by Sharon Sala
Letty was too moved to speak.
“In fact, they’re so dead that I think we oughta bury ’em right and proper.”
“Bury them? Have you lost your mind?”
He took a bite of meat, slowly chewing and contemplating what she’d suggested.
“You know… I might have… just a bit. But that don’t change the fact that we’re not the same people we once was, and I’m sayin’ that the best way to forget the past is to bury it. What do you think?”
“I’d like that,” Letty said.
Eulis took another drink of soup and then reached across the table and took her by the hand. She hesitated for just a moment, then slowly opened her fingers and threaded them through his.
“What’s happening to us?” Letty asked.
“I don’t know ’bout you, but I been fallin’ in love with you for some time now.”
It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and yet the best thing that he could have told her. She figured she ought to be giggling, but it was beyond her. She felt his thumb rubbing across the outside of her hand and shivered.
“You sure? I mean, I’m nobody’s perfect little woman. I can’t be all prissy and pretend to be helpless and innocent.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Eulis drawled. “I’m a deserter and a used-to-be drunk. Why would you think I’d be wantin’ some useless, prissy female?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, all right then,” Eulis said, and popped another bite of roast into his mouth.
“You sure you know what you’re talking about?” Letty asked. “I’m all bossy and opinionated and I’m always talking when I oughta be listening.”
“I know,” Eulis said. “You’ve also got a real mean streak.”
Letty’s lips went slack.
“Well, I never!” she muttered.
“Yeah, you did,” he said. “Remember back in Lizard Flats how you used to yell at me on my bad days?”
“Dang it, Eulis… I never could tell the difference between your good days and bad. Besides, if you hadn’t been so plowed, I wouldn’t have had to raise my voice.”
He shrugged. “It don’t matter now. I let that man die. Reckon when it stops snowing, I’m gonna bury him deep.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“All right then,” Letty said.
Eulis frowned. “All right about what? Havin’ a funeral for our old selves, or all right you ain’t mad at me for fallin’ in love with you?”
“Both.”
“All right then,” Eulis said again, and then smiled.
“Are you laughing at me?” Letty asked.
“Nope.”
“Then why the grin?”
“It’s simple, Sister Leticia. I’m happy, that’s why.”
“I’m happy, too.”
Eulis nodded, and returned to his meal, although he couldn’t manage it all. By the time he’d finished the soup and eaten a few more bites of the roast, he’d broken out into a cold sweat.
“I reckon I’d better lay down for a bit,” he said. “Still a mite weak.”
Letty helped him to the bed and covered him up as soon as he was down.
The wind rattled the door on its hinges, but the patches she’d made in the cabin held strong.
“Sure glad we’re not in that tent,” he said.
“Me, too,” Letty said, and then went back to the table to clean up.
Eulis eyed her as she worked, studying the curve of her face and the stubborn thrust of her chin.
“Letty…”
“Yeah?”
“You never did tell me how you come to know that Indian woman… that Little Bird.”
She stopped, and for a moment, stood without moving, her back to the bed. When she turned around, there was a strange expression on her face.
“Letty?”
“I helped her hide a dead man.”
He sat straight up in bed.
“The hell you say! What made you do somethin’ like that?”
“You helped me do the same thing once, remember?”
He sat there for a moment and finally shook his head.
“If I live to be a hundred… and the way things are goin’ I sincerely doubt that will ever happen… I don’t think you’ll ever fail to surprise me.”
Letty bit her lower lip then lifted her chin.
“Is that bad or good?”
“Good… damn good,” he said softly.
“You cursed,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, and I expect you’ll drive me to it again before we get out of this valley.”
“Close your eyes and go to sleep,” Letty said.
“Lay down beside me,” Eulis asked.
It was the last thing she expected, and all of a sudden, the thing she wanted to do most.
“You’ll be safe. I’m still a sick man,” Eulis said. “Besides, it’s cold. You can help keep me warm.”
Letty snorted beneath her breath, but put a couple of logs on the fire anyway, then stirred the coals. The logs caught and the added warmth was soon felt within the small room. When she turned around, he was still watching her.
“You’re making me nervous. Close your eyes.”
He closed his eyes, but he was still smiling. She had the strongest urge to see what the smile tasted like, but wouldn’t follow the thought. Instead, she picked up the broom and began sweeping the floor. When she next looked at the bed, Eulis had truly fallen asleep. It was only then that she put up the broom, stirred the fire one more time, then slid into the bed, wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes.
Sometime during the night the wind stopped blowing. Letty woke, felt the chill in the room and got up to add wood to the fire. When she turned to go back to bed, Eulis was sitting up in bed. He was little more than a silhouette, but she could hear him breathing. It was slow and even, a blessing after his near brush with death.
“Are you all right?” Letty asked. “Do you need a drink of water? Do you need to pee? I can—”
“All I need is you. Come lay with me, Letty.”
Letty sighed. The tenderness in his voice was her undoing. Still, she knew that once they crossed this particular bridge in their relationship, nothing would ever be the same. She shook her head and frowned.
“You’re too sick to fool around.”
“There ain’t nothin’ foolish about what I’m feelin’.”
“There’s something you need to know,” Letty said.
“No there ain’t,” he said softly.
“So you don’t care to know if I love you back?”
There was a long moment of silence, and then he cleared his throat.
“I care.”
“All right then. I felt it was only fair that we start even in this matter.”
Glad that it was too dark for her to see his face, he let himself smile. God how he loved this woman. She might drive him mad, but he was gonna love her all the way to his grave.
“So, you have feelings for me, too?”
Letty had never been so scared in her life. To admit this was to show weakness, and everything that she’d survived had taught her never to let them see you cry. Still, he’d been sick and she didn’t have it in her to lie—not to Eulis—never to Eulis.
“Yes, I have feelings… strong feelings.”
“Then come to bed with me, darlin’.”
Letty sighed. The inevitability of this moment had been lingering between them ever since she’d promised him free pokes for life if he’d just help her get rid of the dead preacher’s body.
“Only if you let me do all the work,” Letty said.
Eulis chuckled. “I reckon that’ll be all right… for now.”
Letty unbuttoned her shirt and then stepped out of her pants. Immediately, goose bumps rose on her skin.
“I hope we don’t regret this tomorrow,” she said, as she slid beneath the covers.
He wrapped her up in his a
rms and then pulled her close.
“I won’t, if you won’t,” he offered.
Letty laughed and then laid her head upon his chest.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled.
“Then lock me up later,” Eulis begged.
She raised up on her elbows. The smile on his face was somewhere between hopeful and scared to death that she’d back out.
“You sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“Yes, lord, yes. Have mercy, love. Have mercy on me.”
She touched his face with her hand, then lowered her head and for the first time in all the years that she’d known him, kissed him squarely on the lips.
Much later, and after the passion of the moment had passed, Letty lay within the shelter of Eulis’s arms and slept. And as she slept, she dreamed of a little brown bird that kept calling to its mate. She’d dreamed the same dream her entire life, but tonight the dream was different. Tonight, she heard the whippoorwill’s call, and then the answer that had been so long in coming.
***
A week later, Eulis was cursing the taste of elk and swearing that if they ever got out of this valley, he would never eat elk meat again. Letty let him gripe without comment, because it did her good to see him up and moving around.
It hadn’t snowed in days, and what snow there was wore a two-inch crust of ice. Herds of elk were visible from the doorway, as were small herds of buffalo. The mules had suffered the most, having little to no shelter, and Eulis feared that one of Blackie’s ears had frozen so badly that he was going to lose the top half. Still, the animals had been able to stomp down the snow enough to graze and they’d made a path to the waterfall and back.
Eulis came in the doorway with an armload of firewood and set it against the wall.
“That oughta’ be enough for today. I’ll bring more in before dark,” he said, and then took the rifle down from the mantle.
Letty tried not to let her uneasiness show, as she realized he was determined to go hunting.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Eulis said. “I’m sick of elk. I’m goin’ rabbit huntin’, and that’s that.”
“All right,” Letty said. “Just watch out for wolves.”
“There’s plenty of game in the valley. They ain’t gonna bother me.”
She thought of the wolf she’d encountered just outside their door and frowned. She had yet to tell him, only now she felt obligated to do so, so that he would be vigilant.
“I was bothered by one when you were sick,” she said.
Eulis was all the way out the door, but something about the way she said that turned him around. He walked back into the cabin and shut the door.
“What do you mean… bothered?”
“Um… it uh… I—”
“Damn it, Letty.”
“You cursed.”
He sighed. “I told you that you were bound to drive me to it again, and you have, so you should be happy. Now talk to me. What happened to you while I was sick, and why am I just hearin’ about it now?”
She threw up her hands and then pulled the box with the moccasins that she’d made out from under the bed.
“I wanted to surprise you. I was saving them for Christmas, but for all I know, it’s already come and gone. So… Merry Christmas.”
Eulis stared at the moccasins in disbelief.
“Where did you get these?”
“I made them.”
“From what?”
Letty rolled her eyes. “From the wolf.”
“You shot a wolf.”
“No. The rifle was in the cabin.”
“So… what did you do… talk it to death? For God’s sake, Leticia. Quit beatin’ around the bush and tell me what happened.”
The tone of his voice pissed her off. He wanted to know what happened. Fine. She’d be happy to tell him.
“Well, it was like this. I’d just finished washing the poop off your butt and went outside to dump the water. When I turned around, the wolf was standing between me and the door.”
Eulis’s face paled. She didn’t know whether it was from the fact that she’d washed poop off his ass, or been attacked by the wolf, and right now she didn’t care.
“I waved the poop pan at him, but it didn’t seem to faze him. His foot was bleeding and he was missing some toes. Looked real hungry. It seemed obvious that he wasn’t about to get picky about what to chew on. He was willing to settle for me or the elk hanging in the lean-to.”
“God All Mighty,” Eulis whispered, and sat down on the bed. “Did it hurt you?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I brained it with a stick of firewood and skinned it out. I cured it like you showed me, then measured your foot while you were sleeping, and made these for you. If you don’t want them, I do.”
Eulis clutched the moccasins against his chest and looked away. To his utter embarrassment, he started to cry.
It was the last thing Letty would have expected him to do and attributed it to his recently weakened state.
“Look, it won’t hurt my feelings if you—”
“You could have been killed. You could have laid out there in the snow and died and I wouldn’t have known a thing.”
“But I wasn’t hurt,” Letty said, as she sat down beside him.
He stared at her, unashamed of his tears and then shook his head.
“You killed it with a stick.”
She nodded and wiped the tears from his face.
“It was a big stick,” she added.
He looked at her for a minute and then started to grin.
“What?” she asked.
“Just like in the bible.”
“What’s like in the bible?”
“You know… David the shepherd boy, who kills that giant Goliath with a rock and sling? That’s you, Letty, only you used a stick, not a rock.”
A little pleased with his analogy, she couldn’t help but grin.
“The critter wasn’t hardly a giant.”
Eulis ran his hands inside the moccasin and then kicked off his boots.
“I thought you were going hunting,” Letty said.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “Elk meat is fine with me. I’m gonna sit here in our home, with these fine shoes on my feet, and think how blessed we’ve been.”
“Blessed? You got smallpox and I got attacked by a wolf and you call that blessed?”
“But we didn’t die. We could have, but we didn’t. I call that blessed.”
Letty stared at the man she’d come to love and shook her head.
“You know what? Despite the fact that you’ve given up preaching, I’m thinking you’re still a preacher at heart.”
He pulled on the moccasins and wiggled the toes against the fur lining.
“Feels real good,” he said. “I reckon I’m gonna wear ’em when we have the funeral.”
“We can’t have a funeral for the wolf. I dumped its carcass out in the meadow weeks ago.”
“Not the wolf. Us. Remember the night of the blizzard?”
She arched an eyebrow. It was their first night to make love.
“Of course I remember that night. I remember it very well, thank you.”
“I think my superb lovemakin’ has driven the rest of the night from your mind.”
Letty rolled her eyes.
Eulis ignored her as he continued.
“I told you that when I got better, we were goin’ to have a funeral and bury our old selves, remember?”
“You were serious?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But what in the world are we going to bury?”
Eulis frowned. “It’s got to be somethin’ we still have from before. Somethin’ that don’t belong here anymore.”
Letty shook her head. “I think I left all that behind.”
“I got a flask of whiskey in my bag.”
Letty gasped.
“Not to dr
ink, you understand. Just to prove to myself I didn’t want it no more.”
Letty laid her head against his shoulder, just for a moment, but long enough to let him know she understood. Then she got her bag from the corner of the room and set it on the bed.
Eulis stood up and moved away, figuring she might need some privacy to find the part of her past. He watched her unfasten the bag and, one by one, remove the articles from inside.
There was a tortoise-shell comb that he’d never seen her wear.
“My mother’s,” she said, and laid it aside.
Next came the stockings and her old pair of shoes—part of her life as Sister Leticia, but nothing to do with the White Dove Saloon.
She took out a handful of books, then a small wooden box with a tin-type inside.
Eulis peered over her shoulder.
“Who’s the kid?” he asked, staring intently at the little girl with a large bow in her hair who was missing her front teeth.
“Me.”
A lump came to his throat, thinking of the years of hardship that little girl had endured before she’d come to this place. He put his hand on the back of her head and then left it there, as if cushioning her from some unseen blow.
“Here,” she said, suddenly, and handed him a small bag.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
“See for yourself,” she said, and dumped the contents onto the bed. “Rouge for my cheeks, kohl for my eyes, and color for my lips. War paint from the White Dove.”
Eulis gathered up the makeup and dropped it back into the bag.
“War’s over,” he said gently. “Time to bury the past.”
“I’ll get the shovel,” she said. “Only I don’t know where we’ll dig, seeing as how the ground is frozen and all.”
“Out where the mules shelter,” Eulis said. “And I’ll get the shovel. You carry this.” He handed her the deceased’s remains.
Letty put on her coat and clutched the items against her chest as she followed him out the door.
The air was so cold that snot froze on Eulis’s upper lip, and he was thankful for the fur-lined shoes he was wearing. He swiped at his lip with the back of his hand as he slogged through the snow to the lean-to.
The ground was pitted and rough from the mules hooves. Manure in various forms of decomposition lay scattered all around. He kicked at a frozen clump near the gate and then walked inside. The immediate shelter was a welcome relief from the wind.