Ruby stands nearly naked as Divina snakes soft turquoise suede across Ruby’s narrow back. Divina’s mouth is filled with pins. She measures with her hands, snips fabric with a large pair of shears, and begins to pin the suede.
“Don’t you go and poke me,” Ruby says.
Divina laughs, pins flying from her mouth. “Poke you?”
Now Ruby laughs, too. “How many times you been poked, Divina?”
Divina bursts into a deep, rumbling laugh. “Not enough.”
Ruby peels the turquoise suede off her shoulders and tosses it into Divina’s sewing heap. “I could use a good poke just about now. If I could just ward off babies every time, that is. There’s nothing I like better.”
DIVINA SITS AT HER JUMBLED dressing table and washes face paint off with a dingy washcloth. She spies Ruby through the mirror and spins around. “Not again, Pip.”
Ruby rushes into Divina’s arms, her face stained.
“Why you put up with him another minute is beyond me. Think everyone doesn’t know how he treats you? Worse than a dog, Pip. You’ve got to get out from under his thumb.”
“And where would I go? A mother with three children, and another on the way? Tell me that, Divina. You think Willie Fortune wouldn’t come after me with his finger on the trigger?”
“You’re making one poor choice to hide another.”
“You know?”
“Hard to keep secrets from me. I see it in your eyes. You’re on the juice again.”
A trickle starts from Ruby’s groin and runs down her leg. She clutches her thighs. “Damn it.”
Would life have been different if Big Burl had taken Divina as his wife? Would Divina have been able to curb his drinking and smoking? Gotten him to a doctor in time? Would the two of them have stepped in to stop Willie’s thrashings? Talked sense into him? Or sent him on the rails back to Chicago? What would Ruby’s life look like if Big Burl were still living and breathing?
But she’ll never get her pop back. Her wish list is, if anything, practical. Except for the dream to go to San Francisco one day, the carrot before the horse, dangling just out of reach. She and Divina have talked about it for years.
When the Southern Pacific arrived in Tucson in the spring of 1880, it turned the town upside down. Used to be, supplies from San Francisco were shipped around the southern tip of Baja California and up the Sea of Cortez before being loaded onto flat-bottomed boats plying up the sandbar-filled Colorado River to Yuma and from there to Tucson by wagon, sixty days one way. Now you can be in San Francisco the day after tomorrow by rail. Year by year, the thought of going to San Francisco burns brighter. Ruby and Divina will get there one day, one way or another. But certainly not anytime soon.
Samuel Finis Fortune comes into the world screaming, like Ruby did, a voice as big as two territories stitched together. He’s four days old now, and sleeping, thank the Lord, if there is one. Ruby pulls the screen off the top of the cradle and pats Sam’s back as it rises and falls with each breath. Ruby is weak from having lost so much blood during the delivery. It’s a wonder she didn’t die of it, like her momma. That’s why Ruby named her fifth son, finis, for the last one. She has to avoid Willie Fortune if she wants to be spared another difficult birth or her own death. That might be easier than she thinks, now that Willie is sharing the sheets with other women in the traveling show. Ruby has gotten smart about claiming headaches and crotch rot to steer him away. She can’t go through this again. And she’s got to wean herself from the juice. A mother of four boys can’t function with a head full of cotton. Let alone headline a major Wild West show.
Willie comes up behind Ruby. “He’s a puny one, ain’t he? At least he’s not deformed, like Virgil.”
“Leave Virgil out of it,” Ruby says. “Look at Clayton and Fletcher. They’re not puny anymore, and they started out like this.” She pulls Sam’s thin blanket over his sleeping body and replaces the screen. Don’t want scorpions falling from the ceiling. “Got to give a body time, Willie.” Ruby is thinking of herself when she says that, not Sam. “Thought you would’ve learned that by now.” She sucks in a breath. Maybe she’s said too much.
“How about a little fun?”
“I’m not up to it, Willie.”
“Aren’t you, now?” Willie plucks Ruby’s six-shooter show pistol off the nightstand. “Always wanted to practice on live targets. Like you do. Might have a little fun in another way.”
Ruby moves to the bedroom door, her robe loosely tied. “Who?
“I’m thinking … Virgil.”
Ruby stiffens. “Not Virgil.”
“Why not? He’s deformed already.” Willie cocks the pistol and mimics shooting off a round.
“You won’t do any such thing, Willie Fortune.” Ruby smooths her robe down to minimize her shaking hands. She tries to keep her voice steady. “He can’t help that he’s got the palsy. Go pick on someone else.”
Willie smacks Ruby across the mouth. She raises her hand to wipe away blood and saliva.
“Get dressed,” Willie says. “I think I’ll have a little fun with you instead.” He holds the pistol to her head.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
Willie pushes Ruby up against the back of the camp wagon, a makeshift target behind her.
“Momma!” Fletcher yells from the doorway, where he stands with Clayton.
“Shut your trap,” Willie barks. “You a sissy?”
Ruby doesn’t see Virgil. The baby is still sleeping, or should be anyway, if this racket doesn’t raise him. Her heart is making a racket enough on its own.
“Don’t you worry, Fletch,” Ruby says. “Your pa wouldn’t dare shoot me.”
If Ruby moves even an inch, it’ll be her undoing. She can’t risk being shot for her own foolishness. She can only hope Willie’s hand is as steady as hers. Ruby’s eyes narrow as she faces her husband, three yards away. If she is going to be shot in cold blood, in broad daylight, and in front of her sons, Ruby is going to look straight into Willie’s eyes as he takes aim.
At the first crack of the pistol, Ruby stands as still as a human can who is still breathing. The shot zings to the right of her ear. The second shot pierces the target above her head.
Ruby breathes shallowly so as not to move a single muscle. Six, there are only six shots. She keeps her eyes trained on the barrel of the gun. Even though her body is still as a statue, her mind flies. What will become of the boys if Willie finds his target smack in the middle of her forehead? Zing. Who will fix their suppers and dry their tears? Ping. And where will they end up, four motherless boys with a bastard for a father? Ting.
The last shot grazes her hair. A half-inch off, she’d be dead. But she’s not. If Ruby wanted to die, it would be easy. Just a few extra teaspoons.
RUBY’S HANDS SHAKE. SHE’S been three days without laudanum, her skin clammy and crawling with invisible insects. She’s got the runs, too.
“Sing me a song, Momma.” Fletcher buries his head in Ruby’s lap. He’s five now, the perfect age. Clayton wouldn’t dream of snuggling anymore, although he’s but a year older. Ruby ruffles Fletcher’s reddish-blond hair. She begins singing softly. By the time she finishes the last stanza, Fletcher’s eyes have fluttered closed.
Ruby’s bowels are loose again so she shifts Fletcher off her lap and onto his cot. His hair falls over his beautiful face, his mouth slack. She runs to the privy and sits in the dark, sweating. Her heart pounds. She knows the symptoms; she’s tried to rid herself of the habit more than once, but she never seems to stick with it. Willie’s moods. Constant demands. The goddamn heat. Any excuse. She wipes herself with old newsprint and shuffles back to the boys’ tent. It’s hot enough to sleep outside tonight, on cots dragged outside the tents or on the ground in old gunnysacks. But Ruby doesn’t have the fire in her tonight. She can almost taste the laudanum. Maybe she’ll take a half-teaspoon, take the edge off. But she’s come this far, three days. That’s the longest she’s ever been off the juice for years. If she can just make it to four days …
Ruby tucks in the blankets around Clayton and scoots Virgil’s leg from outside the covers back under them. Such a shame that Virgil’s right leg is a full two inches shorter than his left. He tries to keep up with his older brothers, but they make fun of him. Ruby watches the boys’ soft breathing and returns to her tent next door. The baby stirs and squirms. She rubs castor oil on his smooth tummy and he goes quiet again.
Willie is out and Ruby stretches out on their bed, fighting sleep. She can’t be awake when Willie gets back in case he’s got a hot dick in his trousers. It’s too soon after the baby, but that’s never bothered him before, blood or no blood. But she can’t sleep; her skin itches from the inside out, like a swarm of bees.
Ruby bolts up and rummages in her trunk. With shaking hands, she lifts the dark bottle and pours a half-teaspoon. Heaven within reach. She inhales the familiar aroma and brings the teaspoon up to her nose. Her hand is unsteady. She parts her lips and sends her tongue, lizard-like, toward the spoon. No, Ruby, no. Not again. She touches the tip of her tongue on the edge of the spoon and wills herself to stop. Lowering her hand, she irons out her breathing. She pours the liquid back in the bottle. A few drops run down the lip. She replaces the cap without lapping up the drops, replaces the bottle in the guts of the trunk, and climbs back into bed, her hands still trembling. I can do this. I can do this.
Ruby wakes with a start. Willie is thrashing around the tent, naked from the waist down. He still wears his hat as he descends on her. She is weak after Sam’s birth but it is not worth the struggle. She hopes it’s too early to conceive again.
Afterwards, her mind roves. She wonders in what dungeon of Hell a person can expect fortune to change. Ruby knows she’s got to take matters into her own hands. But when? And where? And how?
The baby stirs again, and Ruby climbs over Willie to nurse Sam. She rocks back and forth, his tiny bud-like mouth suckling. He shudders and sighs before falling back into blessed sleep. Before she goes back to bed, she peeks into the boys’ tent next door. She pats Clayton and strokes Virgil’s forehead. She doesn’t pick favorites, but at this moment, her heart sighs. She bends over Fletcher, skimming his cheek with her lips. He is the dearest child, never a cross word or out of line. Perfect, if a boy could be labeled. If only all boys could be like Fletcher, she thinks, all would be right with the world.