The Springsweet (19 page)

Theo and I both demurred. Pressing a hand to my chest, I said, "It's much appreciated, but it's getting late and we've been on the road two days now."

"Right," he said. He stood there, then creaked to motion again. His pale skin was chapped red, and beneath his shirt, I could make out every awful knob of his shoulders when he turned to lead us to his well.

Like Mr. Larsen, the land was withered. Only very low grasses grew here, and even then, sparsely. The rest was marred with scars, long, bald runs of dust that swirled round and round with nothing to tether it.

He'd built the well nicely, a strong stone circle with an inset lid. But when he raised that lid, he released a rank scent. Slick and moldering, it fouled the air, though Mr. Larsen seemed, at this point, resigned to it.

"It's been off a while now," he explained.

When he moved to pull the bucket up, I stayed his hand. I had no need to see what would come out of a place that smelled of decay. Whatever water collected in this well, and I was sure it was only rain that occasionally filled it, it had gone stagnant. Although ashamed to think it, I was doubly glad we'd declined his offer of coffee.

"Let me see if I can find something for you," I said. I didn't need to walk out into the open expanse behind his cabin. My intent was to draw Mr. Larsen and Theo away from the wretched stink—I had walked through Baltimore alleys more fragrant.

Now my nerves jangled with need, my skin tight and parched with the yearning to be cleansed. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, a hard rush of blood that raced too fast for someone standing still. Something was wrong—I felt nothing here, just my own body, my own dry tongue in my mouth.

The well had unsettled me in ways I had hardly expected. I smiled at Mr. Larsen, though it felt plastered and stiff. "Just trying to focus. I'm a bit tired is all."

Reaching again, I sought out that well within me, that strength that had split stone and brought water to the surface at the Coles' farm. It was like digging fingers into my chest, plundering skin and plucking bones, but nothing would come. No matter the depth of my breath, no matter my earnestness, this land had no pulse.

My face grew hot, and I wandered out a little farther. Perhaps the sunset kept me from seeing—perhaps I was overwhelmed with the resignation. I could imagine a hundred excuses, but the result was the same. We stood on barren stone.

"I can't find anything," I said helplessly. "You could get a rain barrel, or, or ... if you know the Gibsons, they've got a spring on their land. They might let you dip from it."

Mr. Larsen dug into his pockets, pulling forth change instead of bills. Counting them into Theo's palm, he shook his head. "Believe I'm a quarter short, Miss Stewart."

"It's all right," I said, but he walked toward the house.

Theo hurried over, turning my hand in his to put the change in my palm. "You can't keep this."

"No, I didn't intend to." Pushing my hair off my face, I stared at the horizon. It had darkened, the first shades of purple twilight, but even with the coming dark, I could find not a single light in it. Dumbfounded, I murmured, "How can there be
nothing?
"

The answer was a shot. It rent a gouge in the air, echoing plaintively into the distance.

Theo grabbed me, but our animal senses knew what our thinking ones hadn't yet realized. There was no danger in this, not for us. We both turned toward it, not away—and found ourselves facing the desolate little house into which Mr. Larsen had just disappeared.

"Stay here," Theo said.

My head roared with old thunder, with an old flash. I saw splashes of red, and white skin, and the smooth, cool nothing that crept into lifeless eyes. Time couldn't dull that shock-new plans couldn't soften that horror. It was mine, and it always would be—but it didn't have to be anyone else's.

I ran after Theo, grabbing his shoulder. "No. Drive us into town. We'll speak to the marshal."

"We can't simply—"

"Yes we can!" I made him face me. "Trust me when I tell you this: it will change you. What waits in there, you'll never be clean of it."

"Zora," he said, strained.

I dug my fingers in deeper, clinging to him for his own good. "It may break you, and you don't deserve that. Not for paying me and my aunt a favor. That's not the wage of chivalry. Please."

Stricken, Theo scrubbed his hands over his face. He looked at the house, then back at me. And he struggled, his expression leaping, trying desperately to find some center. "But if he's..."

"There's nothing we can do for him." I took his hand, and I pulled him along, soothing as I could be with my own emotions run so ragged. "Please, walk me to the phaeton and drive us into town. Please."

Automatically, Theo took my elbow. We both walked in a daze, and I felt him hesitate beside me, deciding whether he should put me in the car and go back anyway. But he lifted me up and followed instead of going round.

"Straight to town," I told him gently, and as we pulled away, I dropped seven quarters into the dust.

Sixteen

Someone fetched Birdie to town, so while I sat in an empty restaurant, clinging to a cup of tea, the marshal spoke with her at length.

I'm not sure why it took so long to explain such a simple, terrible act. Perhaps it always did; when Thomas died, time passed in blinks and starts. It was both endless and instant, and in the beginning, all of it blessedly numb. Mr. Larsen had been a stranger to me, and I think, my victim—so the seconds passed cruelly, each one a brand on my skin.

"Zora," Birdie said, even before she got through the door. She rushed over, wrapping me in tender arms. She smelled of brown sugar and molasses; my addled mind guessed that she'd fixed baked beans for supper.

Looking up at her, I said, "I know we need the money, but I don't think I can do this again."

Birdie burst into tears, and like me, she was hardly lovely at it. Red blotches marred her skin; her tears didn't take delicate, rivulet paths down her cheeks, they spilled out, soaking her—soaking me.

Furiously, she swiped at her face, then caught mine between her hands. "To hell with the cow."

I slumped, pressing my brow to her shoulder. Soaking up her familiar warmth, I rested there, my anxiety dissolving by the moment. Her fingers played across my hair, carding the curls as she petted me. Without thought, I murmured, "You remind me of Mama."

"Good God, don't tell me that." She shook me, then turned away to wipe her face. And just that quick, she put herself back together and pulled me to my feet. "Come on, duck. Lou's sleeping in the Herringtons' wagon. I expect the mister would like to get home before midnight."

I followed her outside, drinking in the cool night air. Leaving my bonnet to hang down my back, I matched Birdie's efficient pace as we headed for the general, taking in the town after sunset.

Dark transformed West Glory. The buildings' false fronts loomed above, black as gargoyles. The only light came from the restaurant behind me and the saloon in front of me.

I saw Theo inside, an elbow on the bar, propping himself up while he talked to the marshal. I wondered if he was all right. He managed a weary smile but ordered another drink.

It was no wild scene, just dusty men hunched over glasses and cards. Perhaps it was too early for bar fights or soiled doves; more likely, they'd never come. The western adventure the newspapers back east had promised was gossamer, made of the same ephemeral stuff as fairy tales.

West Glory was a small town trying to get by in a hard land, nothing more.

***

Two days after, I took a bucket to pick incidental berries and set off for the creek. Birdie had treated me like porcelain all morning and didn't argue when I told her I was going for a walk.

Heat trailed in wavering rivers, reflecting sky and grass, twisting them together like a kaleidoscope. There was a particular thinness to the air—it felt as though someone had opened a great oven and we had no choice but to stand beside it.

It burned the sound and life from the prairie, burrowing animals clever enough to find some relief beneath the earth, and flying creatures resting in their nests and bowers. The back of my neck prickled, with sweat and with the eeriness of a land so still and silent.

The creek offered some relief. The water whispered on the rocks, minnows flashing like silver bangles in the shallows. I sat in the reeds and unlaced my boots, leaving them behind so I could wade. Pulling my combination over my knees, I lifted my skirts high to keep both dry as I splashed along.

Crayfish zipped away from me in their backwards way, and they were lucky they were no bigger than my pinkie. Mama had a particularly good recipe for New Orleans gumbo, and I wasn't above trying to recreate it from memory.

Rocks pressed into my bare arches, the water rising above my ankles as I sloshed along. The sun had warmed the water, but the water cooled me nevertheless. And it soothed me, swirling against my skin; it whispered and elevated me, scrubbing away all the dark and the turmoil of late.

I felt it everywhere like a caress. Then, beneath that, a faint tremor. I turned, knowing I'd see Emerson between the cattails, and there he was.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"You can always catch up," I told him.

But instead of wading in with me, he followed me along the shore, both feet firmly on his earth. He was gold as the prairie, his hair shining and his skin baked a deep bronze—and beautiful in his imperfections.

He'd broken his nose once; I was sure of it. His lips were thin and teeth flat beneath them. He was not a god walking, no fae king slipped out of Avalon, which Theo very well could have been. He was rough and plainspoken, and I wanted him to be mine.

"My philosophy," he said suddenly, "is, leave me to mine, and I'll leave you to yours."

Gathering my skirts in one hand, I reached out to catch his with the other. Our fingers threaded together knowingly, clasping in just the right way. Surely, he could feel my racing pulse; the gentle way he squeezed my hand is what set it to running. "You've got but the one?"

He nodded. "There was no living with Pa after Ma died. I was about grown, and I looked like her. I don't know why that set him off, but it did. So I packed up my things-—I figured, there's free land to be had in the Territories. I'll go get mine."

"And here you are," I said.

"Except it's not that neat, Zo." His thumb rasped against mine as he ordered his thoughts. The pet name was new, but it slipped out so easily—I wondered, is that what he called me in his mind? Had he rolled this conversation over until it was smooth and perfect in his thoughts?

Finally, he said, "Look, the rules were real simple. You had to be eighteen. You had to run to claim your plot when the gun went off, and you had to improve the land or they wouldn't give you the deed."

"All right." I smiled at him, curious, for his expression wasn't a victorious one, and I didn't understand why. Surely he wasn't worried that his improvements weren't enough to earn his deed. "So you lined up and—"

Emerson stopped. He turned our joined hands over and kissed the inside of my wrist. It was quick, laced with a hint of desperation. Then, whatever possessed him to do it slipped away, and he seemed very himself again: blunt and matter-of-fact. "I bought a birth certificate in Philadelphia so they wouldn't turn me away."

Surprised, I wasn't sure what to say. "How old
are
you?"

"Seventeen now," he replied. He flattened his lips, as if the number annoyed him. "But that's the least of it. I walked out the night before, just to get a look, and I realized some of those lots would never grow. What was I gonna do if I got one of the dead ones?"

The day darkened around me. I knew exactly what some men would do, given a vast, lifeless expanse. "Go on."

"I had my flag and my stake, and I planted them the night before. I cheated, straight up, and they've got a word for that out here:
sooner.
That's why your aunt looks at me the way she does. Why they'd just as soon spit on me in West Glory." He pursed his lips. "All I wanted was a piece of land and a life that was my own.

"I wasn't out here three weeks before the Arapaho came through. All I had then was a tent and a fire, but I saw them put up their village in a night. A few weeks later, they brought it down again. Up and disappeared without leaving a mark. They knew where the water was, where the game was. They
knew
this land. And you know how?"

I shook my head. There was no need to say anything; I knew he'd answer his own question.

"Because it was
theirs
first. I thought I could live with that, but your aunt's right—I stole my land. It's just, she thinks I stole it from the government."

"Emerson—"

"Leave me to mine," he said sharply, "and I'll leave you to yours. I don't know that I'm staying here, Zo. But I don't know where the hell I'd go, either."

Frozen, I struggled to reply. I wanted to argue at first, because how could the government give him something it didn't own? Or wasn't it good enough to leave the Indians in peace to come and go and camp his land if they wanted?

But I held my tongue as realization set in.

For me, one day the Indian Territories became Oklahoma Territory, and not once had I wondered at it. It was just the way it was—I'd accepted it the same way I had accepted Buffalo Bill's stories as the truth.

"So that's my philosophy," Emerson said. He let his hand slip from mine and dropped his hat on his head. "And if you think you can live with that, come back tomorrow."

"Emerson! Em! Wait!" I reached for him, but he slipped away without a backward glance.

I had asked for this exactly—I had demanded it. As I gathered my shoes and my pail, I wondered if I would have been happier throwing myself into his arms instead of learning him before I leapt. Impetuous kisses were the sweetest kind, or so poets told me—mad love was the truest sort. Was it true?

A dry, hot wind scored my face as I trudged home; the birds remained silent, the sky a voiceless blue.