Panhandle by Brett Cogburn Page B

greatest amusement for her. Her eyes held the same mischievous glint.
    I didn’t give myself time to register what she said. I was too caught up in the sound of her to listen. My tongue took off before I was ready, and I blurted out, “I came a horseback.”
    Billy staggered off to compose himself, but he didn’t laugh, I’ll give him that. I don’t guess he felt it was a laughing matter to watch a man shoot himself in the foot. Hell, I had shot my leg off at the knee.
    Barbara Allen held her composure as still as a corpse. I watched the strain in her face, and the tight-lipped straightening of her mouth. Once she had gathered a slow, deep breath, and let it out in a little shudder, she pointed a finger out the store’s front window.
    â€œIs your horse out front?” she asked dramatically, and I thought her acting technique decidedly unskillful and overplayed. “I so love horses, especially these wooly little Western ponies.” She started for the door.
    What did she mean “wooly little ponies”? I might refer to our horses as ponies, but that was just a habit. I didn’t mean cart ponies, or something. And Dunny sure wasn’t wooly. His coat was summer slick and shiny as moleskin. I followed her, and I was thinking of plenty to say.
    Out the door she went, and Billy and I like to have torn the doorjamb off going out it at the same time. We stopped at the edge of the street, and both of us took our most nonchalant and favorite stances. Dunny stood tied at a rickety hitching rail before us. I don’t know where Billy’s paint was.
    Barbara Allen stepped lightly to Dunny’s head, and he eased against his tie, eyeing her carefully.
    â€œYou gotta move softly around these Western horses, Miss Allen,” Billy advised.
    â€œOh, fiddlesticks! He’s as gentle as a baby.” And to prove it, she wrapped her arms around Dunny’s head, and pressed her face against his jaw.
    Now Dunny was generally a quiet, gentle horse who never got in a storm over anything, but he was always a touch skittish about someone handling his head. I’ll be danged if he didn’t just put his head in her chest like a lap dog. He stood there three-legged with his eyes half-closed, and ate up every bit of the petting she gave him.
    â€œHe’s a sweetheart.” Her voice had a strange tilt to it that I couldn’t place.
    â€œBilly claims he’s the best cutting horse in the country.”
    â€œIs that so?” She seemed mightily impressed.
    â€œHe’s all right,” Billy mumbled weakly.
    â€œCome on, Billy, tell her about him. I ain’t going to brag on my own horse.”
    Billy looked like he had bitten into something sour. “You wouldn’t want Dunny to seem immodest, would you?”
    â€œYou and those big words, Billy. You’re sure a talker when you get going.”
    â€œPiss on you,” Billy hissed under his breath.
    â€œSore loser,” I said quickly.
    â€œWhat was that?” Barbara Allen asked.
    Billy returned my slap on the back and answered, “Why I was just telling Nate what a fine day it was to be out on the town with a good friend with such a wonderful horse.”
    She eyed the both of us for a moment. “He is wonderful, isn’t he?”
    â€œYou could ride him if you want,” I said bravely.
    She cast a glance down at her dress and then back at me. “I don’t think I am attired for it. And besides, we don’t properly know each other.”
    The red rose in my face and my ears burned like fire. “Perhaps when you get to know Dunny properly you might ride him.”
    Our eyes met across the space between us, and for a minute I thought she was going to let me have it, but it never came. And then she did the damnedest thing, and winked at me. It was just one little quick flick of her eye, and the slightest hint of a smile. For a second I wasn’t sure if I had seen what I