We sat together before the fire, One Eye yelping in his sleep, a candle guttering over a brass chamberstick, and considered all that had come before. I supposed loss was never easy. He unwound the blanket, and his fingertips worked at my top button. “At least shuck these overclothes, let me hold you.”
As he unbuttoned my blouse, rain plinked on his metal roof and heat from the fire slipped down my neck. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt a more sensual moment than him helping my worn body from my stiff clothes, shaking the blankets to check for critters, leading me in my chemise to bed. He tucked me below quilts, then slipped outside to check on the animals. With the windstorm howling outside, the air scenting of warm, sweet beeswax, I realized I could begin my life all over again.
After a time, Stot came back, scenting of rain, and changed into his nightclothes. He stoked the fire and joined me in bed, his long, hard body warm behind me. He held me, his inhales and exhales steady, storms roaring beyond. I rubbed the wiry hair on his arms and snuggled closer, his body a comfort on such a night—and I recognized I’d found something not yet nameable in the wide unknown.
In the morning, with sunlight flashing through his sheer curtains and the sparrows spiraling in their song, with the crackle of woodfire and the distant sound of cattle, in that ease of bright, honest, unhidden day, I reached for him. He woke, swept me below him. I wasn’t sure of much, but I knew he wasn’t just a reaction to my tragedies, he was something I chose.
Chapter Forty-Six
Hours later on my land, sunrays slashed through low clouds. White mist soaked golden prairie, moisture and haze distorting shape and distance. Though my homestead was mostly unharmed, the tornado had demolished a section of my fence and uprooted my new fruit tree. A robin landed on my orange tree, the severed trunk now just a gnarled arch. The branch snapped beneath the robin’s rust belly, the bark crumbling toward the earth. I felt sorrow at the storm’s destruction, but after the calamities I’d survived these seasons, I recognized my own resilience. I’d begun this race believing I was without control, but I now knew: I was unwavering and resolute. I would rebuild what was broken.
Stot grasped a fence post, tossed the smashed wood aside. He’d rolled up his sleeves, the veins and muscles of his forearms slick with sweat and dusted with debris. I lifted my orange tree, settled the mangled roots back into the underneath. And with a dim hope that my tree would revive, I shaped soil around the root ball. Home was more than the soil and the wood and the nails. Home was something alive, something intangible that you could just about touch.
I shaded the morning sun with my hand, the springtime air soft, scenting of sweet peas and burning. Across the pasture, Stot organized the broken planks of wood, muscles bunched against his cotton shirt, ash smudged on the brim of his hat. He was so handsome. His goldenjaw, those piercing eyes, that languid, confident way he held his body. His black vest matching the shadows, sable gun belt settled over his hips, Stetson catching all the sunlight. I wanted to build a life with him, but no matter what I believed, no matter everything, I just couldn’t shake my fear. I didn’t know how to trust. Stot wouldn’t hurt me on purpose—he wasn’t cruel. But he wasn’t a gentle man. He wasn’t a safe man. I supposed nothing about love wassafeanyhow. For someday, some way, he’d break me. Not because he had a pinch of wild in him, he’d fracture my heart because hearts weren’t made to be whole all the days of one’s life.
My bravest adventure wouldn’t be fighting fires or battling bandits or navigating hysteria or building this homestead, the bravest choice would be to love him. I lifted my black boots from the soil and stepped forward.It’ll be messy,a woman’s voice said from beyond time, and I agreed. But I didn’t want life any other way.
At twilight, I wandered to the creek to wash, then reclined on the bank, watching starlight ripple across the stream. Beyond the forest, I smelt distant fires. I tasted smoke and earth, the flavors bringing to mind the apparition from the evening before. A premonition of my land mutating into that desolate landscape should’ve been horrifying, but somehow it was hopeful to observe my land endure.
The history of women would continue on after me, stories forever enfolding together. Prairie Rose and Willie Matthews, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind and my descendant, they were all legendary women, all immortalized inside grand tales, myself just one stitch on the elaborate patchwork quilt of time. Our interwoven lives creating a new sort of history. I gripped the soil along the bank, and I listened. Waited for the women of ages past or ages future to speak to me. It was the earth who spoke this time:
The story is always beginning again.
I closed my eyes, felt the weight of night’s darkness, and began to tell the women my own tale, speaking aloud into the night. A while later I heard Stot approach, the rhythm of his spurs dragging through the groundcover. He lifted my plait and kissed the nape of my neck.
Then he slid his arms around me, settled me on his lap. I wrapped my blanket cloak across my chest, the springtime darkness cool. Above, the stars slipped round the firmament, those faraway sparks crisp, then fuzzy and indeterminate. Memories of Kansas dimmed and blurred, bygone reminiscences reshuffled beneath the weight of new moments. Memories of these past seasons flickered in and out: fire scrambling down my hazel branch, the blaze searing my palm; brushing Cricket’s black ankles in the deep of winter, a southern wind howling outside, voices chattering in the grasses; Stot’s white shirt rolled up over his tanned forearms; the sun slipping below the treetops, saturated watermelon-pink and orange; cracking open popcorn balls with Olive; yellow wildflowers sprouting the first warm morning of springtime; all the moments gathering, as I rewrote my history. The stars sharpened with many colors, and when I thought into my future, the landscape was hazy and faraway—but beautiful and arresting.
Stot rubbed his stubble, the sound a subdued rustle. I turned and he dipped his head, touched his lips to mine. He kissed me, soft and yielding—the moon roved across the sky, the night’s glow filtering through the overstory, and in time we left the forest, Stot holding my hand and allowing me to lead him across the meadow, my shack and barn resembling oil pastel–sketched shapes in the dark. I wasn’t sure when I’d begun to love him, perhaps that first moment in the swampy rivulet, but I knew now that I chose him. “I’ve decided,” I said.
“Come again?”
“I’m done being scared.”
He stopped, propped his foot on a stack of wood. “When have you ever been scared?”
“I’ve beenterrified.” I fiddled with the cuff of his shirt. “Terrified that if I lived, I’d ruin the world—”
His gaze roamed over my face, over lips, eyes, jawline. He waited. A scraggly juniper bush scented of citrus and tomorrow’s rain. I said, “You’re all my options.”
“Yeah?” He folded my hand in his. “We can get married?”
“Marriage?” My bootheel caught in the juniper.
“I’d like to get married.” He stepped forward, slipped his hands round my back. “You like what’s boundless and exhilarating.” Crinkles fanned beside his eyes. “But I like what’s old fashioned, what’s predictable. I like calm evenings and knowing that at nighttide you’ll sit with me before our fire. There’s nothing wrong with boring.” His fingers brushed up my spine. “There’s the person I am in all the tales, this man storytellers created, but I think you know what’s true: I want a life where you’ll be beside me on our porch, heckling the sunset.”
I straightened his jacket lapel, lifted a brow. “Was that a proposal?” He shrugged. “James Solomon Umstott Tharp—try again.”
He lowered, one hand holding mine, his grin upending me, and dropped a knee to my land. He dug his fingers into the groundcover, scooping up a handful of soil. “I’ve no ring yet.” His voice was rough, that deep rumble of earth. “But I offer you all the possibilities of this home we’ll build together. I cannot promise to protect you from the tragedies of life, but I will walk beside you through it all.” He brushed his thumb across my knuckles. “I love you. Marry me?”
I dropped to the dirt and took his face between my palms, kissed him. I didn’t know how we’d conquer the next obstacle, but I knew that with Stot beside me, my life would never be without hope.
He broke our kiss. “Damnation, are you marrying me or not? Stop being stubborn—I know you love me.”
“Absolutely.” I drew his mouth back to mine. “And yes, I love you.”
We sat together and kissed a long while, with the rumble of the wind and the narrative of the trees and the thud of Stot’s heart against mine. I’d delighted in the wide quiet of my homestead, but I didn’t want to exist alone anymore.
After a time, with our horses pawing at the sideoats and the smell of springtime flowers crisp in the air, we made our way on toward my home. The haze had lifted, and in the starlight I could make out a graphite sketch of contours, the shape of the earth. The hollows, the secrets, the renewal buried underground. My land was alive. She would endure.
