The City of Lovely Brothers (6 page)

Calhoun showed up about ten minutes later. "Looks like he broke a leg or something," Caleb said. "I nosed around and found a stick to keep it in place. You got something to tie it on with? I got a rope looped around my saddle horn, but that's too heavy." Calhoun always wore a bandana around his neck.

He took it off and handed it to Caleb. "Will this do?"

"Yeah. I can wrap my belt around the other end.

You go get Calvin."

Calhoun cantered off. Caleb thought he should have galloped. While he was waiting for them, Caliban stirred.

"It's alright, baby brother," Caleb told him. "We found you now. You hurt bad? Broke your leg?"

"I think I must'a. It hurts awful."

"Where's it hurt?"

Caliban brought his hand up to right thigh. "Here, I think. But the pain's shooting all the way down my leg and up into my gut."

"That high, huh? Breaks there don't mend easily like lower down. Lemme see."

He touched the leg near the top of the thigh. Caliban screamed.

"Sorry, baby. Just wanted to feel if the bone's poking through. Don't feel like it is, and that's a good sign.

I'm gonna tie it up now to hold it in place. May hurt a bit."

Caleb laid the stick alongside the leg and tied the bandana around Caliban's shin. He slipped his belt under his thigh at the groin. Caliban gritted his teeth. When Caleb wrapped it around the leg, he screamed and kept on screaming even after Caleb had finished tying it. "Whatsa 6matter? I catch your balls in it or something?"

Caliban kept screaming. Caleb felt his crotch. He hadn't smashed his testicles against the leg. It had to be the break.

Calhoun and Calvin arrived moments later. "That Caliban hollering?" Calvin asked.

"Yeah, when I put on the splint. It must be a real bad break. I don't think we can lift 'im up on the horse."

"Hafta. Can't leave him here. You sit in the saddle and me and Calhoun'll put him across your lap. You can hold the leg steady and we'll lead the horse by the reins."

Caliban started screaming when they started to lift him, but not so loud that they did not hear the snap. Caliban fainted. His legs had been open about half a foot. The broken one moved a half-inch closer to the other, as if it had become separated from his body.

"It gotta be his hip," Calhoun said. "We're gonna need a wagon. Think we can borrow one from the

Johnsons? It's closer'n home."

"I don't trust their wagons. What if it breaks an axle? And if they ain't got one, we'll lose time." Calvin did not like asking outsiders for things.

"How we gonna get one of our wagons here? Gotta cross the crick and there's that ridge, too."

"Take the long way round to the Johnson place. We're gonna hafta go back that way, too. Caleb, you go for the wagon, and bring something we can lie him on to lift him into it."

Caleb would have preferred to stay with his brother.

He thought Calvin should have sent Calhoun. On the other hand, he would ride faster. Besides, he always did what Calvin told him.

He galloped all the way and ran up onto the porch.

"Jesus, Caleb," Darcie said, "you look like the end of the world is coming. Is he dead?"

"Broke his hip. We need a wagon to move him. Is it hitched up?"

"At this time of night?"

"Then I'll go do it. We need to rig up some kind of stretcher to get him into the wagon, too. Something sturdy and flat." He looked around, trying to think of something.

"Some kind of board we can lay on the ground so's we can slide him on it."

"Break up the porch swing and take the seat. I'll go hitch up the wagon while you're at it," Julia said.

Caleb galloped the horses hitched to the wagon, too.

It was a long way around to the entrance to the Johnson ranch, though their properties lay side by side, and he didn't know what detours he would have to make to cross their property to where the others were waiting for him. The 7moon had come out since he had left them. A couple of miles before the entrance, he saw their horses' silhouettes at the top of a hill. He had not been able to see in the dark that Caliban had hurt himself at a place where the fence overlooked the road. The hill was high, but the slope fairly gentle. He stopped the wagon and dragged the swing seat up the hill, yelling all the way that he was coming.

Caliban was still unconscious, so they slid him onto the makeshift gurney easily. "You broke up my swing to make this?" Calvin asked.

"Couldn't think of nothing else."

"You don't never think."

"It was Julia's idea."

They had a harder time of it carrying him down the hill. The ground was uneven, and they couldn't see the bumps and holes in the dark. "I'll drive the wagon back,"

Calvin said when they had loaded Caliban into it.

"No," Caleb said, "I will. Gotta go real slow so's not to jolt 'im. Calhoun, you go for the doc. And hurry, dammit!"

Calhoun was surprised. Caleb never swore in front of Calvin and never said no to him. It was the first time he had heard him give anyone an order, too.

* * * *

Caleb drove so slowly it took him close to an hour to get to the house. Calvin had gone on ahead of him, and the women had everything ready. "Keep him on that plank," Darcie said. "Let's not move him till the doc gets 'im fixed up. We can fit it on the bed."

"We better undress him," Calvin said, moving toward the bed.

Darcie stopped him. "Me and Julia'll do it. We'll be more gentle."

"But you'll be taking off his pants!"

"What of it? We know what he got."

Darcie undid the splint and loosened his belt. When she pulled off his boots she saw they would not be able to pull his pants down. "We're gonna hafta cut 'em offa him,"

she said. "Julia, get the scissors."

Caliban lay naked on the board. He looked like the victim of a brutal beating lying in the morgue. The hip was discolored and looked half crushed, and the entire leg was swollen down to the ankle. Caleb couldn't stop weeping.

"It's worse'n I thought," Darcie said. "Let's hope the doc gets here soon."

To break the tension, Julia said, "He's growing up."

He had a man-sized penis and a small bush of fine black hair at the base of his stomach. "You want your face slapped, Julia?" Calvin asked.

At last the doc arrived. He examined the break and said, "We'll have to build a brace for it. I'll take some measurements. Calvin, you made all the furniture here, didn't you? Then you oughtta be able to make this. Use some kind of light wood, like pine, and cut it real thin, but not so thin it'll break. And use pegs and glue 'stead o' nails.

I'll draw you a picture."

He made a quick sketch. Calvin thought he

understood.

"We'll need leather straps to attach it with, too," the doc said.

Calhoun went to cut apart a harness.

It took Calvin close to three hours to build the brace, and they waited another half-hour for the glue to dry.

The doc had waited around to get Caliban into it. The boy slept the whole time.

When the brace was in place, they moved him from the plank onto the bed. Darcie covered him with a blanket.

"That oughtta do it," the doc said.

But it didn't.

Caleb moved into the free bedroom so Caliban

would have quiet. Besides, Caliban was moaning all the time, and it was impossible to sleep in same room with him. Caleb, Julia and Darcie took turns sitting up with him so he wouldn't be left alone.

Callie and her husband were living in Laramie,

some four hundred miles away. Her twin brother, Caleb, had kept in touch by sending a letter on their birthday that told what had happened over the past year, and he would write one about some special event if there was any, but it had to really special, such as Calhoun getting married at fifteen and how the grizzly had mauled him, and he also wrote each time she became an aunt. He wrote her about Caliban's accident.

A week and a half later, Callie showed up at the ranch. Although she had not seen Caliban in eight years, Callie still had a soft spot in her heart for the sweet little boy she had raised and mothered from when he was a baby until he was five. As an eleven-year-old girl she had soothed his bouts of colic, and afterward she had nursed him through the measles and other childhood ailments. She had not forgotten what a pretty child he was, and how 7loving.

"What're
you
doing here?" Calvin asked. His voice told her he had not forgiven her for walking out on his ranch. He looked on her as some kind or turncoat or deserter. Callie ignored his hostile tone. She had not forgiven the way he had treated her, either.

"I came to take care of Caliban. I knew you'd be too stingy to hire a nurse. Ha! I can see I was right. And your wives… What are their names, anyway? Darcie and Julia, ain't it?"

"Yeah. Darcie's
my
wife."

"They got plenty to do overseeing the ranch hands and picking up after you men—"

"I oversee the ranch hands."

"Only their work. A ranch woman got more'n

enough to keep her busy. I see you been doing well for yourselves. It's quite the spread you have here. You can thank your wives for that. How you expect 'em to give Caliban the full-time care he needs is beyond me. So, where is 'e? Where's Caliban?"

"In his room. He's sleeping. You can see him when he gets up. How long you plan on staying, anyways? We ain't got a room for you."

"I'll sleep in his room, like any round-the-clock nurse. And I'm staying for as long as he needs me. Caliban's my baby."

"You got babies o' your own. How could you just up and walk out on 'em?"

"Robert's uncle lives in the same house as us. You ain't getting rid o' me, Calvin. This ain't just your place. It's Caliban's, too, and I come to see him, not you."

"You come here all the way alone in that shay?"

"Yep, I did."

"Through Indian country?"

"The Lakota ain't been bothering folk much lately.

From what I hear, they don't do much except to dance. And the Cheyenne and Arapaho are way off to the west somewhere." It was two years before Wounded Knee.

"That dance they do's a war dance, people're saying."

"Then why ain't they attacked no one?"

Darcie came out onto the porch, carrying a full

bedpan. "He's up, and the pain's worse," she said.

"This here's my sister Callie. She come all the way from Laramie to help out."

"Why, bless your heart! I don't think we coulda managed without you. Me and Julia are run ragged."

"How is he?"

"Very bad. Go see for yourself." Callie went into his room. Inside, the light was dim and the air warm and stuffy because they had hung blankets over the windows and it was a hot day. "Remember me, Caliban?" she asked in a soft voice. "It's been a long time."

"Callie? D'ya come to see
me
?"

"Who else?"

"Just about anyone in the family." Caliban spoke slowly, like someone in pain, but his mind was clear and he was eager for company.

"No, honey. You're the one I care about."

"What about Caleb? He's your twin."

"I ain't completely forgiven 'im for what he done, either. But it's different with Caleb. We're twins, so it don't matter if I'm angry with 'im or not. There's still a special connection."

"You're mad at the others."

"They treated me like I was their slave. You couldn't 'a known. You were too young."

"It ain't right… holding a grudge so long against your… flesh and blood."

"Maybe not, but it's how I feel. And Calvin was on the porch when I got here, and 'e wasn't happy to see me."

"Calvin ain't bad like you think. Yeah, he can be bossy at times… but he's just thinking about things… about getting 'em done. He forgets they will be without 'im telling 7us."

"I only meant that it ain't just me. There's bad feelings on both sides. Do you mean it was my fault for listening to him? That if I just a said no he'd 'a stopped treating me like dirt?"

"I wasn't talking about whose fault it is."

"I meant if the way to handle Calvin is not to do what he says."

"I dunno about that. When he says to do something it's always… something that needs getting done. And I woulda done it anyway."

"No, he ain't changed at all. I feel sorry for his wife."

"Darcie? She tells
him
what to do."

"Good for her."

"I think… you just gotta accept people for what they are, Callie. Let's not talk about it no more. It makes me feel bad."

Callie was amazed at how much he had grown up.

"Are you always this sweet?" she asked.

It was not the kind of question he could answer.

"I'm glad you came," he said.

"Miss me?"

"Not really; not anymore. But it's good to see you."

"So about this accident? How'd it happen?" "I fell off a horse. Wasn't paying attention. It was real dumb."

"It still hurts?"

"I didn't know anything… could hurt this bad. It's like my leg's on fire, and it's gone into my side too."

"Can I see?"

"I'm naked underneath the blanket."

"I used to change your diapers."

"I ain't that little no more."

"You embarrassed?"

"Yeah, kinda. Darcie and Julia come and wash me. I mean… they even gotta clean me off down there. It's worse'n embarrassing."

"I imagine it is. Must make you feel helpless."

"I am helpless. Can't even feed myself. But this is like I messed my pants."

"I won't touch you. I just wanna see. I hear it's real bad, and I'm prob'ly imagining it worse'n it is. It'd make me feel alot better. Can I?"

"Yeah, go ahead. My body ain't my own no more anyways."

She lifted the blanket, and it looked worse than she had imagined. To reassure herself, she tucked up one of the window blankets into the curtain rod to let some light into the room. In the light it looked much, much worse. She replaced the blanket, as much for her sake as for his, and stayed chatting a little while longer. Then she said she wanted to talk to the others. "To find out what the doc says. He may not wanna tell you everything."