by Mark Warren
“Your moustache tickles,” she laughed and canted her head. “But I like it.”
“Are you cold?”
She held the smile and shook her head. “Indian make good fire,” she said. Wyatt laughed quietly, another miracle to which he was growing more accustomed. “Wyatt, next time we go to a dance, why don’t you bring along your horse.”
He had knelt to the fire to rearrange the partially burned sticks. “My horse,” he echoed, looking up at her, his eyes pinched with a question.
“The two of you know what you’re doing together. I believe you were born to ride.” He pushed at the coals with a stick. “Of course, it will hurt more if the two of you step on my feet.”
“I reckon I can get better at it with some practice. How are your feet?”
She gave him the look that he was certain no other man saw. “Did you like dancing?”
“I liked being with you.”
“But did you like dancing?”
“I like riding better.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “Wyatt, you are the most direct man I’ve ever known, but you’re starting to sound like a politician.”
He smiled. “I liked the dancing fine. If you can stick with me on it, I can learn it.”
She knelt beside him and slipped her arm through his. “I’ll stick,” she said.
In less than a month, standing before Justice of the Peace Nicholas Earp, they exchanged vows to become man and wife. Virgil had arrived in time to see it happen, bringing with him the willowy young French woman from Peoria—Rozilla. Her accent charmed all the family except Nicholas, who was perpetually confounded by the exotic alteration of her words. Though still pretty, there was a jaded look about her, as if she had already suffered more disappointments than most women would ever know. Sometimes when Wyatt looked at her, he thought of Valenzuela Cos, who, like Rozilla, had been scarred but still held to a dream of a better life.
The newlyweds moved into a room at the Exchange, where Rilla continued to work behind the desk of her father’s business. Wyatt liked the arrangement. And he liked Lamar. The prospects for improving his life seemed set into motion.
In the spring Virgil took up managing the bakery in town, and appeased his parents by taking Rozilla as his wife. Newton traded the ovens for farming, with plans to expand the family shop to a grocery. Through that greenest of summers, the prosperity of the Earps appeared to be on the verge of blossoming.
When Aurilla grew heavy with child, Wyatt made a down payment on a house on a small lot next to half-brother Newton and his family. There on the outskirts of town the birthing would take place. Wyatt knew he was blessed to have his hard-edged life touched by someone like Rilla, but now the coming of the child ushered him into a new sense of self-worth. The raw life of the boomtowns and railroad camps was far behind him now. He had sown his oats with whores and gambling and fighting, and now he set his eyes on a path for a more substantial future, a course inspired first by Rilla, and now by the baby.
In the early fall on a crisp day, with the sky as clear as a great blue ceramic platter, Wyatt came home from work early driving a wagon load of wood he had sawn and split in the woods north of town. It was well after dark when he had finished stacking it by the house. When he went inside, Rilla worked at the sideboard putting together the evening meal.
“We were just trying to decide if you were a constable or a woodcutter,” Rilla said and then turned to show him her smile. She kept looking at Wyatt as he sat and pulled off his gloves.
“ ‘We’?”
She placed a hand on her belly, the movement as gentle as a holy ritual. Setting down a serving spoon, she walked to him with both hands pressing to the swell of her dress. Wyatt placed his hands on hers, and she bent and kissed him. Her smile dissolved when she read his face.
“I run into a coupl’a boys who’d been hunting up north of town. They found a liquor still set up back in the woods, and they took me to it.” Wyatt removed his hands from her and tugged off a boot. When he started on the other, he said, “Looks like it might belong to Gran Brummett.” He set the boots on the floor and looked up to see Rilla’s censorial eyebrow arch as it always did whenever he shared with her the misdeeds that went on in Lamar. “It’s a big operation. Word is . . . your brothers are in this with him.”
Now she became very still, and her forehead creased like a washboard. “What did you do?”
“What I had to do. It’s out of the town limits, so I handed it over to the sheriff.”
“What will he do with them?”
“It’ll go to court. Probably just a fine. The sheriff will have to bust up the still.”
She walked back to the counter and began serving their plates. The sharp tap of the spoon on the cookware seemed to serve as a surrogate message for the words she would not say.
“Upholding the law is what I do, Rilla. The town pays me for it.”
She brought the plates to the table and sat. Wyatt tucked his cloth napkin into the crook of his collar, but Rilla only folded her hands in her lap and stared at him.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” she said quietly. Her gaze lowered to the steaming food before her. “You told me your father has moonshined everywhere he has ever lived.” Her luminescent eyes came up briefly to meet his. “I’ve even heard people here talk about the quality of his liquor.”
Wyatt held his fork motionless above his plate and waited until she would look at him again. “If it had been Pa’s still, I would’a done the same thing.”
Rilla’s face relaxed. She rested an elbow on the table, lowered her head, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes. “I know you would, Wyatt,” she whispered. When her hand came down she smiled. “I really do.” She reached for him, and their hands met across the table. With the squeeze of her grip, he felt her love enfold him with a level of trust he had never before experienced with another human being. At times like this, the walls of their little house seemed like a stone palisade, an impassable boundary that could shut them off from every trouble the world could throw their way.
Wyatt started on his meal, and Rilla followed suit. “I reckon my pa prob’ly is runnin’ a still out there somewhere. If he is . . . he never talks about it.” He chewed and looked north out the window.
“Well, I hope Gran and my brothers don’t have to stand before him . . . in his courtroom,” Rilla said more to herself than to Wyatt. “Wouldn’t that be ironic?”
Wyatt bit off a mouthful of bread baked in his family’s bakery, and then he chewed for a time, until he began nodding. “Be a hard nut to swallow.” Slicing at the piece of ham on his plate, he dismissed the trivial details of the moonshine operation. “I’m going to run for constable again in the elections.”
She looked mildly surprised. “You are?”
“Thought I’d see if I could get voted in this time . . . ’stead o’ slippin’ in through the back door. If I can hold the position another year, then I’ll figure out a business that’ll help us prosper. All I need is the right idea and the right people to back me.”
“Everyone respects you, Wyatt. You have a good reputation in Lamar. I was here when your father was constable. You’re not like him. You handle things calmer . . . calmer but stronger.”
From anyone else, such a compliment would have meant little to him. People were forever trying to gain favor with the ones in charge. But Rilla’s voice always carried a ring of certainty.
He nodded toward the swell of her stomach. “You reckon I can conjure up that calm when that little baby decides to pay a visit?”
Rilla’s smile spread across her face. “This baby is going to wrap you around his finger.”
“ ‘His’? Sounds like you might have this birthin’ all figured out,” he said, knowing that, being a woman, she probably did have some way of knowing it would be a boy. “If I’m still the constable, maybe I’ll have something to say about how things work around here.”
“You’ll still be the constable
, Wyatt. You’ll see.”
On a cold night in November, after cleaning the dishes, Rilla went to bed without a word, just as she had the preceding night. With the birth approaching, she seemed to need the extra rest. In the parlor Wyatt struggled to compose the newspaper notice that he hoped would get him elected to another term. Within minutes, without Rilla’s help to find the proper words, he gave it up and carried the oil lamp to the kitchen, where he flattened a newspaper on the table and disassembled James’s pistol, laying out the parts in the same order in which he would, in reverse, reassemble it.
Running the wire brush through the barrel, he felt the abstractions of laboring over the newspaper card dissolve with the tangible exercise of cleaning the gun. The heft of the frame in his hands was a reward in itself. He treated the gun with care and respect, not only because it had been James’s weapon, but because its mechanics guaranteed his well-being. One day he would call on the gun to reciprocate, and for that occasion, it would need to be as ready as he was.
A mewling sound from the bedroom stilled his hands. Suspending his breathing, he listened for anything else he might hear. Rilla’s breathing had gone ragged, and her muted voice was a raspy whisper as she spoke, as if someone else were in the room with her. Wyatt laid down the hardware, crossed the floor, and quietly pushed open the door. The grip of her fist on the bed sheets stopped him cold.
“It’s too early,” she said. The voice that squeezed from her chest was as unfamiliar as the look of agony distorting her face. “I can’t do this.”
Wyatt felt a match strike against the pit of his stomach. “Rilla?” He pushed through the door and took a step toward her but stopped short. “I’ll fetch the doctor,” he said and grabbed his heavy coat from the clothes cabinet. Taking one more look at her misery, he rushed outside.
He ran next door to rouse Newton and Jennie, feeling the short distance from Rilla as if it were a separation of miles. When he returned, he found her racked with pain, one leg splayed to the floor. Kneeling beside her he cradled her head in his hands. The heat and dampness of her hair opened a hollow cavern in his gut.
“You got to hang on,” he whispered. “My brother has gone for the doctor.”
As he lifted her back into the bed, she tightened her grip on him with a strength he had not thought her capable. He pushed away to keep his weight off her swollen belly, but from her fierce hold on his coat lapels, she began to rise with him.
“Let me go wet a towel,” he said, but still he had to pry her fingers loose.
Through the backdoor came Newton, his wife Jennie right behind him. Her thick, dark hair—usually pinned up on her head—fell loosely around her shoulders, making her appear almost a stranger. Both began to pull out of their heavy coats as Newton’s eyes seemed to ask Wyatt for any news. Not knowing what to say, Wyatt worked the pitcher pump and squeezed the towel of excess water, but Jennie took it from him and hurried into the bedroom.
“The doctor’s coming,” Newton said quietly and looked around the kitchen, finally nodding at the stove. “I’ll bring in some wood. We might need to boil some water.” He waited, but when Wyatt said nothing, Newton squeezed his brother’s upper arm. “Havin’ a baby can be as hard on a man as a woman.”
Wyatt shook his head. “It ain’t just that,” he said hoarsely. “Somethin’ bad’s wrong.”
Newton’s dark eyes softened with the same tenderness he had bestowed on Wyatt as a child. “It’ll be all right, Wyatt.” He waited for Wyatt to accept his counsel, but Wyatt could only stare at the bedroom door. “I’ll get the wood,” Newton said again and slipped out the door.
When Wyatt returned to the bedroom, Jennie turned, unable to hide the alarm on her face. Rilla was limp and her breathing so shallow, he paused to assure himself she was still alive. When Jennie pressed the towel to her face, Rilla shivered violently about her shoulders.
“I’ll get another blanket,” Wyatt said, his voice sounding distant even to himself.
“She’s burning up with fever, Wyatt,” Jennie said. “Wet another towel for her stomach.”
When he returned, Jennie lifted Rilla’s nightgown, and time seemed to stop as they stared mutely at red blotches scattered across Rilla’s skin. Jennie grabbed the towel and covered the spots, but the image had seared into Wyatt’s memory.
Only when the doctor arrived did Rilla open her eyes. Wyatt felt his gut tighten when he saw how the bright blue had drained from her irises, leaving them drab and listless. She turned her head to the doctor and pushed a feeble voice through her clamped teeth.
“This baby is killing me!” She hissed the words like an accusation, then slumped back into the bed as if the admission had cost her everything.
Wyatt stood back and watched the doctor administer to Rilla’s needs as Jennie fussed with the sheets. When he heard footsteps on the side porch, Wyatt turned to see Newton opening the door for Mrs. Sutherland, her mouth grim and set with purpose, her eyes already sagging with hopelessness. Her head was bare and her hair unkempt in a way Wyatt had never seen. After Newton helped her struggle out of her coat, she tightened the sash of her night robe.
“Is it the baby?” she said, looking at Newton. He turned, deferring to Wyatt.
“She said it was . . . killin’ her,” Wyatt said quietly.
Her gaze held on Wyatt’s face long enough to convey the certainty of a crisis. She pulled him from the door and stood him by the woodstove.
“Don’t go in there, Wyatt. She wouldn’t want it.”
Without another word, she swept into the bedroom and closed the door, leaving Wyatt to stare at the dividing wall between them. He stood stock-still and listened for any sound that might reach him. Right away the door opened, and the doctor’s head leaned through the crack.
“Heat some water to a boil, Wyatt!”
Newton hurried to the sideboard and worked the pitcher pump. Wyatt was like a man banished from a dream, watching himself from outside the bubble of a nightmare. The repetitious sound of the pump handle mocked him for his ineptness. If the doctor had not come, he would not have known how to help his wife. Nothing had prepared him for this. He was accustomed to meeting problems head on, providing the action that balanced the need. He felt like a child as he watched Newton space pots of water on the stove top. Wyatt knew he should have already done that. Any fool would know to heat water.
“The doc’ll know what to do, Wyatt,” Newton said in his kind and gentle way. When Wyatt made no response, Newton picked up a stick of firewood from the pile and hesitated at the door to the stove. “Hey, I had me a good idea. Some of the farmers around the town are planning to vote for Old Man Yard for constable. I know for a fact they’ll vote for me if I put my name on the slate. I figure that’ll help spread out the vote in your favor.”
Wyatt stared at his brother, seeing only the image of Rilla he had carried from the bedroom. She had been sinking . . . away from him. If she died, the part of him he had invested in her—in their life together—would turn against him and break what was left of his ambitions. He was as sure of that as he was of the eventual coming of the dawn. Already he could sense the permanent hole losing her would open up inside him.
Each time Mrs. Sutherland came for the water, her face looked more haggard, her eyes in red-rimmed anguish. “Keep up with the water, Wyatt. We need more towels.”
She squeezed his hand, and the feel of her grip sent a chill through his body, as though she were serving as a surrogate to inform him that Rilla might never touch him again. He wanted to say to her that she was wrong, that he should be in there with her at that moment, but his words hardened, as if a piece of ice had lodged in his throat. He turned away lest she see his stricken face, and then, remembering the towels, he grabbed his coat off the chair.
“I’ll go, Wyatt,” Newton said. “I’ve got plenty in my back storeroom.”
Newton had been gone only a minute when the doctor shuffled from the bedroom, closed the door behind him, and leaned against the jamb. Wyatt
could only stare at the man’s bloodstained hands.
“The baby was stillborn, Wyatt.”
Wyatt stared at the closed door to the bedroom. “What about Aurilla?” he said hoarsely.
The doctor looked down at the floor and shook his head before meeting Wyatt’s eyes. “It’s more than the baby. She has typhus.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She gave it all for the child. I don’t know that I can help her.” He hitched his head toward the door. “Go in and see her, son.”
Wyatt crossed the floor and quietly pushed open the bedroom door. The first thing he saw was blood, soaked into the linens in a garish pattern, as though a bucket of red paint had been upended on the bed. Jennie looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. Rilla’s mother was slumped on the floor by the bed, her forehead pressed into the mattress and one hand resting on Aurilla’s unmoving arm. Still holding the doctor’s medical words in his ears, Wyatt stared at his wife lying among the twisted bed sheets. A tiny, lifeless rag of a body lay beside her. It was a boy, tinted red all over as though it had been drowned in blood.
Already he knew he would carry this indelible scene with him through whatever was left of his life. “Rilla . . .” he said, but was not sure to whom he was speaking. The silence that followed was like the still air in an empty house.
Jennie rose and left the room, touching Wyatt’s sleeve as she passed. The doctor moved back to the bed and sat. Very gently, he pressed two fingers to Rilla’s neck and remained still for a time. Slowly he turned and gave Wyatt the solemn look that could never be recanted.
“She can’t hear you, Wyatt. She’s gone.” The doctor’s moist eyes filled with the reflection of the lamplight. “She’s with God now.”
Rilla’s mother began to convulse with racking sobs. Wyatt did not know if he was supposed to go to her or let her be. Until she had touched him in the kitchen he had never had physical contact with her. How could he begin such a thing now? Her wail was like the victorious scream of death itself. Backing away from the wretchedness trapped inside the room, he turned and walked out of the house in his shirtsleeves, moving aimlessly toward the back lot, wondering if his legs would carry him to a place of privacy.