Cowboy Girl Annie

Chapter One

Cowboy Girl Annie looked up above
the buildings at the cloudless, robin egg blue sky. This was a day
she could have enjoyed if she wasn't so riled. One of the warmest
days yet this spring, and it was still morning.

It didn't take her long to decide
she was warm enough she didn't need the long tan duster she'd
shrugged into earlier when the air was frosty.

Annie stopped her shopping cart and
wiggled out of the duster. After she rolled the duster up like a
bedroll, she laid it in the back end of the cart. No need to get
rid of the duster just yet. Early morning and evenings were still
too chilly to go without a coat.

Annie had just gotten a good start
on her daily rummaging hunt, and she was moving too slow to suit
herself. Her rusty, shopping cart pushed awfully hard already. The
right, front wheel had frozen up, and the other three were
squeaking like a sick mouse. That old cart was bound to wear her
out before it wore out. Her back hurt between the shoulder blades
from straining.

If the noise didn't drive her crazy,
the fact that she wasn't making her rounds quick enough would.
Moving slow made her anxious. She wanted to finish her morning
rounds of all the dumpsters as early as she could. If she didn't,
she wouldn't beat all the other rummagers to the good
stuff.

Annie's brown cowboy hat's wide,
floppy brim hung down over her forehead, shading her eyes from the
sun's glare. She pushed the hat up slightly, hooked a stray, light
brown curl with her finger and stuck it behind her ear.

Yip, it's a right sunny day. The
kind that made folks squint. She surely could use a pair of sun
glasses about now, but not much chance of finding a usable pair in
the trash. Who would throw away a perfectly good pair of
sunglasses? Nobody. That's who.

Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!
Annie stopped pushing the grocery cart and stood back to stare at
the offending wheel. She was feeling very temperamental at it for
ruining her day. Suddenly, she kicked the wheel with her worn, knee
length, left, black cowboy boot.

Annie grabbed her foot and hopped up
and down. Ouch! That purely hurt my toes!

The fierceness of the painful action
was enough to make her scold herself. What for did she want to go
acting so foolish? It didn't do her much good to grumble or have a
temper fit that dumb. What if she had broken her toes? She'd be
limping forever which wouldn't help speed her morning rummages up
any.

Annie glared at where the toe of her
boot used to be. What had been a small hole was now slightly
larger. The toe of her reddish gray Rockford sock was
exposed.

That outburst hadn't helped the
looks of her cowboy boot at all. If she found herself bootless one
of these days, where would she find another pair of boots like the
ones she was wearing? No where around this citified area that was
for sure.

For maybe the hundredth time, Annie
wished she had a chance of finding a different shopping cart. A
discarded one left in some alley that was in better shape than this
one would surely be a dream come true. That would be purely grand!
Why, it would be just like Christmas.

Her wide smile, showing uneven gaps
in her stain teeth, was caused by her daydream of a shopping cart
sporting a large red bow on the handle bar.

Annie's smile suddenly dried up and
was replaced with a down in the dumps frown. Realty set in again.
Annie slapped her cheek as if to wake herself up from the dream.
There she went again making wishes that could never come
true.

What she'd like to have to make life
easier for herself, and what she had to make do with were two
different realities. She always figured life was similar to a game
of poker. She called whatever happened in her life the luck of the
draw. That's the way it would always be for her, and she'd faced
that fact a long time ago.

What is is what is so her old daddy
always used to say. She had to put up with the old shopping cart
that was hers, because it was all she had. There weren't no use
working herself into a dither over it.

When she had time, Annie figured
she'd better walk by Jerry's Auto Repair Shop. She'd look around in
the driveway for a puddle of spilled grease to put in the
protesting wheel’s axle. That always got the wheel spinning again.
She'd have relief for just a little while at least.

The grocery cart was loaded which
made it harder to push even when the wheel didn't freeze up. She
had to allow for that, but Annie felt as if her finds were money in
the bank to her. She was purely glad for every item she found since
she always had something to trade.

Besides, she wouldn't know what to
part with if she had to throw something away to lighten the load.
Sure as shooting, what she threw away would be what she needed to
trade to somebody for something else next time around.

The black leather gloves with holes
in the fingers perhaps. Nah, if she hadn't traded the gloves by
winter, she could use them herself when the weather turned cold.
Besides, they weighed next to nothing which wouldn't help the
cart's weight problem.

What about the pair of scuffed men's
slip on penny loafers? She couldn't wear them. They were way too
big for her unless she wore several pairs of socks.

Besides, she preferred her cowboy
boots. Her boots went along with her outfit, a red cowl necked
blouse and a tan riding skirt.

There was a bit of wear left in the
men's penny loafers. Might be someone would want them bad enough to
trade her something that she could use for herself or sell for
money.

She didn't see any need to ponder on
the rest of the treasures in the cantankerous shopping cart. She'd
just make excuses for all the other items. She knew there wasn't a
thing she'd get rid of. Not after she worked so hard. She'd spent
hours rummaging in the city park trash cans and store alley
dumpsters just to fill the cart.

Annie shaded her eyes with a hand,
lifted her head and checked out the sun's position in the sky. It
was around noon time. Right now what she needed was some food to
eat. She hadn't eaten since yesterday's lunch. As if to remind her,
Annie's stomach rumbled like a couple dogs fighting over a
bone.

She pushed the cart by Smoky Joe's
BBQ diner. Coming up was the fancy hotel, The Sheradon. Those two
establishments shared an alley. Their trash barrels and dumpsters
were a good place to look for food scraps at lunch time.

The hotel had a high society
restaurant. At least, that was what she'd been told. If she tried
to stick her head in the lobby door to find out for sure, Annie
figured an hombre, in a black tuxedo, was bound to throw her out
before she had time to get a gander at the restaurant.

Just smelling the delicious aromas
coming from the two eateries kitchen exhausts made Annie hopeful.
If she was lucky enough to find fresh scraps in a dumpster from one
eating joint or the other, she'd have the energy to keep pushing
that stubborn cart the rest of the day.

Getting lucky was the key. She
didn't have much faith in her luck these days. If she had a
horseshoe in her cart, it surely would be turned upside down to let
all her luck run out.

Annie looked down the alley. The
long walk way was as dim and shadowy as dusk on the government
range where she once herded cattle. For as sunny as it was on that
spring day, not much light filtered between the two high brick
walls of the buildings. The cool, dim lighting sent a spooky
feeling running through Annie the minute she entered the alley. Her
premonitions were usually right so what was going to happen to her
next?