We left the water, Willie tossing Lark a blanket, the group of us settling under the broad water oak along the bank. “Whiskey,” someone yelled from the shadows, neighbor boys running downhill to join us, hauling a barrel of red eye. We talked the midnight hours away, the night sky clear of clouds, stars bright and crisp. Willie leaned against the trunk behind me, Lark now clothed in overalls from someone’s cousin.
“So who’s all headed to the Strip this summer?” I asked.
Willie pumped his fist and howled. The other boys were unsure. “You rushing, Minnie?” one of them asked.
“Absolutely.” I knocked my head toward Lark. “This feller here, Magnolia, my brothers, and I plan to find plots alongside each other.”
Growing up, everyone knew Lark and I would someday marry, but now that the Strip would open soon, I didn’t suppose we needed to hurry. We could continue on as we always had, finding plots of land alongside each other, living as closest friends and neighbors, and then, after I’d proved up on my land, we could marry and have children.
“Willie,” I said, “we’re linking up with one of the big groups, right, maybe those founding the city of Woodward?”
“Mmm.” Willie drank his whiskey and looked over his shoulder, scanning the distant party, surely wondering whether another gang was up to something more fun than us. Willie looked at you like he was searching for the next thing. I nudged his boot, brought his attention back. “Woodward?”
“Willie,” someone hollered from uphill, “you down there?”
“I am alright.” Willie pushed off the tree and straightened his waistcoat.
“We’ve got a baseball game rolling,” a neighbor said, “need you as captain.”
“On it,” Willie hollered and hastened uphill. The others followed, leaving me at the creek with Lark. I lifted my brows. “Baseball?”
Lark kneaded the back of his neck. “I like the pond at night. We could stay?”
I clinked my glass against his. The moment stretched long, somehow heavy and awkward. I rubbed my shoulders, warming myself. “The quiet feels thick-full of thorns,” I said. “Why does this feel odd?”
“Everything’s changing.” He brushed a lock of hair off my forehead, his gaze stuck on my lips, his features indistinct in the understory. “I’m okay with that.”
And then he kissed me for the first time, his skin a bit colder than usual. A flush of surprise, of hunger—I wanted so much. His fingers gripped my hips, my hands caught in his hair, the strands stiff like fraying wheat. And then we stumbled into the deep shadows behind the cedars, his hands tugging at my skirts, me fumbling with an overall buckle. There was a click as the metal loop slipped free of the button shank, his breath hot and ragged against my neck, and then we were having sex, his eyes wide, my gasps erratic.
It had been fun, we always had fun. But then it ended. On my homestead, the air blustery, I tucked my shawl up tight under my chin. Being intimate with Lark had been inevitable, ever since the two of us had raced around as toddlers, tangling up in all manner of trouble. Of course we’d ended up unclothed down by the creek. I’d just thought at the end of our wildness, we’d marry and dash off somewhere together. But—he’d never intended to marry me. I edged the tip of my shovel against the rock, the scrape shrill in the quiet. The sky darkened. Lark was my oldest friend, and I’d lost part ofmyself when he’d stayed behind. But I didn’t miss him, not truly. I didn’t want to return to my life in Kansas, didn’t want to socialize tonight with folks I didn’t know at some dance, but tarnation, I was exhausted with digging and building and pressing through my days, a blur of maintenance and chores and sprawling across my couch when dark hit, etching out letters on my crosswords. There was a part of me, buried under these seasons of mourning, that desperately needed something more.
I yanked open my door and shoved my hands on my hips. My woolen corset dangled from a cupboard. I should probably wear that. I frowned down at my timeworn linsey-woolsey shirt and ripped the wincey over my head. I shimmied into my corset and buttoned it over my chemise. I reached behind and pulled the ties tight, jolting myself back into proper society. Then I dug about my chest for my fancy attire. Wool petticoat, pine-green satin skirt bordered with velvet, ivory overblouse, emerald bow knotted at my throat, smart damask jacket, barrettes nested in my hair, and muff warming my hands.
I spun to my mirror. A grin shocked wide at my wild hair and proper outfit. I looked ready to ruin adventure. Well, of course I was. But most surprising—I couldn’t wait.
Chapter Seventeen
The shack’s walls shuddered from the rollicking piano and fiddles, the harmonicas and hollering. I leaned against the wallpaper next to Olive, gripping a decanter of applejack brandy. The one-room home was cheerful and scrubbed clean, kerosene lanterns and tallow candles lit, furniture dragged outside and rugs rolled up.
“And gawd,” Olive was saying, “the rattler just went up into the eaves of our soddy. Sakes alive, the critter’s just living up there.”
I snorted. “I would’ve shot the ceiling out.”
She leaned against Asa and sipped her brandy, the golden candlelight gleaming on the voluminous sapphire gigot sleeves of her gown. “You know, probably should’ve done such a thing,” she said, “collapsed our mud ceiling down upon us.”
“It sure was a sight,” Asa added. “Olive screeching, snapping uselessly at the air with her apron, the children racing outta doors into the rain.” He chuckled. “They came in after a spell, joined me back at the table to finish our turnips and venison.”
A rapid-paced quadrille began, and Thad, their teenage son, grabbed Sophia’s hand and led her bounding across the room, their elbows linked, bare toes pounding the wood-planked floor.
“Can’t believe we’re living such stories,” I said. “Not sure how anyone will survive until spring.”
“Oh, we will,” Olive said and clinked her glass against mine.
That seemed the vibrant truth of Olive. She tenaciously sought a safe and hopeful future for her family. Tonight homesteaders gathered from throughout the territory, as far as horse and buggy could pass word of a dance. Willie gripped the shoulder of a farmer in a grain-sack shirt: my brother’s cheeks red, leaning in too close, his voice just below a yell as he emphatically told some story or another. Ezra stood beside Willie, wiping a splotch from his mug, bushy eyebrows a dingy shadow color in the dark. Across the room, US Deputy Marshal Frank Canton slunk from one cluster of pioneers to the next, his hands grasping shoulders, long-stemmed pipe dangling from his mouth, golden star a glint in lamplight. His gait was languid but his eyes shrewd. My stomach felt scraped hollow, terrified of what it meant to have a lawman establishing control in our territory. Folks were curious about those missing cowboys, but hopefully the marshal had grander worries than two lost bandits.
Under the glow of a kerosene lamp, the Lawman leaned against a doorway, a tin of whiskey dangling from his hand. Stot had brooded there most of the evening, arms crossed, withdrawn and nefarious. Next to the farmers clothed in shades of dust, Stot was shockingly full of contrast: black hat, black vest, pressed white biled shirt, shined boots. Gun belt oiled and low across his hips. Though we lived our life in the dirt, in layers of earth the colors of murky and rust, his shirt was always clean, stiff with white paper collars and cuffs, spurs gleaming, black wool trousers faded but clean, as if working his land was a sacred act.
“The most reckless buchario in these hills,” Olive read from a piece of newsprint shoved into a crack between the shack’s boards, a page from a chapbook. An inked drawing of Calamity Jane wiggled from the crevice, her waterfall curls windblown beneath her cowboy hat, elegant throat contrasted beside her dark jacket, hands clasping her mare’s reins. I knew the next words in the story, had read it so many times before:She can drink whiskey, shoot, play cards, or swear, if it comes to it, but’twixt you and me, I reckon that’s a gal who’s got honor left with her grit.
