One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel

by Olivia Hawker

  It ain’t right for a woman to take away a man’s authority.

  Clyde had heard his father mutter those very words more times than he could count. That particular declaration had always sickened Clyde, for it had never preceded anything good. Yet now he couldn’t seem to banish his father’s voice from his mind. A black pit of rancor opened inside him. Moment by moment, it gaped ever wider. Soon he could feel a vapor of outrage rising from the pit, stinging the back of his throat.

  After some long while, Clyde heard the kitchen door open and shut again. He lifted his head just enough to peer past the brim of his hat. Evening was fast approaching. The light hung low and sideways, slanting down to the earth through a threadbare patch of cloud. The colors lay warm across the snow—soft, pale orange like the skin of an apricot, the yellow of goldenrod but wan and diluted by cold. The hour of sunset had almost come. And it wasn’t Nettie Mae who had left the kitchen this time, but Beulah. She was still clothed in that dark dress, wrapped in the bloody shawl.

  Clyde hoped for a moment she would divert from her course. Go to the outhouse, or to the sheep pen to check on the animals. But she headed directly for the long shed, her thin arms wrapped around her body, hands tucked away beneath the shawl’s swinging fringe.

  Clyde pulled his hat down even farther. If Beulah read his reluctance to speak, she ignored it.

  “Ma’s about to start fixing supper.”

  Clyde grunted.

  “She’s doing it early, on account of the snow and how dark the day is. Says there’s no point in waiting, since soon there won’t be light enough to work by.”

  Clyde made no response.

  “Won’t you come back inside? It’s so much warmer by the fire.”

  “I don’t mind the cold.”

  “I know you’re sore over what your ma said to you, but—”

  “How do you know what she said to me?” Had the whole damned house heard—witnessed his humiliation? “Listen, Beulah,” Clyde added before she could make her excuses, “I ain’t no use to anybody if I can’t protect this farm. That’s all I was trying to do.”

  “I know,” she said. “Now come back inside and get ready for supper.”

  “Not just yet.” He kicked one foot, then the other, sending crystals of snow flying into the air. They fell back to earth, snow against snow, with a dry, crackling sound.

  Turning away, Beulah sighed. When Clyde was certain he was alone again, he marched to the paddock and slipped between the rails of its fence. The horses had already trampled most of the snow; tracks of red-brown mud circled the pen, crossing the paddock at angles. He stood in the fading light, hands in his coat pockets, till the horses left their hay and came toward him. Joe Buck was the first to reach him. The gelding stood blowing softly with welcome, and Clyde leaned gratefully against the broad yellow shoulder.

  Joe Buck’s hide was warm, sweet with the odors of hay and dirt and a horse’s sweat, the rich earthy scent that had always been a sanctuary to Clyde. He hid his face against Joe Buck’s withers and breathed in deeply. With every inhalation, he tried to push away the shame that still veiled his thoughts. And each time he exhaled, Clyde sought to rid himself of his father’s presence. He could feel Substance hanging all around, dominating the cold sky as if watching, unblinking, from above.

  It ain’t right for a woman to take away a man’s authority. And if I can’t protect what’s mine—if I can’t control what’s mine—then what good am I to anybody?

  The horses milled and Clyde stood, one hand wrapped in a lock of Joe Buck’s mane, wrestling with his father’s shade. The peace of the horses’ presence, the unity of the herd, soothed some of his anger and instilled a welcome distance between Clyde and his shame—or the better part of it. He had little inkling of time’s passage, and he wanted none. The break in the clouds closed overhead; the soft golden tones of the hour before sunset gave way to purple dusk. He could hear the doors of kitchen and outhouse squealing on their hinges, banging in the silence of a world gone still beneath its first layer of snow. Hunger crept in around the edge of his awareness. Ought he to go inside and apologize? That would be best, he reasoned—apologize to his mother for his careless behavior, to the little fellows for doing what no sensible man should have done. For cursing, too. Apologize to Cora for making her hold his supper.

  He straightened and released his hold on Joe Buck’s mane. The gelding had been dozing; Joe Buck lifted his head in surprise when Clyde picked himself up off his withers. He had cocked one hind foot in rest, too.

  Clyde patted his horse on the neck. “All’s well, old fella. I’ll just head inside and smooth things over.”

  But the weight hadn’t eased in Clyde’s stomach. As he stepped out of the paddock, he could still hear his father’s voice.

  A real man has no need to smooth things over. What does the anger of a woman matter?

  Clyde didn’t know where Substance’s voice had come from, what memory had woken in his head or his heart. But he could feel his father’s presence as clearly as he seemed to hear the words. Substance was nowhere, unseen—and yet he was everywhere, towering and immovable, a force like the mountains against which even the most powerful storm must break.

  I’ll be my own man, Clyde answered.

  But Substance seemed to feel Clyde’s uncertainty, his trembling self-doubt. And Clyde remembered his father’s broken, mirthless laugh.

  There’s only one way to be a man, Substance said. And if you aren’t a man, then you’re nothing.

  Clyde shoved his fists deep into his coat pockets and trudged through the snow, shoulders hunched against the memory or the presence of his father. But just before he reached the house, he caught some small motion from the corner of his eye. The movement was distant, not obtrusive, but unusual enough that it brought him up short, even captured in the periphery of his sight. He stared toward the barn, wide eyed, waiting for the thing to move again.

  A fitful breeze stirred from the river, swinging one of the barn doors on its hinges. It was the door that had captured his attention. Open. Someone had left the barn door open.

  Clyde abandoned all thought of apologies and ran for the barn. Well before he reached it, he heard the black-legged ewe bleating in desperation, crying from the confines of her stall. The interior was dark as pitch; without a lantern, shadows surrounded him at once, and he was obliged to stand blinking for several agonized moments till his eyes adjusted. Then he made his way down the aisle to the stall where he had spent the morning crouched in straw, trying in vain to teach the two-headed lamb how to suckle.

  Clyde stared down at the bedding, searching it frantically with his eyes and then with his hands while the ewe paced and moaned around him. The lamb was gone. Vanished entirely.

  That damned beast. It must have been the coyote.

  He sprang back over the stall gate and ran to the open door. Prairie and yard alike were cast in the same monotonous blue of encroaching night. With everything all of a color, there seemed no distance anymore, as if the faraway southern horizon stood near as the mountains at his back. With all the world compressed, pressing in upon him, Clyde felt smaller and weaker than he had at any time since his childhood. But he wasn’t a boy—not anymore. And he would do what needed doing.

  He searched the snow around the barn door—and yes, there were the expected tracks. The narrow paw prints, each with four sharply defined claws like bullet holes shot into the snow. The coyote had come to the door and then run away again when its foul deed was done. Clyde could see the tracks of its flight, spread wide as the animal picked up speed—toward the orchard.

  “Damn you!” Clyde shouted into the night.

  He didn’t bother going to his mother; he wouldn’t beg for the return of his rifle. Besides, if he had to argue with Nettie Mae, the thief would only run farther, and would surely live to come raiding another day. Clyde didn’t need his rifle. There were other ways to deal with vermin who raided your stock. Any shepherd worth his salt knew that much
.

  He sprinted to the horse shed and grabbed Joe Buck’s saddle and blanket from their wooden stand. He tore the bridle from its peg, threw it over his shoulder, and then whistled sharp and loud for his horse. Joe Buck came to the fence at once; the gelding’s ears twisted this way and that as Clyde tacked him up, quick as he could manage in the dying light. Clyde’s lariat hung from the saddle horn, coiled and patient as a snake.

  Clyde swung up into the saddle as soon as he had Joe Buck clear of the gate. The gelding hadn’t been ridden in some days, and he was eager for the work, tossing his head and wringing his tail. Clyde urged him into a trot. The snow was wet and mucky beneath its shallow crust. He didn’t dare push his horse faster—not till he had clean sight of the coyote.

  As Clyde sped across the yard, he caught sight of the boys’ faces pressed against the kitchen window. A heartbeat later, the door flew open. Joe Buck threw his head high and let out a growl of surprise, but it was only Beulah, flying down the steps into the snow, shouting, “Clyde! What are you doing? Come back!”

  He didn’t draw rein, but urged Joe Buck on. As Clyde rounded the other side of the house and struck out toward the orchard, he heard his mother, too, calling his name with a rising note of desperation.

  A pool of thin blue light still lingered on the far horizon. The clouds were too dense to admit either moon or stars; that sickly western glow, rapidly fading, was all the light Clyde had. He scanned the snow to either side as Joe Buck’s trot ate up the ground. The coyote’s tracks were just visible, divots of bluer gray in a gray-blue flatness, a cold illusion. Clyde slowed his horse to a walk. He followed the tracks as they wove between the apple trees—the leafless trees, skeletal and black, sentinels of a barren world.

  Something low and dark slipped from one tree to another. Clyde drew rein and Joe Buck stopped, blowing with excitement, ears pricked toward the movement. Clyde squinted, though it didn’t make a difference in his sight—not as dim as this moonless twilight was. But he did catch a quick flash of paw and brushy tail as the raider slunk toward the rutted road and the open plain beyond.

  Not this time. You won’t get away from me. Clyde never took his eyes off the coyote, and his right hand moved with the assurance of long practice. The lariat was in his hand, uncoiling against his thigh, the running knot snicking down into the snow. He set his heels to Joe Buck’s ribs and the horse leaped forward, churning white dust with his hooves.

  The coyote bolted from hiding, a lean shadow streaking for the safety of the brush. Hunger had made it quick and clever, but Joe Buck was an experienced stock horse and dauntless in the bargain. The gelding covered the distance in a few thunderous heartbeats. Clyde whipped up his lariat, spun the rope above his head—once, twice, building the momentum he needed for a good, long throw. He could feel it, when the moment was right, when the weight of the knot swung just so and whistled beside his ear. He threw the lariat and sat deep in his saddle, pulling his horse to a skidding stop—and it was only then, with Joe Buck already backing, already sensing the tension of the rope, that Clyde thought, No lamb in the coyote’s mouth.

  The rope had flown true. Clyde was young, but he was a good stockman—maybe one of the best within a day’s ride of Paintrock. Even in the moonless dusk, he found his mark. The rope snapped tight in his hand; the knot around his saddle horn creaked, a lonely and ominous sound amid the crunch of Joe Buck’s hooves. Out there in the blue-dark shadows, the coyote’s body jerked into the air, fell heavily to the ground, thrashed and scrabbled in the snow.

  “Clyde!” A shout from the house, the front yard. It was Beulah. “Stop, Clyde! Stop it!”

  And his mother. “What are you doing? You must stop, this instant!”

  Clyde roared in response. “Get back, damn it!” A quick glance over his shoulder showed they hadn’t gone farther than the front stoop. What did women know of predators, of protection? This was his land to defend, his flock—

  Your rifle. She had no right to take it from you. That was Substance’s voice. He was back, spilling his words like oil, like pitch, into Clyde’s head. No right to humiliate you. To strip you of your strength. This is your land, your farm, your family. Take it. Claim it all, like a man.

  Clyde jerked the rope hard and hauled at his reins; Joe Buck backed all the faster, dragging the coyote through the snow. The animal twisted and flipped, trying in vain to rise and run. Relentless in his rage, shamed by his helplessness—by the damned softness he felt for that disgusting monster, that freak of a lamb—Clyde held the rope taut. Joe Buck still backed toward the house; Clyde kept his eye steadily on the creature fighting for breath at the end of his rope. The coyote’s paws were twitching now, its tail lashing in helpless fear. Its body left a long track through the snow, a straight line running from orchard to yard, but still it moved, still it fought for its life.

  He set his jaw hard, clenching his teeth till they ached. Why wasn’t this animal consenting to die, as the culled sheep had done for Beulah?

  “In God’s name, stop!” Nettie Mae’s voice was so high, so piercing, that for a moment Clyde didn’t recognize it. He had never heard his mother scream before—not once. “Please! Clyde!”

  Still he dragged the coyote, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. It had stopped thrashing by the time Clyde passed the stoop. The body was long, thin, and so flat and motionless it scarcely showed above the snow.

  Clyde eased up on the reins. Joe Buck stopped backing and swayed for a moment on his hooves. The horse shivered under Clyde’s body, tense from his rider’s rage.

  The lariat slackened, but the coyote didn’t move. Clyde stared past its diminished form, following the furrow of its path through the snow. A black line that seemed to stretch for miles—forever, to the very end of the world.

  Clyde heard a sniffle from the steps. Then a whimper. He turned in the saddle and saw Benjamin standing with both hands over his mouth, and Charles hiding his face in Beulah’s skirt so no one would see him crying. Nettie Mae had drawn the corner of her shawl up as if to shield behind it, but she was staring over its edge at Clyde. Even in the darkness, Clyde could see how pale his mother had gone. He had never seen her so frightened before, not even when Substance had been at his brutal worst.

  Clyde drew a ragged breath. He forced himself to look at Beulah. The dreamy, heavy-eyed expression had fled. Her eyes were alight with terrible agony, her mouth wide open in a silent cry.

  The reins slid from his nerveless fingers. His feet dropped from the stirrups, but for a long moment he could do nothing—nothing but sit atop his shuddering horse, staring blankly into the night.

  No lamb in the coyote’s mouth.

  By God, what have I done? What have I made myself this night?

  He slid heavily from the saddle and staggered toward the animal’s body. The lips had pulled back in a permanent snarl, the mask of its last futile struggle. The dark fur around its mouth was silvered with frost or age. The coyote’s eyes were half-closed, the teeth very white in the darkness. One of the long canines was chipped at the end, broken flat. For some reason, Clyde couldn’t tear his dull, stricken gaze from that broken tooth—the tooth and the fleshy fold of tongue behind it. There was no blood on the coyote’s muzzle. Whatever had taken the lamb, it hadn’t been this creature.

  “Oh, God.” Clyde fell to his knees beside the dark furrow and the limp, dead thing that had made it. He bent over the animal, pressing his face against its hide. The body was still as warm as life. Each rib stood out distinctly against his cheek, and he breathed in the animal smell, the musk and sage, the dryness of fur mingled with a sharp, wintery bite of ice.

  “I’m sorry.” Clyde stroked the pelt. The fur was soft—silky as risen dough beneath its coarse guard hairs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please—” Please what? Forgive me?

  He wept openly now, tears burning on his cold face, nose running faster than he could sniff it away.

  Substance’s words crept in around a flat expanse of regret. What kind of man
cries? And worse—where anyone can see?

  Clyde was finished with his father. What had Substance ever given him but pain? What had Substance given anyone but suffering? It was you who did this, you who made me do it. I have no use for you; this world isn’t yours anymore. Go lie in your grave where you belong. Leave me be—leave me be.

  The sound of footsteps over the snow broke through Clyde’s misery. He straightened on his knees, every muscle tight and trembling. He didn’t dare look around. Whether it was his mother who came toward him or Beulah or Cora or her children—whoever approached would see him now; there was no chance to hide. They would know Clyde for a weak and helpless thing. His remorse would redouble. Having fallen into the pit, there could be no escape from his shame.

  “Clyde . . .” It was Beulah’s voice, warped and thickened with sorrow.

  She knelt beside him, so close their shoulders touched. Clyde shrank back from the contact. He didn’t deserve her nearness or her comfort. She spoke his name again, but Clyde couldn’t look at her. Even in the darkness, he would see rebuke in her eyes—and disbelief, and fear. He couldn’t bear it. He knew it was his duty to bear it, to face this brutal thing he had done, and accept what he had become. Strangling was a terrible death. The coyote had done nothing to Clyde or his stock.

  “Take the rope off its neck,” Beulah said.

  Obediently, he plunged his fingers into the thick fur. His hands shook so badly he could scarcely grasp the knot, but he worked it loose and pulled the lariat over the coyote’s ears. The rope slithered over snow as Joe Buck moved away.

  Beulah sighed, a breath of sorrow so deep and long it seemed all the world mourned with her. She ran her hands down the coyote’s pelt, slowly, from muzzle to thin shoulder, over the curve of its ribs, the long flank stretched against whiteness. Even the tail, down to its pale tip. She learned the flesh and fur, the shape and angle of the bones. And she wept all the while—quietly, not wailing as some women do, or as little children do. But the hard, choking sobs were worse than any cries. They shook her body like blows, each one. Clyde might as well have beaten her with his fists.