CHAPTER 18
Beck
◆
The dipper-letter had been in my vest pocket four days by the time I walked out to the freight stable on the morning of the fourth of August.
I had not unfolded it. I had lifted the carved birch dipper off the wash-basin shelf at five-fourteen on the morning Old Brigham crowed late, and I had seen Dear in her hand at the head and three small steady cross-outs below, and I had put the dipper back down.
I had carried the page in my vest with my father's stopped watch since, because I would not leave a folded thing of hers on a shelf where two other men passed for water.
I had also not told her I had it.
The slow way. The slow way always.
---
Tate was at the freight stable at half past seven, running the curry down the bay gelding's off shoulder slow.
I leaned my forearms on the top rail.
"Tate."
He finished the line he was on. He laid the curry across the post.
"Beck."
"Walk with me a minute."
We walked down the freight stable's long side to the south corner where the wagon-bay opens to the country and a man can see the south ridge without seeing the cabin.
I said, "I am taking Levi to her tonight."
He looked past my shoulder a quarter-inch left — his tell. Then he brought his eyes back to me.
"I saw you in the kitchen on the fourth of July."
I waited.
"I do not begrudge it. I have had her since."
He said, "I am driving down-pass tomorrow for two days. I would not have you alone, Beck. I would not have her alone."
I said, "Aye."
He looked at the south ridge a long count. The silver streak at his left temple caught the sun.
"Will you ask her?"
"I have not yet."
"Then ask her. And ask Levi. And the two of you ask her with the door open and the lamp lit."
"Aye."
He put his hand once on the rail beside mine — the rail, not my hand. Three breaths. He took it back.
"I will go down the pass at first light tomorrow with a quiet mind."
"Tate."
"Beck."
I went up to the cabin.
---
Willa was at the dough-trough — the gray work-skirt, the sleeves to the inside of her elbows, the bone pin at the nape, the gold band catching the kitchen light when she lifted the towel off the riser-batch.
I stood a half-step closer than the doorway wanted.
I took the folded page out of my vest. I laid it on the scrubbed plank table at her elbow.
She looked at the page. She looked at me. She set the towel down.
She said, "Where was it."
"Under the dipper. Four mornings back."
"You did not unfold it."
"I did not unfold it. I had no business in the inside of it."
I had not raised my voice. I had not stepped closer. The scarred palm scratched once at the right thumbnail and lowered. She watched it lower.
I said, "Willa. The slow way. You have lain with all three of us. I would not let the slow way mean we have not spoken about it."
The gray eyes went to the page and back to me. Her thumb came up to the cleft between her own eyebrows and pressed once and lowered.
She said, "Tonight."
I said, "If you wish."
She picked the folded letter off the table. She did not unfold it either. She put it into the apron pocket at her hip.
She said, "Levi and you. Both of you."
I said, "Both."
"And Tate is at the freight road."
"Tate is at the freight road. He knows. He asked that the door be open and the lamp be lit."
She drew a long breath. The pulse beat at the inside of her wrist where I could see it through the cuff went small and quick and then settled.
I said, "Yes or no, sweetheart. You can think on it."
"Yes. I have thought on it. Yes."
I moved a half-step back. I let the kitchen be the kitchen again.
I said, "Levi will come to you separately. The asking is doubled because the bedded man's word is doubled."
She said, "I know."
I left her with the dough.
---
Levi was at the corral rail at noon with the long line coiled at his left elbow. The chestnut was at the far side, white star steady between his eyes.
I came to the rail. I did not climb it.
"Levi."
"Mate."
"Tonight."
He set the line down on the top rail.
He said, low — low the way he says a thing when it matters — "Christ's teeth, mate. I have lain with her. I want her again. I will not stand in your way."
"We are partners on a claim and partners on the marriage paper. We do not stand in each other's way."
He laughed once, soft. The freckled hand came up to the cleft scar at his sternum and rubbed and lowered.
"I will ask her again at the pump this afternoon."
"Ask her."
I went down to the assay shed and did not watch from the porch when Levi asked her at the pump. The pump-handle's hoarse two-strokes-pulling-air came once and then the water came small and steady, and I knew she had nodded.
---
Supper.
The cabin's air at supper was at eighty-five degrees and it was not going to come down before midnight; no breeze tonight, no wind under the door. The kerosene lamp burned at the table's center; the cracked chimney threw its thin ray across the east wall.
Willa had cooked — a thin stew with the last of the dried apple she had saved (she had saved enough for two more pies; she does not save much), cornbread with the lard browned right at the crust, tin cups of springbox water.
The four of us sat: Tate at the west end; Levi and Willa on the south long side; I at the east end.
We ate slow.
Tate set down his spoon. He did not look at Willa first; he looked at me. He turned a quarter-inch and looked at her.
He said, "Tomorrow I am down to the freight road for two days. I would not have you alone, Willa."
She did not lift her spoon. She looked at him level.
She said, "I am not alone."
Tate's eyes came across the table to me.
Levi's came across to me too. The look went between the three of us across her shoulder for the time of one breath — not desire, not heat, not any other thing; the look that says aye, brother, the configuration is what it is and we will do it clean.
The brother's nod. Then Tate looked at her only and Levi looked at her only and I looked at her only.
Tate said, "Then I will go with a quiet mind."
Levi laughed once, soft, into his stew.
Willa picked up her cornbread.
We finished the meal. Nobody said anything more about the night.
Tate stood. He took his felt hat off the peg. He set his hand at her shoulder once — flat, no weight — and lowered it.
"Darlin'."
"Tate."
He went out and down to the freight stable to sleep in the loft so he could leave at first light. The door closed behind him soft.
Levi and Willa and I sat at the kitchen table.
The brass kerosene lamp burned at the center of the wood.
I said, "Willa. Levi. We have all three been with you. Tonight I would have you both with you at once if you wish it. If you do not wish it, we sleep three separate."
Willa said, "I wish it."
Levi said, "Christ's teeth. I wish it."
I said, "Then yes."
Willa said, "Yes."
Levi said, "Yes."
I said, "And we touch only her. We do not touch each other. Brothers."
Levi said, "Aye. Brothers."
I nodded once.
I took her right hand. Levi took her left. We walked her to the big bedroom — the indigo-and-cream quilt of the narrow rope-bed I had built and slept in alone since 1876 until June.
Levi stood at the threshold a half-second. He had not been inside the room before tonight. I nodded him in. He came.
---
I stood behind her at the foot of the bed.
I lifted my hand to her hair.
I took the bone pin out of her braid — slow, careful. The polished elk-bone slid out of the dark blonde coil the way it slid out for her when she set it down at night, the same exact path. I laid it on the dresser, at the middle of the dresser top.
I said, "This stays clean."
She did not turn her head. She breathed out once. She watched my hand come back into the corner of her sight.
Levi was at the side of the bed.
He undressed her — slow, the bodice, the six buttons of the bodice she had been carrying since June, the corset-laces a freckled left hand cannot rush at, the cotton drawers, the chemise.
He did not speak. He laid each piece across the chair at the head of the bed.
The lamp light caught the freckles across his shoulders when he turned to lay the chemise.
I undressed myself behind her. Shirt off — the chest tan to ochre at the wrists and the V at the throat, white where the shirt had stayed; the scarred left palm into the lamp-light, pink-white at the heel. Trousers off. I laid my belt on the dresser beside the bone pin; the buckle did not clink.
Levi undressed himself at the side of the bed. The cleft scar at his sternum was visible when he lifted his shirt over his head. The bone-and-rawhide charm of Tiller he had set on the dresser-corner himself.
We were all three of us bare. The lamp threw light on three bodies. Bay-rum at my jaw. Green-resin at his knuckles. She would have both at her throat in a minute, and that was a thing the cabin had not held before.
---
Levi got on the bed on his back.
She straddled him slow. She lowered herself onto him by inches the way I had lowered into her on the kitchen table by inches in the first July thunder, and she watched his face down it.
He was hard already. She took him by the head first, then more of his length, then settled her weight onto his hips.
His freckled hands came up to her hips and held there.
She began to ride.
I climbed onto the bed behind her — knees set wide on either side of his legs, the bedclothes between me and his thighs, no skin to skin. My thighs at the backs of her thighs. My chest at her back. The bay-rum at my jaw was at her hair and the green-resin off his knuckles was at her hip.
My right hand spread wide across her ribcage to hold her up. Her ribs were small under my palm.
My left hand at her chin. I tipped her chin up.
My cock was hard at her mouth.
I said, "Look at me, sweetheart."
She looked up. The gray eyes were bright. She took the head of me on her tongue first. Then she took more of me into her mouth, and her right hand came up and closed at my left wrist where I held her chin and the small careful pressure of her seamstress's grip closed there and stayed.