I´m really sorry for taking so long with the update, but right now I have hardly enough time to work on my main projects and furthermore I will probably start a job in August, so time will be a rare thing in the future. But it doesn´t mean that I will stop translating the story. Of course not. It will only take more time between the updates. But I try to work as fast as possible. ;)

Learn from the master

Lillian, October 1785

Sighing I twisted the graphite pencil between my fingers and supported my head with my hand, while I skimmed through what I had just brought to paper. Over the last days I had got the motivation to continue the "Encyclopaedia of the Common Man", whose last entry had been three years ago. So many things had happened in the homestead since then and I thought that these things had to find their way into this journal. Myriam´s and Norris' son had been born, Connor and I had married, Davenport had been attacked and the mill had been destroyed and rebuilt one year later. There had been two hard winters in which we had shown our solidarity once again and finally Emily had been born. I had written everything onto a separate piece of paper, because I feared that I wasn´t able to be equal to Connor´s and Achilles' entries. But also now I wasn´t satisfied and frustrated put the pencil aside. I ran both hands over my face and finally looked down at Emily, who I had laid onto a fur next to my chair. There she was lying on her belly, fascinated pulling at the hairs, constantly uttering gurgling sounds. It was always a joy to watch her. In these six months since her birth she had gone through a great process, even though it felt like yesterday that Diana had laid a small, delicate bundle into my arms. Emily had an immense joy in rolling around somehow and discovering her environment with her eyes and hands and with all this liveliness, I always asked myself, what was going to expect me, when she learned how to crawl or even walk. Probably I was going to get more exercise, too.

I smirked when Emily rolled onto her back with a quiet groan and when she noticed that I was looking at her, her mouth twisted into a smile, which was quite close to a grin. She reached out her arms for me and gurgled again. Chuckling I raised from my chair, kneeled onto the blanket and grabbed her tiny hands. Carefully I pulled at them and watched how Emily sat up laboriously but slowly. Her torso slumped a bit forward, but she put her hands on her feet and kept sitting like that, obviously pleased with herself and still gurgling.
"Is there already so much you have to say?", I asked amused and again she gave me this grin which made my heart beat faster. I was incredibly proud of this little girl and likewise happy that she had been given to me. Only two years ago I had lost my hope to ever have a family. Everything had changed in an instant when fate had decided to send a grim assassin through my window, of whom I had thought that I could never bear his presence for long. But now I was sitting here with our daughter and watched her grabbing for my fingers, when I playfully tapped against her feet with them.

We kept playing this game a bit longer until it became too boring for Emily and she turned her attention back to the fur underneath her again. Her head turned slightly to the door and suddenly she kept still, as if she tried to see something that was there. I followed her gaze and smirked when I saw Connor. He was leaning in the door frame and looked at us. A fine smile on his lips.
"My, my. We´re secretly watched", I said to Emily who was still staring into Connor´s direction. He pulled away from the door frame, slowly approached us and when he kneeled down, too, Emily joyfully reached out her tiny arms for him. She had to turn her torso a bit and appeared surprised herself, when she lost her balance and fell backwards. In a jerk I reached out my hands for her, but Connor had already reacted. With one hand he supported Emily´s back before she could hit the floor and lifted her on his lap, where she uttered a quiet wheeze.
"Slowly, little flea", Connor murmured to her and gently stroked over her head. Emily squealed quietly but became noticeably calmer when Connor laid an arm around her and her head came to rest against his chest. She opened her mouth to a silent yawn and I shook my head smirking when she slowly closed her eyes.
"I should leave it to you to bring her to bed. You barely have her in your arms when she already falls asleep."
"She is just tired", Connor said and stroked his finger over Emily´s cheek, before he raised his head and looked at me. A smirk appeared on his lips. "I hope you did not want to practise war painting."
When I cocked my head in confusion about these words, Connor tapped on his cheek and I already wanted to stroke over my own, when my gaze fell on my hands. My right hand was covered with grey stains of graphite. I turned my flat hand to Connor.
"Is that in my face?"
When he nodded, I rolled my eyes and pointed at Emily. "Check her hands. It´s possible that I have...lost colour."

I stood up, put my writing utilities aside and went into the kitchen to wash my hands and face. Connor followed me, Emily on his arm and when I had washed off the graphite, I took a towel and did the same with her hands. Emily whined quietly because of the cold water, but obviously she felt too comfortable on her father´s arms to protest more.
"I will bring her upstairs", Connor said quietly and I was a bit surprised about this initiative. But over the last months, Connor had noticeably lost every kind of reservation towards Emily. Still I cared for her most of the time, but he insisted on taking her into his arms from time to time and give her the affection she needed and enjoyed. These ambitions from him had especially increased since he had returned from Savannah. He had told me what he had found out there. I was afraid of the thought that Ray seemed to have decided to take Emily and me to him and I doubted that he would ask me friendly to come with him. But I had felt that Connor was more worried about it in his own way. He was determined to stay by our side until Ray was eliminated. When Connor left the house, he always stayed close to the homestead and I had the strict order to not leave it on my own. Normally I wouldn´t like this restriction, but because I couldn´t guess anymore, what my brother was capable of, I agreed with it. For me it was only important that Emily was safe and I was as willing as Connor to do everything for it.

My husband just laid Emily carefully into her cradle and stroked over her head one last time, while I closed the curtains and shrouded the room in soft semi darkness. I stepped to Connor, wrapped my arms around his waist and watched him slowly rocking the cradle with one hand. Emily yawned again and smacked quietly, her eyes already closed.
"Do you think you can leave her under Caleb´s survey for a while?", Connor asked me quietly and I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because I actually wanted to pick you up for training."
I pulled away from the embrace to look at him and was entirely confused now. "What kind of training?"
Connor raised an eyebrow. "You wanted me to show you how to shoot and I decided that it is not a bad idea."
"Are you sure?"
"If I was not, I would not have talked to you about it", Connor replied dryly and carefully took his hand from the cradle. Emily had already fallen asleep and so we quietly left the room.
"So talk to Caleb about Emily and come down to the bay. I will await you there", he said and left. I looked after him, chewing on my bottom lip, because although I had asked him to show me how to use a pistol, I was now feeling uneasy. My request had been months ago and because Connor had said back then that he had to think about it, I hadn´t expected anymore that he was going to decide in favour of it. But he did and if he wanted to make the effort, I didn´t want to back out.

I went to Caleb by the stable and asked him to pay attention to Emily, before I walked on to the bay. Autumn was already close and so I was freezing a bit when I arrived in the bay and the cold breeze from the sea blew around me. I pulled my waistcoat closer around my body and approached Connor with my arms crossed. He was sitting on a rock and looked at me. I instantly noticed the doll, which was normally downstairs in the cellar, but obviously had to be my first victim now. Sceptically I scrutinized it and especially its position with its back to the sea.
"Isn´t it a waste of ammunition when I don´t hit the target and the bullets hit the water instead?", I asked, but Connor shook his head.
"It is better than ricochets hurting someone."
It sounded alarmingly reasonable.
Connor pulled away from his seat and pulled a pistol out of its holster on his belt. "Do you know how it works?", he asked and I shrugged my shoulders.
"Bullet inside, pulling the lever, pulling the trigger."
"A very short summary." Connor sat down on the rock again and indicated to me that I should sit next to him. I did and he gave me the pistol. It wasn´t the first I had in my hands, but until now I had never thought about using it. Now it appeared terribly heavy all of the sudden.
"It is not loaded, so it cannot fire", Connor said when he noticed my sceptical expression and tipped with his finger against the lever over the handle. "At first you have to pull back this lever until you hear a click", he started to explain and pulled the lever slightly back into my direction, until a click sounded. "Now you can load the pistol. If you pull the lever entirely back...", he did what he said. "and pull the trigger..." He lightly pushed against my finger, which was lying on the trigger and the lever snapped forward with an even louder click, hit another piece of metal which flapped forward and a sparkle sprayed out of a small opening where the end of the lever had hit. "the shot is triggered. Even if it is loaded, it will not shoot as long as you do not pull the lever entirely back. Do you understand?"

When I nodded slowly, Connor grabbed into the ammunition pouch on his belt and took out two little cans and one of the metal bullets. He took the pistol from me, grabbed it with one hand and took one of the cans with the other, opened its lid with his thumb, before he pulled the lever back until it clicked.
"To load the pistol you fill a bit of the fine gunpowder in here." He filled the black powder into the small opening. Then he took the other can and let a bit of the powder inside of it trickle into the barrel.
"The coarse powder comes in here", he commented on his doing and finally took the bullet and some scraps of paper which he pushed inside, too. Then he pulled a thin wooden staff out of a mount under the barrel and I heard a metal scrapping sound when he pushed everything together with it.
"You have to be careful not to push it to tight together, or the pistol could explode in your hand."
He pushed the wooden staff back into the mount and turned the pistol´s handle into my direction.
"Now it is loaded." Connor nodded at me whereupon I took the weapon with hesitation. "Remember. As long as the lever is not entirely pulled back..."
"It won´t shoot. I know."
Connor nodded, stood up from the rock, stopped a few metres away from the doll and beckoned me over to him. I sighed quietly, stood up, too and approached him, with a nervous tingle in my stomach and the pistol firmly in my hand. When I reached him, Connor nodded at the doll.
"Position yourself so that you stand firmly and aim at the doll. At the belly at first, it is the biggest target."

I did as I was told and when I had lifted my arm with the weapon, Connor stepped behind me, lifted my arm a bit more and made me stretch it.
"You have to look over the barrel, but do not hold the pistol too close to your face because you could hurt yourself. Squint your eyes a bit, too so that the smoke cannot burn in your eyes. Is the barrel aimed at your target?"
With a lightly shaking hand I tried to line up the pistol and when I thought that I was aiming correctly, I nodded. Connor took a step aside.
"Then pull back and shoot."
Taking a deep breath I pulled the lever back and I shivered lightly when I heard the quiet click. Now I was holding a loaded and prepared pistol in my hand. If I wanted to, I could hurt or even kill someone. So I was glad that only a straw doll had to bite the dust for now. I focused my gaze on it again but in a rather unconscious action, I slightly turned my head to the side and closed my eyes entirely, before I pulled the trigger. The bang of the shot and the pistol´s recoil went right through me, but when I opened my eyes again and looked at the doll, it was completely untouched. But in the distance I could see a fine mist, going down on the water. I had only shot some algae.
"You should not close your eyes!" Connor was frowning when he stepped to me and took the pistol out of my hand. "You have to keep your eyes on your target or you will not hit it."
With only a few movements of his hand he had reloaded the pistol and pushed it back into my hand.
"Again. And this time you will keep your eyes open and on the target."
I had to hold back a comment on his strict tone. I wasn´t used to him talking to me like that. But I had asked him to teach me something and probably I would never learn it correctly, if he was handling me with kid gloves. So I did what he had told me to do. I raised the pistol, aimed at the doll, pulled back the lever and kept my eyes firmly on my target, before I pulled the trigger again. I winced when I now saw the sparkles spraying out of the small opening on the upper and side part of the weapon. But now I did understand what Connor had meant when he had said that you should neither push the load too tightly together, nor hold the pistol too close to your face. The powder exploded inside of the barrel and so it got enough power to catapult the bullet out and this explosion gave vent through the openings. The bullet itself hit the water again, but I grinned in satisfaction when I saw a nick on the side of the doll, where straw was trickling to the ground.

"That was already good", Connor said, came to me and gave me one of the cans with the gun powder. "Reload."
I raised an eyebrow, but took it hesitantly. I opened it and gave Connor a questioning gaze when I held it over the opening on the upper side of the pistol.
"I will tell you when it is enough", Connor reassured me and I tilted it a bit. The powder trickled out and into the opening until Connor indicated to me that it was enough and I filled the powder from the other can into the barrel. Now I added the bullet and some paper and pushed everything together with the wooden staff, with Connor strictly watching me.
"You just had a tendency to the left. This time you should aim more to the right", he told me and I did it. Aim, pull, shoot. This time the bullet hit the doll in the side and enthusiastically I beamed at Connor. He was smirking about my euphoria, but obviously he didn´t intend to support me in it.
"Good, but you can do it better. You still did not hit what you wanted to hit. Again."

Eventually I stopped counting how many times I was reloading the pistol and shot at the doll. Sometimes I hit it more or less, but sometimes the bullets were missing it and hit the water. But despite of these failures and to my own surprise, shooting became fun for me, especially because I suppressed that I was actually practicing to probably shoot at people once. But for now I enjoyed learning something new and making progress in it. But with every hit I had, this joy went more and more to my head and I made mistakes in aiming which I normally wouldn´t have done and Connor became really annoyed about it. "Concentrate!" became his new motto, as well as "Do not think. Aim!"
Eventually I reloaded the pistol for one last shot and I intended to really concentrate this time and hit the doll´s chest, like Connor had told me. I aimed and shot, but I probably was so dogged in it, that I unintentionally moved the pistol. Straw whirled up when the bullet ripped the fabric of the doll open. Exactly where normally a man´s crotch would have been.
"Ouch", I uttered and almost laughed when I looked at Connor and could just see how he squinched up his face.
"Not the body part I was talking about, but not less effective", he said dryly, when he noticed my gaze and took the pistol out of my hand.
"I think that is enough for today. You have a good eye and you are learning quickly, but you have to concentrate more. You are too quickly distracted."
"So you don´t let yourself be distracted?", I asked, a mischievous grin on my lips. "Not in the slightest?"
Connor shook his head. "I have trained too long for that and in case of emergency, I cannot allow myself it."
He wanted to put the pistol back into the holster, but I grabbed his wrist and pointed at the doll, still grinning. "Then show me how to do it right."
Connor gave me a sceptical look, but he reloaded the pistol at last and trained it on the doll. But before he could shoot, I stepped to him, wrapped my arms around him and breathed kisses on his neck, stroked my lips up to his chin and lightly nibbled at his earlobe. Connor´s body tensed and from the corners of my eyes I saw how he shortly lowered the pistol. But then he raised it again and shot without taking time to aim again. The bullet bored directly into the doll´s head and I sulked.

Connor finally pushed the pistol back into the holster and when I looked up to him, he appeared totally pleased with himself. "I told you: I do not let myself be distracted."
"But you hesitated."
"And hit nevertheless." He tapped against the pistol´s handle. "We will practise again soon and then I expect you to concentrate and not search for excuses. Do you understand?"
"Yes, master", I replied, not really seriously, but Connor frowned and shook his head.
"I am not your master. If I was, you would not get away so easily."
With a serious expression he wrapped his arms around me, too and pulled me against him. "I show you how to shoot, so that you can defend yourself and Emily if you have to and not to stand in front of you as a teacher and give you orders."
Connor looked at me silently for a moment and when I became more and more serious, too, he smirked. "But it is pleasant that you really do as I say for once."
"I noticed that you enjoyed that." Now I grinned and lightly slapped my hand against his chest, whereupon Connor grabbed my hands and led them to the back of his neck, where I interlaced my fingers. He held me by my waist, when I had to stand on tiptoe for it and leaned his forehead against mine. We stood there like that for a moment and I heard Connor sighing quietly when I tenderly tickled the back of his neck with my fingertips.
"Thank you for taking time for me and having the patience to teach me shooting", I murmured. "I know that I´m not always easy."
"If I had not this patience, I couldn´t teach anyone anything. It had been more difficult with Caleb than it had been with you", Connor replied and pulled a bit away from the embrace to look at me. I smirked. How reassuring that I wasn´t causing more headaches than a twelve years old boy.
"And about the time", Connor shrugged his shoulders and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "It is not like I had to force myself to take it because I do not like to spend it with you. In the contrary."
"So can we stay a bit longer, as long as Caleb isn´t calling for me?"
"Of course."
Connor took his arms from my waist and I pushed my hand into his, while we went back to the rock. Connor sat down on the ground, leaned his back against the rock and gently pulled me to him so that I sat between his legs and could lean against him. He propped his chin on my head and we interlaced our fingers in front of my belly. Silently we sat there and looked at the water that was already turning red in the light of the setting sun. After all the shots it was now pleasantly silent in the bay and I hoped that this silence was going to stay a bit longer and not only here and now, but always and no matter where we were. Because my brother, the actual reason why we had come here, wasn´t on my mind right now. Not even for a second.