“Has Poppy read Calamity Jane’s stories yet?” I asked. “Those tales will get her stuck in a tree, avoiding her duties.”
Olive rubbed the ridge of her collarbone. “Suppose that’s what I want—for any sort of learning before school next fall.”
Poppy sprawled in the corner, playing jacks. Beside Sophia, a girl in taffy-pink ruffles and oversize bows vocalized opera scales. They spoke of putting together a play about Annie Oakley, the legendary sharpshooter who, myth told, had thwarted train robberies and slain beasts.
Willie hollered. “Minnie—you’ll perform Buffalo Bill?”
I had a strong voice for leading a backyard spectacle, my male characters a crowd favorite back in Kansas. Sophia rushed over and grasped my hands, begging me to play Buffalo Bill. Once I would’ve been the center of the carryings-on, but I didn’t want to perform tonight—I felt epochs removed from the carefree girl I’d left in Kansas. I shook my head and leaned against the wall between Olive and my brothers, haunted by the past. Even though Sophia was a handful of years younger than me, I felt comfortable beside her ma, the middle-aged homemaker. Willie furrowed his brow at me, then moved his attention elsewhere.
It was past midnight, the crowd frenzied as the party dragged on. A while before, we’d ate a second supper: The scent of warmth, of butter and popcorn, still lingered. Children slept—or whispered tales to one another—on coats in the barn. A bonfire raged outside, and the dance spilled from the crowded room into the starlight beyond. Willie wiped his forehead, his skin mottled with the flush of liquor.
I leaned closer. “You’re coming day after next to dig my well, right?”
“Come again?” Willie drummed his hand on his thigh, watched the crowd.
“You promised after Christmas to help with some repairs and my well.” I crossed my arms. Willie had been born lazy and never got over it. “Feel as if you’d be mighty distraught if I keep hauling dirt myself and that sandy soil caves in atop me, burying me alive.”
“Oh, right.” Behind him, ghostly hand-laced curtains framed a window. “We’ll come round in a couple days, promise.”
The marshal ambled toward my brothers, fingers thinning the curve of his mustache. Olive told me of her design for a new quilt, and I chewed my fingernail, straining to hear the marshal. As he’d heard tale of our family’s skill with siring thoroughbreds, he asked after Ezra’s opinion on breeding horses. For once, I was thankful Ezra took credit for my expertise instead of drawing me into the conversation. The marshal exchanged farming chatter for a span—I didn’t overhear any questioning about the missing outlaws. But I didn’t trust the marshal’s friendly demeanor. He seemingly cataloged each pioneer who populated his corner of outlaw territory. Marshal Canton looked beyond my brothers to the Browns, flicking open his pocket watch and snapping it closed. I told Olive I wanted to wander outside, then slipped into darkness, away from the marshal and his questions.
I stalked through the switchgrass, scraggly winter-dead thistles snagging my skirt. I sat in the meadow, an elm bough framing the expanse. The night echoed of the dance. Wispy, silver-tinged clouds raced across the sky, tiny starblazes winking through the gauze. I hugged my knees, the velvet sleeves of my overbodice bunching. The thistles crackled as someone approached. A cowboy hat and broad shoulders silhouetted as a static shadow before the movement of the sky. Stot.
“Forget your cloak, duchess?”
I lifted my hand, waggled my wrist. “You’ll share yours. You’re a gentleman, after all.”
He shrugged from his coat and dropped it unceremoniously on me, then sat beside me in the bluestem. I slipped my arms inside the long black slicker, its red flannel lining warm and cozy, smelling of smoke and wide meadows and linseed oil. We watched the sky, the calm of night shockingly still after the gathering. One Eye’s shaggy fur and pointed ears peeked between the nettle, as he stalked a circle round us, guarding our perimeter.
“You smoke?” Stot removed a cigarette from a leather case embossed with interlocking circles, the knotwork medieval or perhaps Irish.
I held out my hand. “Course I do.”
He reclined in the buffalo grass beside me, and I lay, too, lifting the cigarette to my mouth. I felt safe with him, and he seemed to view me as another comrade this long winter. Just two lost souls, taking a breath and watching the starlight. I dragged in the flavors of tar, my exhale fogging clouds in the cold air. I couldn’t become friends with that kind preacher by the name of Poor a mile northward nor that banker who chatted with me last week at the county store. No, I’d become friends with the notorious outlaw. Stot rustled his shoulders about in the groundcover.
“You cold, outlaw?”
“You stole my slicker.”
“So you’re cold?”
“Of course I’m blasted cold, Minnie.”
“Amelia.” I bit my lip. “So the vicious Lawman iscold.”
“You want me to act all tough or something?” His eyes were closed, his star-shadowed face softened by something resembling a smile. “You know I don’t need to. I’m terrifying no matter.”
“You don’t seem so wicked.” I unpinned my hat and laid it on the grass. “You’re insufferable, but I’m not afraid.”
“No,” he said. “I suppose you wouldn’t be.”
I decided to take that as a compliment, an observation of my tenacity and grit. Above, oak leaves crackled, and from off yonder—the whine of a banjo, the grumble of wind, the squeal of voices. Warmth from Stot’s shoulder brushed mine, as if I felt the borders of his body. One Eye stepped his thick paws between our legs. He turned and turned, then flopped, his body soft along my thighs. Stot petted One Eye, and I laid my hand across my mouth, warming my naked knuckles with my exhale. Stot yanked off his woolen gloves and handed them to me. I tugged them over my chapped fingers.
“I mined some coal last week from that shallow seam up north.” Stot slid his hands under his thighs. “Reckon I could cart over a bucket for you tomorrow, if you’d like.”
I thanked him—I hadn’t had coal all winter. “I’ve some spare parsnips, if you’d want to get them in the ground before the first snow.”
“I offered the coal to you. We don’t have to keep a balanced scale.”
