THE NEXT AFTERNOON I WAS WEARING HIS TROUSERS WHEN Axton rode Ranger up to Rilla’s Place. Thrilled at the prospect of riding with Ax, I’d hurried through my daily work before scurrying to my room to shuck my skirt and underskirt, next tucking my blouse into my borrowed pants. I had an immediate problem, realizing after examining the strange pattern of buttons on the waistband that I required suspenders – and in a building full of women, there were no suspenders to be had. And so I improvised, journeying back to the laundry shack and digging up a length of rope, which I knotted around my waist, effectively creating a belt. I was wearing my too-small shoes and longed for the kind of hard leather boots Axton wore, knee-high and sturdy, made for fitting neatly into a stirrup.
“You look real nice, Ruthie,” Axton said, half-teasing, as he halted Ranger and eyed my boyish outfit. I stood in the shade of the overhang on Rilla’s front veranda and felt a smile tug at my lips, which had been his intent. This early in the evening the foot traffic to and from the saloons was light, though the elderly man who sat on a stool near the piano and played the fiddle, night after night, was already sawing out a melody. The day was fair and sunny, as usual, with little wind, and the anticipation of riding a horse created within me a small beat of real excitement.
“I really don’t, but thanks all the same.” I harbored no illusions about my appearance. I was surrounded daily by women who sold their bodies for a living and whose ample breasts and curving hips were constantly on display; by night, I dug my fingers in my ears to muffle the grunts and moans, the steady thumping, filtering through the thin walls. The sounds of sex made my body ache. Even when I felt like I could cry no more for what I didn’t know, what I couldn’t remember, when my head throbbed and my eyes stung – all the sobs I held inside throughout the day came hurtling out by night.
“You do look nice,” Axton insisted, holding the reins in his right hand, forearms crossed at the wrist and braced on his saddle horn. Ranger snorted a loud breath and stepped delicately backward, as though anxious to keep moving. The late-afternoon sun was gorgeous on Ranger’s rusty hide and picked out copper highlights in the unkempt hair visible at the back of Axton’s neck, beneath the brown, wide-brimmed hat he wore. With the sun backlighting him, his shoulders appeared all the more wide and strong; I reflected again that Axton had no idea just how appealing he really was.
“You look like a cowboy,” I observed, and his eyebrows lifted.
He contradicted, “I got no experience with cattle.”
“Trust me.”
“Here, climb on up. Uncle Branch said Ruby would be a good horse for you to ride at first, but she’s at home.”
So saying, he extended his left hand and helped me step into the stirrup on that side, shifting his foot and then swinging me up with easy grace. I settled just behind the saddle and caught hold of his narrow waist. My long braid hung down my back, slapping my spine as Axton heeled Ranger to a steady trot to take us beyond the town limits. I was thankful the claim shanty was to the north so we could avoid riding through the rows of dirty canvas tents where many of the railroad workers lived, south of Howardsville. They were a mobile work force, hence the temporary lodging, and most had a bad look – the yellow-bearded man among them. The type to drag a woman into an alley and feel no remorse about what happened next.
“The girls at Rilla’s were laughing about how I looked,” I admitted to Axton. None of them were openly hostile – since our conversation in the kitchen Celia had actually been downright friendly – but the rest of the women regarded me with either wariness or amusement. One, a woman named Lucy, commented on how much time I spent with Axton and asked if I was planning to make him into a man. If so, she said to send him her way directly after.
The first words to pop into my brain had been, You wish, fat bitch.
But of course I didn’t say that aloud.
Instead, I vented to poor, unsuspecting Axton. “If they want to judge me for wearing men’s clothes, they have another thing coming. Seriously, Ax, they all have sex with dozens of men every night. I hear it. There’s no escaping the sounds. If I want to dress like a boy and ride a horse, they have nothing to say.”
Axton didn’t respond; it suddenly dawned on me I’d embarrassed him. This suspicion was confirmed when he finally said, “I never thought of it like that before.” He cleared his throat and clarified hoarsely, “I mean, about the…sounds.” I knew if I could see his face he would be as red as a raspberry.
“I’m sorry,” I said at once. “I should think before I say things like that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I ain’t a kid.” He chuckled then, surprising me by adding, “It’s because you’re so pretty and soft, if you don’t mind my saying so. Them whores are just jealous of you, is all. You look soft and they look hard, that’s all there is to it.”
I sat in silence behind him, absorbing his sincere words. Finally I realized I should thank him and so I did, to which he replied by shrugging one shoulder. A minute later he ordered, “Hold on,” and I felt his thigh muscles tense as he tightened his knees around Ranger, sending the animal into a light canter.
The motion of the horse beneath us was familiar. I closed my eyes, willing a memory to strike the surface, to offer the smallest clue. I knew I had been on horseback before, my body knew the feel of it. I held fast to Axton, trusting him, and decided to simply enjoy the ride. It was a quick run out to the claim and I opened my eyes to watch the landscape flash past us, the rippling grasses that grew tall outside of town, changing now from green to hues of gold as the summer slipped toward autumn. There weren’t many trees out here other than a few skinny cottonwoods, nothing to obscure the sunlight streaking over us.
Branch was frying bacon at the cookfire as we rode up and my mouth filled with saliva at the delicious scent; meat was rarely a part of my daily meals. I slid down from Ranger with no assistance and hurried to hug Branch, who squeezed me against his bulk and planted a smacking kiss on my temple.
“Evening, honey. Got my Ruby all saddled up for you. The old girl seems right excited.”
“Same here!” I said, and Branch grinned, his grizzled face with its livid scar crinkling into wrinkles as he did so.
“It’s good to see you with a smile, sweet girl. Hate to see you always looking so sad.”
“You two must be on a mission to make me feel better.”
“You make the whole evening better, darlin’, that’s God’s truth,” Branch said. “I’ll have this bacon fried by the time you two get back. Ax, don’t ride too far out or it’ll be burnt to a crisp.”
“We won’t, Uncle Branch,” Ax promised. He shifted on the saddle and his tone grew more solemn. “Lots of talk in town today. I heard tell Marshal Rawley is riding back but he’s a good hundred and fifty miles north.”
“I heard the same.” Branch poked at the bacon. “You’ll recall Cole Spicer, boy. Heard tell he was headed this way, too, from the east. We ain’t seen Spicer in these parts in near four years. The marshal is likely eager to reunite with him. Boyhood friends, they are.”
“Talk is that Bill Little’s gang resurfaced out near Yankton. You reckon that’s true, Uncle Branch?” Axton asked this question with both anxiety and awe mingling in his tone.
The mention of the marshal sent my blood churning and I pressed both hands against my heart, as though I had the power to slow its beating from the outside. It took me a moment to realize Branch’s wrinkled face appeared uneasy.
“Bill Little’s gang ain’t been heard from in near four years,” Axton continued. He had not dismounted, looking more at home astride Ranger than he did standing on the ground.
“Who’s Bill Little?” I asked, looking between them.
Branch sighed before answering. “Bill Little used to lead a gang of criminals, some of which were his own brothers, before they was all shot and kilt. I heard the same about the trouble out by Yankton, boy, I hate to say. No-good trash, that’s what. Back in ’seventy-six Little and his men stole a woman in these parts. Now, I ain’t saying she was the first woman they stole but this particular woman was to be married to a young man named Malcolm Carter. I don’t recollect her name, do you, boy?”
“Cora,” Axton said at once.
I pressed harder against my heart, but it would not slow its beating.
Branch continued, “Well, they took Miss Cora, and the Carter boy took off after them. Malcolm Carter rode with Cole Spicer in them days, and Grant and Miles Rawley – the marshal, that is, but he weren’t the marshal back then – and a pack of better friends you ain’t ever seen. A man named Wainwright was the marshal back in them days, but he done got shot up on that journey, got kilt stone dead. Miles took up the marshal position and held it ever since.”
“What of Cora?” My mouth was dry.
Branch shook his head, mouth twisting in a sad slant. “Bill Little claimed they never kilt her, but she’s gone as sure as if they had.”
“And now this Bill Little is back in the area?”
“No, Bill Little is dead as a coffin nail. The Carter boy kilt him and near half his gang, too.”
“But how…”
“The fellas what survived ain’t been heard from since, but they’ve kept the same old name. They’re suspected in the shooting of a homesteader, three days’ ride east of here.” Branch scanned the horizon as though expecting a hard-riding gang to appear on that edge of the world, horses lathered and guns drawn; I restrained a cold shiver. He mused, “It’s bad news, that’s what. Makes me think I oughta carry a pistol at all times, like I used to.”
“And you said the marshal and Cole Spicer are on their way to Howardsville?” I asked, attempting to keep up.
Branch nodded. “It’s been a piece since Spicer’s travelled out this way. Been in Iowa these past years, I do believe, but you know them young men with a taste of the wanderlust on their tongues. Can’t say I blame ’em. I wandered a goodly amount in my own day. Getting too old now.” His gaze flickered to Axton, silhouetted against the sky on his horse, both man and animal gazing westward. Branch didn’t need to speak the words for me to understand his meaning; he blinked, the sun striking his eyes, and changed topics. “You two young’uns best get to riding before it gets dark.”
“Yes,” I agreed, not about to let this opportunity slide.
“Let me fetch Ruby for you.” Branch indicated the small fenced corral just beyond their shanty, a wooden cabin hardly big enough for two men. The structure they referred to as their barn was not appreciably larger. He unlatched the gate and I followed close behind, holding out my palms to Ruby, a beautiful horse with a silky black mane and swishing tail. I cupped her jaws and murmured to her, and she let me mount with no trouble whatsoever. Minutes later Axton and I rode toward the sunset.
“You just laughed!” Axton called over his shoulder, about ten paces ahead.
“I did,” I marveled, leaning over Ruby’s neck, feeling her muscles against the insides of my legs as we flew over the ground in a steady canter. The mare’s scent was familiar; at last, here was a strong smell that didn’t hurt my nostrils. Ruby’s hooves struck the earth with a comforting, three-beat rhythm and created a subtle vibration in my body, as though we were part of the same being.
Axton didn’t pester me with questions about whether I was doing all right, or feeling all right, and instead just kept riding. I followed, letting him retain a slight lead. When he heeled Ranger and sent him into a full-out gallop, I did the same with Ruby, holding fast to her reins. I wasn’t afraid as we raced over the prairie, only exhilarated. We must have ridden a good five miles before Axton slowed our pace, decreasing from gallop to canter; then trot to walk. His elbows jutted to the sides as he halted Ranger, waiting for Ruby and me to catch up.
As we neared, Axton looked our way and the setting sun gilded his outline as he sat easily in the saddle, obscuring exact details, creating a halo around his cowboy hat, making it appear black, highlighting his wide shoulders and lean frame. I reeled at the sight, pounded by a force I could not explain. It wasn’t Axton who inspired this feeling but instead his lean, lanky, broad-shouldered shape that reminded me of…that reminded me of…
Oh dear God…
The sun blazed just at the crest of the earth, sending scarlet spikes across my vision.
“That’s a sight, ain’t it?” Axton nodded at the sunset and didn’t appear to notice my keen-edged distress.
I could hear the exerted breathing of both horses, could feel Ruby’s ribs lifting and falling as she drew air. I gulped down a painful storm of sobs and managed to whisper, “It is.”
We watched in silence as the sun began its gradual disappearance; the light it cast was a pure, blazing copper. Bright spangles dotted my vision with each blink. It was three-quarters sunk in a river of fiery purple clouds when Axton looked my way. “You ain’t remembered nothing yet, have you, Ruthie?”
I shook my head, momentarily wordless.
“I seen that sadness on your face just now. I wish it wasn’t so.”
“I know. I really do, Ax.”
His expression was one of abject concern; worry drew his brows together, forming twin vertical creases above his nose. “Me and Uncle Branch will always watch out for you, no matter what. Even if you never find your people.”
I reached and gripped his right hand, closest to me as he held the reins. “That means more to me than you could possibly know, Ax. I don’t have anyone but the two of you.”
He continued to study my face. “I know we ain’t ever met before this summer but I feel I can tell you things, Ruthie, like maybe you’re my kin, or that I’ve known you before now…” He floundered to silence, unsure how to make his point.
“I know what you mean,” I said, and I truly did. “I trust you, too. You’ve never seemed like a stranger.”
Relief that I understood washed over his features, restoring their usual good humor. The last of the sun created a thousand shades of green in his eyes. His lashes were as red-gold as his hair, long enough to cast spiky shadows over his cheekbones.
I confessed, “I wish you were my brother, Ax. I pretend you are.”
He grinned anew, tipping his hat brim in a teasing, gentlemanly manner. “I would be honored to be your kin.”
“Thank you for this,” I said, indicating not only the horses but the entire sweep of the foothills – it was stunning out here in the open country. Restorative. It was exactly what I had needed tonight.
“You are most welcome.” He scanned the darkening sky and decided, “We best ride back.”
This time we kept to a slower pace, riding close together.
“You said there are other Rawleys in the Howardsville area?” I was terribly curious about them, especially given Celia’s news. If I had a connection to the family, I would be related to her child.
“The marshal was raised in Iowa but his brother, Grantley, is a homesteader maybe a day’s ride from here.” Axton indicated westward. “We’ll ask the marshal when he gets back to Howardsville. Him and Uncle Branch are old friends. The marshal’s mama is from the same place where Uncle Branch and my own parents were raised, back in Cumberland County, in Tennessee. Maybe the marshal will have some answers for you, Ruthie.”
“Maybe,” I whispered, thinking of Celia at the saloon, probably already with her first customer. The idea of a woman expected to spend each night providing sex for man after unwashed man was repulsive enough on its own; it was ten times worse knowing the woman was pregnant. Celia had morning sickness. She’d told me just this afternoon how much her breasts ached and still there was no respite for her. She was forced to do her job or she would earn no money, and then she would starve.
Anger resurged in my belly, a small, intense flame. “Axton, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?”
“A secret?” There was undeniable excitement in his tone.
“A secret,” I affirmed. “It has to do with the marshal.”
Axton waited expectantly, eyebrows raised. In the shadow of his hat brim his irises appeared the deep green of pine boughs.
I took a chance; Celia’s secret was burning a hole in my throat. “One of the women at Rilla’s told me she’s pregnant with the marshal’s baby.”
Axton’s brow creased; he didn’t respond.
I assumed he was equally upset by this news and prattled on, “Celia would be mad at me for telling you but I’m worried about her. I think she should tell the marshal the truth but she won’t. She doesn’t think he’d do anything about it and that’s wrong, in my opinion…” I trailed to silence, realizing Axton looked more puzzled than angry.
As I faltered to a halt, he muttered, “I don’t…you see…I don’t entirely…”
It was my turn to frown, in confusion.
Even in the gathering dusk, I saw the flush that overtook his face. “I don’t know how a man, well, you see…how he would know, with a whore…”
I took pity on him and interrupted his stammering. “Celia knows. She knows the baby is the marshal’s because he was the only man she was with when…” A sudden rush of embarrassment struck me into silence for the second time. After a beat of awkwardness, I squared my shoulders and continued, with determination, “You see, Ax, a woman knows her child’s father because each month a woman has her period, which basically means she bleeds from between her legs for a few days…”
His face grew almost comically horrified. “Bleeds?”
I rushed to explain, “It just means a woman is fertile – able to have a baby – which is completely normal. All women have a period.”
“Period?” Axton repeated weakly.
Oh for Christ’s sake, Ruthann, you idiot, I scolded myself. But it was too late to turn back now.
“Yes, a period of time when you bleed. It’s not too painful or anything, usually just annoying, and it’s how a woman knows she isn’t pregnant. Once she is pregnant, because a man’s sperm reached her egg, then the bleeding stops and she doesn’t have her period until the baby is born. Or until she’s done nursing.” I had no idea where all this knowledge was coming from.
Axton’s expression was changing to one of tentative interest. I was suddenly sure no one had ever spoken of these things with him. He said hesitantly, “Sperm?”
“Yes, that’s part of what comes out of a man when –” I almost choked, in danger of being too candid.
But he seemed to understand; he blushed even brighter and cleared his throat. When this wasn’t enough, he coughed.
I had to see this conversation through now. “Anyhow, poor Celia ended up getting pregnant last spring and she knows it’s the marshal’s baby because she wasn’t with anyone but him that month. But she doesn’t want to tell him since she thinks he won’t do a thing about it.”
Axton sounded truly perplexed. “But what could the marshal do?”
“He could marry her and give the baby his name. He could take care of them. It’s his responsibility.”
Axton said quietly, “But she’s a whore.”
My temper rose with a heated, crackling sound. “Don’t call her that! She’s a woman who deserves better!”
“Marshal Rawley won’t marry a whore.” Ax spoke with certainty. Even as riled up as I was, I understood there wasn’t a hint of cruelty in this statement; Axton was just telling the truth as he observed it.
“Then he needs to give her money, at the very least,” I persisted. “I plan to tell him. When will he be in Howardsville? You guys said a hundred and fifty miles…”
Axton said firmly, “You can’t tell him. It ain’t our business.”
The little shanty house popped into view on the horizon, along with the glinting orange spark of Branch’s cookfire, and I found no good reason for my argument, other than self-righteous anger that a woman would be left to deal with a pregnancy which was hardly her fault alone. I felt the basic injustice of this deep in my bones.
Axton smelled bacon and said gladly, “Supper. C’mon, let’s hurry!”
I spent the night at the shanty, unwilling to make Axton ride all the way to town and back just to escort me to Rilla’s. Branch insisted I take his bed – a faded patchwork quilt spread over a black bear’s hide in the back corner of the room, topped by a small, lumpy pillow. I was reluctant to oust Branch from his usual sleeping place but he insisted, rolling up in a blanket near the fire instead.
“I spent many a night sleepin’ in hellholes, believe you me, Ruthie,” Branch said. I had finally broken him of his habit of adding ‘Miss’ before my name. He elaborated, “Durin’ the War, I done slept with one eye open, always sure the Federals was about t’attack an’ cut my throat as I slept, even durin’ the blackest, rainiest nights. So’s sleepin’ near the cookfire on a fine night like this ain’t nothin’, don’t you worry none, honey.”
Branch’s Tennessee drawl became more pronounced the higher the stars rose in the sky, the longer he spoke of his younger days. The three of us sat around the fire under a full spread of twinkling stars for a long time before saying good-night. Branch told story after story of serving in the Confederate Army, tales which Axton had heard many times before, good-naturedly chiming in details as Branch allowed. I listened with a sense of fascination, so grateful for these two; so many times I’d considered begging to be allowed to stay here at the shanty with them for good, instead of returning to my miserable room at Rilla’s.
But there’s no space here. You have privacy at Rilla’s. To a degree, anyway. Axton, whether out of a desire to be a gentleman or simple shyness, I wasn’t sure, chose to sleep alongside Branch at the fire, rather than in the cabin with me. I imagined Ax lying awake, mulling over the mysteries of women and their periods, and smiled as I curled into the quilt on the thick bear hide, not daring to remove a scrap of clothing other than my shoes, angling my right arm beneath my head. Rather than glass in the single, thick-sided window cut into the log walls, a piece of canvas was nailed in place to keep rain at bay, allowing the muted orange glow of the fire to glimmer through. I drifted to sleep studying the warmth of the firelight on the square of cloth, hearing the men snoring just a few yards away.
Perhaps it was the comforting sound of a man relaxed and sleeping well enough to snore that bumped against a hidden memory –
Three-quarters asleep, I shifted position, sweaty and restless; the quilt bunched between my legs, pressing insistently against the juncture of my thighs.
Come closer, angel. I can’t sleep unless I feel you against me.
My entire body jerked at the sound of his voice. My closed eyes shifted in their sockets, searching for him.
Stay, I begged. I would rip myself inside out to make this happen. Please stay with me.
Always. I love you, oh God, Ruthie, I love you.
Don’t let me go…
His lips were warm on the nape of my neck, his hands strong and passionate as they caressed my belly and cradled my breasts, his fingers spread wide and thumbs stroking my nipples. I shifted violently, attempting to turn so I could see his face. Desperation swelled to bursting in my chest.
Stay with me. Please, oh please, stay with me…
I thrashed, clutching at him, and came abruptly awake to the dimness of the shanty cabin. I sat up and scrambled to my knees, scrabbling through the tangled quilts. The essence of the dream washed immediately away, like water down a drain, and I fell back to the crumpled bedding and sobbed for what I didn’t understand.