Archive of Our Own

“Turkey vulture.” 

Joel follows the lift of your hand, two fingers pointed down the hill, thumb curled inward over the other two. The point of your hand follows the bird’s descent over the swaying yellow sweet grass. 

He watches the bird swan tail into the grass, disappear into the curtain of rushes with a soft shutter. Joel wants to urge you on; he wants to be off the road before the thick velvet hangings of the sky are pulled shut. It’s been a long day, a hunting trip he hadn’t wanted to take but that something in you had insisted on. 

The sun is setting in a burnt ocher blaze, and you’re almost home, but you have a tendency to see things you shouldn’t. 

“Now don’t—”

The grass swallows you, too, before the words are even out of his mouth, let alone the warning not to get off your horse, to leave it alone. Let that damn omen lie.

He dismounts and takes the reins of your horse in his hand along with his own, following through the grass less gently than you had.

The pungent smell of decay wafts through the air, around the shadow of your silhouette. 

You have a habit, a bad one, he would say, of seeing something where there’s nothing. 

There, down hill, sandwiched between two lonely, brittle trees is the rotting carcass of a fox, the beak of the turkey vulture buried deep in the pulped mess of it’s throat. 

“Are you satisfied?” He grunts, the words angrier than he intends them to be because he’s irked by it too.

“A fox,” you murmur. “What do you think killed it?” 

Despite himself, he looks. It wasn’t an easy death, whatever happened to it. Joel doesn’t answer, the red innards strung across the grass like an unspooled rope. A fox, glassy eyes fixed open and unseeing, reddish fur matted with blood. 

“We should get home,” you say eventually.

Joel is glad that he isn’t the one to suggest it. 

You both stand there for a moment longer, watching the carnage. “Let’s go,” you murmur. “Arthur might be back already.” 

Joel nods and you take the reins of your horse when he offers them. There’s blood on your mare’s flank too, dripping from the deer you shot earlier tied there, another set of open, unseeing eyes like an odd mirror. 

The golden glint of your wedding band as you hoist yourself into the saddle makes the inside of him twist just a little, like a knife that’s slowly losing its edge against the granite scrape of his bones, digging wincingly deeper with each day, each moment that passes. 

The vulture doesn’t move when you ride past, just lifts it’s head and eyes the pair of you with one beady black eye. 

The rest of the ride back to the ranch is quiet and smarting with something unsaid, thoughts left unraveled and unspoken.

You’ve been alone together for too many days. 

“Don’t tell Arthur,” you say when you crest a hillock and the ranch’s distant gate comes into view, blue shadows moving over the land, coalescing  around the property line. A fist ready to close. 

The eerie, unnatural yellow glow of electric light brightens the edge of the Earth, the loose edges of the town meandering over closer. The work day is reaching its end there, the bangs of steel spikes being driven into ground echoing across the plains. 

But laughter reaches through the night, too, closer than the town, just beyond the last fence post. Joel would know the sound anywhere. Ellie has come to call; a little family of her own in tow. 

He doesn’t need to ask what you don’t want him telling. 

He knows you mean the fox. 

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“My little rabbit.” You swing JJ up into your arms from the bottom of the porch steps he just painstakingly clambered down. He giggles, tiny fingers latching painfully on the shell of your ear. His grip is tighter than you remember, his weight heavier in your arms. “Not so little anymore,” you grunt. “Gettin’ big.” 

“We were just heading out.” 

Ellie and Dina sit ringed around the table on the porch, a pack of playing cards next to the recently lit lamp, clearly having waited for you all day. The scent of oil and ember is heavy in the air. “No,” you answer, climbing the steps with the boy on your hip. He reminds you a little of Jack, and a time you’d like to think long past. “Please stay. It’s dark now. I’m not sure Joel would let you go anyway. I’m sorry, if we knew you’d be calling we wouldn’t have gone hunting.”

A trip you insisted on. Maybe if they’d arrived even an hour earlier, you would have missed that fox with the torn throat.

Ellie waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. We should have written.” You tilt your brows up and sit opposite them. “But okay,” she agrees, holding her hands up. “You’re probably right.” 

“Where’s Arthur?” Dina asks too casually, her eyes sharp. 

“Checking up on some old friends of ours. He should be back by tomorrow morning latest, if they haven’t run into trouble.” 

“Friends from your outlaw days.” 

You smile and tilt back in your chair, holding JJ tight on your lap, his head pressed to your collarbone. “I’ve been many things. But I wouldn’t know a thing about that.” 

Ellie breaks open the pack of cards, an old, much thumbed through stack, the edges wearing white where the paint has peeled off. “C’mon,” she says. “Tell us what it was like.” 

“I’d never admit to it.” 

“And we’d never tell it.”

You watch them and the night for a long moment—the closeness of them between the guttering light, the fading warmth of the day’s air replaced with warmth of the child, the sound of animals darting through the prairie. You hope one of them is your fox, that you haven’t just witnessed it’s death. 

Something jealous stirs in you at a life you no longer lead, the nomadic, ever changing landscape of their lives. You love the ranch, now, but you miss that freedom, that limitlessness. 

You know you’re remembering it with too romantic an eye.  

What can you say to them about that life, anyway? It was just another thing that ended bloody, another failed venture with folks and a home you thought immutable and permanent, that you finally got to keep forever. You fear there’s a lesson there that you will never learn, that nothing ever truly stays.  

“There’s not much to say, honest. The past is full of ghosts,” you answer. “This is my first time with roots.” You mean the house, not sure solid is the right word for it. Your life never felt immutable, immaterial before, just untethered. 

“Oh, c’mon, you miss it,” Dina teases. “I can tell.” 

“I miss it,” you confirm. “There was never supposed to be anything else. For me at least.”  

Joel appears, then, from between the folds of the encroaching darkness. The deer that had been over the flank of your horse now over his shoulder. He nods to the girls and heads around the side of the house. He’ll break it down by the rear door, carry it through to the kitchen for potting. If you wait, it’ll spoil by the next morning in the ever lingering heat. You have a long night ahead of you yet, so you should entertain while you can, though you anticipate the girls will insist on helping. 

His head tilts at you before he disappears around the corner. It’s something he didn’t know, that this is your first settling. He’d know you better, you think, if he let his guilt settle, if he let himself accept what was already an everlasting truth. 

“How come you didn’t go with Arthur?”

“I wanted to,” you answer and jerk your head toward the town, point with pursed lips. 

“Trouble with the railroad?” 

“Unatteneded property. They like fences until they’re the ones being kept out,” you answer, the corner of your mouth twitches with amusement. “Among other things they take issue with.” 

Pastors and lawmen. Teeth licking wolves beneath sheeps’ wool, fanging on about propriety and law and a god you have never believed in. 

You stand and hand JJ off to Dina and gesture the girls inside, the glow of the town a too bright blight on the horizon, blotting out the stars you have always been able to follow. 

You shudder to think of the stars disappeared among the black void of the sky, of the world you’ve always known being snuffed out. It’s a reminder of the ever changing world, and that you will never know the land as it was meant to be known.

They settle in in the main room while you meet Joel at the back door. His shirt is spattered with blood, the deer a dark hanging silhouette behind him. You lean in to kiss him in the soft lamp light flickering behind you. He meets you half way. 

Once, Before Joel

Once, for a long time, or what had felt that way, it had been just you and Arthur, beneath stars and sky, in the wild open west, finally. Promised for so long, and now yours. Not lost in the humid, swampy air of the south, or trapped in the closeness of forests with eyes that held teeth in the east. 

There had been good things then, too, of course there had been. But it’s good to be back in the west, where you belonged. You were born out here, you’re fairly certain, though impossible to know for sure.

Everyone you know is scattered to the wind and wild, and it feels for all the world like you and he are but alone in the world. In creekbeds and mountain passes, roaming and sometimes fleeing, but mostly trying to behave, to do better, while trying to stay off beaten paths that extended further with each day, eating more land, taming whatever it wanted. Roads and civilization where the previous season there had only been trees. 

You kill when you must, help when you can. Strangers become friends, filling you with tales of other strangers in foreign lands, of foods you can only dream of and gods that only have one foot in this new world. 

The drifting eventually comes to an end, like dandelion seeds settling when the wind finally died down after a storm. After, the work begins, the setting up of something that might be real, that gives you land and names that aren’t necessarily the ones you were born with. That gives you a real and tangible place in the world.

It smarts. 

It’s fine. 

A new life demands a new name, a new person.

You are starting over, for better or worse, together, with sun on the horizon and hard work ahead of you. You have never been opposed to starting over, and you don’t mind it so much with Arthur at your side. 

Then the railroad company sidles into town one morning in the middle of summer on your first anniversary in that house. The house and stable you built together, with your own hands, now with a small herd of cattle to accompany you and Arthur’s horses. With them comes men, most with wives and children, plundering and clumsy. Many men come without families, working for that railroad, desperation driving them more than the promise of economic success, somewhere to root down.

With that, comes its own problems. 

The church fills up full, but so does the saloon and the rooms above it, so does the alley behind it at night.

Trouble for everyone, in short. At least the law has something to keep them occupied.

You find the men with coins lodged between their teeth and hungry for more, are much worse than any desperate man ever could be. At least a desperate man is a dog you know will bite. 

It’s only a matter of time before those men in suits, mopping their brows of sweat, appear on your doorstep. The steel rail they want to drive through part of your land gripped like a weapon behind their back. It brings turmoil and conflict and crime. 

And, last, but certainly not least, it brings you Joel.

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You aren’t good people. 

Or, you weren’t, once. 

You probably still aren’t, not by most decent people’s standards. 

You’re trying to do better, now, but sometimes the petulant side of you comes out. There are things you want and you don’t care how you come by them. It’s hard not to feel like it isn't all owed to you anyway. 

And this life is hard. 

It’s a different life than you thought you would have, that you aren’t really sure how to accept, how to mold into. It’s a second chance to do better, but to what end? It's still a knee jerk instinct to think of pickpocketing folks in town, to listen in on conversations for empty, rich houses, unwatched carriages and wagons, to ingratiate yourself with the moneyed to step a filthy foot over a gilded doorway. 

It’s an instinct that you don’t always bother to tramp down, and what did that say about your commitment to this new way of life? To the man trying to make that life work with you? 

It has been an uncomfortable settling, after a nomadic life, after a life on the run and on the road; skin too tight, growing pains. But something had told you it was time to root down somewhere, and so you had. When you saw the fox by the creek one morning, you knew this was it. It felt like you had run far enough; it felt like the very end of the world, though you would soon find out there was nowhere some kind of problem couldn’t, wouldn’t, follow you. 

It had all been fine. You and Arthur, alone, occasionally setting out on stints around the area that would sometimes last weeks until you figured something had to be done about the property. If you meant it, about doing things differently, you had to put your money where your well intentioned, if poorly reproduced in reality, thoughts, were. 

Raising cattle, taking them to market, occasionally slipping into town to buy and sell goods and cheat at poker, led to a simple, if boring life. It’s hard work for two people, occasionally burdened by gangs, outlaws, in the area that spark jealousy and nostalgia, and misplaced pieces of your past. 

You miss that other life more than you thought possible, like some piece was missing, neither of you sure how to articulate what it might be. Grief, homesickness. 

And then, the missing piece had shown up at your door. 

Looking for work with the railroad, he had overhead the possibility of farmwork at the saloon. He is older than either of you, but more suited to the kind of work you were dabbling in, too. Thick salted brown hair and beard, broad chest and well muscled arms, work roughened hands and sun weathered face. There are cracks by his eyes and a scar over the bridge of his nose. 

He stands politely near the scrubby grass at the foot of the porch stairs, hat in his hands and answers the questions you hurl at him like they mean anything. 

Even if he’d never seen a horse before in his life, he was it. 

The day is warm but not yet hot, the world colored in shades of red and gold, the firm lavender blanket of the horizon rapidly melting away into clearest blue. Out on the prairie you hear the laughing call of a fox. 

It is a fit that feels too natural, a fate succumbed to. 

Arthur is just behind you, at your shoulder, hands tucked around his belt. The warm smell of cigarette smoke and sun twists around you. You turn your head enough to meet his eyes, tilting your head at him. Maybe he heard the fox too, maybe he just likes the look of his guy. Arthur shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. “Seems like your mind is already made up.”

“Mr. Miller,”  you say as you turn back toward the house, brushing your fingers along Arthur’s hand as you pass. “Would you like a cup of coffee before we get started?” 

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There’s a fox at the foot of the porch. 

It’s moon yellow eyes follow the path of your hands as you set down the washing in the basket on your hip. You extend your hand palm up, fingers spread. This is the closest it has ever come. It’s gaze wheels from your fingers to your face in a vaguely human way. In a clever way. 

The screen door swings closed behind you, clattering against the wood frame. The creature doesn’t move; it’s eyes remain firmly locked on you. 

Behind the fox, distantly, you can make out the shape of your newly hired help, horseback among the cattle, hat pulled down over his eyes, a cloud of sun bleached dust curling up around him. 

Joel Miller, or so he says. What’s brought a man like him tumbling into town on the heels of civilizing railroad without a family? Well, probably nothing good, you and Arthur had agreed when you discussed it the night you hired him. 

But, neither were either of you ever on the heels of anything good, and so you decided it might be a good thing, if push came to shove. He had said that morning he showed up, that he could handle a gun, that he was familiar with ranching, and so far you have had no cause to doubt him. Better than hammering back breaking steel into earth, you guess.  

You kneel with your hand still extended and watch the fox watch you. It doesn’t flinch when the door opens again, the heavy tread of well known boots on the porch behind you. 

“Well, looks like you finally made a friend.” 

It disappears as quickly as it had come. 

“You scared it, Arthur.” 

“It was bound to be.” You stand as you cross your arms and turn to find him leaning back against the wall next to the door, hat in one hand, a smoking cigarette in the other, watching you. “And I weren’t talkin’ about that fox.” 

You raise a brow, “And what would you be talking about then?”

He jerks his chin toward the field, but you don’t turn to look. You roll your eyes and take up the basket again. “Seems to be pretty friendly.” He is. You have needled him into it, broken the gruff cast of his face, worn down his edges by talking at him almost constantly. 

“I could say the same about the two of you.” You see them in the field together. You see the closeness that only a few months have brought. They’re hard and soft in all the same ways, you’re coming to understand, so you should fit, too, just fine. 

You and Arthur watch each other for a long moment, things unsaid twisting in a knotted, writhing pile at your feet. “We should see if he’d like to have supper with us sometime. Maybe go into town.” 

“Sure.”

There is something raw pulsing between the two of you about this, about that man and how you feel about him in just a few short months, an energy that you can only have there wherewithal to listen to. When the world speaks, when it demands you pay attention, you should listen.

In your opinion, something is being very clear with you. It has sent you a gift, a missing piece. 

It’s not that you aren’t enough for each other, it’s that there’s space for something else, an open place, an open wound neither of you ever knew how to name. You had always assumed it was the could-have-beens of other lives with other people, for both of you, and the grief you both carried because of it. 

Until, this. 

Until this man standing at the foot of your porch one morning before the sun had fully risen.

Like you weren’t aware there was something missing until it turned up. 

The question that remains is the amenability of your new friend. 

You are dancing now on the edge of pulling him closer, into your fold, or pushing him away. Most did not grow up the way you had, where these strict relational lines didn’t exist. 

Arthur pushes away from the wall, cigarette snuffed out on the heel of his boot. His hand cups your elbow, thumb rubbing gently at the bone. “You know, you used to remind me of one of them. Still kinda do.” 

“One of what?” You ask, even though you know. He’s said it a thousand times before. You like to hear it anyway. “A temperamental ranch hand?” 

He chuckles, and it turns into a wheezing laugh. “Well, maybe that too.” 

“Arthur.” 

“Fox.”

He says it like a name sometimes, and not just something he’s naming. Calling you that, naming you that.   

You pretend to mull that over for a moment, watching him watch you. “Are you making fun of me?” 

“No,” he says, drawing the word out, sarcasm thick on his tongue. “I’d never do a thing like that.”

You lean in, tucking both your hands around one of his, looking into clear blue eyes that remind you of lake reflected sky. They’re a touch more green than blue, though, today. They go through a thousand variations of green and blue a day, depending on the light. “How is that?” You ask, reaching up to push your fingers through his honey hair, soft beneath your touch, curling around his ears.

“Kinda scrappy. A little mean. Cleverer than anyone has right to be.”  

You roll your eyes and release him, shoving his shoulder lightly as he laughs. “Better go help that man, he might be your only friend soon, Mr. Morgan.” 

Arthur’s hand catches at your elbow again before you can walk away. “I’m goin’ into town. Might be gone a little while.”

“I’ll be okay,” you say and pat the gun hidden beneath your skirts, joking but only mostly. Wanderlust had not entirely left either of you. If he doesn’t turn up by evening, you won’t necessarily worry.

“I reckon you’re probably a faster draw than him anyway.” He presses a kiss to your temple. “I’ll be back by nightfall.” 

You nudge your elbow into his ribs, laughing. If you notice the man in question glancing over at you, watching, you don’t look back. The preening feeling in your chest is all right; it’s reflected in Arthur’s eyes. “I’m probably faster than both of you.” 

“Where you off to anyway?” 

“To do washing. Why?”

He stoops and takes the basket under one arm. “C’mon,” he grunts and gestures down the steps. “I’ll walk with ya.” 

“Thought you was going into town?”

There’s mischief in his eyes, a quirk to the corner of his mouth. He offers his arm as you descend the steps after him. “I reckon I got some time.”  

Well, who are you to turn down his time? You tuck your hand in the corner of his elbow, allow yourself to be led across wavering yellow grass, the dry scrape of it a near constant song in your ear. 

The creek is secluded, a trickle of water abandoned by God, insulated from the rest of the world by a scrubby little copse of trees. The shade pans cool over your skin, and when Arthur drops the basket by your feet, you well know you won’t be getting much washing done. 

His fingers loop through yours, pull you into him with a giggle, both of you sounding much younger and much less worn than you are. 

“Is this indecent?” You ask laughingly, feeling the scruff of his cheeks against your throat, the rumble of answering mirth against your chest. 

“Yeah,” he grunts, hands lifting your skirts, skimming the outside of your thigh, the little revolver strapped there. His large palm covers your pussy, impossibly warm, one finger slowly pressing between your folds. “We ain’t exactly decent though.” 

You scrub your hands through his hair, let the ends stand on end, before you pull his mouth to yours. “Lord. You really know how to make a lady feel special.” 

“Ain’t you my wife?” he answers with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I don’t give a damn what’s decent.” 

It’s maybe the most decent thing he could ever say to you. You pull his lips back to yours, press your tongue into his mouth, just to taste him better. You slide your hands down his chest, pull the suspenders off his shoulders and fumble with the fastenings of his trousers, warm heat burning through you. He tastes like tobacco and coffee. 

Arthur grunts when you cup him in your hand, already hard. His face goes pink, eyes clenched shut when you twist your wrist.  

When he backs you against a tree and hitches your leg against his hip, pushes slowly inside you, you’re sure you could never want for anything ever again. This is forever enough, inside the circle of his arms, made one.

“Gotta keep quiet,” he says, against your cheek, punctuating the sentiment with a thrust that makes keeping quiet impossible. “Wouldn’t want no one to hear.” 

Your eyes roll back and he hitches your leg higher on his hip, breathy stuttered sighs punched out of your lungs. 

You almost hope the other one hears. 

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Joel is sitting on the front steps. He refuses to be tempted inside, to venture further than that without Arthur around. It’s polite and unnecessary. There’s hardly a soul around to witness any impropriety. 

Still, as it stands, you are unfairly fascinated with him. Curious, when maybe you shouldn’t be. 

“Are you sure you won’t come inside? It’s cooler.” 

“Ma’am—” 

“Don’t ma’am me.” 

“Uh, miss—” 

You huff and the corner of his mouth twitches. Oh. He’s making a joke. A good sign, surely. Still, despite your daily company, the friendship blooming between you, he won’t call you by your name. It’s always Mrs. Morgan, ma’am. “I don’t want to start any rumors or cause trouble for you. Better I stay on the porch.” 

You raise a brow and turn on your heel to fetch him a cup of water from inside “Fine,” you agree when you return. “Maybe you’re right.” 

“How did you and Mr. Morgan meet?” 

“I tried to rob him,” you say nonchalantly, honest, just to nettle him.

He laughs instead. “That so?” 

You hold the cup of water out to him. His fingers brush yours when he takes it, static electricity darting up your arm. You clear your throat and lean against the porch column, wiping your hands on your apron, keeping a respectable distance, which you’re sure he notices. You are trying your very best not to impose yourself, in any way. This house is just work for him; you and Arthur just his employers even if you are friendly. 

Still, it doesn’t hurt anything to be fascinated with him. 

“Sure. He thought it was funny.” You shake your head and wave the memory away. “I was real young. We’ve known each other a long time.” 

There’s just a beat of hesitation, poorly suppressed curiosity in his voice. “Y’all always been together?” 

“Oh, hell,” you laugh. “No. We fought like cats and dogs when we were young, and he was in love with some other girl for the longest time. He’s fallen in love with lots of people. He’s a romantic. It’s just his way.” 

Joel clears his throat. Passes over that fact uneasily, somehow. He takes a moment to respond, taking a long drink of water, almost hesitating. “You get anything off him?” He asks eventually, but you sense it isn’t quite what he wanted to ask. 

The corner of your mouth curls and you lower yourself next to him on the step. “No, but I wasn’t meaning to. He didn’t know that, and took pity on me. He tried to teach me how and then I robbed him. It was a nice little con.” You cut your eyes to his, watch him watch you. “And I guess that did impress him. And some other people besides. He should have known better than to think I was funny.”

He nods, turning the cup in his hands slowly, elbows braced on his knees, spread wide. This close, you can smell him, sweat and dust and hay and sun. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple, drips to his neck, and you have to look away. You can feel the wild heat of him pulsing in the air next to you. “Might know somethin’ about that myself.” 

“Hm? Theivin’? I was thinking you might.” You stare out over the parched, yellow grass waving between you and the distant fence posts, the whispering oak that casts shade across the porch steps. “Nobody out here that isn’t hiding from something.”

He doesn’t answer you for a long moment and you’re on the verge of excusing yourself or apologizing when he clears his throat. “Well, you ain’t wrong.” He sets the empty cup between you on the step, and gestures behind him, “You play?” 

You know what he’s gesturing at without looking. The guitar from a bygone era, permanently settled in the corner of the porch. “Not really. Maybe I used to know how. It was. . .my mother’s. I can’t seem to let go of it.” The air is still and hot, full of promise, full of something heavy. His expression is wistful and you wonder if your fox is watching, somewhere, the one that keeps visiting the porch since that day Arthur interrupted your meeting it. “Do you play, Mr. Miller?” 

He nods and then stands. “Joel,” he says quietly.

Hope flutters to life in your belly. “Joel,” you agree. “You should play for us this evening. Some evening. After dinner, if you’ll stay.” Though you feed him, as you should, he never eats with you. 

Something in his expression shutters closed. “I should get back to work, ma’am.” 

Ma’am again, when you had just said his name. You missteped somewhere. 

 He’s halfway across the yard when you call out. “Will you?” 

“What?” 

You raise a brow, spread your hands before your knees. “Play. This evening.” 

He thinks for a moment before nodding and continuing on, towards the stables.

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It goes on like that for months, an awkward, too close dance between the three of you. 

Joel at your dinner table, playing guitar for you, showing you how to pluck at the strings whenever you ask, when a certain chord progression is lost in the darkness of your memory. You play cards together in the evenings, spend all day in the sun together, a fondness you feel deep in the well of your lungs when you watch the men together, talking lowly, eyes meeting. 

Always, your fox is watching. Like approval for this unwieldy thing. 

Joel becomes, slowly but surely, inextricable from your lives, a solid presence that squares with the two you of. He just fits, like he’s always been there among you and always would. Part of you wishes he had been, so you could know him while traveling, sleeping under stars, sometimes only speaking to the horses for days on end, through snow and rain, desert flats and mountain ranges.

One day, nearly two years after Joel arrived, two girls appear at the fence post at the edge of your property, a sleeping boy in the lap of one.

One of them is Joel’s daughter. Ellie, you find out. Red haired with a mouth full of tar, you like her immediately. The other woman is the mother of the boy. They travel together, but you see what they are in the cast of their eyes, the affection between them like old roots.

You sense you’re being examined. “Joel writes to us all the time,” Ellie tells you that first evening, while you peel potatoes in the kitchen, “But when we were in the area he’d come meet us in town.” Her eyes and voice are full of meaning; you are being taken stock of, folded into their circle as he has been into yours. It means something that he’s brought these girls to your doorstep. “It’s nice here.” 

“You’re welcome here any time you’re around, and you don’t need an invitation from Joel.” 

She seems happy with that. 

Ellie begins to visit regularly. Not Joel’s by blood, but by choice. No stranger to strange family dynamics, she does not blink at Joel and you and Arthur, the odd little shape you’ve warped yourselves into. If she ribs Joel about it at the edge of the property just between the two of them, you pretend not to notice. 

He’ll say he’s too old, you think, if you ever bring it up, how covered in the two of you he’s become, like a dog offering it’s neck. He’ll leave if you say it, you think, and the carefully constructed puzzle will fall apart, the hatchingling hope of finally being found will die in your heart. You don’t care if it’s never more than this, you just need it to be.  

The bravado you show the world trembles at the thought. You’ve watched your family fall apart too often over the years. The family you were born to, after your father died; the family of thieving girls that eventually fell apart as they met men with no inkling of their criminal, sticky fingered past; the comforting, sometimes turbulent, cradle of the gang for many years.

Now, this. Small and safe and something you are not willing to give up. 

Gentle laughter, touch that lingers, even if none of you ever give into it, he belongs to you.

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The fragile house of cards you’re living in shatters, falls down, the night you go to the saloon together. 

The June air is tender and sweet, the swinging door letting out shafts of yellow light into the dust streaked street. Arthur offers a hand down from his horse as Joel ties his own to the post next to you.

Joel hadn’t been keen on the idea but you and Arthur thrive in the chaotic, turbulent air. You are hungry for that bit of your past. 

“I just mean,” he’d said before you left, “that them places can be a little rough. Ladies ain’t usually too common.”

Arthur snorted. “No rougher than her,” he’d defended. “She used to clean out every saloon she went into.” He’d reminisced, but you preened under the proud way he talked of your robbing. “She got six of these bastards to go all in in poker once. And they lost every penny. Almost fifty dollars in the pot.” 

“They weren’t too happy with me after that,” you’d answered, watching Joel as you swung up onto the back of Arthur’s horse. “But they let it go because I was pretty. Prettier than I am now, anyhow.” 

A collective grunt of disagreement that you’d ignored. “Younger, I mean. And I was wearing a very pretty dress and asking all kinds of silly questions about the cards. Being pretty and kind of dumb was the best thing to distract them from the cards stuffed inside my sleeves.” 

They both laughed and you basked in the sound, the collective breathing of the two men. 

Now you clutch Arthur’s hand in your own and climb the stairs, knowing without looking that Joel is following close behind, still thinking it’s a bad idea. Raucous sound bursts from every corner of the place, laughter and hooting and shattering glass, the calls of ladies on the stairs, beckoning those with the money for it upstairs to their rooms. 

The bartender eyes you when you approach, but doesn’t comment on your presence when his gaze sweeps over you and Arthur’s matching rings. What a man does with his wife is his own business, after all. Bringing her to a den of inequity included, apparently. 

Coin is exchanged for drink and you nestle between them at a table in the corner, passing the hours drinking until you feel sick, shuffling the pack of cards you brought like bright tokens, flipping them out onto the table in turn. One, two, three, one two, three, until the room sways dangerously to the left. 

You dance with Arthur and then with Joel. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wish they could dance together too, but you’re already pushing the envelope by dancing with a man who is not your husband and not a relation, that holds you close, whose mouth brushes your temple. You live in hopes that no one notices, because they are also inebriated.

“We should go somewhere soon,” you say to Arthur, drunkenly swaying with you among a few men and the ladies they were paying for, hand pressed around yours against his chest, holding you reverently, tightly like you were like to fade into nothing. It’s not possible anymore, but you still say it, just to be in the golden idea of it. “The three of us. Just ride out. Somewhere new.”

He’s humming under his breath, almost singing, and probably not listening. But he squeezes your hand all the same, grunts in agreement. You can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat beneath your palm. He’s so warm against you in the hot air, both of you sweating in the electric light. 

“I think we ought to head on home,” Joel says when you sit down at the table again. Daylight like cream on milk is lightening the crust of the horizon. His voice alone tells you he’s more sober than you and Arthur. You ache to reach out and touch him, slide your fingers through his and rest your palms together. 

You ache for other things, too. To tug open his trouser and sink to your knees, to watch him kiss your husband. A bright flare of desire makes your pussy flutter. 

“Sure,” Arthur agrees, stumbles up from his chair. “Wait just a minute.” He sways and bumps into an empty chair, which he apologizes to before making it to the swinging saloon doors.

“Probably has to piss,” you mumble at Joel, spinning your murky glass on the scarred wooden table. 

Joel snorts and opens his mouth to reply when another man sits down in Arthur’s vacated seat.

A frown tugs your lips down. “Miss,” he greets. “How much you cost?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” His teeth shine between the gaps in his unkept beard when he smiles, clearly taking your words as good fortune to find a working girl charging not a dime. 

“Don’t cost nothin’ if I’m not selling,” you say sweetly and point to your hand, your gleaming wedding ring. “My husband is just outside.”

His gaze shifts behind you, then back to your face. He laughs, “Husband? That’s real funny, miss.” 

“What’s funny about it?” 

“You already got something worked out with both of them? How much to get in on it then? A girl like you can take one more, I take it.” His hand closes over your wrist, pins it like a wounded butterfly to the table. 

A cold soberness washes over you all at once. The morning light is too bright; the alcohol in your stomach is souring and likely to make a reappearance at any moment. You wriggle your hand and his grip tightens; his other hand finds your waist, holds you firmly in place. “I can make it worth your while, girl. Lady luck was on my side tonight. Won five hands in a row.” His head jerks toward the table in the opposite corner where a group of railroaders are still playing poker. 

“Then I’m afraid your luck has run out, mister,” you say through gritted teeth, venom in your voice. “I meant what I said; I ain’t for sale.” 

He scoffs, and you attempt to wrench your hand back, but he suddenly stands, hauling you up with him. “Why don’t we see what your feller has to say about it, huh? Husband, right? What do you reckon his price for you is? I guarantee I got it.” 

A touch of panic swirls in your gut, blood pooling cold and violent in your belly. He could ask any man he saw. 

“Let go of me,” you say loudly, your breathing picking up. “Now.” People are starting to look, but you know most of them won’t raise a finger to help you. They have all made the same assumptions as this man. 

That Arthur and Joel are men who have paid to share you. 

He opens his mouth, a sneer on his face, when Joel steps up next to you. “I believe,” he says lowly, “the lady said no, or did I hear her wrong?” 

“She ain’t for sale, didn’t you hear?” He answers sarcastically. He yanks you after him so hard that the joint at your elbow cracks. You wince from the noise, though it didn’t particularly hurt, just a joint popping. “Find your own whore.” 

There’s something unrecognizably dark and dangerous in Joel’s gaze when you swivel your eyes around to his, to plead for help, not sure that he will. He has no obligation to, no reason to. You aren’t his wife. 

But Joel isn’t looking at you and doesn’t give the man a final warning—his fist just connects with his jaw in a sickening crunch of bone and teeth. People look around at the commotion and in the raucous din that follows, you catch sight of Arthur barreling through the last smattering of the night’s crowd. 

Your arm is dropped instantly and feeling returns to your fingers in a buzzing rush. The man is clutching his jaw, yowling and bawling like a scared cat. You reach out and push him into the nearest table, send him sprawling onto the ground. The table tips sideways, glasses and peanut shells and ceramic raining down in an almighty clatter. 

“Don’t you ever grab a woman like that again, do you hear?” you snarl, leaning over him, shoving a finger in his face that you want to claw off, adrenaline swirling in your veins, the itch for a fight slithering around your throat.  

He’s nodding, blind from the tears dripping down his face. You gather yourself and breathe, but when you turn your back you hear him stand quickly, fumbling at his belt for the gun in its holster. Before you have the chance to react, Arthur’s revolver is already drawn. “I’d be real careful about your next move, mister.” 

“I didn’t—”

“I ever see you again, you’re a dead man, hear? Can’t think of nothin’ more cowardly than pointing a gun at a lady’s back.” 

Arthur’s hand cradles your elbow, pulls you around safely behind him, sandwiched between his body and Joel’s.  

“I don’t—She—”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” he growls, low and mean and syrupy.

The bartender is shouting at you to get out or he’s calling for the law, just as Joel’s hand cups beneath your opposite elbow, both men tugging you in the direction of the door, past a swirl of faces, floorboards creaking like old bones beneath your feet. 

“What the hell happened?” Arthur asks when you’re outside in the already hot street, sun beating down on you at an angle between the buildings. It hurts your eyes, belly lurching painfully, fearing the beer and whiskey and whatever else might make a reappearance. 

You shrug weakly, trying for nonchalance. “He wouldn’t let go of me. Joel punched him.” 

“They thought she was. . .workin’,” Joel interjects, his voice rising. “Because I was with you.”

No. Please, no, this cannot be the thing that pushes him away.  

You lift your chin. “I don’t think it had much to do with it. He was drunk. It’s a saloon. Ladies aren’t exactly welcome any way but one. It wasn’t because. . .I was with—” You aren’t sure how to finish. It’s messy and fragile and unspoken and it’s being shoved into light its not ready for. “Joel, please—” 

“Jesus Christ,” Joel mutters, looking like he’s setting himself up to argue with you, to be a goddamn martyr about it. “You can’t be that goddamn blind. That is exactly why.”

You look at Arthur, all the hopes you’ve held like fragile glass in your hands the last few years, while you waited for Joel to catch up to what you have been all along, seemed to all be in the open now, at risk of crumbling.  

“He knew,” you say simply, to your husband, the man you’ve loved for so long and knows you better than you can ever know yourself. Arthur understands what you mean, stoops to help you clamber up onto the horse. 

He knew we were three, they all did. 

The ride home is a long one, uneasiness like a knife, sharply balanced over your heads. Your body is an open, aching wound, need to finally pull you all together like something molten in your belly. 

Apparently so obvious, your feelings, all three of you, to everyone that witnessed you around each other in town. 

The three of you with too much liquor still in your blood, ramped up from the display in the saloon, the tension like a cord that might snap, wrapped prettily around your throat, tightening with each moment that you aren’t cradled between them, that the three of you don’t say what you are, what you are so clearly becoming. 

The final snap comes in a flurry of limbs and flesh and the flash of teeth, too hot hands imprinted on your body the second you are back on your land, on the porch in the morning sunlight, the screen door cracking under your weight when you’re pushed against it, groped and touched and sighed against. You will never be able to say who moved first, who broke first. 

You stumble inside to the push of one body and the pull of another. The curious pass of two men together. 

You watch them from the bed where you curl, feeling nothing but curiosity and desire. You watch their uncertain hands, touching and caressing, as you peel yourself out of your clothes, hands unsteady from the alcohol. Need pools in your belly as you watch the pink push of Arthur’s tongue into Joel’s mouth, the exchange of hands tugging at clothes. 

You glance away to wrest at your own clothes, to the sound of ginger grunts, panting mouths. 

A bruise is ringed around your wrist from where the man at the bar grabbed you; your elbow aches where he pulled too hard. You suddenly feel very alone and useless, but only for a moment. 

Joel’s hand curls around yours, fingers tilting your chin up. “I’m sorry. I shoulda stepped in quicker.” 

“Don’t be.” 

“But I am.” 

You touch his jaw, drag him down next to you, the bed dips down behind you, Arthur’s hand on your spine. “I don’t want you to be afraid.” You swallow, don’t look at his eyes. “Of us.” 

“No,” he says quietly, cradling your skull between his hands, “No. That ain’t it.” It looks like he might continue but he kisses you instead, the taste of whiskey and tobacco and your husband on his tongue.  

You smile against his mouth, feel Arthur at your back, his hand skimming down your side, between your legs. You gasp and lean back into his warmth, eyes fluttering shut with a gasp. “Jesus,” he murmurs against your mouth.

He sounds young in that moment, drunk on the same things you are. You nestle your head against Arthur’s shoulder in askance, one last chance to put it all away, to back down. “Arthur?” 

“Go on,” he hums. His hands never stop their movement, caressing, plucking open buttons and fabric. 

You tilt up and kiss Arthur, the mirrored taste of his lips against yours, like the man kneeling between your legs, watching your husband kiss you, cupping your breasts in his big hands and squeezing until you gasp into his mouth.

Joel pushes your legs apart, his hands hot on your skin, different to the palms and fingers you’ve grown accustomed to. You shiver and pull back from Arthur’s mouth to watch him discover you, the edges of a vast ocean he can only guess the depths of. 

“Joel?” You say, reaching for him. 

He’s leaning over you before his name is fully out of your mouth, a half broken syllable, stroking the corner of your mouth with his thumb reverently. You part your lips, feel his tongue against yours, his mouth rough and chapped. You whine against him, the bristles of his beard tickling your cheeks. It’s dizzying, dazzling. There are sparks in your chest, catching something aflame that will never be put out. 

You kiss him slowly, feel Arthur put his hand in Joel’s hair, tugging at the strands softly until he groans into your mouth.

“Ain’t you sweet,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You wanna lay down for us, sweetheart?” 

You nod and struggle up from lazing against Arthur’s chest, shedding whatever clothes you’re left in with their help, the many layers a lady is required to wear.

You don’t feel much like a lady now. You feel like a violent, wild animal finally closing it’s teeth around the neck of a long awaited prey. Hungry for so long, and about to be sated, finally. You settle naked before them eventually, only a little embarrassed, shame like a leaking wellspring in your chest. 

“Ain’t she pretty?” Arthur says, pushing your knees apart again, like showing you off, letting you bloom on the sheets you’ve spent tangled in with him so many nights. 

“Prettiest thing I ever seen.”

You stretch in the sun across the bed, pleased, watching them undress. The hard, muscled plains of them, the dark hair of their chests and thighs, between their legs. You lick your lips when you see Joel’s cock, leaking and red, curious, almost. You’ve only ever seen Arthur’s before. 

Arthur slots himself between your legs, the head of his cock already notched at your entrance, pressing inside of you. The familiar stretch makes you groan, back arching off the bed. His hands slide down your thighs, over your lower belly, one thumb tracking down to rub your clit. “My girl,” he murmurs, “so damn wet for us.”

You reach for Joel, brief panic blooms in your chest, to look at another man like this. Your breasts lift with the movement, as you guide his hips forward and take his cock in your mouth, head hanging off the edge of the bed, chest full of prideful warmth. “Chirst,” he mutters, “Lookit you.” 

You’re used to Arthur, and it takes you a moment to adjust, to the movement of his hips, the size of his cock, the way he reaches for your hands and holds them in one of his, slowly thrusting into your mouth as you work up to taking all of him. They’re similar in size but Joel is thicker at the base, you have to open your mouth wider to accommodate him. You gag around him softly before relaxing your throat enough for him to slide all the way in. 

Arthur pulls back, nearly out of you before thrusting back in, setting a pace that has you seeing stars and god, pleasure rushing you all at once, pushing back into Joel with each slap of his hips against yours. 

Joel pats your cheek, rubs his bulge in your throat. “Ain’t he nice? Doin’ all the work for you.” 

Your eyes flutter closed, the words lodging deep inside you, wrenching out a terrible pleasure that blinds you, careens white through your veins, spine lifting away from the mattress. They thrust in tandem, hands covering yours, holding you down, the wet sound of them kissing wetly above you.  

Breathing becomes secondary, a second orgasm wrangled from your body, expert fingers pinching that delicate bundle of nerves before Arthur pulls out and taps the head of his cock against your pussy. 

“Think she liked that.” 

“Mm.” 

He pushes back inside you, one of them reaching down to slap your cunt, a tap really, that makes you choke around Joel’s dick.  

You gag again, breath stuttering and panic just a little, pushing back at his hips. Joel pulls back and you spit into your hand and stroke it, the movement jerky. “Sorry—” you start.  

You cough wetly, eyes still stinging, and sit up at their urging. “There you go, honey.” 

“Took me so good, sweetheart. There you go, breathe for us.” 

Their voices mingle together and become one until you aren’t sure who’s speaking, who’s praising you. “Just breathe for a minute.” 

“Sorry,” you murmur again, voice thick. “I panicked. It was—”

Intense. Good. You want them to do it again. You want to please them, need them inside you. 

“I know,” Joel coos, leans in to kiss you, spit a sticky glittery shine between you. “You did good. Takin’ all of me.” He’s still stroking his cock, looking at you with hungry eyes. 

You don’t have the patience for their compliments anymore, though you preen beneath them. Their hands are hard to keep track of, between your legs, skimming the inside of your thighs, pinching your nipples. A kiss from one and then then other, blinking into the golden light to watch them kiss each other. 

“Christ you’re wet,” Joel murmurs, fingers sliding home inside you, exploring you anew. “I want to eat this, sweetheart.” 

“Oh, Lord,” you mumble. “No. I can’t—Please just fuck me. I want you both inside.” 

They both pause, and you blink into the light again, to watch them watch each other, silently communicating something you can’t begin to understand. 

“You sure? That’s—”

“Yes.” You need to be connected to both of them, seal them both inside you, feel like this wasn’t breaking something but building it, a new, slightly odd, relationship. This is the start, and you need both of them to fuck you. 

“All right, honey, c’mere.” Arthur hauls you back into his chest, while Joel shifts, his back against the headboard. “So we can both see ‘im.” 

You tilt your forehead against his temple, “You sure?” 

“Are you?” 

“Yes.” Then, softly, “I love you.” 

“I love you,” he answers. “That ain’t ever changin’.” 

He pats your hip and lets you move away, climb into Joel’s lap. He grips himself and guides you down onto his length, stretch you wide on his cock. You trail your hand down his chest, nails catching on dark hair over curiously scarred flesh. His neck is flushed, the tops of his cheeks. 

You roll your hips against his. He feels different than Arthur does, wider at the base. He grips your hips and pulses upward, hitting something inside you that makes you gasp, goosebumps rising on your flesh, nipples hardening as you shiver. 

Your eyes roll back when he does it again, the sound of Arthur rubbing his cock, watching you, making the pleasurable ache in your belly double. 

Your pussy flutters around him, begging to have him that much deeper inside you. 

Arthur’s hands land on your hips, his chest flush with your back, his chest hair scratchy and sweet against your skin. He wraps his arms around you, pinning your arms across your stomach, and ruts against your ass, cock heavy with need. “You ready?” 

“Just—Slow.” 

“I know,” he murmurs, mouth against your ear. “Real slow.” 

He guides himself to your entrance and pushes in slowly. It helps that you’ve come twice, maybe, wet and stretched open by Arthur’s cock and now Joel’s. But they’re both big and the stretch is painful. Accommodating them feels like fire, like something might tear. And, maybe, if they were any less careful, something would have. 

Joel coos at you, sweet about it, all his attention focused on rubbing your cunt, thumbing at your nipples, tracing shapes into your skin, to distract you and ease the passage. Arthur’s voice is in your ear, arms wrapped tight around you, moving so slow and careful, kissing your jaw with cracked, sun roughened lips, breath hot against your own. 

Eventually, after minutes or hours, the tight pain subsides, a delicious fullness left in it’s wake, a connectedness that makes your chest heave. You fall over Joel and Arthur follows your trembling body down, both thrusting slowly, sloppily. It’s tight for them, too, you think, the squeeze of your walls, the shift of them against each other. 

A wail wrenches out of your throat, a pleasure and thick fullness that drags you to the edge of an orgasm almost instantly. “Oh, God,” you cry, anchoring yourself on Joel’s chest, raking your nails down his skin. 

You turn your head and kiss Arthur, tongues tangling in a rough kiss as you come. Joel groans and grabs your hips, thrusting upward, spurting inside you. Arthur follows him over the edge, hips rutting against your ass as he rides out his orgasm, still kissing you before you pull away and collapse against a firm chest. 

You mean to stay awake, panting between them from the effort, but you’re exhausted and satisfied and it’s so warm. Darkness sweeps over you like wool pulled over your eyes. 

.

.

.

It’s the first day, in maybe your entire life, that you do not leave the bed. You are looked after and loved and come so many times your whole body feels boneless, spattered with theirs. 

You watch them once, when they think you’re asleep, the tender handling of the other, mouths panting, fingers curled and grasping, wanting. It continues in a cycle all day, until night forces you to rest. 

Joel is still your wildcard, though, and when you wake the next morning, the space his body once occupied is cold. 

You find him with the horses, only panicking a little that he deserted you, that it had all been too much. Your fox is there, keeping a safe watch over him, and when he turns and sees you on the porch wrapped only in a blanket, raising a hand to him, his smile is only fond.

You are wrong to think it means all is okay. 

.

.

.

“Would you come fishing with me, Mr. Miller?” 

It’s been weeks since that night at the saloon. Things had been okay at first, just settling into a new rhythm, until, inexplicably, Joel had started to peel away from you again, after returning from town late one evening. Sleeping in the stables again, eating alone, until he was hardly speaking to you at all if it didn’t have to do with work around the ranch. 

You have heard him and Arthur arguing about it. He tells you it isn’t your fault, holds you close when you cry at night feeling stupid and young and ungrateful. He calls Joel a fool and you can hear the hurt in his voice too. 

But this is your fear, that those you finally get to love, only leave you. 

Joel glances up from the bale of hay he just lowered to the dusty earth. “Ain’t you got a husband for that?” He asks gruffly, then, after a moment, adds, “Ma’am.” 

“He’s bad at it.” 

Joel clearly doesn’t expect the honesty you offer. He squints at you through the midday sun. “Bad at it?” 

“He don’t have the patience for it,” you shrug. “Good at shooting stuff, terrible at hunting, even worse at fishing.” You arch an eyebrow at him, “And I was under the impression hired help did as they were asked.” 

“Are you telling me to come fishing with you, Mrs. Morgan?” 

“Yes.” 

He clears his throat and gestures you toward the barn. “After you.” 

“Ma’am,” you correct waspishly.  

You sense he might roll his eyes at your back. “After you, ma’am.” 

.

.

.

The creek is low. 

You and Joel stand in the shade of a few thin oak trees that line the bank, the one Arthur had once pushed up against, laughing, and made love to you. 

It’s a relief to be out of the sun and for a long time, you only fish. You don’t speak, don’t look at each other. “Think you hooked one,” he says when your line shimmers and darts beneath the water. 

You sniff gently and take up the pole. 

“You don’t like me,” you say as you reel, slacking the line when necessary, wearing the fish down, out. 

It’s quiet for a long minute, before he sighs. “It ain’t that.” 

“Then what is it?” You demand and turn to face him, letting the line spool out. “You jealous of my husband or jealous of me?” 

His jaw tightens. “Losin’ your fish.” 

“Don’t really care.” You cock your head to the side. “Either say it, or start actin’ regular again.” A twist in your heart. “It wounds me that you won’t even come in the house anymore.” 

He shakes his head and looks away. “You’re another man’s wife, in case it slipped your mind.” 

Your breath catches, anger like fire racing along your lungs. After everything, after all you poured out, it meant nothing to him. It was a one time fuck for him. 

You feel like a fool, and go back to reeling your fish in, more sloppily than you would have done. 

“I got it,” you snap when the fish is within grasp and Joel reaches for it. 

You wade into the stream, dress lifting on the surface of the water to drag the fish to shore. It’s a beautiful large-mouth bass, gleaming scaly green and silver, a lick of red near its gaping mouth. 

You don’t look at him as you pull it to shore and slice open it’s throat. The blood washes red into the dry earth, slipping down the bank and into the creek, blooming in that water. It’s soaking into your dress, but you’re too frazzled and upset to care. 

“You don’t hear the way they talk in town,” he says quietly, like he’s hoping you won’t hear.  

Fingers pause, slick with fish blood. “What?” 

“You don’t have to hear how they talk in town.” You glance up but Joel is looking away, jaw clenched tight. 

“And how do they talk, Joel? I can promise I have heard it before, and worse.”

He doesn’t answer for a long minute, staring across the water at the yellow sheaves of grass. For a moment, you think he might say it isn’t for a lady’s ears, but you should know him better than that by now. “The ones that don’t want to string you up, think they should come try you out themselves.” 

Despite yourself, the things you’ve heard over the years, it still makes your belly twist with worry and disgust. 

You open your mouth, but Joel apparently isn’t done. “And if I hadn’t let it goddamn happen, none of us would have to worry about it.”

You shrug, finish up with the fish and drop it into the bucket beneath the tree, bending at the waist to wash your hands of blood and guts in the water. Your hands are trembling, not because of what those men said but because of the vast gulf you feel opening between you and Joel, all that time and progress and fitting together chased down the drain.  

“Then the cat is out of the bag,” you answer, wringing your hands out on your skirts, “and you might as well own what we are.” You step close, until your chests nearly touch. “You can’t put it back in. You can’t protect me. Him. Us.” His eyes are mean but in a way that says he’s worried. You don’t care for his worry, and close your fist tight around it. “And if you think you can save us, might as well just fucking leave.” 

He steps closer, teeth bared like yours. “I can’t. Trust me I wish I could.” 

Your heart twists, that he wants to, wants to get away from you. “Why? What the hell is holding you back?” 

He grips your upper arms, fingers like iron bands over your skin, shakes you just a little. “Goddammit. You know why.” 

You push your face close to his, teeth gritted. “I don’t. I want you to say it.” 

He stares at you, hazel eyes shadowed and dark beneath his lowered brows. This close up, he’s beautiful; his anger feels good, washing across the shore of your own. 

Instead of saying it, he kisses you, searing and blood thirsty. You grip the front of his shirt in your hands, the warmth of his chest on your chilled, still wet fingers like hot coal. 

It’s not gentle, does nothing to soothe you. It’s aggressive and possessive and agitating, all biting teeth, no soft, reassuring caress in the wake of it to speak of. Like scared animals lashing out. 

His knee goes between your legs and instinct makes you grind down. For a few minutes, instinct takes over, the thrust of your bodies together, anger melting into desperation, until Joel shifts his thigh and you both lose balance. 

The cold water shocks you back into your body, a terrible feeling washing through you, like if you don’t latch onto him, he will disappear.  

You scramble into his lap, ring your arms around his shoulders. “Please,” you say. “It’s already done. We might as well—” What? What are you asking him for? Maybe just the thing you’ve always been chasing. “We might as well belong. You belong to me, to us. Please don’t do this.”

“All right,” he murmurs, his voice broken, stroking your back with reverent fingers, clutching you tight to himself. His body is so hot against yours through your wet clothes. “You’re right, honey. You’re right.” 

He doesn’t say he’s sorry, and you don’t expect him to. You don’t want him to be sorry, you just want him to stay. When he helps you out of the water, he caresses your cheek, holds your face close to his. You see the unspoken words in his eyes. He won’t go, because he loves you. 

You nod, feel his mouth on your forehead. 

The fox is on the opposite bank as you pull yourselves from the water, watching as always.  

Arthur doesn’t ask what happened when you return to the house drenched, only one measly fish in your bucket. 

But Joel stays with you that night, between you for once, where you can watch his face in the shadows of the moon moving across the floorboards, nestled together like nesting dolls you’d once seen at a city market, and that’s answer enough. 

Now, After Joel 

Three days after Ellie and Dina leave, a man appears at the edge of your property, familiar in bearing if not in person. 

You don’t know him, but you can guess at what he reaches for. 

He raises a hand and nudges his horse into a trot, riding uninvited through the front gate. It thwacks shut behind him, and despite the miles of empty, flat land around you in the foothills of shadowed, purple mountains, you feel trapped. 

You stand and walk to the edge of the porch, the hot yellow yolk of the early morning sun just starting to inch over the horizon, hand fisted loosely around the barrel of a rifle. The scent of coffee and cigarette smoke and sun baked earth curls around you like a remonstrative fist.  

When he ignores the gun and drifts too close to the porch, you raise the rifle to your shoulder. “That’s close enough, mister. What do you want?” 

“Ma’am,” he greets and tips the hat off his head to hold against his chest, the picture of smug innocence. Tension bleeds from your shoulders all the same, you don’t recognize him from town. “I’m sorry to intrude like this. Is your husband about?” 

“He’s around here somewhere. Why don’t you tell me what you need?” 

A grin spreads across his face. “Somewhere.” 

“That’s right.” 

He starts to dismount. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” you say, moving your finger to the trigger. “This thing has a light touch.”

The pauses, then resettles in the saddle, humoring you and still smiling. “What’s a lady like you doing all on her own out here?” 

Definitely not from the town. The folks in town think you have a man too many hanging around. The knot in your stomach loosens and unravels. His nice suit says businessman, probably just one of the many railroaders looking hungrily at your property.

“Who says I’m alone?” 

“You sure you got a husband? Ain’t really nice of him, leavin’ a lady on her own to defend herself like this.” His eyes flit to your gun. He doesn’t believe you’ll shoot him.  

The corner of your mouth twitches, and you gesture with the gun toward the fields. 

“Sure. Over that way.” 

His smile doesn’t budge an inch as he turns to survey the horizon in a put on kind of way. You lower the gun when his grin finally slips a little. “Which one is your husband, ma’am?”

His voice is more subdued, threaded with a faint anger. A miscalculation, a mistake on his part, and furious that he won’t be able to take advantage of a young widow, that there are men to contend with. 

You lower the gun. “I’ll let them work that out.”  

“Ma’am?”

You don’t answer, just wave a flippant hand at him. 

.

.

.

The feller that had ridden through your gate, cowardly and threatening a lady who he thought was alone, leaves in a hurry after he talks to your husband. You aren’t sure who he got, Arthur or Joel, but he shoots you a polite looking smile as he rides past again. 

“You won’t be back, will you?” You call out. 

“No, ma’am. Very sorry for bothering you.”

“Sure. You let your friends know.” 

He turns tail and leaves a cloud of dust behind him, stirring up the arid, droughted land. Maybe he’ll let the people in town know too, more than likely he’ll find co-conspirators and confidence among his own kind. 

There will be no shortage of folks ready to regale him with stories of that harlot woman and the men you clearly have under your thrall. Good men, strong men, that ought to have put you in your place by now. 

The day is warm but not yet hot, the world colored in shades of red and golden yellow, the firm lavender blanket of the horizon rapidly melting away into clearest blue. Great white clouds creep across the sky, puffed up so huge you have to wonder how far up they go. Where did the sky end and something else begin? Was there an endless blue paradise that you could not see? 

You return to your seat, rifle over your knees, only raising a hand when Arthur and Joel appear at the edge of the field some hours later. It had been insisted that morning, that you take a break, lie in. And though you hate sitting still, something told you to listen for once. The dizzy spells that are plaguing you lately were no help in convincing you not to listen. 

That pillaged fox is still on your mind, the beaded eye of the turkey vulture like an all knowing something in your mind. An omen. You keep waiting to see one watching you from the great oak across from the porch, come to call and reap, but there never is. 

They take their merry time about getting back to the house. 

“What’d he want?” You ask when they finally mosey up the porch steps together, footfalls heavy on the new wood. 

Joel, once nothing to you but another pair of unwieldy, violent hands, now holds court in your heart. Now he’s been taken into your fold like a lamb to corral, keeps the secret of the fox because you asked him to. 

He leans down to kiss your forehead as he passes, pries open the door and disappears inside.  

“Land,” Arthur answers, greeting you the same way, mouth against your forehead. “Some nonsense about the railroad.” Said against your skin, lips rough and sun warmed and chapped, finger beneath your chin, tilting your head up. “He thought you was alone. He’s new.” 

All your life you’ve worked, one way or another, been many things and turned many corners, a clerk, once when you lied about being able to do arithmetic and read, a maid, to rob a rich man, a pickpocket and a liar, then, finally, an outlaw, a murderess, and now, you’re this—A lady who sits on the porch with a dizzy spell, kissed once and then twice, by one man and then another. 

You grew up savagely, many would say, among as of yet uncivilized land, sleeping beneath stars. The Van Der Lind gang hadn’t been too far of a leap to make, a group to tuck yourself between. 

What are you, now, really? A rancher? A wife? Whatever you are, you feel settled and content for once in your life.

A knot forms in your belly at the thought of it being ripped away, that it’s all been false, that wolves might always circle your doorstep, and that your blood runs hot when they do, equal parts terrified and ravenous for something to sink your teeth into. 

Money is still uncertain at times, ebbing and flowing and stopping altogether at times, depending. And what if you had spent the remainder of your money on this ranch only to find yourself destitute? Well, at least the debt is under a fake name. You’ve been here years now, though, and things are fine, except—

Men with ideas breathing down your neck, picking at the edges of your property. The railroad and now this other nonsense. It makes you feel caged, like an animal backed into a corner, and you are tired of that feeling. 

“He’ll talk to the folks in town,” you say. “One of us will need to keep watch tonight.” 

Arthur nods, squinting into the sunlight, hands on his belt. 

Every night, you think but don’t say, for a while. 

.

.

.

The day passes as it always does, hot and long. You join them in the fields, the dusty plain, in the afternoon.  

Though the sun sets late in the summer, you don’t return to the house until well after the sun has gone down, and you will get up before it rises again.

You eat silently at the kitchen table, muscles aching and spasming, hard and lithe with exhaustion beneath your skin, the push and pull and stretch of them in the relentless heat of the direct sun. Your skin feels shiny and pleasantly tight over your bones. 

It’s just that time of year, when there’s so much work to square, that talking feels like a chore. Still, your hands brush theirs, skim the backs of rough knuckles, the soft inner flesh of palms.

After, you sleep sandwiched between them in the dark bedroom, lamps snuffed out, the smell of oil and salted skin, hay and musk, coffee and earth. 

The day leaves you rattled, phantom hoof beats against hard packed earth make you sit bolt upright in bed. 

There are so many ghosts nipping at your heels, you don’t need the presumptuous, heavy weight of narrow-minded men breathing down your neck. 

Still, your lungs pump hard in your chest, sweat slicks the crest of your forehead, the space between your breasts. 

A hand cradles your elbow in the dark, tugs you back down against the mattress, into a chest, against a heart. 

Arthur, warm and strong and present. “We shouldn’t have settled so close to town. I didn’t think they would build here.” 

You shouldn’t have listened to instincts better ignored. You belong on the road, sleeping beneath stars and in the saddle of a horse; both of you belong in a world being slowly gobbled up by trains tracks and telephone wires. 

“Well,” he grunts softly. “What’s done is done.” 

There lingers between you, too, the uncomfortable knowledge that without the settling, you would never have met Joel, the other body sleeping so peacefully beside you, dead to the world in a way you know he hasn’t been in years. 

For months, he’d sat, sometimes laid, stiffly next to you; his alertness like a bitter astringent in the air. Now, comfortable; now, yours. 

When you reach back for him, he easily fits himself against your spine. The night doesn’t seem so dark. 

.

.

.

“Well, shit.” 

The rabbit is desiccated. Red, pink guts spill across the porch, blood marks the door in a vicious, violent streak. 

“It wasn’t an animal.” 

“No,” Joel agrees, stooping down beside you. “See there?” He points near the neck, a clean splice of fur and skin that reveals sinewy crimson. “Cut’s too sharp. Knife did that.” 

You nod, and let him say it though it’s painfully obvious to your eye too. 

The fur is white and thick, soft beneath your fingers when you touch it, one horror-pink eye staring blindly up at you. A rabbit and not a hare. Someone had gone out of their way to find this kind of animal and slaughter it on your porch. 

“We shouldn’t have settled this close to town.” The same words from the night before, curling in smoke rings around your mind. 

If the sentiment hurts Joel, he doesn’t show it. 

He sighs heavily. “Maybe not.” 

It had been your idea to settle. And now it’s too late. 

The sun comes up white and hot, blazing on the horizon with mirth at the gore on your porch, relentless. 

It will be another beautiful day.

His hand settles between your shoulders, rubs carefully, slides down your arm to your palm. 

You cover his hand with yours before he can pull away, a practiced movement, both of you still crouched over the corpse. The scent of blood and rot curdling in the hot air. 

You squeeze and feel the rough skin of his palm before the day’s grime has gotten to it, the blood and dirt and sweat of ranching. 

It’s familiar and nice, and reminds you that you’re still the same person you’ve always been. 

 “I got it,” he says. “You go on.” 

You don’t have to be told twice, boot heels clicking as you descend the stairs to the dry grass. It flutters in the hot breeze, sweat gathering in beads at the back of your neck. It crunches beneath your steps, only blissfully turning to cool, dusty earth when you reach the stables, the familiar, constant embrace of the horses. 

It had been your idea to settle.

And what an uncomfortable settling it has been after so many years on the run and on the road; skin too tight, growing pains. But something had told you it was time to root down somewhere, and so you had.

Here, in the arid southwest, chasing dreams and ideas and ghosts that will soon go extinct. You feel as though the three of you are but ghosts, fading faster each day. 

It makes your chest tighten, muscles around your heart contracting painfully. You rub at your ribs, and ignore the twinge. 

You slip back into one of the stalls and set to work brushing the coat of your long loved mare, with you through thick and thin, thieving and bullet wounds and kinder nights, too. 

Heavy footfalls eventually find you, bright blue eyes locking onto yours over the mare’s bare back. 

“All right?” 

“No.” The word trembles in the air, snakes around your throat. “I think I’m scared.” 

Arthur moves around the horse’s flank, pulls you into his arms, safe, more familiar than anything else in the world. Though the sweltering heat presses between the gaps in the stable’s walls, you remain nestled there long beyond what is reasonable. 

You’ve been through worse, seen more violent. 

And yet. 

Fear. 

There’s so much that can be ripped away, so much that will never be understood. There is no running away, not shooting your way out of this. Not like you used to, anyway. 

“You’re all right,” he says against your temple. 

“This is my fault.” 

“No,” he coos. “It’s just the way it is.” 

.

.

.

Voices trade back and forth for a few minutes and your nerves stretch thin in the early morning light. 

The kitchen is warm and smoky, comforting in its solidity after so many years spent in tents and around campfires and under the stars. 

Arthur and Joel, together on the porch. 

“She ain’t goin’ alone.” 

A dry chuckle. “You try and stop her. See how it goes for ya.” 

A grumble in response that tells you Joel will try to stop you. 

The door groans open again. “Don’t waste your breath, Joel.” 

He sighs through his nose. “They left a dead animal on our porch two nights ago.” 

“I’ll be quick,” you say and pour a cup of coffee for him, sliding it across the table as an offering. 

He shakes his head. “I don’t see why we—”

“They left a dead rabbit on our front porch. They hunted that poor thing down and drug it out here. Now, reminding them of that, ain’t gonna help anybody. It reminds them of all our sins.” 

His jaw goes hard. “It ain’t you livin’ in sin. You two are married.” 

“Mhm. And having relations with another man who is not my husband.” You meet his eyes directly, lifting your chin in challenge. “What do you think they’d call that?” You glance away and adjust your skirt, the laces of your boots. 

“Relations,” he scoffs. “Is that what I am?” You want to shoot his question down, stuff it back inside his throat with gentle, unrelenting hands, but there doesn’t seem to be any real conviction in his voice. “One of us needs to go with you.”

Arthur shifts into the doorway over Joel’s shoulder, a physical presence that might keep him contained, might keep him firmly by his leash. But Joel doesn’t seem likely to go anywhere, aside from tailing you into town. “She’ll be fine,” he says, sounding more confident than you can tell he feels. “Shoots better than anyone I ever knew.” 

“It’s just something I have to do on my own,” you say softly. “I’ll be fine. Just a couple hours.” 

His skin is broken with heat and sun, his face warm in the cup of your hands when you press them to his cheeks. He doesn’t flinch away from you. “What is it you’re off to do?” 

You leave that question unanswered. 

.

.

.

The sheriff tracks you with suspicious eyes as you ride through the main thoroughfare. “No trouble, hear? Or you come to sell and take your sin with you somewhere that wants it?” 

You ignore him, straightbacked in the saddle, stiff with tension until you leave that street behind. 

On the other edge of town opposite your own, you knock at the back door of a lone house and offer the palmful of coins nestled in your fist. The woman who answers has a sun wizened face and gnarled hands that are soft with age when they touch yours. 

“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?” 

“No. Ladies only knock on the back door for one thing.” 

You grit your jaw. “I stopped having my blood.” 

“Mm. Quite the predicament,” she says, ushering you inside. 

“How can I be sure? That I’m. . .pregnant?” You ask, perching on a stool in her kitchen. 

She shrugs. “You might not be. Other things stop a lady’s cycle.” 

You inhale and grit your jaw. “Such as?” 

“Stress,” she answers bluntly, meeting your gaze, ferocious. “Plenty of that goin’ your way, I’ve heard.” 

You ignore the barb. “What are the other signs? How do I know for certain?” 

“Nausea, swollen breasts, fatigue. Do I need to go on?” She lowers her head and looks you in the eyes. You keep your eyes steady, even as your stomach twists, each symptom checked off in your mind. “Women only knock at my back door for one thing. Is that why you’re here? You want it out?” 

You look past her, to the window. “I don’t know. We work hard, I’ve stopped having my blood before.” 

“Do you know whose it is?” 

You look up sharply. “My husband’s.” 

“And which is that? The younger one with sad eyes or the grouchy dark haired feller? I don’t think you’d be here if it was as simple as it being your husband’s. Rumor goes, they both sleep in the house.” 

You gather yourself, not sure what you paid her for but it’s not this. You won’t be ashamed of it, of them. Her hand lands on your elbow as you stand.

“I was never married. I’m a miserable old crone who won’t judge you. I’m what folks might consider indecent.” 

You think for just a moment, flashes of skin and two sets of eyes, tangled warm limbs, knowledge that you were safe. How could that be wrong? You sit again. But, the fact of it is, they’d both come inside you so many times, there’s no telling whose seed took root in you. “No. I don’t know.” 

She releases you. “I’ll keep your money. You come back when you decide. I’ll give it back if you are with child and keep it, or we’ll find a solution to your little problem.” 

“Maybe I’m not pregnant.” Saying the word puts a sour taste in your mouth. “Maybe it’s just. . .ladies' issues.” 

She pats your cheek. “Then tell them men to feed you more and let you rest. And your cycle will come back. Ladies need rest.” You start to stand again when her other hand grips your wrist. “And be careful. There’s more to worry about than a bunch of snooty ladies turnin’ up their noses.” 

The way the sheriff’s eyes followed you. The men on your property, the soft slurping of their want, the land they thirsted for, the many women locked away for hysteria, for promiscuity. You’re only a toe out of line, an inch away, from joining them, from having the soft inner parts of you scooped out. 

You nod sharply and take your leave before she can stop you again. 

Their gazes catch on you as you ride away from town, hungry and licking. 

.

.

.

You don’t need rest. 

You like laboring in the sun, caring for the horses, working the ranch beside your men. It shuts off your mind from the chaos of what ifs, visions of future lives you don’t fit into; it lets you sleep dreamlessly at night with aching muscles and sore skin. 

The ride back to the ranch seems shorter than usual, time tumbling by too quickly for you to catch, silk strands through your fingers. 

The arid fields swim by, waving yellow tresses that whisper in the hot breeze. A scant tree, an outcropping of rocks, the fence with posts you knocked into the ground with your own hands. Dust stirs beneath the hooves of your horse. 

You guide her to the water trough, into the bit of shade beneath a towering tree at an angle to the front porch, parched leaves scraping together loudly. You remove her saddle and then pat her foamy side. 

Arthur appears in the doorway of the house, hands on his belt, as you ascend the front steps. 

“Where’s Joel?” 

“Huntin’, I think,” he grunts. “Or something, I don’t know.” 

Something sour curls up inside your chest, a less than rare anxiety that you stave off by touching his whiskered cheek, squeezing by him in the doorway, to feel the broad warmth of him against your chest. 

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.” 

He follows you, pulls out a chair for you at the table, cradles your elbow in his palm. “What?” 

Maybe you should wait for Joel to return and tell them together. But there’s some part of you that’s afraid of Joel. The possibility of his departure, stage exit left, right out of your lives, not bound by anything, not bound to either of you, still terrifies you.

You’re afraid of Arthur, too. Though it had been different, there’d been another pregnant lady he’d left once before. 

You are terrible at being alone, being left behind. 

But you have to tell him. 

He’s your husband. 

Yes. Things are different. 

There’s no easy way to say it, no filtering the truth for something gentler than what reality holds. “I might be pregnant,” you confess as he sits down. “I am not sure and neither is that damn midwife in town. I’m afraid of trying the doctor.”

He wouldn’t see you, you think, would probably insist on shoving his hand inside you to tell you for certain what you really were. 

A beat of silence passes. He rubs his jaw, lashes fluttering down over blue. “Not sure?” 

“I haven’t had my blood, but I don’t have other symptoms.” The fear lurches into the back of your throat like a frog into a pool, the ripple of it shuddering through your whole body. “We’re already so damned.”

He’s quiet for just a second, before he reaches for your hand. “No we aren’t. We been that before, we ain’t now.” 

It’s the kind of reassurance that makes your blood stand still in your veins, carves a sweet path to your heart. “Yes. All right. You’re right.” You shake your head, grit your jaw. “It might be nothing.” Then, uncharacteristically flustered, “Should I tell Joel?” 

The words come out all at once, jumbled together in a heap.

“I guess we got to.” 

“What if he leaves?” 

Arthur shakes his head. “No. Don’t strike me as the type. Not now.” His hand squeezes yours. There’s guilt there, because he had once left. “Besides, I think he might notice your, uh, condition after a while.” 

You laugh despite yourself. “We can only hope.” 

His mouth quirks up as he reaches up to rub your cheek with the back of his fingers. “He notices everything. We’ll tell him.” 

.

.

.

You ask Joel to sit with you that evening and tell him in the dark on the porch, starlight above you, knees pressed together like little children telling secrets. 

Though you aren’t sure if you’re pregnant, though you aren’t sure if you’ll ask the woman at the edge of the town for help if you are, he cups your cheek and rubs a thumb beneath your eye and says it’ll all be all right. You want to believe him, so you bow your forehead against his and breathe in the familiar, unfamiliar smell of him. 

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” he says, and you cry against his shoulder until he urges you up, walks with you in the dark through the starry night. The cool enclosure of night comforting all around you. 

Somewhere, your fox laughs. 

It sounds very far away. 

.

.

.

You try to deny it as long as possible.

Weeks pass into a month. 

You tell yourself that your period just hasn’t come in three months now because you’re working long, hard hours in the sun, because dead animals keep appearing desiccated on your front porch, furred and fanged and staring up at you with accusatory malice. An owl, a gutted, bloody fish, the laughing, wolfish remains of a coyote, then a whole deer with its eyes still open. 

The deer excites more attention than warranted, in your opinion, not sure why it agitates you more than the others. 

Your blood hasn’t come because you’re stressed, because you keep vomiting up any food whose smell doesn’t make you nauseous, because you sleep badly or not at all, staring into the anxious dark without end.

If Joel and Arthur notice you working yourself to death in a frenzy, they decide to let it lie for the time being. Until—

One hot afternoon, you blink awake to find Arthur fitting one arm beneath your knees, another behind your shoulders. 

The stem of a pitchfork falls from your grip as he lifts you from the ground, tines of the fork making an awful metallic racket against the earth. 

You remember pitching hay to the side, feeling nauseous but determined not to give into it, then black crowding the edges of your vision, then nothing. 

“What—”

“I reckon you passed out.” 

“Oh.” You lean your head against his chest, listening to the thud of his heart, feeling the sway of his body as he walks, a wheeling slash of cerulean crashing above your head like a blue lakeshore, the blaze of a dipping sun casting narrow yellow branches of sun across the land.

The porch creaks beneath his boots, a second pair following quickly, opening the door. “She needs rest.” 

“I know.” 

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” you snap. 

You are deposited on the bed, only getting a flash of Joel’s gritted jaw, Arthur’s mirrored worry, before you have to close your eyes to the nausea in the back of your throat again. 

“Then stop being so goddamn hardheaded.” 

You’d like to say a thing or two about hardheadedness to Joel, but he stomps out of the room before you’re granted the chance. The front door slams behind him a moment later. You detest that about him, how he shuts both of you out, removes himself before you get a chance to snarl back. “I hate him,” you seeth instead, loud enough that you hope maybe he can hear. 

No matter that you’ve worn his patience to a thin, mean point by refusing to submit to your own body’s needs over the course of weeks. 

“No you don’t.” Arthur drags a chair to the bedside as you open your eyes again. 

“I hate you.” 

He just chuckles at your venom. “I regret to inform ya that it’s a little late for that. Yer kinda stuck with me.” 

You snort and close your eyes again. “Don’t make me laugh; I’m mad.” 

“So, you ready to admit it yet?” 

“Admit what exactly, Arthur Morgan?” 

He shakes his head and chuckles dryly, the dim light casts him in an odd light. “Admit you might need to take it easy.” 

All the fight trembles out of you at once, deflated and empty as the farce it is. You shake your head. “I’m scared,” you murmur after a long moment. 

“No,” he says, sarcasm thick in his voice. “You?” 

“Stop it,” you chuckle weakly and take his hand in yours. “I mean it. I am.” 

“Well, join the club. We only got folk beatin’ down our door, with blood price on the front steps every morning.” 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, eyes fluttering closed again when he presses the back of his other hand gingerly to your forehead. “It’s all my fault.” 

He sighs. “Ain’t we all,” he murmurs quietly. His fingers are rough and warm against your skin. “Rest now, sweetheart.” 

The room is warm and close, heavy with the weight of the unknown between you. “It’s my fault,” you say again. “Maybe what they say is right. I’m a temptress and a whore. We should sell the land and you can marry a nice girl.”  

“It isn’t,” he answers, thumb rubbing the place between your brows, the indent of your temple. The tension knotted around your spine loosens, a thick vein of sleep looping around your head. 

You half wake when the door opens again, Joel’s voice at the threshold, but no closer. The peeling wallpaper of the sun shines through a gap in the curtains, bathing the room in marigold and rust. 

“I got it,” he’s saying, voice rough and distant. “Don’t worry about nothin’.” 

The murmured response is low and gruff, beyond your hearing. 

“Ain’t that what I was hired for?” Words sharpened, barbed, in the air. 

There’s a crash, the wall trembling. Arthur must have shoved him. The low caress of his voice, two snarling dogs at each other's throat. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what this is. If you say that in front of her, I’ll kill you.” His voice is low and mean, the echo of someone he used to be. 

The door closes again and the bed dips with only one person’s weight, a cool cloth pressed against your forehead. Arthur again. “He’s mad at me,” you say. 

“He’s a goddamn fool,” he mutters.

“Makes three of us.” The cloth is moved from your forehead to the nape of your neck. “You’d be better as a pair,” you continue, begging him to hear what you’re trying to say. “They would leave you alone. Probably congratulate you.”

You imagine those ladies in town, proper and untarnished and shiny. They could find real wives that wouldn’t make them share. 

He shakes his head, presses the cloth behind your ear, down the curve of your jaw. “You ain’t going’ no where.” 

“It would be easier.”

“For who?” 

A hard breath leaves you, a dry heaving of grief from the center of your body that lodges in the back of your throat, sticking sharp. 

“All right?” He strokes the space between your shoulder blades when your body curls toward his, a question mark that doesn’t feel so tenuous anymore. 

“Mm.” The cool compress has helped, and his steadiness even more so. 

Deep sleep blankets you quickly after that. 

.

.

.

Another frustrating wave of nausea makes your head throb and your vision sway. The rocking chair creaks beneath you when you sit down heavily, a rifle across your knees. The scent of the gun oil does not help, especially in the midday heat. 

It stings. 

Sitting still, fighting off the urge to empty your lunch onto the ground, watching. 

Wishing that things were different and feeling foolish for knowing they never can be. 

Joel works himself hard, like there’s something he’s trying to forget, like he might want to forget you both. He’s coming to hate you, of that you have convinced yourself. He lingers around you anxiously but doesn’t talk to you, not really. He hasn’t touched you since you passed out that day in the sun. 

This is all your fault. Stupid, greedy, fault.  

“You need a doctor.” 

You blink, the sun is lower in the sky than it was a minute before, dipping toward the horizon. “Oh, shoot,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes. “Arthur—”

His shadow falls over you. 

“You need a doctor,” he repeats. “Or at least some goddamn rest.”  

“You don’t call this rest? Sitting here all day doing nothing?” 

“No,” he answers flatly. “And yesterday you was out with the horses.” 

“I felt fine.” 

“Yesterday.” 

“Yesterday,” you agree. “Sure.” 

“Now that don’t do you much good today.” Arthur’s voice is firm. “So, we goin’ into town or am I draggin’ some feller out here to have a look at ya?” 

You sigh. You don’t doubt he would drag some poor fool out here to examine you. “I can see I don’t have much of a choice.”

“Glad you got that much sense,” he mutters and holds out a hand. “Let’s go.” 

Behind him, Joel lifts a bale of hay, dry grass fluttering to the ground. You jerk your chin in his direction, and Arthur turns to look. "Is he all right?"

He puts his hands on his belt and shrugs. "I guess."

"He’s not.” 

“No.” 

“Is he angry with me?” 

He hesitates for a moment. “I don’t think it’s that.” 

“Are you?” You stand with a groan, the ache at the base of your spine like a spike of hot iron. Arthur cups your elbow in his palm. “All right?” 

The porch whispers beneath his boots as he crosses it again and descends to the yard. The distant mountains loom indigo and imposing. “I will be. Now c’mon.”

You take his hand when he offers it down the stairs, adjusting his hat with the other. "I don't want to go to the midwife," you say as you follow him across the parched grass.

He looks at you side long, still holding your hand as you cross to the horses. "Okay."

.

.

.

The doctor recommends rest and demands ten dollars for the privilege of doing so. 

“You ain’t said anything we don’t already know.” 

The doctor says women are in a delicate way at the best times, and that you’re most delicate at the moment, under severe amounts of stress. 

“But is it uncommon?” You ask. 

“Are you agitating yourself unnecessarily?” 

You want to unnecessarily agitate yourself by strangling the man, but take your leave anyway, some kind of calming tonic in hand that you want to smash onto the ground in a petty rage the second the door swings closed behind you. Arthur works the price down to something a little bit more reasonable before you go, with only mild amounts of threatening. 

The road grows steadily darker and by the time the ranch comes into view, dusk has fallen completely. “That man was a quack, Arthur. I ought to be a doctor by that standard.” 

“Well,” he sighs. “Can’t say you’re wrong.” 

You lean into his back, nose against his shoulder. The movement of the horse lulling you to sleep. He refuses to go faster than a trot, of the belief you should avoid being jostled. “Think it counts as stress.” 

“What are we gonna do?” 

“We’ll get through it. Been through worse.” 

You snort. “That is an understatement, I’d say.” He chuckles and you feel the familiar vibrations of it through your body. "He didn't want to help us." You correct yourself quietly. “He didn’t want to help me.” 

"No," he agrees quietly, anger hidden in his voice. "Reckon he didn't."

Minutes pass in silence, the gentle sounds of the world settling, bedding down for the night lulling you back to sleep against Arthur’s spine. One thing you can’t deny is the fatigue. Delicate condition of being a woman or not, carrying a child is exhausting. “You should leave me. You and Joel both.” 

He opens his mouth to answer you when something catches his attention. 

“Woah girl,” Arthur mutters, the horse slowing to a stop at his gentle urging. You lift your head from his back and find there’s a figure at the end of the lane by the gate to the ranch, the silhouette of a shotgun pointed at the ground. “What the hell—” he growls. 

The figure puts up a hand and calls out. “It’s me.” 

Neither of you say anything for a moment. “Go girl,” Arthur says finally, urging the horse into a trot, the jangle of the bridle loud against the too sudden quiet. It’s then you see the bodies littered at Joel’s feet.

“At least he weren’t lyin’ about being a good shot.” 

It’s the first time you’ve been privy to his shooting ability in all the time you’ve known him. 

Arthur’s hand curls around yours, gently helps you down from the horse before following. You expect Joel to say something about ladies not being fit to see the violence splattered across the ground, but he doesn’t. 

“What the hell happened?”

“They was lookin’ for you. Like I told you months ago.” 

He doesn’t look at you, jaw tight. “Just me?” You ask quietly. 

“Just you.” 

Of course. Just you. Joel’s words from months ago; the ones that don’t want to string you up, want to try you out themselves. They’re getting bolder, and they will always blame you. Harlot, scarlet woman. As you suspected, this has nothing to do with the railroad. Not really. 

Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’ve always been right. 

“You should have never come here,” you answer sharply, panic finally bubbling over. 

An electric crackle of tension runs between the three of you for a moment, and no one speaks a word. The reality of it is like a lighting rod that you’re all suddenly wrapped around. 

You stoop down, taking in Joel’s handiwork just for something to do, the neat bullet holes through the center of the forehead, the viscera of an excavated throat. “I wish you’d never come here,” you snarl at the bodies strewn on your land. 

Joel’s jaw tightens when you look up at him. The vein in his throat seems libel to pop. He doesn’t return your gaze, expression stoney. You aren’t sure how to handle that. You and Arthur both wear your hearts on your sleeves. What should you make of his silence, his quiet face, his eyes that refuse to meet yours? 

The silence stretches, threatening to snap. The sun disappears behind the horizon, finally sapping the last dregs of scarlet light from the edge of the horizon. 

“She don’t mean anything she say when she—”

You stand, glaring at both of them. “Oh, I mean it. I can’t even say I hope you leave because it won’t stop them now. It’s not like it matters. You can’t even look at me! Why are you even still here?” 

Arthur says your name sharply, like a muted gunshot. “Calm down.” 

You laugh, the sound is hysterical. You feel wrought thin, needled down to a sharp little point. Fear clenches at your throat. There are five of them scattered in the grass, guaranteeing more to show their faces when these men don’t return to town. Worse, there are five, and Joel is only one man, and you and Arthur were not here. You weren’t here to help him when he needed it. He was lucky but what if he hadn’t been? The thought scares you more than you care to admit.  

The truth of the matter is, they would be better off without you. If you weren’t there, Arthur would just be a man with hired help that he occasionally was benevolent enough to feed at his dinner table. 

They could never imagine the three of you as one; they would always see a woman using, tricking, two different men. Like a witch in a storybook. 

“You hate me,” you snarl at him, “Just admit it. You hate me because this is all my fault.” 

He finally meets your eyes, something mean lurking there, and disbelieving, too. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you right now.” 

Tears lurch to the backs of your eyes, threatening to spill over. You can feel your mouth wiggling, trying not to cry. It’s confirmation enough. 

You nod, the movement jerky, like you are an automaton, and spin away, trudging back toward the house without either of them. Let them realize, you pray, vaguely and in the direction of an entity no more than fiction to you, just let the whole thing be over.  

That evening is a long one. 

You watch from the porch as the bodies are picked up and disposed of, the strain of two sets of shoulders. 

Clothes to wash the blood out of, torn hems to be mended, dinner to be set. Your hands ache from the effort, along with the small of your back that you suppose you have the pregnancy to thank for. 

Worry springs up in your gut, hand hovering over your abdomen. It twists like a knife. The thought of raising a child. You don’t feel as though you’ll be able to do it. 

There’s a fierce doubt in you too, that you’ll be able to stamp out the wild that thrived in your heart. You liked the thieving, before it all went to hell, and you miss it. Maybe not the killing so much, but it seems like there’s still plenty of that. That’s no way for a child to come up, though, you know it first hand. 

The men are in the dusky field now. They’re talking, you can see as much through the window above the basin of water, but the conversation seems tense somehow, shoulders stiff, hands on belts very near the holsters of their guns. 

For a moment, you fear things might be falling apart before your eyes, but Arthur puts his hand on Joel’s shoulder and he does not move away. You watch them move closer together, just shadows in the night, entranced. You like watching them together, the blending of once solid lines, the way it should look like too many angles and instead looks painfully soft. 

You leave dinner on the table for them and go to bed alone as a coyote laughs out on the prairie. 

.

.

.

Arms slip around you in the dark, scented with whiskey and wood-smoke.

A hand pushes your nightgown up your thighs, over the small bump of your stomach. His touch lingers there for a long time, warm over your skin. It’s the first time he’s touched you in a long time. The callouses on his palms scrape softly against your skin. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” you break the silence. “And I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.” 

When you tilt your head back against Joel’s shoulder, he kisses you. He tastes like coffee, smells a little like Arthur. 

You cover his hand and neither of you say anything, breathing together in the dark, the scruff of his chin rubbing against yours. You have never really cared about right or wrong, just survival, just preservation, but it suddenly seems important. 

"Is this wrong?"

"It don't matter."

"You don't really believe that."

He doesn't answer for a moment, arms tightening around you. "It don't matter," he repeats.

You scoff. “Joel—” 

“Listen a minute. For once in your goddamn life, just listen to me.” 

You press your lips together and nod, watching his eyes. “I am.” 

“Arthur said I should tell you,” he says after a long moment, stalling. “That it would help you understand.” 

You tilt your head, waiting. “Help me understand what?” 

He takes a long breath, eyes searching yours. He must find what he needs because he nods and continues. “I had a daughter. Sarah. Long, long time before Ellie.” His eyes flick away from yours. “She, uh, she died. Real young. Wasn’t til Ellie that I—” He shakes his head. “Don’t matter. I—”

You squeeze his hands. “Don’t,” you murmur. “Oh, Joel—You don’t—I understand. I understand.” 

He nods and you watch each other for a long moment. You turn again and feel him curl against your spine. “It ain’t got nothin’ to do with you,” he says. “Or him.” 

“Did Arthur tell you about—he had a son once—”

“He told me,” he says gently. 

“Oh,” you murmur. “I still need to know, Joel. You are so hard to—” 

“I know it,” he answers. “I shouldn’t have—I know, sweetheart. But I need you to take care of yourself.” 

“Okay.” You rub his fingers with your own, still against your belly. “I’m sorry. For your daughter.” 

“Yeah, me too.”

“I’m tired.” 

You feel his hands, the soft drag of them over your skin. You want to be flayed open, feel his hands on your lungs. “I know.” In those words, you hear, don’t give in. 

It’s not within you to give up. For better or worse, you have never done that. 

His palms spread your thighs, peel you open. He rubs your cunt with one hand, gently pinches your nipples with the other, palming the swollen, newly sensitive flesh. “Can I?” 

You nod and he pulls himself away from you to go to his knees next to the bed. He groans when you readjust yourself, pushing your bottom to the edge of the bed, knees over his shoulders. He kisses your pussy so gently, eating like he’s in love, lazy between your thighs, hands threaded through yours.

You feel drunk and far away in your own body. 

.

.

.

The turkey vulture is in the oak tree that morning. You aren’t expecting it for once and the cup of coffee you’re holding nearly tumbles out of your hand. Its beak is stained red, it’s black eye all knowing. 

Arthur steps up next to you in the early morning sun, squinting at it. “Just a vulture,” he grumbles, still half asleep.  

“Joel and I saw one,” you say. “Couple months ago.” 

He glances at you, can see he can’t avoid whatever you’ve decided this means. “Where?”

You jerk your head to the west. “When you went to see John. It was. . .there was a dead fox.” 

His eyes don’t leave yours. “Fox.” 

“Have you seen my fox lately?”

He shakes his head, hands on his hips but doesn’t answer, doesn’t say if he’s seen it or not. “It don’t mean anything.” 

“No,” you agree, because you both need to believe it, and instead put down your cup and pull back the bolt on the rifle. “It doesn’t.”

Arthur eyes you for a moment. “You gonna be all right today?” 

You smile and press your hand to Arthur’s cheek. “Just fine. Promise.”

“We’ll be back before dark.”

“‘Course you will. Go get Joel and get going.” 

By the time they both emerge and kiss you goodbye, the turkey vulture is gone, off to lead someone else astray. Joel rests his hand on the crest of your stomach and you have the insane urge to tell him about the bird. He would understand because you’d seen it feasting together. Instead you smile, tell them to be careful. 

You watch them until they disappear on the horizon, taking the cattle to market, an unusual uneasiness bubbling within you. 

Though you still have the rifle in hand, you feel unwieldy in your body with your swollen belly. You cup a hand beneath the curve of it, and know if it came to it you’d fight with all you had and still lose. 

.

.

.

Dark settles in and they don’t return. 

You try not to panic; you have been alone at home before, you’ve spent too much time in the dark. But this feels different and the image of the vulture with the fox clenched in it’s beak keeps returning to you, more desiccated and disposed of than the time before. 

The baby shifts inside you, like it too senses something amiss.

Worry flutters in your throat, about Arthur and Joel, but your fox, too. You aren’t sure you’ve seen it since you realized you were pregnant. It stings, that it would abandon you when you need it most. You don’t allow yourself to think that something might have happened to it. 

The house feels still, empty, like you have slipped through to the end of time, alone but for yourself and this child inside you. 

Something twinges low in your gut, and if Joel or Arthur were there they would see you wince and tell you to sit down. 

But they aren’t, and it’s been dark for hours. 

You pace before the windows, watching the black dark. The glow of the town is on the other side of the house, and so you don’t even have that to focus on, some point to give you hope, something to watch for.

Near midnight a bubble of light appears flickering on the horizon, and something tells you not to open the door, that it is not your men returning. Something is wrong, and you are about to find out what. 

You snuff out the candles guttering in the main room, load the shot gun under the bed by instinct and repetition and feel, crouching beneath the window to wait. The shapes bobbing in the dark resolve themselves into a group of men. 

Your breathing quickens, the sound of shouting on the horizon, something you can’t see, only briefly holding their attention. The sheriff is there, too, flicking his hand toward the noise. “Kill ‘em,” he says. “We’ll say they shot first.” 

Two of the men break off, turning back the way they came. 

“Looks abandoned,” the man on the sheriff’s right says, a bandana pulled around his face. “Looks like she ain’t here.” 

“She’s here,” he says. “But it don’t matter. Burn it down. Let’s get this over with.” 

You drop to your hands and knees, crawl quietly away from the window, slinging the shotgun over your shoulders, reaching blindly in the dark for the rifle, which you knock over in your scramble to get to it.

“You hear that?” 

“Go see if that bitch is hiding in there.” 

“Heard she was pregnant.” 

“That don’t matter, just find her.” 

The front door clatters open, light splashing along the floorboards. “Door’s open.” 

“I got it.” 

You hear one of them creeping closer and stand as quietly as you can, heart beating hard in your chest because there are gunshots coming from the direction the sheriff sent two men, and you’re terribly afraid you know who’s probably out there, trying to get to you, where these cowards wait. 

The second the man appears in the doorway, you lift the shotgun and pull the trigger. Viscera explodes, as does the night. A second man appears in the doorway, goes the same way as the first, the kickback of the shotgun slamming into your shoulder hard. 

You try to catch the lantern he carries but it explodes in a shower of sparks at your feet. You try to snuff out the flames with the blanket yanked from the bed, but it has already caught onto the wardrobe nearby. 

Stumbling back, panic begins to set in. The doorway is aflame, licking higher, across the beams of the ceiling. You fall heavily on your ass, head between your knees as smoke fills the room, just to think. 

The shooting is closer now, in front of the house, accompanied by shouts.

You can hear the frightened whinny of your mare, the hoofbeats of the cattle not taken to market. The noise knocks you out of your head, gets you moving again. Joel and Arthur are out there, you’re sure of it. Who else would be shooting back? 

If you can break the glass, maybe you can crawl through and drop to that soft yellow grass below. You can help. 

A heavy, unlit lamp sits on the bedside table. You have to heave it against the window three times before it cracks, three more before it shatters outward in a cascade of glass. You wrench the shotgun back across your shoulders and then use the rifle stock to knock out the remaining glass. 

You glance out the window and to your intense relief the shadow nearest you is one you’d know anywhere. 

“Arthur!” 

He glances up, relief flaying his expression open. “Fox,” he answers, lifting his arms. It makes you ache, that childhood nickname on his lips. You don’t think he realizes he said it. “C’mere, girl. I’ll catch ya.” 

You cough as you lift a leg onto the sill of the window, tiny bits of glass digging into your thigh where your skirts ripped. Black smoke is billowing into the room, pouring in faster than you would think possible. 

You throw the rifle to him first, and then balance as carefully as you can before dropping down lightly. Arthur catches you around the waist, drags you tightly into his chest. “Christ,” he says against your forehead. 

“Arthur,” you mumble, holding onto him, fingers tangled in his shirt, nose against the buttoned collar. “Oh, god.” 

You tremble, realizing all at once what just happened. The ringing in your ears dies down as the flames roar high behind you. You glance up and notice for the first time that the shoot has stopped. 

Arthur seems to realize it as the same time as you, wheeling around, pushing you behind him. But you’ve already seen the horror that awaits over his shoulder. 

Bodies litter the ground, dead or drying fast, the world lit red and black, and in the middle of it all—

Joel, kneeling, a revolver pressed to his forehead by the sheriff whose shirt grows redder by the second. 

“It’s you,” he’s saying. “I thought it was that bitch that couldn’t keep her legs closed. But you’re the bad omen. You’re the one that cursed this town.” He laughs. “You told them not to sell, right?” He lifts the gun for a moment, away from Joel’s forehead. “Railroaders are tired of waitin’. Gonna track it to another town. We were gonna have a station. All my money. . .I invested all my money—” 

The gun lowers again. “Admit it.”

“Yeah,” Joel agrees. “It was me.”

You can tell he thinks it's bullshit and crazy, but he’s stalling because he doesn’t know where either of you are. He’s giving you a chance. Does he really think you’d leave him behind? To this coward? 

The sheriff pulls back the hammer on the gun. 

Arthur is raising his revolver at the same time that you lift the rifle. You can’t say who shoots first, you’ve always been a close draw. One bullet hits his hand. A scream renting the night as he drops it, the other ragdolls him backward, lodging somewhere near his clavicle. 

You drop the rifle and bolt across the dry grass, a scream tearing out of your mouth. Joel turns on his knees and just manages to catch you, a wild, heaving sob caught in your chest. Arthur follows slower, dropping to his knees next to you. You see Joel’s hand flash out to him. 

“It’s over,” he murmurs. “You’re all right, sweetheart.” 

“Are you—” You pull back and look him over. “Okay?” 

He nods, looks a little shaken, frowning as he takes you in in the glowing red light. “Arthur,” Joel says sharply. “She’s bleedin’.” 

“It’s not mine,” you point to your face with a laugh. 

You glance down at yourself then and notice what Joel does. “Oh,” you mumble, touching your tattered skirt. There’s some blood from where you scraped your leg on the window glass. But the rest is just— 

“It’s only water.” 

The words settle between you, the only sound that of your burning house, before what that means registers, all the pain in your body the adrenaline kept you from feeling, pouring into you all at once. Your hand is an open burn wound from the lantern, your shoulder is aching, legs and feet bleeding from glass. 

And a terrible pain seizes your belly. A contraction that makes you double over. 

“Oh,” you murmur faintly. “I think I’m in labor?” 

“Sure seems that way,” Arthur says, folding his arms beneath you on the grass. “C’mon.” 

.

.

.

There’s nowhere for you to go but the stables, saddle blankets thrown over hay as you pant and cry and your body seems to tear itself apart. 

Joel stays with you while Arthur fetches the midwife. Arthur had not been there for his son’s birth, but Joel had been there for his daughter’s. 

“We talked to the midwife, too,” he tells you gently, helping you position yourself so he can take care of your other wounds while you wait, so you’re most comfortable and in position should the baby come very suddenly. “Asked what we should know.” 

It makes your heart ache but you can’t spare the notion any thought with your pelvis splitting in two. 

The fire has died on its own in the intervening hour, sputtering out like a miracle. The stable is warm, the scent of cotton and hay thick in the air. Lanterns gutter out little flames. And, for the first time in your life, you wish for electric light. 

“You saved my life,” he says into the silence between contractions. “Stupid thing to do.” 

“And you almost gave yours for mine, for Arthur’s.” You take his hand, “We’re even.” 

Joel shakes his head, presses a cloth to your forehead as the stable door rumbles open and the midwife rushes in, shoos Joel away. 

She barks orders at the both of them and for a while, your whole world is breathing through contractions that are painfully close together and writhing in a damp pool of sweat. Eventually though, all any of you can do is wait and hope. 

Joel and Arthur flank you, and the warmth they offer is as good a balm as you’re going to get. 

You push when the midwife, Ana, you learn, says to, scream in frustration when she says she can just see the head crowning. 

It seems to happen all at once, a great wet mess leaving your body before a terrible cry pierces the air. 

All the tension bleeds out of your body at once, as the child is wrapped in the cleanest blanket any of them could find, pressed over your chest soon after, its face contorted in a wailing squall. Despite everything, you feel safe and at peace, secure with these men at your side, looking into the face of this child, you know it will never matter to them who it belongs to. There are still hard things ahead, danger that needs to be attended to, but you wonder about that wandering and if Joel and Arthur would be amenable to it as long as you kept together. The childhood you deserved, given to this child instead. 

The world shifts just a little as you pass the child to it’s fathers, as your fox laughs on the prairie, happy to have a new ward in it’s care.   

And if you ever see a turkey vulture again, you’ll probably just shoot it.