His shadow loped away from her, toward the far scraggly scrubs
again, disappearing into the dark all but for faint movement.
Lydia
stood,
watching diligently, worried suddenly that he would vanish entirely. What if
something happened? What if he never came back?
She hobbled after the flickering, firelit glimpses she got of his
silhouette – her ankle was swelling a little. Swelling or not, though, she
caught up and tagged along through the low bushes where he dug small holes,
then planted the sticks, points up. The digging proved arduous in the rocky
earth. In the end he gave it up for snares, using lace ripped from her
petticoats as the nooses.
He set half a dozen traps that took forever. She wished he'd give
up. It seemed pointless, but he wouldn't listen. Eventually, she shut up and
just let him do it.
As he stood up from what she hoped was the final one, he said,
"You go back to the fire. I'll be right there."
Lydia
grabbed his
coat sleeve as he turned. "Where are you going?"
"I'll be back."
"No! Where are you going?"
"I have to, um, you know—"
"What?"
His shadow shrugged noncommittally. "You know—"
"Oh."
He moved away, leaving her standing at the edge of dark brambles,
hesitant to go back without him, hesitant to follow. As he disappeared
completely,
Lydia
felt panic
rise, as tangible as if a seed of it had stuck in her throat. Before it could
grow, blossom, she crashed her way through the bushes toward a sound – that of
a strong stream hitting the ground.
She'd do something about that herself. Yes, that was it. Her
bladder felt as if it would burst. She came up on his silhouette. His back was
to her, the sound of his relief hitting the ground strongly.
He jumped. "What the—"
"I'm sorry. I can't be alone. Don't watch. I'm not looking.
Not that I could see anything in this blackness." About three feet away,
to the side and back of him, she lifted her skirt, scooted her drawers down,
then, holding them out of the way, squatted.
Oh, once she started, goodness, she was sure she would be here for
half an hour.
"Well, this is cozy," Mr. Cody said, his silhouette
glancing over his shoulder. "I sort of thought I'd do this alone."
"Well, you can't. I'm too scared."
He laughed. The faint bit of moon came out behind him, making his
broad back, his spread-leg posture loom like a giant as he stood doing his very
ungodlike task. There they were, him standing, his back to her, her crouching
to do the same, the two of them within a yard of each other on a slope of
ground that kept the physics right, their feet dry. After a moment,
Lydia
let out a
giddy laugh. Their sounds set her off. Her stream was different from his,
quieter for the shorter distance and less of it. When his activity slowed,
becoming fits and bursts,
Lydia
felt silly,
giddy again, to have this information. Above her, his silhouette's back and
shoulders lifted, a man fixing the front of his trousers.
Then he turned around and hunkered down right there in front of
her, his face close enough to dimly recognize features. "You're giggling
again."
"I am," she said. "I'm sorry. It just comes over
me, and I don't know what to do about it." She shook her head. Almost
finished herself with her little personal task, she realized there was nothing
with which to dry herself. A question came to her all of a sudden. "So
what do you do?" she asked.
"Do?"
"Yes. Isn't your – well – you know, um, wet when you're
finished? What do you do?"
"My 'you know'?"
She huffed. "Your penis." There. The word was out. More
giddiness. And, now that the subject was broached, she had a few questions.
Since they seemed to be on such intimate terms and since, as soon as they
rescued themselves and were on their way, she would never see him again.
In the dark, his shadow let out a disbelieving snort. "We're
talking about my penis again?"
"What do you mean,
again?"
There was a pause. "Nothing. What do I do?" he repeated.
More pondering silence, then he said, "I shake the wetness off. Anything
else you want to know?" He laughed. Nervously, she thought. Though, she'd
say, she had his attention.
As a matter of fact, there was. "My friend Rose is very upset
about the whole honeymoon idea. Were you looking forward to yours?"
Another, longer pause. "Yes, I was." Then he asked,
"What about yours? Did you like it?" Then, "Why haven't you
talked to your husband about these things?"
Ah. A small box-up. The fictitious husband. And, more unsettling,
the way he asked, something in his tone, gave
Lydia
the oddest
feeling, as if he knew she was lying. She couldn't think for a minute, then
answered with the first explanation that came to mind. "He's deaf."
Mr. Cody burst into laughter and stood up. "Oh, that's
good," he said.
"Well, he is." She defended her ploy irritably. This
wasn't what she wanted to talk about.
"I don't doubt it.
Deaf. Blind.
Dumb—"
"There's no need to make fun—"
Good-naturedly he told her, "No, no, never think I'm making
fun. I understand perfectly."
Again she felt uneasy, as if he truly did understand perfectly,
which wasn't exactly the degree to which she wanted to be understood.
He started to retreat.
"Don't leave!" she said quickly. "Turn around, yes,
but please stay. Please wait."
He did. He halted, his shape outlined largely again by the eerily
starless sky, near-black against black.
She bounced a little, trying to "shake" off. It didn't
work exactly, but it was the best she could do. She stood, pulling her drawers
up with her, feeling derailed, stupid. How on God's green earth did a woman
find out anything about men without having to marry one? It seemed like an
unfair extreme just to satisfy curiosity.
When she stood – perhaps it was the shift of the direction of the
meek light – she suddenly couldn't find Mr. Cody's outline. She was rational
one moment, then the next coping with a kind of terror that spiraled up from
nowhere so quickly that, when she called out his name, it sounded shrill.
"Mr. Cody? Sam? Sam? Where are you?"
She jumped, giving a little shriek, when a warm hand took hold of
her arm from behind. Then relief. He turned her, pulling her to him. Her
forehead found his shoulder, and she let her head drop there. "Oh, my
God," she muttered into his chest, "I'm such a mess. I'm terrified of
the dark, and that's all there is here. I feel so helpless."
"You aren't. You take real good care of yourself,
Liddy
."
She shook her head. "I'm frightened and weak and
sickish—"
"There's nothin' wrong with you," he said. He petted her
head, which she liked so startlingly much she could barely move: for fear he'd
stop. His hand was warm as it sculpted itself to the back of her skull, over
her messy hair, pressing it against her nape. "Other than normal
stuff," he continued. "A hurt ankle. A rightful fear of bein' out in
the dark, lost on foot."
She said nothing, didn't move.
Lydia
remained as
still as a puppy miraculously scratched at a place she hadn't known itched, at
just the right spot.
They stood silently, neither moving, neither uttering a word for
several long seconds. Then he said, "There," and set her away from
him. He stepped back.
Lydia
swayed a
degree on her feet. He caught her again, his hand around her upper arm to
steady her. And again it felt so good, she was all but ashamed; she blushed.
"I'm a disaster," she said.
"You're a little strange," he admitted. He added
quickly, "But nice. Liddy—" he said, then stopped. His head turned
slightly, lowering, as if he were trying to see his own hand where it remained
casually on her.
"What?"
He hesitated, looked toward her. "You're skittish."
Another lengthy pause, as if he weren't sure he should pursue the subject.
"You're like a stall-bound filly: undernourished, unexercised,
under—" He halted, his silhouette shifting, a change of stance. He'd been
going to say something else, but said instead, "You should gallop a
little, let the wind blow your mane" – he laughed selfconsciously, let
his hand drop, and stepped back – "if you get my drift."
"Under-what? What were you about to say?"
He clicked his tongue, resistant, then said, "
Underpleasured
,
but it felt wrong to tell you that with the two of us waltzing here together in
the dark – even though I believe it's true: You are." He drew in a breath,
then let it out in a long gust. "And now that I've told you what I
shouldn't have, I think I'll just shut my mouth. Let's go back."
"Underpleasured?" She laughed.
"Okay, it was a stupid word. It's just that you need to
figure out—" A pause. "To figure out what's your heart's desire, then
try for it. You need to lap up the cream of life, find your own particular
variety of it, you know?"
She didn't. But he turned, and she followed him toward to the
campfire, half amused by his speech, half contemplative. Her heart's desire? A
galloping filly who lapped up cream? Well. Topics for thought.
They hadn't walked a dozen feet, though, before he offered one
further piece of advice, in a mutter as if he wanted to tell her but he didn't
want her to hear it. He said, "You got a spirit in you, Liddy Brown, that
is strong enough to carry you through anything. You don't need to be so
afraid." These words truly surprised her.
Then they didn't. Strong.
Lydia
sensed it for
a moment, like something in her blood she hadn't been aware of. Real strength.
As if it had always been there, but she'd been afraid to see it, afraid to
allow it: to turn it loose.
Well. I'm strong, she thought. She was. How enlightening. Strong.
Just thinking the word was like seeing for the first time some previously
unknown part of herself. I'm the reason. This tenacity, this force of nature
that keeps me going is … is me. I'm looking at me.
Hello.
*
Once
back at their campsite, Sam had little to say – he'd made himself tongue-tied. He
wasn't sure he'd be able to say another word to a woman who made him say things
like
underpleasured
. What kind of a word was that? And what would Gwyn
say? What would she think of his telling some other woman, in the dark with the
two of them all alone, that she needed more pleasure in her life? While he
stroked her back?
Oh, yeah, he'd forgotten. Nothing. Gwyn would theoretically say
nothing. They weren't together anymore. She'd lost her say.
For the first time today, this information, instead of depressing
him, gave a lift to his spirits.
5
There
are two things a man should be afraid of: being left on foot and an upright
woman – who is willing to be less upright with him.
A Texan in
Massachusetts
A
round their fire, everything settled into a surprisingly peaceful
evening. There was warmth and light. The night promised to be chilly, but if
one had to be stranded on the moor,
Lydia
thought, July
was the month to do it. Chilly shouldn't kill them. She relaxed as she pulled
her legs up under her skirt. Her feet had actually become too toasty stretched
out near the fire. Her back was cold, but overall she was comfortable. And
oddly content. Her stomach growled from time to time, hungry – the sandwiches
weren't enough – but she felt … safe.
Behind her stood their rocky windbreak. Facing the fire off to her
left sat a laconic man who, head down, spent most of his time poking in the
rocky soil between his legs. He and she didn't talk for a while, which also
seemed all right. Strange, this, that she should know contentment out in the
middle of a moor without enough food in her stomach, without a single
convenience or familiar friend, sitting in companionable silence with a man she
barely knew.
The fire cast dancing shadows over Mr. Cody as he dug in the dirt
– he put the rocks he found into what was becoming a good-sized pile. At first,
she thought he was ridding his area of stones, making the place where he'd
eventually bed down more comfortable.
But then he picked up a rock and flung it, saying, "There's
something out there. I can see the glow of eyes." He picked up and pegged
a second stone hard out into the dark.
He pitched rocks at some far off, invisible animal he wished dead,
offering no more conversation.
Lydia
watched,
entertained by his purposefulness at such a pointless task. Purposefulness and
… there was a kind of poetry to his synchronized movement in the firelight.
He would cock his arm. From her angle, she could see his coat pull
across his shoulders as it opened in front, then his tendinous wrist came from
his sleeve for an instant. (While behind them on their rock wall, his
shadow-self, three times larger than the man himself, drew back as if to hurl
missiles from
Mount
Olympus
.) When he let
go, his arm followed through, quick, straight, and easy, as if its energy were
nothing, a flick, a toss. Yet each stone flew over the fire – the little
zipping whistle of it having long died off by the time the crack of contact
with the earth finally echoed back across the darkness.
Then he'd pick up another stone, cock his arm, his coat would
open…
The hunter. Wilderness Man, she thought again and bowed her chin
to her knees, smiling. He wasn't happy enough merely to set traps. Now he must
sling rocks at the glow of distant eyes, so sure he was that he could slay
something to eat.
He unbuttoned his vest for better mobility, a good-looking vest,
she realized. In fact, his entire suit fit well and, she suspected, wasn't
cheap. The cut was too straight and plain for English fashion, but it was a
nice enough suit of clothes. The vest was blue, quite a lovely color, if she
remembered correctly, though it looked a murky, charcoal-purple now by
firelight. Even a cowboy apparently found himself nice clothes for his wedding.
In a pause between rocks, she couldn't help asking him, "You
were going to wear that hat down the aisle?"
He halted as he picked up his next stone to look over at her. The
fire snapped loudly, a sputter of green wood, then he said, "Nope. They
had a top hat waiting for me, theoretically at least." He faced her, his
lopsided grin pulling up in the faint light. Shadows jumped along the swelling
at his right cheek and eye, lumpy and painful to look at. "Though I
intended to wear my own boots." He knocked the sole of one with the rock
in his hand. He sat cross-legged (Indian style, Buffalo Bill called it).
"They're first-rate and comfortable. Moroccan kid and calfskin. Good
enough to wear anywhere, to my mind."
He drew his arm back and let fly the rock he held – out, out it
went – then removed his hat. He turned it over once –
clack
went the
stone in the distance, punctuating his movement as he dusted the crown of his
hat. He leaned nearer the fire as if to better inspect it, then straightened
the silver beads on its leather hatband. After which he surprised her by
leaning sideways toward her, offering her the hat across the few feet that
separated them. He said, "This hat would've been up to a wedding, if the
bride hadn't pitched a fit over it. It's a Stetson, handmade in
Philadelphia
by Mr. Stetson
himself." Rather proudly, he announced, "Out of beaver felt. They
don't make any finer." He offered the hat upside down, inside toward her.
It was lined with satin.
Lydia
took Mr.
Cody's Stetson. It was quite light, weighing much less than she'd have thought,
its texture soft, while the structure of brim and crown was stiffly resistant.
Reaching her hand into her hair, she found her own straw hat, seriously askew,
she realized, and pulled it from her head. She tried his hat on. As it passed
over her face, she caught a whiff … pure Sam Cody. His warmth mixed into a
smell … like oiled leather or fresh-cut wood.
Meanwhile, Mr. Cody went back to the manly role of rock hunter in
the dark. She almost said, You'll never hit anything. But no, why discourage
him when she so liked watching him try? She liked best the instant when he
turned loose the stone, the way his arm conveyed a momentum into the little
inanimate object, the way the stone flew from his fingers. He sent each one
straight, no arc, just a zinging trajectory over the campfire, traveling like a
bullet that might never land.
A bullet. Bullets and cowboy hats. Her own private little Wild
West show on an English moor. She touched the brim of his hat, still on her
head – her hair wouldn't allow it to settle properly. Queen of the Amazons
hair, Rose called it. Nets and curling irons tamed
Lydia
's hair into
something acceptable for society. Now, though, it had to be frightful; wild,
unruly. Removing Mr. Cody's hat selfconsciously,
Lydia
patted her
hair down – it felt tangled and springy, like a pile of long, spiraling wood
shavings. She remembered she had a brush and a tin of pins in her bag.
She retrieved them, then sat back down. As she handed his hat back
to him, she asked, "Are you really from the wild American West?" She
pulled pins from her hair and dropped them into the open tin.
"Born and raised in
Texas
, though I've
lived lots of places."
"But
Texas
is the real
West."
He glanced at her. "We Texans like to think so."
"What's it like?" She took a handful of hair, pulling
and brushing at it.
"
Texas
?"
"Living there."
He shrugged. "Like living on a ranch."
"A ranch?"
He threw her a frown, at so many questions perhaps, but then
seemed to take stock and contemplate a forthright answer. He hurled a stone and
said, "It's a good life. But a hard one. A big ranch is sort of like one
of your manors here. There's the main house and offices, then the rest where
the help lives, like a village almost. A big ol' mess house, a yappy poultry
yard, a bunkhouse, a dairy, the usual – barns, corals, stables: lots of people
and animals all joining together to make the place work."
"But not as elegant as a manor house," she found herself
saying as she pulled and brushed at the tangle of hair.
He glanced at her, making a pull of his mouth. "No, ma'am, I
guess not."
She looked down a moment. "So are you a real cowboy
then?"
"There's hardly any 'real' cowboys left" – he snorted –
"not since drought then blizzard made raising cattle a pretty small operation.
The open ranges are all fenced in now. But I was raised in the era when cattle
was king, on a" – he made that dry laugh, the sort he didn't mean, in his
throat – "an inelegant ranch. My father was a real cowboy."
Lydia
let the hank
of hair fall. "I was just making the point that, as a matter of elegance
and civilized life—"
He threw her a wry look. "You were just making the point that
you look down your nose at where I come from."
"No, I wasn't." Was she?
The life he spoke of
wasn't
a very refined existence. She
thought of wild savages running around half naked, while one's fortunes hung
upon whether a lot of cows got fat enough to herd over long, difficult
distances – distances more than many multiples the length of Great Britain
herself – all so that the surviving cows could be slaughtered.
"It just seems there are" – she almost said smarter,
then chose instead, "easier ways to earn a living."
"If one
must
earn a living," he said and snorted.
"I've been here two weeks, and I already know what the English think is
the best way to get money: to be born to it. That's who you respect. Those
clever fellows who have the good sense to be bred by rich parents." As if
he'd heard the word choice she'd rejected, he added, "Now, there's
something that takes a lot of brains. Wish I'd been smart enough to do
that."
She'd offended him. Again. It was easy enough to do. But this time
she felt more uncomfortable about doing it. Perhaps she did feel superior, when
she shouldn't, and it showed. Though she didn't really feel superior, she told
herself. Not
really
. She liked him. She tried to dig herself out.
"So, whether you're called a cowboy or not, you work with cows, yes? What
do you do with them?"
He let out another short laugh. "By cows, I take it, you mean
Texas Longhorn steers?"
"All right, yes. I think so," she allowed.
Another sidelong look. He was annoyed, though in the faint light
it was also possible he was smiling, too. "You are the damnedest
woman," he said. He shook his head. "Yes. I've worked with cows, as
you call them. I drove cattle from
Texas
to
Kansas
for a while.
It's hard work and deserves respect."
She nodded. "So why don't you like being called a
cowboy?"
This won her a mean glance. "I don't mind: It's sorta
true."
"You don't like it."
He turned fully, frowning at her; a direct, narrow scrutiny by
firelight. "All right, I don't."
"Then why wear that" – she had to remember the word –
"Stetson and those boots?"
Not very nicely, he said, "Because they're comfortable and
practical and what I grew up with and like."
Bewildered, she asked, "Why are you angry now?"
Sam scowled at the question. Angry? Was he angry? He had to think
a moment. What the hell was this irritable feeling? Yes, anger. She'd made him
angry again. Why? He turned to her. "My life is worth something to me,
even if it isn't the finest there is by your standards."
"I wasn't questioning your worth. Are you always this
irritable?"
He thought about it. "No. But a lot of the time."
Most of the time. Truth be known, he woke up angry most mornings,
spent most days angry, and went to bed angry most nights. Life itself pretty
much infuriated him. It was stupid, but a fact.
"Well, you're being ridiculous," she told him.
"Witch."
She blinked. The name-calling took her aback, but she rallied. "Beast."
"She-coyote."
"Clod," she said.
He snorted. "Drip-nose bear bait."
She frowned, bowed her head. He'd won, he thought; she had no
retort – until she took his breath away: She lifted her head, looked right at
him, wrinkling her nose, and stuck her tongue out. The full, pink curve of it
extended down her chin at him.
Sam startled, opened his mouth to say something, then couldn't: He
burst into laughter. He laughed till his cheek hurt. He couldn't stop, and he
didn't want to. So much for Miss
Lydia
's dignity. Or
consistency, so far as he could penetrate it. He'd never known a person who
could be so serious, then turn on a dime and be downright silly. When his
laughter finally quieted, he was left beaming at her, glowing.
He told her, "Watch out. That tongue of yours is pretty cute.
You better keep it in your mouth or I'm gonna want it."
Game point. She jerked her gaze away and shifted on her rump,
rocking and rustling her skirts. She made a big show of ignoring him and his
indecent comment, while she rearranged herself on her rocky patch of ground,
theoretically making herself more comfortable. As if now she could.
He picked up another rock and plugged the dark with it, thinking
he might say something more to her, something nicer … something about how pretty
she looked sort of tousled in firelight. Though, come to think of it, if he
did, she'd probably only argue with him about it. In any event, he didn't get
the chance: This time, his rock immediately struck something different. Instead
of the long wait till the expected clack, there quickly echoed back a soft,
dull thud. They both straightened, turning their attention toward the noise,
alert.