He placed his hand on my shoulder; I bristled.
“Much obliged,” he said, “for your resilience.”
“Alright.” I held my shoulders, my hammer pressed against my back, a handful of nails biting my palm, unsure what to say, uncomfortable with his hand on my body.
He gave a curt nod and walked away. Somewhere, buried beneath my walls and worry was the understanding that I longed for a genuine and decent relationship with my brothers. I never believed we’d have that in truth—Ezra cruel, Willie careless. Ezra helped a farmer in feed sack overalls hammer a plank, and I wondered whether homesteading would change him. Perhaps with the brutality of our last argument, with him failing in his duty to help round my homestead, perhaps he recognized the gap between who he was and who he wanted to be. Perhaps it was okay to hope.
“You gonna help or just gawk?” Stot’s low voice brushed the back of my neck.
I considered the community before me, the barn we’d built. “Just proud, is all.”
His chest bumped my shoulder blades as he shifted his weight. I leaned back, allowing myself a moment with him. He stilled, then draped an arm around me, his forearm along my collarbone. There was nothing unbecoming with such a position, I supposed. Willie often hugged me the same way. Our relationship was perhaps almost brotherly.
Stot’s arm felt heavy across my body, flannel soft against the baby hairs of my neck. All we had left was hammering up the remaining pieces of the barn, and then there’d be dancing. I was sick and tired of pretending I didn’t enjoy parties. I couldn’t just choose to be happy again, could I? It wasn’t right, after my past. I didn’t deserve to be carefree.
I felt wedged between past and future. I’d created a version of myself here. But I might be finished with her. Maybe I’d let her fade with the winter. Maybe I could begin again.
Stot brushed his thumb along my collar. Heat pooled in my stomach, the fabric making a dim scratching sound. His fingertip went back again, the edge of his thumb falling off the ridge of my blouse, the rugged texture of his fingers brushing my skin. I heard the bluster of wind, the clamor of hammers, the noise of many voices. He murmured in my ear. “What color are you wearing tonight?”
I stepped aside and straightened my skirt. For tonight’s game, the women laid a scrap of fabric from their dress on the table, and the men picked a piece, having to dance with the matching maiden for the evening. So I couldn’t just admit the color of my gown—that’d be agreeing to let him court me or something absurd.
I chewed my lips. “Midnight-dark navy.”
“Navy, huh?”
“Mm-hmm. Jetted lace, black needlepoint.”
“Likely,” he said.
He rattled a few nails in his pocket, propped his foot on a stack of wood. His chest was golden in the gap between his black cravat and white shirt. “I’ll figure it out,” he said.
Olive dashed up then, her calico skirt whisking behind her. She pulled me into a hug. “We did it.”
Asa shook Stot’s hand. I thought then of times long ago, on the sweeping limbs of a lone live oak, when Magnolia and I would hide from our chores. We’d sprawl across a branch, legs dangling, then hang upside down, ringlets trailing earthward, blood rushing to our heads, and read aloud fromGreat ExpectationsorThe Princess and the Goblin. More than anything, I’d wanted to live a life full of the sorts of adventure found in stories. After leaving Magnolia, I’d misplaced my ease in hushed, vulnerable moments with others. I couldn’t decide whether it was brave or foolish to hope. Asa rested his arm around Olive’s shoulder, and together they admired their new barn.
Olive tipped her face up to her husband. “Remember the plantation?”
Asa’s grip tightened on her shoulder, drawing her closer, and he nodded. I’d only ventured from my family’s farm, a few counties away—I couldn’t fathom the breadth between the lives they had once lived and their world now. Stot lifted his hammer and spun it. The banjo screeched, the song paused, and I tipped forward onto my toes, leaned into the stillness. I couldn’t see into the distance, it just heldthe murky smear of winter, but the haunting memories of my past began to fade.
I stepped forward and bumped my shoulder against the wall next to Stot, nails resting in my open palm. He took the nails from me, placed them in his mouth, and began again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ispun straight out sideways, my hand warm in Stot’s clasp, the dance an oil canvas of black and gold and distant evergreen. The burn of scattered starlight, the stretch of shadows between bodies, the wide swoop of a midnight moon. The shades of midwinter were fawn brown, mist white, obsidian; the scents deep earth, oncoming ice, faraway promises. Tonight the air was soft and thick, just a crackling singe of cold across my wrists, the clouds of fog as we spoke, veiled reminders that spring was months to come.
Stot had yanked me about the packed dirt all evening. Somehow he’d guessed my cerulean satin dress, with the wide bertha collar swooped across my shoulders. Before the run, I’d packed my chest with necessary supplies, but my ma must’ve added my party gown. I could envision her bending down, tucking the glossy blue fabric between an afghan and a lantern, always hoping for things I couldn’t see.
“How’d you know?” I’d asked Stot earlier this evening.
“You pretend you hate color. I know elsewise.”
I’d scoffed, and Stot leaned close, brushed a corkscrew ringlet bouncing above my ostentatious bow. “You adore parties. Love dancing.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to dance with you.”
He’d grasped my hand and dragged me to the patch of sparse buffalo grass that was the evening’s ballroom. I recognized there was nothing unbecoming partnering with him: just celebration, companionship, a dash ofmerriment. I’d danced away plenty of nighttides with Willie or any number of farmer boys. And so we’d danced. He did so with that effortless ease, almost as if he were some prop for me to spin about. He dimmed, let me shine.
The moon had long ago risen, the music dwindling from a fierce fiddling to melancholy. The violin lingered like a keening, and nighthawks sang into the silences. Even the bonfire dampened—but still we danced. We spun through polkas and quadrilles, schottisches and one long, slow waltz. I adored the colors, the noise, the sharpness in my throat, my body ragged, as if I couldn’t get enough air inside. Why couldn’t life always be like this? Easy laughter, no one hiding or judging—just dancing. I didn’t mind winding across the grass floor with Stot neither. I reveled in the raised brows and the reputation I crafted for myself. If everyone thought I was brazen enough to befriend a gunslinger, they’d leave me alone on my quarter section.
