Page 77 of The Widow and the Wanted

I think of Mother’s letter. Mother’s business. No doubt she had poured a drink for nearly every man in the settlement and sent one of the girls to keep many of them company. If Hollister’s operation is there, perhaps she knows of him or his men.

It has been so long since I have seen her. There is no saying what the new Gemini is like. “My mother lives in a settlement near Fort Gibson. She runs a saloon there.”

“Ain’t you from West Virginia?” Boone says, pulling off Okee’s sock with his good arm.

“I am, yes. But shortly after I married, my mother sought opportunity out west. It’s been nearly a decade since I last saw her.” My leather journal rests on the table, and I flip it open. Her letter is tucked between pages with pressed flowers. “She sent me a letter. When I read about an expedition close by, I thought perhaps I’d pay her a visit. Though I wasn’t sure there would be time,” I say, because it’s less complicated than the truth.

Boone blinks once, his gaze narrowing. His lips part as if he means to say something, then he stops for half a beat. “You ain’t seen your mother in a decade and you wasn’t sure you’d have time to visit?”

The judgment in it turns to lead in my gut. I lose my breath for a moment, fiddling with the wool of my skirt. Boone brushes it off like a sin he doesn’t understand but isn’t his problem to solve, then turns back to Okee, pulling a fresh pair of socks onto his feet and holding his hands out to the fire as if to test whether it’s hot enough. Okee tries to wave his doting away—a gesture Boone ignores while holding Okee’s left foot in his hands, dutifully kneading and squeezing.

“I’ve missed her, of course,” I say. “It’s just...not quite so simple.”

Okee holds up a hand as if to reassure me. “Boone gets very sensitive about mothers. Trust me, I am constantly hearing about how I don’t write mine enough.”

“I ain’t sensitive,” he says, switching his attention to Okee’s right foot. “I just love my momma, and if I had a chance to visit her, I would. Trouble is, she ain’t on this earth no more. Your momma ain’t never wronged you, Okee. Ain’t her fault your daddy’s an ass.”

“Isn’t it?” he says. “He can be so cruel with his judgments, and impossibly rigid with his rules, and yet she simply agrees every step of the way.”

“What choice does she have?” I say.

He turns to me as if betrayed I’ve joined in and sided with Boone.

“Do all of us not have free will?”

“Free will ain’t the same for all people,” Boone says. “You know better.”

Okee sits back in the chair, exhausted enough to let Boone manhandle him without protest—scrubbing a broad hand over Okee’s upper arms and shoulders like a man drying down a horse, beating the cold off him.

He gives Okee’s ankle a last firm squeeze through the sock, then rises with a grunt and reaches for the coffee pot. “Well,” he says, “if your daddy’s answer is wait till spring, then we best figure how not to die before spring gets here.”

Okee takes a swallow of coffee, winces, then another, slower this time. “That is more or less my conclusion.”

Some little bit of color begins to creep back into his face.

I move to the stove and ladle beans into a bowl. Fort Gibson. Mother. The Gemini. The thought of her rises in me, strange and painful, like pressing on an old bruise to see whether it’s still tender.

Behind me Boone paces. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

Okee stares down into his coffee for a moment. “He said if we can get Lula there come spring, he’ll have her statement taken. Witnessed, entered into the record. Once that’s done, Hollister’s handbill won’t be the only account in circulation. That’s it.”

I turn with the bowl in my hands.

For the first time since settling here, I imagine being apart from them. I stand with the bowl warming my palms and, for one startled moment, see the room split in two—Okee and Boone gone God knows where, and me turned toward Fort Gibson. The thought leaves me cold clear through.

Later, we lie before the fire. Okee is stretched on his side, Boone half against him—Boone’s head pillowed near his shoulder, Okee’s arm draped loose across his back. The fire lays a red shine over both of them. Boone’s face has gone easy in the heat. Okee’s thumb moves absently now and then where it rests against Boone’s side, as if he does not know he is doing it.

I sit close enough to feel the warmth of them and far enough to know my place.

Our shared affections seem to be forgotten, Boone and Okee returned to their couple’s routine.

It was a foolish thing.

An impulse I should never have indulged.

“I ought to give you two privacy,” I say, climbing to my feet.

“No,” Boone says, quick as a reflex. He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks at me like the thought itself offends him. “Come here.”