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 of merriment.
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.
I brushed my cerulean sash tied about Stot’s upper arm.
Firelight gleamed on the sharp panes of his face, his jaw shadowed with stubble like smoke before a sunrise.
Circling the dance, some farmers played a spirited game of horseshoes and others chatted, sharing ways to establish a homestead.
Willie slumped on a wooden barrel, liquored up and flipping cards in a game of faro.
I hadn’t seen Ezra since sunset. Now it was just that stretch of dark before morning, a few fiddles and an accordion lending a bit of chaos to the midnight hours.
Stot spun me out, and I tripped over my skirts and then a stick.
He steadied me, hands on my shoulders, my chin knocking his chest.
I held on to his gun belt and laughed, my forehead against his collarbone.
My head fit perfectly. It was glorious to loosen emotions, to feel like I needn’t contain myself.
Stot could handle a blustery rail of laughter from some homespun woman.
His gaze slid to my lips, his exhale brushing the wisps of my hair.
With the boys from Kansas, I could surmise their thoughts. They were tame, predictable—manageable.
Stot? He was one wild unknown.
I flicked my gaze to his lips, and he leaned down a breath. My heart stopped.
And I sucked down my laughter in one big gulp.
He slid his palms over my shoulders, down to my wrists.
From the edge of the meadow, I caught Olive’s gaze, her thoughts plain as daylight: Lord, but what are you doing?
But we were just dancing. Just two friends who’d found a likeness in each other, just two lonesome pioneers.
And then, in between the clamor of the fiddle and the groan of distant wind, from across time and space, a woman narrated an outlandish story, not unlike those exaggerated fables of Davy Crockett.
I ain’t know much, but my pa says my soul’s lightning.
The boundary of a vision shaped across the prairie: a gauzy white Regency gown, axe resting against collarbone, golden embers floating about her frame.
She seemed an echo of the woman in my painting, and I supposed, with the shocks of lightning rising from within her, she must be folk legend Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind.
I remembered her story, had read it many times: Folks say I can blow out a moonbeam, outscream a coyote, and leap over my own shadow.
And yet—I glimpsed a real woman, not a caricature from a tall tale.
Sounds and scents returned me to the present.
The screech of an accordion, the smoke of winter bonfire, Stot’s hands, warm on my wrists.
I blinked, refocused. He studied my posture, brows drawn.
I untangled my hands, then walked to the edge of the party, slow and careful, the world hazy and tipping, my palm on the pleats of my bodice, atop my breastbone.
I couldn’t let the world spiral away, couldn’t allow myself to unravel.
The dancers were blurry shapes and flapping open jaws, loud and wobbly, and for a moment they didn’t seem real.
Stot slid a hand beneath my elbow. “You’re anxious again.”
I stepped away and rubbed my shoulders, cold. Why couldn’t we just keep on dancing, keep on having fun, without any worries.
He glanced at the tension in my hands. “It’s not everyone’s worry of making it to spring,” he said, “nor is it anguish from the first day as I’d presumed—your worry is something elsewhile.
” He shifted his weight, hands in his trouser pockets, shirtsleeves rolled to expose his wrists. “I don’t scare easy.”
No, he wouldn’t. He’d managed the cowboy bloodshed just fine.
But the possibility that I heard the voices of other women, from throughout time?
Stot was as lawless as winter was long, but he was also rooted to practicality, like a blasted post oak that’d been growing for an epoch.
He wouldn’t abide the whimsy that my land told me stories—and it was imperative to my safety that no one knew I might’ve caught hysteria.
Stot edged closer, shoulders right before my own. He studied me, as if he took me apart and rearranged me. “You can’t just keep tossing up barricades,” he said, “pushing everyone away, listening to wind sounds.”
I faltered backward. “What?”
“I’m not some two-bit farmer from Kansas,” he said.
“I see you watching the tree line, listening for something, painting women you don’t see.
All your bravado, I don’t buy it. I like your strength, but I also fancy your gentler parts.
” He lowered his voice; the bonfire reflected red in his black hair.
“I’m asking you to let me know you some, let me see the truth. ”
“The truth?” I scoffed. “Well, that’s rich, coming from the outlaw.”
“You know that’s not who I am.”
I stepped closer, below his brim. “Do I?”
His hat tipped low, a broody haze hanging about him as if he were some ominous god of war from another age. “You’re hiding something.”
“Oh, I apologize,” I said. “I forgot you adore transparency.”
“What does that mean?”
I threw my hands out. “I know nothing of who you are. You’re a wanted outlaw, for all manner of nefarious crimes, shot up by wayward bandits, presumably rambling about the countryside with bands of desperadoes—and I’m the one hiding something?”
“Mmm.” Crinkles fanned at his temples. He clicked open his pocket watch, closed it. “The tales are more interesting, perhaps.”
“To hell with tales, I’d rather the truth.” I crossed my arms, the rim of my collar brushing my forearms. And he had some sweetheart back home, wherever in netherworld that was.
He ran his thumb across the gold engraving on his watch. “Would you?”
I tipped forward on my toes, spoke in a mock whisper. “I don’t spook easy.”
He laughed, low, guttural, and shook his head. He pulled his flask from his pocket and drank. The muscles bobbed on his throat.
Sophia spun past, her palm rested atop some dandy’s hand, the bell of her petal-pink gown curving. Such youth, such innocence, somewhere perhaps I’d never been.
He regarded the crowd, which was sloppy and fraying at the ends. “Come on, let’s dance.”
I held my shoulders, fingers clenching satin. I released my grip, sighed. “Liquor first.”
At the refreshments, I shoved a pastry in my mouth and grabbed some jars of blackstrap rum. Stot rested his forearms on the table, leaned toward me until I halted and looked at him. “You wonder about my past?” he asked.
“You don’t notice how everyone watches you, whispers about your secrets?”
“I mean, sure,” he said. “But you don’t care a whit about gossip.”
“It’s a turbulent story, right?” I propped myself against a mound of hay, crossed my feet at the ankles. The blackstrap tasted of warm molasses and the deep of night. “Who doesn’t love a scandalous tale?”
Stot pressed his shoulder against the haystack, turned toward me. I couldn’t think with him this close. A gap opened inside me, dark starlight full of so much space.
With Stot, it seemed as if speed didn’t matter. I wasn’t sure what did matter to him, but it wasn’t memory, time, ages rushing on past. It was as if ol’ Wild Bill told his tales of Stot. Take time, Wild Bill had said. Be sure and not shoot too quick. Many a feller slip up for shootin’ in a hurry.
On a sudden a noise punched, a ping ringing off a stump. I dropped to the ground, spilling my rum.
Gunshots.
Stot crouched behind the hayrick, gun pointed at shadows. The music vanished, replaced with shrieks and swishing clothes as everyone rushed for cover. I yanked my pistol from my ankle holster, bent behind Stot’s shoulder, gun raised. More shots rang out. Whispers, cries, pounding boots.
“Outlaws?” I whispered, scrutinizing the black expanse.
A zip soared beside the hay and thunked into wood.
“There’s a land,” a voice twined into the night, belting a melody, “that is fairer than day.”
Blazes, that was just Willie, drunk as all wrath on applejack, thinking he’s in some sharpshooting tournament.
“Willie Sheridan Hoopes—” I yelled. “Stop.”
I crept forward, gun trained. Backlit by the low moon, Willie ambled toward me, pistol loosely held, crooning his ridiculous song. “In the sweet, by and by.”
Shooting at his feet would just spook him. I must get his gun. Willie stumbled over some craggy bluestem, his gaudy scarf catching the firelight. I crouched behind a barrel, my hands clammy on my Peacemaker. There was a blur from the side as Stot tackled him and wrenched the gun from his hand.
“The dickens?” Willie slurred.
Stot punched him square in the face, knocking him out.
I rushed to them, skirts held in one hand, six-shooter pointed at the ground. Stot glanced up, jaw tight. “He’s unacceptable.”
I flinched. Stot was furious. I leaned over my legs and gusted a delirious laugh.
“You’re laughing.”
I yelled over my shoulder. “Everything’s fine—” I collapsed onto the ground, legs askew. Called out, “Just a half-wit. We got the gun.”
Stot unmanned Willie’s other weapons. “I don’t find this funny, at all.”
I wiped at my tears. “Ah, hell. No, it’s god-awful.”
I pressed against the grass, held myself steady. Stot checked Willie’s breath, then hefted him up. “Countryside full of selfish, dangerous fools.”
I followed, and Stot tossed Willie over his stallion, the gold chain of Willie’s ornate pocket watch silvered in the moonlight. Stot wasn’t wrong. The slapdash towns were rum-full of drunk cowboys shooting out the lights and galloping about with feral madness. This was still the Wild West.
“You coming along,” Stot asked, “as I haul him home?”
“I just wanted to dance.”
Stot paused tying Willie to his mustang, a lightness flooding his eyes. “You truly like dancing, huh?”
“Mmm.”
The night air smelt of fire and sugar, apples and gun smoke. I stumbled backward a few paces, then raced over to the hayricks. The townsfolk murmured in fragile clusters, shaken.
“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.