It’s over in a flash; the stray bullet glances off Willie Fortune’s leg and leaves him a cripple. The Yuma morning burns hotter than summer in Hades, heat shimmering off every surface and the pump handle too hot to touch. Ruby fetches a cloth to cover the handle and works it up and down until her arm aches. After all that trouble, only half a bucket. Nothing good happens the rest of the day if the morning starts off wrong, and the sun so hot it could melt your skin off. Better to stay in bed until tomorrow or face the wrath of chance, especially in a place where the scorched earth burns the soles clean off your boots before you’ve walked twenty yards.
The gunslinger who maimed Willie is fired that night while Willie lies writhing in his tent. The bullet hit Willie’s femur and it took a half bottle of whiskey—most of it guzzled by Willie himself—for the doc to fetch it out. He’s sleeping now.
Ruby keeps one eye on Willie as she cleans her pistol. She lays her derringer on a white cloth along with her cleaning tools: barrel patches, wiping cloth, short barrel rod, and small can of Nye’s sperm oil. She admires the pearl-handled grip and shiny barrel, small and easily concealed. “Use it when man or animal gets too close for your liking,” her pop had said. “But too far, you can’t hit the side of a barn with it. You’ve got two shots, Ruby, one to miss; one not to.” With that, he placed the over-under double barrel Remington Model 95 in her hand. She was twelve. Since then, Ruby has worn the pistol in her waistband or in its holster strapped above her boot.
Ruby cradles the pistol in the palm of her hand, loosens the barrel lock, and swings the barrel open. She slides the ejector and removes the two cartridges.
Willie is snoring now.
Ruby cocks the hammer to expose the firing mechanism. With the wiping cloth, she applies two drops of sperm oil into the action. With the rod firmly in her right hand and the pistol in her left, Ruby pushes a cloth patch through the barrel until it comes out clean. She lightly soaks another patch in oil and pushes it through each barrel until it’s spotless.
Ruby oils the gun, dabbing excess lubricant. She closes the breach and cocks it, aiming squarely at Willie. She pulls the hammer and squeezes the trigger, once, twice. Willie doesn’t flinch. Ruby opens the barrel and loads with two live rounds.
“That you, Ruby?” Willie stirs.
“Mmm-hmm.” I could’ve shot him.
Willie attempts to sit up, grimaces. “Come here, little missy.”
“Not in the mood, Willie.” I should’ve shot him.
“I’m not talking about that, woman. It’s an entirely different matter.” Willie reaches for a stack of papers and waves them toward Ruby.
“What now?”
“A contract.”
“Not another one.”
“Would you shut it? I’m buying up a share of Silver Tip Mine outside Jericho. I’ve had enough of this circuit.”
Has Ruby heard right? Jericho? She grabs the papers and stares at Willie’s signature, one that she’s copied a hundred times before. Every time she forges his name, she’s reminded how ladylike his signature is, unlike every other aspect of him. Like he won a penmanship prize or something.
“Where’d you get the cash?” Ruby asks.
“I’ve been putting it by. Waiting for my big chance.”
“I thought we didn’t have a can to piss in,” Ruby says. “The way you go through it.” She’s safe today because Willie’s confined to bed.
“My pa never gave me a nickel, Ruby. Every cent I made with my own two hands.”
“You mean I made for you. Gate receipts. ‘Girl Wonder.’”
“You wouldn’t been anything without me.”
“No?” Ruby counters. “I thought you said your pop sent you to lawyering school. Or was that another one of your lies?” Ruby’s emboldened today.
“He did, and I loathed it. When I told him I wasn’t meant for lawyering, he laid into me. For the thousandth time. Nothing I ever did was good enough for him, so I finally said to hell with it. Got on a train and never looked back.”
“What about your sister? Don’t you have a responsibility for her?”
“I don’t owe anyone anything.”
“What will happen to her after your pop goes?”
“She’ll get it all, the house, the property, everything. My father won’t leave me a dime now. I could challenge it, of course.”
“You’d defraud your own sister?”
“She’d get an allowance. Like you.”
“Like what? Enough to buy a pair of stockings every month?”
“Shut it, Ruby,” Willie yells. “I’m ready to haul myself out of this bed and give you a walloping.”
“Is that how you end every conversation?” Ruby yells back. “With your cock or your fist?”
Willie struggles to get up, but falls back on the pillows. “You’re asking for it, Ruby.” His eyes seethe. “I can’t stand the sight of you anymore. You’ve gotten fat.”
“Always my fault, is that what you’re saying? Every time you wallop me, it’s my fault?” Ruby shakes her head. “You used to talk sweet to me, Willie. Won me over like a bowling pin. Now all I get are fists.”
“Once we’re in Jericho, there’ll be no need of that.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? You’re about out of chances, Willie.” Ruby thinks of her derringer. “Leopards don’t change their spots, you know.”
WILLIE AND RUBY SETTLE INTO Big Burl’s house, the one Ruby grew up in. Ruby has few complaints. She is home and Divina is right next door, just like the old days when they all wintered in Jericho and days bled into one another with laughter and love.
Using money Ruby made in the traveling shows, Willie purchases a quarter share in the Silver Tip Mine outside Jericho. Ruby wonders if it’s not more than a cover for more disreputable pursuits. All over the west, rumors of fraudulent mineral strikes fill the papers. Rich soil, owners hawk. Balmy climate. And the best damn glory holes in the west. Salting mines is the oldest trick in the book, making mines look profitable by adding gold or silver to samples. Boom-and-bust towns spring up like pigweed, enticing gullible prospectors and then cheating them out of every last nickel. Willie’s bound to have his hand in dirty business like this. Falsifying claims. Running opium. Like it says in Jeremiah (one of the only Bible verses Ruby knows by heart), leopards do not will not ever never change their spots.
“BASTARD!” RUBY CHASES WILLIE up Jefferson Street, peppering his heels with buckshot as he runs. “Do I have to shoot you home again? And in broad daylight?” Willie’s long legs outrun Ruby, but she still trails him with bullets. Drunk again. Whoring. Last night, a bar brawl that took three men to wrestle him down, or so the sheriff said. This is the fourth time this month that Ruby has had to bail Willie out of the town jail.
The very next day, Sheriff Sheldon Sloane separates Ruby and Willie on the street, Ruby is yelling so loud. Sheldon pushes Willie to the ground and grasps Ruby’s arm. “Put down your piece.”
“I will not,” Ruby says.
Sheldon wrenches the derringer from Ruby’s hand.
She glares at him.
Two men help Willie up.
“Don’t need a woman cuckolding me in the street,” Willie says. He spits toward Ruby.
“You deserve it, Willie!” Ruby yells.
A small crowd gathers, forming a semi-circle around Ruby, Willie, and Sheldon.
“Get on with you,” Sheldon says. “This is between Willie and his missus and me.”
Ruby fights to disentangle herself from Sheldon’s grasp. “More like between me and Willie.”
Sheldon leans down and talks under his breath into Ruby’s ear. “From what I’ve heard, you might be the best shot in the whole territory, Mrs. Fortune, but I’d watch out for that husband of yours if I were you. He’s bad seed.” He releases Ruby and hands her derringer back.
Lately, Willie’s been suspiciously well-behaved. Ruby knows something is up. Lining his pockets? Woman on the side? Both? Nothing new there. But since returning to Jericho, at least the thrashings have stopped, like Willie said.
“Ready or not!” Fletcher yells. Sam mimics his brother. “Weady oh not!” Sam says. Clayton runs behind the flapping sheets to hide while Fletcher finishes counting to ten. Virgil watches from the stoop, his left leg dangling. He’s adjusting to his new spectacles, which make his eyes look twice their size. Two-year-old Sam stands in the wooden-slat playpen in nothing but a diaper.
Ruby hangs laundry from between two posts behind the house. The lines, usually stretched taut, sag under the weight of bedding, clothing, diapers, and rags. In the billowing sea of dingy whites, Ruby pegs out her turquoise blouse. She fingers the elaborate embroidery on the yoke; it’s a little worse for wear after all these years. Her mind wanders. Her hair flows behind her as she rounds the end of the arena ready for a second pass, the show hand rapidly replacing glass balls on wooden tripods. She can almost hear the roar of the crowd in Prescott as she whips out her pistol and shatters glass balls, one after another, crack crack crack.
“Ma!” Virgil yells.
Ruby snaps back to see Sam toddling outside the playpen, barefoot on the hardpan.
“Sam!” She scoops him up and brings his rear end up to her nose. “Another change, little mister.” Ruby steps around Virgil, who is now picking at his nails. Clayton and Fletcher run like banshees through the sheets.
“Boys!” she says. “Watch Virge for a minute while I go in to change your brother.” Ruby doesn’t wait for an answer. She strides across the yard in her soiled skirt. Gone are the days of deerskin and feathers and crowds.
Ruby sets Sam on the parlor floor and unpins his soggy diaper. “When are we going to learn, little mister? To tell momma when you have to go?”
“Have to yo.”
“Go, Sam, not yo.”
“Yo.”
Ruby smiles. When she emerges into the sun again, Sam hoisted on her hip, Virgil is in the playpen clambering to get out.
“Clayton! Fletcher! Right here!”
Two heads poke out from now dirtied sheets.
“Git out of there! Can’t leave for a minute without some sort of trouble.” Ruby shoos the boys away and plops Sam in the playpen with Virgil. “You two play together now.”
“Have to yo!” Sam yells.
“Not again, Sam,” Virgil says. “Ma! Get me out of here!”
Ruby hoists Virgil out of the playpen and turns to the wash basket, still overflowing with wet laundry.
“Woman!”
Ruby looks up, two clothespins in her mouth.
Willie fills the doorframe. He checks his watch. “No dinner on yet? It’s five minutes past twelve.” He snaps his pocket watch closed.
Virgil clings to Ruby’s skirt. Ruby hadn’t been expecting Willie for dinner today, thought he was up at Silver Tip all day. Meetings, or so he said. She drops a clean blouse in the dirt. “Time got away from me, I guess.” She shoos Virgil away, leaves the laundry half pegged, and hurries past the playpen. She’ll have to conjure up a miracle to get dinner on in less than five minutes. As she nears the stoop, Willie pulls her arm.
“Looks like I’ll have to whet my appetite another way,” he says.
“Damn it, Willie, not now.” Clayton and Fletcher are still playing hide and seek in the laundry, leaving dusty handprints. “Boys!” she yells.
“The boys will take care of themselves,” Willie says.
“Clayton! Fletcher! Listen to your pop,” Willie says. “Watch your brothers for a minute, will you? Your momma and I will be back in the wink of an eye.” He throws a handful of coins into the dirt. Clayton hits Fletcher as he scrambles in the dirt.
“Have to yo!” Sam tries to unpin his diaper.
“Shut it, Sam,” Clayton says. “Or maybe Virgil can change you.”
Virgil puts distance between his brothers and himself, his bad leg trailing. “Maybe you can, meanie.”
“Come along, little missy,” Willie says to Ruby. “Don’t have all day.”
“Have to yo!” Sam’s diaper is now off and he squats on the ground.
Ruby looks back over her shoulder. Divina is on her porch next door. She shakes her head at Ruby. Ruby raises her shoulders and her hands. Sometimes she wishes Divina would mind her own business instead of hers. Ruby takes one last look at the boys before following Willie into the house. All those sheets, now needing doing again.
“No rough housing, you hear me?” she yells over her shoulder. Divina is still on the porch with a disapproving look. She can say what she thinks without words. It stings.
Willie grabs Ruby’s arm and muscles her toward the divan. “Did you hear me?”
“Do you have to be so rough?”
“Shut it, woman.” Willie throws his hat onto a nearby chair and unbuttons his trousers. “Pull up your skirt!” In less than two minutes, he is done. He tugs at his trousers, pulls on his hat, and leaves the house without saying a word.
Where has all that tender lovemaking gone? The words and songs and whispers that made her spine tingle? The slow touch on her inner arm or inner thigh? That roller coaster of wanting and desire? The warm western nights that dripped like honey straight from the bee? Gone, they are. Gone, gone, gone. And Ruby is left now to clean up more messes.
THE NEXT WEEK, RUBY SITS BY the dry creek under cloudless cobalt sky, the chitter of a desert thrasher her only company. Willie is in Tucson today to bid on a new business, a hotel, right on Congress Street. Just when they were saving. If buying a run-down hotel isn’t a money hole, Ruby doesn’t know what is.
Hell, take all the time you need, she thinks. And a whole heap more while you’re at it. A month, maybe longer. Or move to Tucson, why don’t you, Willie Fortune, come home on weekends or holidays or never. That she could get used to.
She’s stripped down to chemise and drawers, her waist-long hair unraveled from curl. She breathes in desert air and thinks back to the story Onawa told her when she was a small girl about being the ruler of the world. So why doesn’t Ruby feel like she’s in charge of anything now? Nothing is in her control. She is flat broke. Her boys are wild. And she can’t have another baby—Ruby’s monthlies have become so severe that if she could rip her womb out, she would. God’s got a way of telling a body when it’s worn through.
Willie explodes through the door the next night and it’s only a matter of minutes before Ruby has a split lip again. So much for promises. Next, it’s a twisted arm where Ruby can’t lift her arm above her shoulder for days. Then it’s a flowering bruise the color of horse manure on her upper arm. For that, and a lifetime of other bruises, Willie doesn’t spend a night in jail. Never. Hell never. Never-and-a-day never does any man spend a night in the lockup for messing with his missus in Arizona Territory.
Late one night, when Willie is no doubt down at the cribs on Deadman’s Alley, Ruby runs her hands over her slim body, the curve of her breasts, the hollow at her pelvis. She shivers. When was the last time Willie called her beautiful? Or anything resembling love? Or brought her rings or flowers or the things women crave, even if they’re too stubborn to admit it? Why has Ruby let Willie Fortune rule her life, every inch and every minute of it? And for so long? And done nothing about it?
Each blow has raised Ruby’s simmer point. She’s almost at full boil.