Chapter 21 #2
“Isn’t it?” he says. “He can be so cruel with his judgments, and impossibly rigid with his rules, and yet she simply agrees every step of the way.”
“What choice does she have?” I say.
He turns to me as if betrayed I’ve joined in and sided with Boone.
“Do all of us not have free will?”
“Free will ain’t the same for all people,” Boone says. “You know better.”
Okee sits back in the chair, exhausted enough to let Boone manhandle him without protest—scrubbing a broad hand over Okee’s upper arms and shoulders like a man drying down a horse, beating the cold off him.
He gives Okee’s ankle a last firm squeeze through the sock, then rises with a grunt and reaches for the coffee pot. “Well,” he says, “if your daddy’s answer is wait till spring, then we best figure how not to die before spring gets here.”
Okee takes a swallow of coffee, winces, then another, slower this time. “That is more or less my conclusion.”
Some little bit of color begins to creep back into his face.
I move to the stove and ladle beans into a bowl. Fort Gibson. Mother. The Gemini. The thought of her rises in me, strange and painful, like pressing on an old bruise to see whether it’s still tender.
Behind me Boone paces. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
Okee stares down into his coffee for a moment. “He said if we can get Lula there come spring, he’ll have her statement taken. Witnessed, entered into the record. Once that’s done, Hollister’s handbill won’t be the only account in circulation. That’s it.”
I turn with the bowl in my hands.
For the first time since settling here, I imagine being apart from them. I stand with the bowl warming my palms and, for one startled moment, see the room split in two—Okee and Boone gone God knows where, and me turned toward Fort Gibson. The thought leaves me cold clear through.
Later, we lie before the fire. Okee is stretched on his side, Boone half against him—Boone’s head pillowed near his shoulder, Okee’s arm draped loose across his back.
The fire lays a red shine over both of them.
Boone’s face has gone easy in the heat. Okee’s thumb moves absently now and then where it rests against Boone’s side, as if he does not know he is doing it.
I sit close enough to feel the warmth of them and far enough to know my place.
Our shared affections seem to be forgotten, Boone and Okee returned to their couple’s routine.
It was a foolish thing.
An impulse I should never have indulged.
“I ought to give you two privacy,” I say, climbing to my feet.
“No,” Boone says, quick as a reflex. He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks at me like the thought itself offends him. “Come here.”
I hesitate, but Okee reaches a hand toward me in invitation from where he lies stretched beside the fire.
“You needn’t go off,” Okee says. “Come. Join us.”
He catches my hand when I step close enough and gives a gentle pull. I sink down awkwardly at first, and Boone shifts at once to make room.
“Here,” he says, patting the space between them with a chuckle. “Sit proper between your two favorite outlaws.”
My cheeks go hot despite the chill that still clings to the room beyond the hearth as I lower myself between them.
Boone settles close without seeming to think anything of it, one arm slung loose behind me as he stretches back out. Okee draws the blanket up over our legs and tucks the edge near my hip with absent care.
“There,” Boone murmurs. “That’s better.”
For a little while none of us says anything. The fire cracks and hisses. I can feel Boone’s heat through his shirt, and Okee’s shoulder is firm and quiet against my own.
“No sense wasting wood to heat the whole cabin,” Okee says after a time, his voice gone drowsy, breath warming my scalp. It sends gooseflesh trailing down my arms. “Might as well stay here tonight.”
Boone tips his head back against the rug and shuts his eyes. “Fine by me.” Then after a beat, he glances at me. “Long as you don’t mind.”
It ought to feel improper, the three of us before the hearth like this, bedded down in firelight as though such an arrangement were the most natural thing in the world. And yet with the blanket over us and their bodies bracketing mine, the cold kept off on either side, I have never felt less alone.
“I don’t mind,” I say softly.
Boone makes a satisfied sound low in his throat and shifts until his good arm rests easier behind me. Okee leans his head back, eyes already half shut. Between them I let myself ease, little by little, until the tension goes out of me and I am resting there too, held in by the weight of them.
We have done this before.
Once in a wagon with the storm trying to kill us, when I hated them and took their warmth like an insult. Now before the hearth, I yield to it gladly.
When I wake, the fire has burned down to a faint red pulse. The cabin is colder, quieter, except for a soft, irregular sound—something alive, something rhythmic. My eyes adjust slowly. At first I think I’m still dreaming.
They’ve moved.