“Welcome to the frontier,” I hollered and grabbed some Ball jars of blackstrap.
Beside Stot, I checked that the lids were screwed tight, then shoved the rum into his saddlebag. “If I’m missing the carryings-on, I’m at least getting sloppy at home,” I said.
“Alone?”
“You’ll join me, right?”
His fist clenched on the swell of his saddle. “Drinking.”
“Right.” I mounted Cricket and clicked my tongue. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Stot swung up, and then we raced across the subtle hills, chasing that thin curve of moonlight, my insides all shaky and eager and spun up like a tightly coiled cyclone, the wind and the trees telling tales of long ago women, the primordial voice narrating a connected thread, myself haunted not only by this life but by all those that had come before.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ireclined in the sweetgrass and tipped back my flask of brandy. Stot lay beside me, smoking. A high cloud stretched across the sky with shards of light blazing beyond. It smelt of space and darkness, that empty, clean scent of night. I took the cigarette from Stot as he told me about Asa’s plans for the barn, how everything had worked just as they’d hoped. They hadn’t known whether those crossbeams would hold. They had. They’d speculated that a northeaster might bluster on down. It hadn’t. I didn’t know the man could ramble, and yet here he was, going on and on, his wandering anecdotes somehow soothing.
We’d hauled Willie to my homestead, tossed him passed out across my quilts, then ventured outside under the starlight. Shadows scuffed across the curves of my land, as if the great paws of a bear pressed into the earth, leaving behind a graphite scratch of lines and patterns. I passed the cigarette back to Stot. He still spoke of the barn. He must not feel this press between our bodies, how the terrain between us was vivid and warm, as if I could run my hand through the air and feel a thickness, for he just lay there, eyes closed, rattling on. That was good, that he didn’t feel the vitality between us. He was a complication, all over. An outlaw and betrothed to another woman.
He scratched his beard, his typical scruff grown thicker. He sat up, legs wide, thigh muscles pressing against his charcoal trousers. “You hear about those brothers that were hung, out yonder by Waukomis?”
I nodded and took the cigarette from him.
“Rumor goes,” Stot said as he drew his knife from his holster and picked up a stick, “Bitter Creek questioned them, and the encounter went south. I know Bitter Creek—there’s a reason his earlier moniker was Slaughter Kid.” The dagger slid along the sliver of wood. “He’s unhinged. Ruthless. On some enraged quest about those missing outlaws.”
Disquiet crept up my back—Bitter Creek sounded terrifying. A vast foreboding spread across the frontier. I scratched at the dry skin on my wrist and waited, knowing Stot had more to say. He glowered at the shadows, as if he could tell them to return to their master.
“This story ain’t dying.” His fist clenched on the ivory handle of his dagger, the blade silvery blue. “Soon enough, the outlaws will target someone. I don’t reckon you turn yourself in, but what’s your plan, if your safety falls off the rails?”
I wasn’t telling folks what happened, setting myself up to be sent to kingdom come by unwritten law. If I told my story to the deputy marshal, our community could turn on me, call for my execution. Folks didn’t tend to believe a woman. My boots scraped through the mud, crackling crisp leaves. It was nonsense that killing those vile men was a crime. At the minimum, if I was convicted of a crime, my homestead would be ripped from me. I’d likely end up dead, in jail, or in an asylum. I couldn’t imagine life shut up behind bars. But—there were no bodies, no apparent crime. After time, folks would move on to the next rumor and this story would disappear.
“I’m not turning myself over to vigilante law.” I blew at wayward strands of hair. “Folks will rustle up some story or another of where the cowboys went. Seems like every idiot these days is chasing old gold in those abandoned Spanish mines of the Wichita Mountains. Perhaps I could plant that notion about.”
Stot’s bearing was tense, emotion braided down his spine, his grip all bunched up as he whittled. His blade flinched, lopping off the end of his carving. He dropped the pitiful twig earthward, then shoved his knife back into his sheath. “That’s one idea—but if you decide in some wild hair to confess to the marshal, you’ll allow me to accompany you?” he asked. “I’ll support you, no matter what you say.”
Anguish thudded at my temples. I couldn’t endure this man interweaving into my life, pressing closer and closer—when he could never be mine. His coiled body language, those shoulders turned toward me, the viscous, tangible possessiveness. He postured his protection as chivalry, but at the root, with him bound with another woman, his concern was cruel. To her and to me.
“All nature, why are you pushing me on this?” I asked.
He stood and flicked his slicker behind him, palms gripping his sable gun belt. “Chaos is rampant all across the damn county.” He ripped off his hat, raked his fingers through his hair. It smelt of oncoming rain: layered, earthy, primal. “I don’t know how to protect you in such a world,” he said, his expression unbalanced, forthright. The timbre of his voice rough, the edges bristly.
I stood, stepped below his brim. “Remember, cowboy—I’m not yours to protect.”
The hollows paralleling his cheekbones deepened, black hair curling away from his widow’s peak. Fury and frustration and something like fear knotted the ridge of his biceps, faintly visible through his white shirt. “I won’t allow you to get picked off by outlaws or vigilantes,” he said.
“Well.” I leaned in. He had freckles all about his nose. “I don’t need you for that.”
He gripped the knot of my wrap, yanking me forward. I yelped, stumbled over my boots, my eyes flashing to his lips. The moment stretched hot and undomesticated. I swallowed as he brushed his wide palm along the curve of my shoulder to cup the back of my neck. “No?” he said, his voice deceptively bland.
I lifted my chin, and his demeanor softened.
“I can’t balance it all.” His gaze roamed to my mouth, and I sucked in a gulp of air. A pause. Another beat. Then I slapped at his arms, shoved him off, disappeared a couple of steps backward.
“You’re engaged!” I yelled, breath ragged.
He clenched his jaw, a muscle ticcing along the bone. I let that notion hang—he had another woman to care for.
I thought of all that I carried, of all that I ran from. And I fractured—I’d judged Stot a good man, yet he was just as wretched as everyone else. People betrayed; all were broken. I’d learned that lesson already. Night sounds shivered in the trees, and faroff a nicker scraped against the wind—my palomino Whiskey rustling in the barn. I dropped to the grass and tipped my profile to watch the threadbare white clouds scurry across the starlit sky. Let time pass on by. Stot moved forward, the black toes of his polished boots a glimmer in the dark, spurs glinting like omens. He lowered to the grass beside me. He didn’t speak of his sweetheart, didn’t say anything at all, and the earth continued on turning and turning, night stretching on and on.
