not as long as she lived and he was shouting back over his
shoulder as the hills flashed by and the horses’ manes stood up
on end from the wind and the fringe on his cowboy jacket
went the same direction as the horses’ manes and his gun and
holster were tied to his leg, had enough yet I’ll tame you you
little devil. Eventually she was tired and dirty and saw he was
stronger and she got quiet and loved him and he won. They
were in love then. Once she quieted down he slowed down the
horses and took her back to town, leaving her in the cage,
singing her a song. Back in town, all his friends, the Sons of
the Pioneers, got to see her come out of the cage, quiet, dirty,
and she got out of the cage, all the men knowing.
*
I had a cowgirl suit, a cowgirl hat, a gun, a holster. There was
nothing more important than being a cowboy, even though I
had to be a cowgirl because I had to wear a skirt, with fringes,
and a blouse, with fringes, and the cowgirl hat and the gun
and holster didn’t entirely make up for it. It was my favorite
thing to wear, even though we never did play cowboys and
Indians. It had more to do with wanting to be a gunslinger and
learning how to draw fast and shoot straight. I would practice
my draw for hours at a time but no one would go along with
me and have a gunfight. I would draw my gun on my father
and my brother, who would be wrestling and tickling on the
living room floor. There was vague disapproval of the gun in
the air and so I would shoot it outside and it would make a
huge noise and I would gleefully shoot round after round of
caps, a red paper that sort of exploded and burned. I had a
rifle too and boots. But it was the gun I loved, and Annie
Oakley. She wore a skirt and was a crack shot and once we
went to see her at a live show with Gene Autry. I wanted to be
her or Roy Rogers or the Lone Ranger, not Dale Evans, not
ever, not as long as I lived.
*
The wooden cage would hang from the telephone pole, hoisted
by a rope or a piece of clothesline. It would dangle there, the
14
girl inside it not easy to see. They would push her around
before they put her in the cage. Sometimes they would tie her
hands. The wooden cage hung over the black asphalt lined by
garages, some open, some not, and garbage cans, all the fathers
at work, all the mothers inside the houses or in the front on
the steps visiting. It would be desolate on the asphalt, boys all
huddled around the cage with the one caught girl, and slowly
girls converging back there from all the directions they had
run in, some coming back from a long way away, having run
and hidden, run to the very edges of the boundaries of our
street or having run up and down the back ways and in and
