The City of Lovely Brothers (3 page)

"I ain't going on the drive. I'm marrying your sister, remember? Just letting you know."

Calvin walked away from him and went up to the

house. "What's this I hear about you marrying Gallagher?"

he asked Callie.

"Just what you said. Me and Robert're getting married."

Caleb and Calhoun had come into the kitchen. "Did I hear you say you're getting married?" Caleb asked.

"That's right. To Robert."

"But you can't do that, Callie," Calvin said. "You're needed here on the ranch."

"Glad to hear you say it for once."

"Who's gonna look after Caliban?" "Caliban's five years old. He don't need no nursemaid. And I want my dowry like the will says. A decent one."

"Where we gonna get the money for a dowry? We ain't got no money. We ain't even got the money to pay the hands."

"You really have made a mess of running this place, ain't you, Calvin? The hands're gonna be real pleased when they hear they ain't getting paid. I can't wait to hear what Robert'll hafta say about that!"

"We'll have it and plenty more after the drive."

"Then for my dowry I'll take the dishes and Mamma and Pa's featherbed and Pa's gold watch —which I seen you took— and I'll find a couple of other things I can take, too.

You can buy new ones when you come back all rich from the drive."

When Callie went to tuck Caliban into bed that

night, she told him to get out of hers and get into his own.

"You think you can get used to sleeping by yourself, honey?" she asked.

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm going away."

"What for?"

"To get married. Ladies get married. You know that." "Who you gonna marry?"

"Robert. You like him?"

"Yeah, I like him. Why can't you stay here and get married?"

"'Cause getting married means you set up a new home. Are you happy for me?"

"I guess."

"Then give me a kiss. And if you wanna sleep with me one last night, it's okay."

* * * *

Robert went into town and purchased a wagon. The Sunday before the cattle drive, he and Callie drove into town and were married by the preacher. Then, after she had spent half an hour saying goodbye to Caliban, they piled their belongings along with the dowry Callie had confiscated for herself into the wagon and set off for Laramie.

"We can't manage without a woman here," Calvin said. "Maybe in winter, when there ain't much ranch work, but we'll need someone to cook and clean in summer.

Caleb, you stay here and watch the house and take care of Caliban while me and Calhoun is on the drive. He's only thirteen, but he's a good enough cattleman already, and I 3don't trust him to keep the house looking like it oughtta.

You're older, too, and know better how to keep Caliban out of trouble."

"He don't get into no trouble."

"That's 'cause he had Callie watching over him.

How're you gonna like going on your first cattle drive, Calhoun?"

"I like it fine." The boy's face was glowing.

"It'll be a long one, too. I'm taking 'em all the way to Ogallala this time."

"How far away's Ogallala?" Calhoun wanted to know.

"Five hundred fifty miles or thereabouts, so it'll take us about five weeks to get there. Can't drive the steer too fast or they get all scrawny."

"I know that."

"Going to Ogallala means we gonna be gone three-four weeks longer'n usual, Caleb."

"Why you going that far?"

"'Cause we'll get a better price for 'em there than in Canada and it's a bigger city so it'll be easier to find me a wife. Ain't sure a Canadian woman'd have me anyways.

Like I said, we need to have a woman around the place."

They came back without a wife for Calvin. He knew he could not run a ranch, keep two teenage boys in check, and bring up a five-year-old on his own. He said he would head east to look for one, maybe in Miles City. To the west were mining towns, where he would just find a lot of whores, and the respectable women wouldn't want to marry a kid rancher when they might snare one of the miners who struck it rich.

"Ain't Miles City an army fort?" Caleb asked.

"Yeah, but I hear there's women living there too. I'll go as far as Bismarck if I hafta. But I'll be back in time for spring planting and to buy cattle to fill out the herd. Hope it won't be that long. You boys'll do fine on your own. Caleb, I'm putting you in charge o' the house and running around after Caliban, though you didn't make that good a job of it this time and you can't cook to save your soul." He had found the house too dirty and disorderly for his liking, and had set Caleb to scrubbing and polishing while he stood by and watched him until it was done to his satisfaction.

"Calhoun, your job is to see to the horses and cattle, chop the wood, and keep the barn and tool shed spic 'n' span.

You got that? And you're to help Caleb out on laundry 3day."

Calhoun made a face. "That's women's work."

"Caleb'll be doing it; he done it for six weeks while we was away, and he ain't no lady. Somebody gotta do it, and there ain't nobody here but you boys. Unless
you
wanna get married, pipsqueak. So, you two got any objections?"

"We can handle it," Caleb told him. "I'll check up on Calhoun and make sure the stables and all are clean."

"I was also thinking of hiring the workers for next season so we don't gotta wait around for 'em to come here looking for work like Pa used to. And maybe I'll take on two or three to work here year round.

"What'll they do all winter?" Caleb asked.

"Put up a fence around the property for one. I'm gonna hafta take the wagon with me to bring back all that barbed wire."

"One wagon ain't gonna be near enough. Why d'ya wanna fence it off anyways?"

"I can get the rest here in town. And I'm fencing it off to keep other people's cattle offa our land and so ours don't get stole if they go wandering off somewhere. The farmers done it already, and the other ranchers'll be doing it too soon. Just see if they don't. The range is getting overgrazed since so many come up from Kansas and Texas. Brought the prices down, too. And fences'll make this place look like a real ranch. I want people to take notice of us and give us respect. I heard 'em talking about how the ranch is gonna go under, what with three boys running it."

"Yeah," Calhoun said, "we'll show 'em. Pa didn't do no work all summer, and we still done better than the Johnsons."

Travis and Marie Johnson owned the ranch closest to theirs. Clayton Caldwell had liked to make fun of the poor job they made of it, and until Nina took sick he had had his eye on buying it.

* * * *

A month later, Calvin was back with a bride, the barbed wire, and two hired hands. He had bought a second wagon to have space for the rolls of wire and his wife's belongings. She drove the second wagon, and the hired hands rode horses he had bought for them.

He had met Darcie Potter in Miles City. She was a foot and a half shorter than him and four years older, a widow from Kansas City who had married a cavalry officer and followed him to Montana Territory three years after their marriage, only to have him get killed a few weeks later. Calvin had bragged to her about the ranch, and 3although she thought he was just a kid, she was at loose ends in Miles City. She did not want to marry a soldier again, nor did she want to go back east, and Calvin seemed nice enough. She thought he had determination, and his efficiency in hiring workers and getting the barbed wire and other things he needed for the ranch augured well. He told her about his three brothers, and she knew she would probably be the only woman around for miles, but three brothers and two hired men seemed less daunting than a garrison of unmarried soldiers. That the youngest brother was five years old was another thing she found attractive in the match since she and her husband had been unable to have children. She had no illusions that married life would be easy for a lone woman in a houseful of half-grown men, but having both age and experience in her favor, she expected she would be able to make them toe the line. It proved less easy to assert herself than she had imagined, but before her next birthday she had established herself as the family matriarch.

Calvin had married more out of desperation than for love. He was in a hurry to find a wife and knew that he did not have much to offer beyond promises for a bright future.

Darcie was a strong-looking and attractive woman, and apparently barren, which Calvin considered an advantage since he could not afford to start raising a family. Also, as 3her first husband had been fairly well off, the marriage brought Calvin a fairly large sum of money, which he intended to spend on improvements to the ranch. A practical woman, Darcie approved of her husband's idea.

She judged that he had a head for business, and deemed it a wise investment.

Calvin was self-conscious on his wedding night,

uncertain as to how to go about having intercourse, and as embarrassed to see a woman naked as he was for her to see him naked. His bride had to guide him through his first time. His brother Caleb, three years younger, had the experience under his belt of sleeping with cattle town whores on two successive trail drives before he'd had to stay on the ranch to keep house, but Calvin was a Puritan by nature. He made a clumsy job of it and disappointed Darcie, who had been hoping for more because of his handsome good looks. Four years of married life had taught her a lot about men, so she had the good sense not to tell him he had botched it. She figured he would catch on soon enough.

* * * *

Darcie realized she had underestimated the

difficulties she would face the day she arrived at the 3Caldwell Ranch. Caliban took to her immediately, but the older boys were suspicious. More than that, her husband's expectations were unreasonable, and he was unwilling to bend even a little to make life easier for her. For example, as on most ranches, there was a windmill near the house that pumped up water and stored it in a cistern. "What's in the cistern's for big jobs, like bath day and laundry," Calvin told her. "For little things like cooking and washing the floor, we use the hand pump out front." Still, there was one thing she could be happy about. Calvin's clumsy lovemaking on his wedding night had proved more

effective than the four years she had shared her first husband's bed. Two weeks after they arrived at the ranch, Darcie realized she was pregnant. That meant the hired hands would have more than building fences to keep them busy. They would have to add on to the house so there would be another room for the baby when it came in July.

Darcie was so frightened of losing the baby that she stopped doing heavy work in her fourth month, as soon as she began to show. She put Caleb and Calhoun to work scrubbing floors, washing windows, beating rugs, fetching water from the pump, lighting the stove and stoking it, sweeping the snow from the porch, and any other job she felt might be dangerous for the baby. Easy-going Caleb was content to do whatever she told him to, but the independent 3Calhoun with his young adolescent's machismo stubbornly refused to do women's work. He was rude and defiant, and only gave in when Calvin took a stick to him. Darcie did not feel it was altogether appropriate for a nineteen-year-old to mete out corporal punishment to his fourteen-year-old brother, but she raised no objections. She needed the help, and faced with two teenagers who were reluctant to recognize her authority, she was more than happy to let Calvin take charge of disciplining the boys. Little Caliban, who had just turned six, she could handle.

In any case, their forced labor lasted only a month, for with spring approaching, Calvin needed both his brothers for ranch work. Disgusted as he was to have a wife who wouldn't keep house for them, he went into town and hired a maid for Darcie, a nineteen-year-old girl with blond curls and wide hips named Julia. They moved Caliban in with Calhoun and Caleb, and put her up in Callie's old room.

Darcie's precautions proved useless. She miscarried at the end of April, and the baby, a boy, was stillborn; it did not even draw one breath. Although Calvin tried to comfort her and said they would have more children, she could see he was relieved, and it did not endear him to her. She eventually forgave him, because when their other children came, he was a loving father to his daughters. Darcie, who 3could read him like a book, knew he longed for a son, and wished she could give one to replace the stillborn baby. He said it didn't matter; he had Caliban.

"It ain't the same," she told him. "You love him like a brother, not like a son. Anyone can see that. You're too strict with him."

"I'm strict with him because he's a boy," he answered. "You coddle him, just like my sister Callie."

Their three daughters, however, were still in the future; the first of them would not be born for another five years. Before then, there would be other babies in the family.

Julia started working for them toward the end of March. By summer she was expecting. Calvin wanted to throw her out, but Darcie defended her, saying that if one of the hired hands had seduced her, it was he who should be fired.

"Seduced! I've seen how the bitch goes around wiggling her hindquarters! If you ask me, she got what's coming to her."

"We still gotta find out who's responsible."

Calvin questioned all the men who worked for him, but who the guilty party was remained a mystery until Julia confided to Darcie that fifteen-year-old Calhoun was the father. Calvin was furious. He dragged his brother down to the woodshed and beat the tar out of him until, for the first time since he was little, Calhoun was crying and begging, "Please, Calvin, I promise I won't never to do it again."

"Never do it again— some good that'll do!" Calvin yelled. "You done it already! This whipping ain't half finished."

He raised the stick again, but did not bring it down.

"Shit!" he muttered. The words "You've done it already"

had brought the reality of the situation home to him. Like it 4or not, the boy was going to be a father, and the child Julia was carrying was a Caldwell. There was no help for it; Calhoun had to marry her. "You wait here," he ordered.