Chapter Twenty-Six
The twang of a banjo clipped a steady beat as I placed a pie on the sideboard. On the Browns’ homestead, the gathering simmered with energy, families from round our county arriving, the barn bee readying to begin.
Down by the wallows, morning light striking through the hardwoods, Stot and Asa hitched a wagon to an ox, the windows they’d crafted loaded onto the bed.
During the long, dark evenings on my homestead these past days, I’d gnawed on this notion of Stot being engaged.
As I’d washed my hands in a bucket, oil smeared along my palms and wedged beneath my fingernails, and as I’d scooped out the seeds from an acorn squash for supper, I’d considered whatever to do with Stot.
I’d concluded: Nothing had changed. He could still function as my closest companion—there was nothing untoward in friendship.
The only adjustment was that, before, I’d assumed he wouldn’t pursue a romance with me.
Now I knew he wouldn’t. He was too damn honorable.
In a way, there was freedom in clear boundaries.
As the cart rumbled across the furrows, the windowpanes reflected sunglow.
Stot led the ox, the distant sound of the creaking wagon wheels forlorn and aching.
Twenty or so homesteaders swarmed the Browns’ homestead, everyone preparing to raise the sides of the barn.
Women gossiped and served food, hair ribbons of every color snapping in the breeze.
Men speculated, rocking back on their bootheels, hands in trouser pockets or patting waistcoats for some chew.
A farmer beside me tugged on his suspenders, retold a tall tale of Davy Crockett, of how he could charm a grizzly bear and outhunt, outrace, outbuild, outgrin the lot of them.
Willie reclined against a stack of lumber, legs crossed at the ankles, tin of whiskey tipped to his lips.
He winked at me, then added some ludicrous exaggeration to the folktale.
Though I was thankful he’d shown up to support the Browns, a part of me splintered, realizing that I’d never been worth the effort.
I supposed he just came for the liquor and celebration.
Beside Willie, Ezra chopped wood, sweat wetting his brown button-down, the fabric ironed and pristine.
And Ezra, he came because he wouldn’t dare lax on his duty.
Willie pressed his hands to his back, rocked on his bootheels, paisley shirt bunching under his waistcoat. “You hear about that stunning roan quarter horse from Enid?” Willie asked me. “Homesteader swapped the stallion for a hotel. Fine horse to breed with Whispering.”
“It’s Whistlejacket.” I grabbed some nails from a pail, slipped them in my pocket. “And you never came to help dig my well.”
“Aw now,” he said, tugging on his mustache, “don’t be cranky. We’ll—”
I held up my hand. “It’s been dug.”
Ezra lodged his axe in the stump and wiped his palms on a piece of cloth. He scraped a lucifer across his matchbox, the flame a spark of orange. “Who helped?”
“The Lawman.”
Ezra grimaced, cigarette between his teeth, and Willie seemed unsure what to say.
“Don’t you dare give me any more promises.” I shoved a hammer in the crook beneath my shoulder, anger flashing hot along my back.
Stot hollered then that it was time to raise the side and methodically explained everyone’s roles.
Some nodded, but not everyone wanted to listen to reason from the Lawman.
I noticed Ezra’s lip curling in judgment, others wide eyed with nerves, sweaty hands brushing their trousers.
Stot played well the brigand: never smiling, boots heavy against the dusty ground, palm resting atop the wooden handle of his Peacemaker.
I dug my woolen mittens from my pocket and tugged them on, my hands raw and knobby; then I gripped a plank, the raw oak the undertone of wheatgrass.
Stot directed everyone to lift—there was chatter and grunting and the cascade of music, strands of hair escaping my twist, unfiltered light slashing our hands.
We pushed up the side, Stot guiding how to tug the ropes and pulleys, and soon enough we raised the wall.
Some held it upright as others hammered.
Stot crouched several paces away, a few nails in his mouth.
He aligned a hammer, his biceps straining against flannel, and caught my gaze across the grid of wood.
“You alright over yonder, outlaw?” I asked.
The lady behind me sucked in a breath, and a couple of men nervously laughed. Stot stood, lined up another nail. His eyes crinkled, just slightly, at the corners. “Actually, can you hold the wall for me, right here?”
I bit my lip, tasting the salt of sweat, and stood before him, my hands pressing the wood upright, everyone watching him.
Of course they did, he was so blustery and bold.
Different from everyone else—a tale just waiting to happen.
I understood then the tall tales of Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, those men larger than life, who spit lightning across the sky and dragged down the stars as a blanket.
Such presences that made stories. I glanced over my shoulder.
He pulled another nail from his mouth, his gaze sliding down my face. I gulped a bucketful of winter air.
After a time, I walked to the refreshments, straightening my skirt, altogether too hot.
Lord have mercy, it was tricky as a thorny bramble to be near him.
I flung fiery banter at everyone, but with him—my taunting became molten.
I must figure a way to exist with him, for his sweetheart waited, somewhere.
I scooped the ladle into the water bucket, and Willie joined me. He bumped me with his shoulder. “You know I love you—told you about that stallion, didn’t I?”
I hesitated, then bumped back his shoulder.
“But what are you going on about, anyhow,” Willie said, “being so friendly with the Lawman? After months battling these plains, you still have that death wish?”
I lifted the well water to my mouth, sipped. “Naturally.”
“You hear of that shoot-out by the township of Bison, day before yesterday? Couple cattlehands met a violent end.” Willie gnawed tobacco, his mustache bobbing.
His fussy cobalt and copper silk tie knotted loose.
“Rumor goes it was Bitter Creek—but could’ve just been some hell-fired vigilantes.
This vendetta between the Lawman and the bunch is a’brewing.
” His gaze roamed the crowd. I took a sip of water.
“Folks say,” Willie continued, “I reckon you’ve heard tell, that the Lawman murdered some woman and her baby. ”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, that’s what many a feller declare.”
“He’s complicated,” I said. “But he’s not cruel.”
I couldn’t believe Stot would hurt a woman and her baby—there must be more to the story. Willie took off his hat, scraped back his flop of wheat-brown hair. “You sure about that notion?”
“When have I ever been sure of anything?” I dropped the ladle in the bucket. “And what’s got you prying? Of everyone, you’ve always joined me in havoc.”
He resettled his hat, a showy sunburst motif burnt round the brim. “This one’s dark.”
He strode away. I didn’t know Stot’s story.
Had no idea why I’d found him by the water’s edge the week before, shot up by bandits.
But—did it matter? What were tales but one person’s perspective?
Dreams and phantoms. Even the stories I told myself of my own past, the stories I’d told myself the length of my life, all those stories had been delusions.
If I could lie to myself, well then, surely everyone lied.
Stot’s past probably was full of depravity. I just wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.
Who’d helped dig my well?
If not for Stot, I’d still be ladling out the piles of earth with my soup can. I didn’t know Stot’s secrets, but I knew he would be neighborly. At least for a little while. And a little while was all I needed anyhow.
After sweat and hollers and a thread of too-thin jokes, we finally had the sides raised.
We’d done it, the barn lifted against the colorless winter sky.
Willie picked up his banjo and charmed the crowd with his crooning.
And we celebrated: cider and cellar-cold apples and pie.
Ezra halted beside me, removing his gloves. He didn’t say anything.
The last time we’d built a barn together, I’d painted the dormers white with a flat, bristly brush.
Below our expansive live oak, Ma showed Magnolia how to cut dough for pie, Ma’s red gingham apron the anchoring color of the memory.
I leaned close to keep my paint strokes straight, Ezra correcting my every move from a pace away.
Since he’d finished schooling that spring, his irritability shifted to downright cruelty.
“Don’t need supervision,” I told him.
His bowler hat shaded his eyes, the bottom half of his face reddened in the thick sunshine. “Girls need a man’s direction.”
“Wait a minute, now.” Pa wiped sweat from his brow, his saw hanging at his side. “We don’t talk to womenfolk like such in this house.”
Ezra lifted his chin, his black mustache bushy.
They argued, Pa shaking his head, saying he hadn’t raised his children to be cruel.
I should feel wretched that a wedge drove between the two of them on my behalf—but I felt safeguarded.
I knew men could be vicious. I just hadn’t realized that the men I should avoid might be my own kin.
On Olive’s homestead, Ezra stood beside me, the same soot-colored bowler hat casting darkness on his scowl. I pressed back my hair. “What is it?”
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 from Great Expectations or The 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 held the 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.