God knew where Nance had got the dress. Aggie stood in a fever of embarrassed impatience while Nance tucked and pinned and fussed around her, taking in here, letting out there.
‘I reckon I ain’t much for weddings,’ Aggie said. ‘Any kind of fussing drives me mad.’
‘Once in your life,’ Nance told her around a mouthful of pins, ‘unless you’re planning to make a habit of ’em.’
‘I don’t reckon I am. Way I feel this minute, even once seems one time too many.’
Nance hauled in on the waist. Aggie gasped. ‘You trying to kill me or what?’
But Nance was remorseless. ‘You got to have a tiny waist,’ she told her, ‘otherwise you know what people will say.’
‘This mob? They can say what they like.’
But Nance would not listen to her. Eventually she stood back. ‘What d’you think?’
Aggie turned and turned, trying to see as much as she could without a mirror to help her. The dress was of cream satin. It had a bustle, lots of flounces, a small train and clung as close as a second skin.
‘I s’pose I can always hold my breath,’ Aggie said. ‘Where’d you get it?’
‘Somen I had by me,’ Nance said.
‘It’s lovely. I never saw nuthin like it before.’ She preened some more. ‘It certainly makes me stick out in all the right places, don’ it?’
‘So it should. Let him see what he’s gettin’.’
‘If he dunno by now I reckon he never will,’ Aggie said.
There was a fire, as there was every night. Between them Maggie and Nance had raided the stores and helped themselves to several of the precious candles. Somehow they had managed to rig up a string with the candles in holders along it. Now the flames flickered bravely in the darkness.
‘Lucky there ain’t no wind,’ Charlie said. ‘O’course, it don’t mean one mightn’t git up any minute—’
‘Keep your mouth shut for once,’ Nance warned him.
The boys, all except Brett Noonan whose turn it was to guard the cattle, had washed, or at least had gone through the motions. One or two of them had even brushed their hair and Git, despite objections, was wearing a clean shirt.
Matthew had bought a keg of whisky in Fort Bourke and promised to break it out after the ceremony.
‘Thirsty work,’ Hud said, eyes gleaming. ‘I wonder, shouldn’t I check on supplies?’
‘You keep your hands off that keg,’ Maggie warned.
Hud looked aggrieved. ‘All I was thinkin’ was—’
‘I knows what you was thinkin’‚’ she said. ‘Don’t.’
Later, in the shadow at the back of the waggon Maggie asked, ‘You right now?’
‘Reckon I am,’ Aggie replied. ‘Right as I’ll ever be anyway.’
‘Righto then,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ll get up front. Gimme a couple of minutes, then you come too.’
Aggie nodded. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling nervous or not. Breathing was a problem but that could have been the dress. It would explain her rapidly beating heart too.
‘Let’s git movin’‚’ Nance said.
‘Where’s Charlton?’
Charlton had been roped in to give her away; none of them knew much about weddings but they all knew there had to be someone to do that.
‘He’ll be there. Stop fretting.’
‘I am not fretting,’ Aggie said indignantly. ‘I—’
‘Git on with it then.’
The two women moved out into the light. The string of candles, added to the firelight, cast a warm glow. Aggie looked at the trestle table that had been set up close to the fire. Matthew stood there. He was wearing a cream shirt, open at the throat, and a clean pair of breeches. He had rubbed the worst of the dust off his calf-length boots and, as he turned to smile at her, the candlelight kindled sparks like red fire in his dark hair. He towered over the rest of the men and Aggie felt her breath catch at the sight of him, not in desire but from terror at the step she was about to take.
Nerves clawing her, Aggie walked forward. Charlton was waiting for her. She put her hand on his arm. She could feel him shaking. Why, she thought, he’s more nervous than I am, and felt better.
Maggie had dolled herself up, too, in a dress of black taffeta with a broad collar of white lace and a full skirt. She was bobbing about, impatient to get things started.
Aggie stopped at Matthew’s side.
Maggie looked at Matthew with sharp, bird-bright eyes. ‘State your name,’ she directed him.
‘Matthew Curtis.’
Her eyes switched to Aggie.
‘Agatha Burroughs.’
‘Who gives this woman to be married to this man?’
Charlton said, ‘Reckon I do.’
Maggie glared. ‘Reckon ain’t good enough. Do you or don’t you?’
‘I reckon …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I do.’
‘Get out of the road then.’ Maggie’s attention returned to Matthew. ‘Matthew Curtis, do you take Agatha Burroughs to be your lawful wedded wife—’
‘I do,’ Matthew said.
‘Wait till I ask you,’ she admonished him, ‘I ain’t nearly ready yet. Will you have her and hold her in accordance with God’s holy ordinance? Will you love her and honour her and do to her only those things that are lawful between a man and his wife as long as ye both shall live?’
She paused. Matthew waited.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘I will.’
She turned to Aggie and repeated the formula. She concluded, ‘Will you honour him, love and obey him as long as ye both shall live?’
‘I will.’
‘Got a ring?’ Maggie asked Matthew.
‘I made something out of a piece of wire.’ Matthew turned to Aggie. ‘I didn’t have a ring but I thought—’
‘That’ll do,’ Maggie said. ‘Give it here.’
He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to her.
‘Bless this ring, Lord,’ Maggie prayed, ‘as a symbol of these here two sinners’ love for one another. Go on,’ she directed Matthew, ‘put it on her finger.’
He did so. It fitted; not well, but at least it went over her knuckle.
Maggie said, ‘Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder. I now pronounce you man and wife.’
‘Halleluia,’ Hud said, ‘break out the keg.’
Nance offered to vacate the waggon for them but Aggie refused.
‘It ain’t right you shouldn’t have a proper bed for your marriage night,’ Nance grumbled. She gave the waggon a baleful stare. ‘If you kin call it a proper bed.’
‘It’s not what I want,’ Aggie said.
Nance sniffed, vexed by the refusal. ‘You’ll please yourself, I suppose.’
Aggie took Nance’s face in both her hands. ‘Dear Nance,’ she said, ‘you’ve done everything to make this a special day for me. Don’t be cross now.’
Mollified, Nance said, ‘Only tryin’ to do what’s right, that’s all.’
‘I know you are. But I know what is right for Matthew and me.’
She told her what she had planned. Nance’s eyes widened. ‘Seems a bit funny to me,’ she said, ‘but I suppose, if you’re sure …’
‘I am.’
The keg was almost empty and the men were in various stages of collapse now the evening was over. The candles were guttering, fuming wicks sending a haze of tallow to join the smoke of the dying fire. Hud, discovered fast asleep in a dark corner, had been dragged protestingly to bed by his incensed wife. Charlton Grange, walking with extra care but still able to haul himself up in the saddle, had gone off to relieve Brett—Git, whose duty it was, was beyond relieving anyone but himself.
It was time.
‘God knows where we sleep,’ Matthew said.
He had had a few drinks, too, but nothing like as many as the others. He was probably the only sober man among them, Aggie thought, and was glad.
‘Come,’ she said.
She picked up the lantern she had ready, took his hand and led him through the camp, past the dying glow of the fire, past the waggon, past the shapes and sounds and smell of the resting herd until they came to the place she had chosen.
The water in the narrow creek shone silver in the starlight. Frogs chinked like small birds. The air was cool and fresh with the smell of new grass. Aggie had laid out their bed on the open ground. She raised the lantern, showing the place to her husband.
‘Here,’ she said.
She felt him beside her. Physically he made her feel very small but in her heart she knew she was not small. She knew that in the things that mattered she was as big as he was; bigger, perhaps, in some ways. She wanted him to know it too. She wanted him to understand how well suited they were to each other and to the life they had planned together.
She looked out at the darkness. He put his arm around her without speaking and she knew that he understood why she had brought him here, understood, too, that they were one in the face of what lay ahead.
She indicated the blankets arranged neatly at their feet. ‘Ours,’ she said. She looked beyond the bed, at what lay in the distance, the future. ‘Ours, too.’
He said nothing nor, having said all she had wished to say, did she.
He turned to her, shaken with passion and with love, and she felt his body trembling as he held her close. Her arms went around his neck.
It flowed, one thing from another, one movement, one response, one totality, the totality infinitely more than the sum of its parts, a flower unfolding. One thing only she remembered. Lying, Matthew sheathed in her at last, bodies sweat-slick, looking up at him and thinking, This is it, then, the circle made whole, knowing that he felt the same. The mingling, the cries upon the air. Silence.