quietly, pushing back their baseball caps and peering down towards the park where the bison would be coming from. A few men smoked, others drank from thermoses of hot coffee, probably laced with a bit of whiskey - but not much, everyone wanted to shoot well. The hides were worth something. They’d brag about who brought down the most bison later. Best to keep a clear head if you wanted something to talk about.

Brown dots appeared in the distance and then grew in bulk. You could hear the snuffling and snorting. The animals knew something was up. Tails were raised, hooves pawed at the late summer dust. They were pushed closer, close enough for the men to raise their rifles. The first shots rang out. Mandy watched as one great beast after another fell to the ground. She bit back the acid that rose to her mouth. Then Jeff raised his rifle. He only wounded the bull he shot at, but another man took it down. It was Mandy’s turn now. She lifted her rifle and aimed - at the men. She wasn’t going to kill any. Just let them know what it felt like to hurt. She got Jeff first, right in the buttocks. Only the left buttock, not the base of the spine. She wasn’t going to paralyse him. Then she hit Emery Rodgers in the knee. He’d still be able to ride just fine. Jimmy Coots she got in the foot. She was shooting low to avoid any major organs. It was a shame she hit old Beau Matthews in the thigh, and he bled out through his femoral artery.

She hit ten men before they found her. The bison had moved on by then. Only five of them had been killed. She must have saved a good hundred or so of the great creatures. Who would have thought that she, the daughter of a rancher, would go all environmentalist? Well, the jury did, thanks to a clever lawyer. Mandy was out in ten and she still looked damn good in her tight white jeans.