by Lila Bowen
“Where is that?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “The infirmary.”
“So why do you keep her, if she’s so… troubled?”
Her eyes flashed defiance as she glared at him. “Fate delivered this precious child to us after many years of fruitless heartache. I just know that with enough love, she’ll find her way.”
Inés sketched a cross in the air. “Amen. The Lord provides.”
That got Josephina smiling again. “He does. Perhaps you’ll come have tea with me this afternoon, sister, after I’ve hired on another nursemaid. I could use some company in this wild, rough place.” She looked down her nose at Rhett and added, “Your boy won’t be necessary. We have plenty of muscle in our suite.” Then, more pointedly, “You’re squeezing her rather hard, Mr. Rhett. Please release her and give us some privacy.”
It was true enough that Rhett’s fingers were dug into Trevisan’s shoulders as he pinned his foe to the bench and considered how easy it would be to kill him right here. But it was also true that Cora wouldn’t let Rhett see another sunrise should he take that route, and also that his face would be up on Wanted posters from here to New Amsterdam. So he pasted on a shit-eating grin and held up his hands.
“Just trying to follow directions, ma’am. That little biscuit sure can squirm.”
“The jacket will keep her from self-harm. Good day, Mr. Rhett.”
“And a fine day to you.”
Before Inés could give him any orders, Rhett scooped up a biscuit, tipped his hat, and hightailed it for the door. The day was fine, clear, and warm if a bit windy. As soon as his boots hit the muck of the street, he could feel all his muscles uncoil, his blood pumping and his lungs sucking in all that sweet, free air. When they’d first come to the city, the stench had nearly made him ill. But compared to the stale air indoors, he’d gladly gulp down the collective stink of every beast in Durango. A city was a trap, but once you went inside a building, the trap had sprung, and you’d already started dying.
Rhett chewed his biscuit and whistled as he practically skipped down the street. It was like there was a string attached to Sam, and Rhett danced on the end of it like a fish being reeled right in. He found Mr. Marko’s hostelry, and he went on in to check on his horses first, half hoping he’d find Sam there. As luck would have it, he did.
It was like a daydream: Sam Hennessy still mussed from sleep, caught in a sunbeam as he curried his blue roan. Bits of hay danced in the light, and everything seemed touched with gilt. Rhett’s heart just about exploded.
Blue’s welcoming yodel pulled him out of the reverie, and Sam looked up in surprise and smiled in that particular way that made Rhett’s heart do somersaults. Rhett gave his old mule a scratch, but his eyes never left Sam.
“Well, there you are. I been missing you, Rhett.”
“Likewise, Sam. How’s the horseflesh?”
“Right as rain. That Mr. Marko keeps a good barn. What’s the news?”
It went like that, back and forth, easy as sugar. Rhett told Sam about Trevisan, the Mallards, the upcoming picnic, and the monster he’d killed the night before. He didn’t mention that he only let the critter in because he was hoping against hope that it was Sam. As for Sam, he made the appropriate scared and impressed noises throughout Rhett’s story and even looked worried about the blade-antlered stag.
“Hellfire, Rhett. You need somebody there with you. I told you it ain’t safe alone.”
“Oh, I took care of it, Sam. All in a day’s work.” He said it with some swagger, thumbs in his gun belt, and Sam gasped and stared at his hands.
“It burned you, Rhett!”
Rhett blushed and pulled his hands away, stuffing them in his pockets. “Aw, hell. It didn’t hurt so bad. I reckon I’ll just be nothing but a mess of scars, one day.”
Sam dropped the curry comb and stepped close, closer than two smart cowpokes would be in a public place. Even though he didn’t want to, Rhett stepped back. Anybody could walk into Marko’s barn at any time, and as much as he didn’t mind getting in fights with monsters, he sure as hell didn’t want to feel the brunt of a human who saw the way he and Sam looked at each other and decided it wasn’t acceptable.
As soon as Rhett stepped back, Sam looked about as hangdog as a feller could look.
“What’s wrong, Rhett?”
“Hellfire, Sam. You know a place where we can talk? And just… be? Somewhere private-like?”
Sam nodded and pointed at the hayloft and started climbing. Rhett skittered up the wooden ladder behind him, indulging in a glance at the cowboy’s fine rump. Up top, the loft was tidy just like below, full of neatly stacked hay and a table with four chairs and an old ceramic jug on top of it, just waiting to welcome hardworking fellers for a poker game away from the crowd. Sam looked like he was going to sit there, but the whole setup seemed cold to Rhett, and he couldn’t imagine saying anything real to Sam with that stained table separating them. Instead, he inclined his head toward the sunny side of the loft and took a seat on a bale of hay. When Sam sat down beside him, their legs almost grazing, Rhett’s heart just about floated away.
Rhett looked down and saw his hands on his knees, all mottled brown and puckered pink. He slipped them under his thighs, even though the hay itched like hell.
“You don’t have to hide your hands. Your scars are part of you,” Sam said, looking down at his own calloused pink palms. “You can trust me. I don’t get scared off easy.”
Rhett’s throat closed up, and he forgot about his embarrassment and grabbed for Sam’s hand without thinking about it too much, covering it with his own. “I know, Sam. I know you’re tough. It’s just… I never had anybody look at me like this before, like whatever I am and whatever I become is perfectly fine. It makes me jumpy. Like maybe one day you’ll look too deep and see what I really am.”
Sam turned his hand and squeezed Rhett’s fingers hard enough to make the little bones rub together. “I see you fine. And I know everybody’s got secrets, and they ain’t all pretty. But you got to let me in. Let me see the things you hide from other people. That’s what a partnership is: showing somebody what you keep from everybody else and trusting them not to hightail it.”
“Maybe I’m scared of what you’ll see. I don’t ever want to hurt you.” Rhett gulped and looked down. “I’m broken, Sam. In ways I haven’t even figured out yet. And that means I’m still breakable. Maybe not so much on the outside, when I’m fighting monsters. But on the inside.”
Sam held up their hands, tangled together, brown and pink and white and rough. “Nobody and nothing is perfect. Scars inside, scars outside. I got ’em, too. You haven’t heard all my stories yet, but we can trade, by and by. Maybe I don’t have as many scars as you, but I still got more than most. I rode with the Rangers for years before you showed up. I’m a survivor. A fighter. Just like you are.” His grin was a come-hithery thing. “You tend to forget. I’m bigger than you.”
Rhett turned a little and looked up. “Oh, I don’t forget that.”
Sam’s eyes darted around the hayloft before he cupped Rhett’s jaw and pulled his face into the proper angle for kissing. Rhett went all melty inside and forgot, for a moment, everything that dogged him. The Shadow drove him with whips and shouts but Sam beckoned him forward inexorably. Sam was the least magical person in his life but somehow made Rhett truly feel the magic in the world. He was the opposite of monsters, the counterpoint to the darkness, the personal sun around which Rhett orbited. This, Rhett thought, was the whole reason he fought so hard. So that maybe, every now and then, he could feel this way. Truly alive in every part but whole and happy, even with everything he was missing. The Shadow emptied him out, but Sam filled him back up.
Breaking from the kiss for a breath, Sam ran his knuckles over Rhett’s cheek. “No stubble burn. Never thought I’d find the perfect feller, but here we are.”
Rhett was lit up inside like kindling and couldn’t find words for all the things he wanted to say. All he
could do was cup Sam’s hand with his own and try to put his feelings into his one good eye. It had been hard enough with two eyes, but now he felt like he was never enough, especially not to hold all the goodness of Sam Hennessy’s heart.
“Know how you feel,” he managed to whisper.
The ladder creaked down below, and they broke apart. Not quite guiltily, because Rhett was damned if he’d feel guilty for such stolen moments. More for the reason deer flash their tails and bolt when they hear a twig snap. They knew how rare a thing they possessed and didn’t want to lose it. For deer, it was their own lives. For Rhett, well, he reckoned Sam was the most important thing in his life, and he’d bolt to keep him, every time.
As the ladder groaned under someone’s weight, Rhett leaned back against a hay bale and stuck a slip of hay in between his lips to seem nonchalant. Sam inspected his fingernails.
“Marko said he saw you two head up here,” Winifred said, head and shoulders peeking up through the hole in the loft floor.
“You climb right back down,” Sam shouted. “Dan’ll string me up if he knows you been climbing haylofts in your condition.”
Winifred rolled her eyes and clambered up onto the honey-gold boards to stand, hands on hips. “You’re not my nursemaid, Sam Hennessy, nor my jailer. So don’t go telling me what to do. Greater men have tried. And failed.”
She looked like some sort of a goddess, just then – natural and unkempt and fearsome. Her hair was loosely braided, long and shiny, and her skin seemed to glow from within. Even in her rough clothes, she was like a queen, and Rhett didn’t doubt what she said. He wouldn’t want to tangle with her just now, that was for damn sure. There had been a certain secretive, stolen safety in their time together, in the darkness of the wagon in the deep of night. But out in the daytime, in the sun, Winifred was more than a little terrifying.
“Tell us what you want, then, and go on back to being dangerous,” he muttered, noting to himself that there was nothing in the world quite so uncomfortable as a former lover sneaking up while a feller was with his current lover.
She walked over with purpose and sat on Rhett’s other side, and it felt about like being bracketed by two dogs that weren’t exactly friendly. Sam scooted a little closer, which made Winifred scoot a little closer, which made Rhett feel like a draft horse squeezed between the traces of a goat cart. He bolted up to pace the loft nervously, his fingers drumming on his pants legs.
“Well, go on,” he urged. “With whatever you got to say.”
Winifred gave him that private little smirk that reminded him how much she enjoyed needling him. “I just wanted to know what you found out. Is Trevisan still in Meimei’s body?”
“He is. Got taken in by some white folks, richer than they are smart. They keep him under lock and key, guarded by well-armed fellers around the clock. Say it’s for the child’s own good. Last night, he must’ve gotten loose. Sent a monster after me, big ol’ stag with blades for antlers. Made a mess of my hotel room, I’m not afraid to tell you. But Inés sweet-talked the fool lady who wants to be that necromancer’s mama. We’re going on a picnic with ’em tomorrow, out to the land where they’re building their homestead. That’s when I’m gonna do it. I haven’t seen Dan and Cora, though. Have you?”
Winifred laughed at that. “They couldn’t get in last night. Apparently someone in the hotel has a yappy little dog that kept having a hissy fit any time Dan tried to mosey in as a coyote. He about wanted to wring its neck. Since he couldn’t get in, he couldn’t unlock the attic door for Cora to come in from the roof. Dan will try to get in today, while folks are likely out and about.”
“Could’ve used their help last night.”
Her head whipped back like a snake. “Oh, you could’ve used some help? Sorry to disappoint you. Perhaps you forget that none of us are here because we must be. Or because we’re paid well. My brother’s sense of obligation to you is his own business, but I find it ridiculous. He is worth more than acting as your shield against the world.”
That irked more than Rhett would ever admit. “Then why the hell are you-all along? Stay here in San Anton, or go travel with my mama. There’s plenty of places that would be glad to have you and your wee-un, I’m sure. But I got enough to worry about. I don’t plan to start accepting complaints from aggrieved parties.”
Winifred took a deep breath and sat on her hands as if trying to keep from clawing at his face like a harpy. Rhett figured it was a good skill for her to learn before the god’s baby was born. “My brother is here because he feels it is his duty. I came here because… well, I just knew he needed me. Don’t ask me how. It tugged me right out of Nueva Orleans. And now I’m staying here because Cora needs me.”
“And what happens when she gets back what she really needs?”
Winifred looked like she’d been slapped, which Rhett found satisfying. If the coyote girl wanted to get honest, he could give as well as he got.
But Winifred’s eyes just went cold as the November sky. “You don’t know what she needs. You never bothered to ask. You didn’t stick around to find out.”
She spun and headed back for the ladder. Sam nudged Rhett’s shoulder and whispered, “Rhett.”
That’s all it took, and Rhett was ashamed, for both of them. “Winifred, wait.” When she turned around, he gave a sorry-type smile and asked, “How are you feeling? You need me to smuggle some biscuits out from the fancy hotel? They got pats of butter shaped like flowers.”
She chuckled like he was a naughty child. Which, in many ways, he reckoned he was. “No, thank you. Mrs. Schafer is a fine cook, and the German ladies cluck over me and make sure I’m more than full. I’m feeling better. Not as sick. But I miss the open air. When you’re used to the wide sky, being in such a big city is…”
“Right stifling,” Rhett filled in.
Winifred nodded. “I don’t know much about what the future holds, but I know this baby wants to be born on the prairie, not looking up at a pressed tin ceiling and a white woman’s fine, soft hands.”
Hearing her say that, Rhett remembered what he liked about her. She was a wild thing, like he was, and containment chafed at them both.
“Then I reckon I’ll do my best to end that goddamn alchemist and get you back on the trail so you can squat in the mud,” he said with his old teasing tone.
“What a gentleman,” she answered in kind.
“Are you worried at all, Winifred?” Sam asked. “It seems right scary, birthing a baby. I know my ma squalled her head off. And it didn’t seem to do well for Ms. Regina.”
Winifred shrugged. “In my band, women simply stop on the trail, put down a piece of leather, and do what comes naturally. Not in the dirt.” She gave Rhett a look that told him he was a fool. “But near enough. It’s hard to do something more natural than that. Sometimes, women die. Sometimes, the child is lost. Sometimes both, but that wouldn’t be a problem I would have to deal with personally, would it? As far as I see it, if Buck wanted this child made, that means he wants it born and growing and healthy. And he probably wants me to raise it, as I suspect he doesn’t have time for that sort of thing, so I most likely won’t fall during delivery. I’m fortunate, compared to some. Charmed, perhaps.”
“But won’t you feel trapped? With a little thing needing you all the time?” Rhett asked.
She flapped a hand at him. “Babies aren’t boulders. You just carry them with you. I suppose I shouldn’t get into as many fights as I currently do, thanks to you. But a few years off won’t dull my aim. How like a man, to assume that new life carries an impossible burden. It’s a blessing, Rhett.”
His breath hitched, and he had to look away. “Perhaps I come from a place where I was only ever a burden. I’ve never seen a child that folks seemed glad to have around.”
“Well you’re going to, so prepare yourself. Keep my brother safe until then, you hear?”
With a nod, she sauntered over to the ladder and gracefully swung around to climb down. Rhett watched her go,
feeling the usual swirl of mixed feelings around a girl both too complicated and vastly fascinating, inviting and ferociously hostile.
“I don’t reckon I will ever understand her,” he said to Sam.
Sam sat beside him, hip to hip, and smiled. “You don’t have to,” he said.
And then they kissed for a good while more.
Rhett spent the rest of the day with Sam in the hayloft trying his hardest to forget about everything that could go wrong the next morning. Private time with Sam was quickly becoming his favorite activity, second even to galloping on horseback. As dusk fell, they were forced to part, and he wandered back over to the hotel, his lips puffy with kissing and his belly woozy and sated in a different sort of way. Trevisan and his folks weren’t at dinner, and neither was Inés, so he scooped up what he could right quick, before somebody noticed that he was the darkest person at the table and tried to kick him out. Upstairs, he found Inés in his room with a book in her lap, and he could feel her glare through the fabric of her veil.
“You stayed away,” she observed, letting the book fall shut with a loud clap. “All day.”
“I had business.”
Her head nudged up and down like she was inspecting him for mismatched buttons. “You appear to have many kinds of business, some more pressing than others.”
Rhett grinned. “Everybody does. There’s still supper downstairs, if you’re hungry.”
The nun’s belly growled as if on cue, and she left in a cloud of annoyance. One hand on the door, she turned to look back at him. “If something attacks you tonight, knock on my wall. You don’t have to fight alone.”
He didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue. Just stared at her and shrugged.
That night, not really meaning to, Rhett slept like a damn baby. At least, right up until he heard a key turn in his lock. His eye flew open on the sort of darkness that a man never finds on the prairie. Something about walls and ceilings seemed to create impenetrable shadows that just couldn’t survive outside under the honest stars. Real quiet-like, he rolled off the bed, which he’d been lying on top of in all his clothes, just in case something untoward happened, which it seemed to be doing just now.