“But you were afraid of Joe and Maggie, until I introduced you to them. You’re not still afraid of them now, are you?”
“Well, no…” she reluctantly agreed. Magpie she no longer feared, of course, but on the rare occasions that Joe came up to the house to speak to Corin, or to deliver supplies fetched in from Woodward, a knot of tension still clenched in the pit of her stomach. His face looked fierce to her, no matter what Corin said. His features spoke of violence and savagery.
“Well, it would be just the same with the horses. That mare you rode-Clara. Why, she’s as gentle as a lamb! And that side saddle I bought you is just sitting in the shed, gathering cobwebs… The season’s changing now, the weather’s better… If you would only come out with me and see the beauty of God’s virgin country here…”
“I just can’t! Please, don’t try to force me! I am far happier staying here…”
“Are you, though?” he asked. Caroline stirred her soup around with her spoon and said nothing. “Maggie tells me…” He trailed off.
“What? What has she said about me?”
“That you don’t want to go outside. That you stay indoors, and you’re too quiet, and she has much more work to do. Caroline… I…”
“What?” she asked again, dreading to hear what he would say.
“I just want you to be happy,” he said miserably. He watched her with his eyes wide and she saw nothing within them but truth and love, and hated herself anew for ever thinking he could have betrayed her, could have passed over her infertile body to make a son elsewhere.
“I…” she began, but could not think what to say. “I want to be happy too,” she whispered.
“Then tell me, please. Tell me what I can do to make you happy!” he implored. Caroline said nothing. What could she say? He had done everything a man could do to give her a child, but she could not manage it. He had loved her, and married her, and given her a new life, and she could not ask again for him to give that life up. “We’ll go swimming again. We’ll have our honeymoon again. This Sunday-we’ll go. Hang the ranch, hang the work-just you and me, my love. And we’ll make a baby this time, I just know it. What do you say?” he urged. Caroline shook her head and felt a tremor shake the core of her. It was too late, she realized. Too late for their second honeymoon swim. She could never go back to that pool, not now. It was too far, the way too open; it was too much for her now, too frightening. But what remained? What else could she suggest?
“Only… only promise me you’ll never leave me,” she said, at last. Corin put his arms around her and held her tightly with quiet, helpless desperation.
“I will never leave you,” he whispered.
The first hot night of June, Caroline woke in the darkness with sweat cooling between her breasts, pooling in the hollow of her stomach and slicking her hair to her forehead. She had been dreaming of waking up alone, out on the grasslands, as if she had fallen asleep that day she set out for the Moore’s place and not woken since. No house, no ranch, no people, no Corin. She lay still and listened to the blood rushing in her ears, listened to her own breathing as it slowed, grew quieter. Goosebumps rose along her arms. She looked beside her at the comforting outline of Corin, edged in gray light from around the shutters. The coyote song that always haunted the night echoed outside, reaching out unhindered for mile after boundless, borderless mile. Caroline closed her eyes and tried to shut out the sound. It shook her very soul to hear it, waking from such a dream, from such a nightmare. It told her, over and over, of the wilderness outside the walls; of the empty, pitiless land.
Suddenly then, Caroline faced what she had long known but refused to acknowledge. This was where she lived. Here was her husband, here was her life, and this was it. No change, no move; Corin had told her so. And no children. It was two years since she and Corin had been wed and the failure to conceive a child certainly did not stem from a want of trying. She would watch Magpie and Joe raise a brood, she thought; and never have a child of her own. It would be unbearable. If Magpie were to conceive again, she would not be able to have her in the house all day. So, this empty house then, when Corin was away buying or selling beeves, delivering a thoroughbred saddle horse to its new owner, or arguing the price of wheat in Woodward. This empty house in this empty land, for the rest of her life. I will lose my mind, Caroline realized, seeing this fact clearly, like plainly printed words scrolling in front of her eyes. I will lose my mind. She sat up with a cry and beat her hands against her ears to block out the howling and the resounding silence behind it.
“What is it? What’s happening! Are you ill?” Corin slurred, stirred from his sleep. “What is it, my darling? Did you have a nightmare? Please, tell me!” he begged, grasping her hands to stop the blows she was raining onto them both.
“I just… I just…” she gasped, choking and shaking her head.
“What? Tell me!”
“I just… can’t sleep with those goddamned coyotes shrieking all night long! Don’t they ever let up? All night! Every night! They’re driving me out of my goddamned mind, I tell you!” she shouted, eyes wild with rage and fear. Corin took this in and then he smiled.
“Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear?” he said, releasing her, brushing her dishevelled hair from her face. “And I have to say, you did a mighty fine job of it!” he grinned. Caroline stopped crying. She looked at the shadow of his smile in the darkness and an odd calm befell her-the numbness of exhausted sleep as it stole in and overcame her in seconds.
The next morning, Corin went out briefly before breakfast and then returned, smiling at his wife with a twinkle in his eye. Caroline’s eyes were puffy and they itched. In silence, she went about making breakfast, but she burnt the coffee beans in the roasting pan and the resulting drink was bitter and gritty. She warmed some bean pottage from the night before and made a batch of flat biscuits to go with it, all of which Corin wolfed down with great relish. Before long there was a shout from outside. Caroline opened the door to find Hutch and Joe outside, mounted on their dun-colored horses with rifles jutting up from the saddles and pistols at their hips. Joe held Strumpet’s reins and the black mare was also saddled and ready to ride.
“I didn’t think you were riding out today? I thought you were mending fences?” Caroline asked her husband, her voice a small thing after the furies in the night.
“Well,” Corin said, swallowing the last of his coffee with only the faintest grimace and walking out of the house. “This is a little extra trip I’ve decided to take, on the spur of the moment.”
“Where are you going?”
“We’re going…” Corin swung into the saddle, “to hunt some coyotes,” he grinned. “You’re quite right, Caroline-there are too many of them living close to the ranch. We’ve been losing some hens; you’ve been losing some sleep. And it’s a fine day for a bit of sport!” he exclaimed, wheeling Strumpet in a tight circle. The mare got onto her toes and snorted in anticipation.
“Oh, Corin!” Caroline said, touched by his efforts for her. The men tipped their hats to her, and with a whoop and a drumming of hooves they were away, leaving nothing but tracks in the sand.
By lunchtime the sky had closed over, filling with thick clouds that rolled steadily out of the northwest. In the kitchen, Caroline sat at the table with Magpie, shelling peas while William slept quietly by his mother’s feet. Every now and then he stirred and whimpered as if dreaming, and while this made Magpie smile, it made Caroline’s heart ache as if with cold. How much longer, she wondered, before this chill became irrevocable and her heart would be lost to her just like three of Hutch’s toes had been lost to him? Magpie seemed to sense her sadness. At length the Ponca girl spoke.