“Sterling, please calm down! I’ll find them and bring them to you so you can talk to them about this.”
As she hurried away, he attempted to calm himself, failed, and kicked at the wall. The brush piled up against it came away, revealing the part of the wall it had concealed. Sterling stared at the lower logs and felt a lump tighten his throat.
Beneath the names Snig, Snag, and Snug were also carved the names Archibald, Venus, Chimera-Mother...and Sterling-Father.
Sterling stared. Mindless of his surroundings, he bent, and with one finger touched the word Father. He traced the childishly formed letters several times before he stood to gape at them again.
The abrupt and loud arrival of the three log sculptors startled him from his contemplation. Snig tripped over the scattered brush and fell facedown. Snag, at a full run, stumbled over Snig and went flying headfirst into the wall. And Snug, in trying to avoid tumbling over Snig, sidestepped his brother and crashed into Sterling instead.
Sterling, realizing he was going to fall, tried to grab the cabin roof, missed it by a yard, and felt himself toppling. He knew he would land squarely atop Snug, who was hanging onto his belt, and swiftly twisted his torso so the boy’s fall would be cushioned. He fell, flat on his back, Snug’s weight making the spill worse.
“Get off,” he whispered with what little breath he found.
Snug crawled off Sterling and examined his elbow. “You hurt me,” he whined when he saw the bleeding cut.
Sterling sat up and rubbed his aching ribs. “If you had had your coat on, your elbow would have been protected, and you wouldn’t have gotten that cut. What are you doing running around like it was summertime?”
“We—”
“And approaching someone at a full run is not nice behavior,” Sterling admonished. He took off the eye-blinding coat Chimera had made him from a patchwork quilt and wrapped it around Snug’s small shoulders. “Are the two of you all right?” he asked Snig and Snag.
Snig staggered to his feet and brushed dirt from his lavender pants. “Nothin’ hurts me. I’m insensible.”
“Insensible?” Sterling asked.
“Yeah. Don’t you know what that word means?”
Sterling grinned. “I might. But please tell me what you think it means.”
Snig puffed out his little chest then brought his right arm up parallel to his shoulder and flexed his muscles. “Insensible. It means there ain’t nothin’ in the world that can beat me.”
Sterling laughed so hard, he fell back to the ground. Snag and Snug, though they had no idea what he found so funny, joined him in his merriment and laughed with him.
Snig was indignant. His freckled face contorted into angry lines before he turned and ran.
“Snig, wait!” Sterling called. He jumped to his feet and raced after him, soon catching him by the shirttail.
“Lemme go! I hate you!”
Sterling crouched, saw the boy’s tears, and felt his heart skip a beat. “Snig, I wasn’t laughing at you. I understood exactly what you meant when you said you were insensible, and I agree wholeheartedly with you. But Snig, the word is not insensible, it’s invincible. You’re invincible. Insensible means you don’t have feelings. You said you hated me. Hate is a feeling. If you hate someone, you aren’t insensible. Understand?”
Snig nodded, then threw his arms around Sterling’s neck. “I don’t hate you, Sterling,” he sniffled, and wiped his wet nose on Sterling’s shoulder. “I love you! I—”
“Snig, you damn traitor!” Snag spat as he and Snug arrived. “We were supposed to ask Sterling together!”
“Yeah!” Snug agreed venomously. He ran and pulled Snig away from Sterling. “You got the biggest mouth in the whole territory, Snig! The biggest one in the country. The world. The universe!” He punched Snig right in the nose.
Snag joined the fight, and Sterling was hard-pressed to untangle the rolling ball of angry boys. When he’d finally separated them, the look of warning in his eyes kept them that way. “What—”
“I didn’t ask Sterling nothin’!” Snig informed his accusatory brothers. “I ain’t no traitor!”
“You did so ask him!” Snag flared. “We heard—”
“I did not!” Snig stood with his fist balled. “Hold on!” Sterling commanded, and held a restraining hand up to Snig. “What were you going to ask me?”
The triplets began explaining, their voices becoming louder as they tried to be heard over each other. Sterling joined them in their shouting, screaming for silence that never came. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he aimed his pistol at the sky and pulled the trigger.
The boys quieted immediately. “Well, dammit to hell, Sterling!” Snug swore. “Did you have to scare the shit out of us like that?”
Sterling replaced his gun in his belt. “It was either that or knock you out. And if I hear you talk like that again, I can’t promise I won’t do the latter. Now, whatever the all-important question is, it will be asked by the one who wins a game. The game,” he said, and dug into his pocket, “is...the Color Game. In my hand,” he explained, withdrawing it from his pocket, “is a creek rock I thought Chimera might like to have. Whoever guesses its color gets to ask the question. Agreed?”
The boys nodded vigorously. Sterling grinned. “You go first. Snag.”
“Why does he get to go first?” Snig complained. “He’ll probably guess right, and then Snug and me won’t—”
“He gets to go first because—” Damn. The boys got him coming and going. Well, that was no wonder since they’d been raised by Chimera, who also kept him coming and going. “He’s first...because his name as an A in it. A is the first letter of the alphabet. Snig, you’ll be second, and Snug—”
“I know,” Snug grumbled. “I’m last. Ain’t fair.”
Sterling ignored the complaint and looked at Snag. “Well? What’s your guess?”
Snag thought. And thought. He sat there for several minutes thinking.
“Five more seconds of thinking, and you lose your turn,” Sterling warned.
“But the creek is full of pebbles that are all sorts of colors,” Snag said, stalling for more time.
“All right, Snag, you lose your turn,” Sterling announced. “Snig, what color do you—”
“Black!” Snag yelled, not about to lose his turn. “Black, Sterling! Please let me have black!”
Sterling bit back his amusement. “All right, Snag chose black. Snig?”
“I was gonna pick black,” Snig mumbled.
“Well, you can’t pick black,” Sterling said. “Snag already picked it. Pick another color.”
“White,” Snig answered, and crossed his fingers. “I’m sure you’d pick a white rock for Chimera. White would go good with her hair, you know, and she might make a necklace out of it. And white would go good with that red dress she likes to wear too. White goes with snow. She could wear the rock necklace if it snows. She could—”
“Snug, what color do you pick?” Sterling interrupted Snig’s tangent. No doubt about it, he mused, shaking his head. The boys had definitely been raised by Chimera.
“Um...um, let’s see,” Snug said. “Uh, gray. No, red. No, gold! No, not gold. Um...maybe it’s brown. Could be orange. Sterling, are there blue rocks?”
Sterling sighed. “Blue? Such as in black and blue marks? The kind a thick board is apt to make when applied firmly to a tender bottom?”
“I choose brown,” Snug blurted. “Brown that’s sort of tannish, reddish, orangeish, blueish, gold—”
“Brown,” Sterling growled. “Plain brown, Snug.” He slowly uncurled his fingers to reveal a smooth, heart-shaped stone. It was the exact color of Chimera’s eyes.
“It’s brown!” screamed Snug. “I win! I win, because I picked brown, and it’s brown!”
Sterling looked down at the pretty stone. To him, it wasn’t brown. It was whiskey. And it glowed when sunlight hit it, as if it had an inner blaze. It was a special stone, and he did, indeed, plan on making a p
iece of jewelry out of it.
“I get to ask the question,” Snug reminded his brothers. “I get to do it.”
“Get on then, stupid,” Snig flared.
“Yeah, go on and ask, rabbit-face,” Snag added.
“Rabbit-face?” Snug repeated.
“Your teeth stick outta your mouth,” Snag explained. “You look like a rabbit. A ugly rabbit.”
“I do not!”
Sterling replaced the brandy-fire stone into his pocket. “Snag, if Snug is a rabbit-face, then so are you. Your teeth are just the same as his. Now simmer down. Snug won the game fair and square. Snug, ask the question.”
Snug’s furious expression became one of childish hope. “Sterling...We was talkin’ it over, see. And—well, we was wonderin’ if you—We sorta hope that...”
“You ain’t gotta take twenty-five trillion centuries to ask the damn-blasted question, Snug!” Snag exploded. “Ask it right this second, or I’ll ask it before—”
“Sterling, will you be our father?” Snug asked quickly, loudly, and with the biggest, most wish-filled eyes Sterling had ever seen.
“Will you, Sterling?” Snag and Snig chorused.
“We love you,” Snug assured him. “We love you as much as we love Chimera, and we love her like she was our real mama. If we love you as much as we love her, don’t you think you should be our papa?”
Sterling’s eyes stung. He looked up at the canopy of trees.
“You cryin’, Sterling?” Snug asked suspiciously.
“Did it make you sad to think you have to be our papa?” Snag inquired. “You ain’t gotta be if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah,” Snig agreed, his bottom lip twitching. “If you don’t love us like we love you...” He shuffled his feet in the leaves. “Wouldn’t be no different than what our real father felt. He didn’t want us neither.”
“Neither did our real mama,” Snag added, and rubbed his wet eyes with the hem of his little coat. “If it weren’t for Chimera, wild animals would have ate us. Our mama, she left us in a big basket. Lions would have come, and—”
“Werewolfs too,” Snug said.
Sterling continued to stare at the treetops. He knew exactly how the boys felt in their need and hope for a father. But he could never be that man for them, it just wasn’t possible. He was leaving, and they would stay.
Dios mio, he felt guilty. It would be so hard to make them understand why he had to leave. They would think he didn’t like them. His guilt worsened.
He looked back down at them. “Boys,” he said gently, and swallowed hard. “Why would you want me to be your father? I spank you, I wake you at dawn, I make you work almost all day, I won’t allow you to curse, I—”
“But those are all things a father is supposed to do,” Snig said.
“How would you know?” Sterling asked. “You’ve never had a father.”
“No, we ain’t never had one,” Snug agreed, “but there’s some things nobody’s got to tell you about. You just kinda know.”
“And even if you don’t know,” Snag added, “you can pick what you like the best and go with it. We picked you.”
The childish explanations were more profound than anything Sterling ever remembered reading in any of Chimera’s philosophy books. With all his being, he wanted to refute their childish beliefs. But he could not ignore the soft chime of truth in their simple explanations.
“I...” he began, and looked at the treetops again. “I don’t know what to say. I’m honored. Really honored, boys. But I want to do what’s best for all of you. To do that,, we have to think and talk about this more. Can we wait and do that when we aren’t in the cold woods?”
They huddled together and he heard their whispering. Had he hurt their feelings? he wondered with another pang of guilt.
“All right, Sterling,” Snig said. “We’ll let you think about it.”
“And if you have any questions about how to be a father, we’ll answer ’em for you,” Snug offered.
“Yeah,” Snag agreed. “We ain’t never had a papa, but you ain’t never been one neither. With all of us workin’ at it, we shouldn’t mess things up too bad.”
They took turns shaking his hand to seal the deal and then scampered away, but it was a long time before Sterling followed them. Dios mio, he was going to miss them. He was going to miss them all.
Christmas was only a week away when Sterling decided the time had come for Archibald to ride. From old pieces of leather, some thin boards, short and flexible tree branches, and thick blankets, he’d fashioned a special saddle for the boy as a Christmas gift. One stirrup was designed to support Archibald’s mangled leg, and Sterling was confident it would work wonderfully.
“Since you won’t give her a name, I’ve given her one for you,” Sterling informed Archibald, and led the chestnut mare out of her stall. “She’ll be Amigita. That’s Spanish for ‘Little Friend.’ And she’ll be a friend to you, Archibald. A loyal companion for many years.”
Archibald backed away. Sterling ignored him and lifted the specially made saddle from a haystack. “I made this for you. It’s an early Christmas present.” He saddled and bridled Amigita, then turned toward Archibald. “You’re going to ride, son. You can do it, Archibald. I’ll lead her in a slow walk. Now remember, no galloping or jumping until you’ve had a few lessons.”
Archibald did not smile: he turned to leave.
Sterling caught him by the sleeve of his coat, lifted him from the ground, and swung him upon Amigita’s back.
“No!” Archibald screamed, and attempted to dismount.
Sterling held him to the saddle and forced his feet into the stirrups. “If you struggle, you’re going to fall. If you fall I’ll make you get back on. So you may as well sit still and enjoy this.”
Archibald squeezed his eyes shut, huge tears rolling down his cheeks, as Sterling led the gentle mare out of the barn. Outside, Chimera and the triplets waited, cheering when Sterling brought forth Amigita and Archibald.
Archibald refused to open his eyes until Amigita stumbled over a thick patch of dead grass. The sudden jolt pitched him to the ground where he lay, sobbing pitifully.
Sterling stared down at him. “Get up.”
Archibald rolled away, clutching at his mangled leg. Chimera and the triplets ran toward him but halted when Sterling raised his hand. “Chimera, you and the boys go into the cabin. Archibald and I need some private time.”
Chimera nodded, and without hesitation took the triplets into the cabin. Her heart hurt for Archibald, but she’d learned from experience that Sterling knew how to handle the boy. She’d realized that Sterling was correct in his belief that Archibald’s mind was far more crippled than his leg, and knew Sterling’s plans for him, however heartless they seemed, were the most compassionate things anyone, including herself, had ever done for the boy.
Sterling forced Archibald to his feet. “Your tears do not affect me, Archibald,” he lied sternly. “You’re going to get on this horse and ride.”
“But my leg—”
“I know all about your leg. I know it hurts and that it’s almost useless. But that’s only because you allow it stay that way. You don’t work the muscles. I’ve seen you walk. I’ve watched you drag it. You never even try to put any weight on it. It’s just a twisted, worthless thing hanging from your body. But it doesn’t have to be. It might not ever work as well as your good leg does, but you can make it work better than it does now.”
With that, he yanked Archibald into his arms and deposited him atop Amigita again. “Just press in with your knees and she’ll go. Use the muscles in your thighs to do it. Squeeze, Archibald. Dammit, squeeze!”
“I—I can’t,” Archibald sobbed. “It hurts! It—”
“Sit up straight and find your balance, son.”
“But—”
“And take the reins like this.” Sterling fixed the leather straps in Archibald’s shaking fingers. “Don’t give Amigita too much rein, but don’t pull on her m
outh either.”
“My leg—”
“To hell with your leg. If you can’t use the bad one right now, use the good one. Move your body to the rhythm of her gait.” Sterling took hold of the bridle and led Amigita around again.
Archibald fell off repeatedly. Each time. Sterling lifted him back on. Archibald cried and wailed with fear, frustration and anger. Sterling responded with determination and patience.
The riding lessons were a daily battle of conflicting wills. Archibald continued to resist, Sterling continued to insist. Only on Christmas Eve, when Chimera demanded two days free of hollering, was a temporary truce made between resolute man and miserable boy.
Sterling, hindered more than helped by the excited triplets, dragged a freshly cut juniper tree into the cabin and attached it to a wall with thick twine to keep it from toppling over on Venus, who could not keep her chubby bronze hands off it. The children decorated the tree with bits of gaily-colored ribbons, intricately cut paper snowflakes, and strands of dark red dried berries. Venus tore the head off the cornhusk angel Chimera had made for the occasion, but Sterling stuck it back on with a paste he made from flour and water. The angel repaired, the tree scenting the small room with its fresh and spicy fragrance, Sterling then settled in front of the fire and read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” He read with such enthusiasm and with such conviction, the triplets raced to the window several times in search of the fat, white-bearded man who would be visiting their cabin that night. Santa Claus had never come before, but Sterling assured them the jolly fellow would not pass them over this year.
It was well after two in the morning before the children finally fell asleep. When they were snoring softly, Sterling and Chimera retrieved the gifts they’d obtained from Montague, the peddler, and spread them out under the tree. Exhausted, they then sought the comfort of Chimera’s bed, but after only a few hours of sleep, the happy, excited shouts of the children awakened them.
The triplets were ecstatic about the new slingshots and solemnly swore not to kill innocent animals with them. They also received a volume of fairy tales that Chimera promised she would read to them, a sack of hard candies, shiny harmonicas, and real fishhooks to replace the ones they’d fashioned from thorns and wire.
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