Doosie drank two scalding cups of coffee, felt a little better, and went upstairs to inform Dora that her old boyfriend was in town. Maybe being a married woman for the first time in her life would have brought her finally to her senses. Maybe she’d refuse to see Blue. On the other hand, it might go the other way; she might run off with him, in which case Doosie would be stuck with Ogden to feed—and Ogden took a lot of feeding.
“I know, I see his horse,” Dora said, when Doosie came in. “He must have found out, else he wouldn’t have come here. Do you think he found out?”
“I ain’t no mind reader, you need Skeedle if you want to know what he found out,” Doosie said.
“Anyway, he’s across the street getting drunk,” Dora said. “What am I going to do?”
“It wasn’t two days ago you said you hoped he’d come,” Doosie reminded her—she loved to catch Dora in contradictions, and had caught her in thousands over the years. It surprised her to find Dora looking so frantic, though—she looked nervous enough to fall out the window.
“Why do you always remind me when I say something foolish?” Dora said. “I felt that way then, but now I just wish he’d go. What if he shoots Ogden?”
“He better shoot him hard if he shoots him,” Doosie remarked. “Ogden’s big.”
Dora hadn’t expected Blue to arrive so quickly, nor did she suppose she would feel so upset when he did. Yet the moment she saw his horse, an anxiety gripped her as powerful as any she had ever felt. Part of her yearned to see him—the same old yearning to see him that had never diminished in all those years—but another and newer part wanted him to go. What if he and Ogden fought? What if Ogden found out how long she had loved Blue, and as a result ceased to want her himself? After all, Ogden was very young—how could he be expected to understand what she herself scarcely understood: her love for T. Blue, and her need for his love in return?
With a shock Dora realized Doosie had been right to wear a long face: for she had acted against her own heart—at least she had divided her own heart. She did still want to see Blue; she did still love him and want his love. But that need and that feeling didn’t cancel Ogden, her young husband. What if both men condemned her—she knew the sex well enough to be fully aware of that possibility. What if they both left her?
“I don’t know what to do,” Dora admitted, throwing herself on Doosie’s mercy. “What should I do?”
Doosie liked it when Dora appealed to her; it confirmed what she had always been convinced of—that she, not Dora, was the one with good sense. She wasn’t the one looking distraught and half crazy, with her hair uncombed.
“You bought Ogden that new gun,” Doosie said, thinking quickly. “Tell him to go shoot us a deer, or an elk if he can find one. He’d be gone for a while, and we might get some elk meat, too.”
Dora adopted the suggestion at once. In twenty minutes a slightly bewildered but willing Ogden, relieved of his paint bucket and armed with his brand-new Winchester, was trotting out of town on a mule named Charley, an animal Dora had taken in settlement of a debt. Dora had seemed a little upset when she sent him off, but she had also given him a nice kiss and squeezed him hard, so he didn’t feel that her upset reflected any dissatisfaction with his whitewashing. Although Charley was a tall mule with a rough trot, Ogden felt that was a small price to pay for the opportunity to go elk hunting on a day when he had expected to work. He had been so surprised that he couldn’t speak when, a few days earlier, Dora had presented him with a Winchester—it was still a daily wonder to Ogden that Dora liked him. He meant to waste no time in showing her he was worthy of her liking; he meant to kill the first elk he saw. Of course, if it was a fat elk calf, that: would be so much the better.
The bartender in the Moosefoot Saloon—the saloon Blue had chosen to drink in while he absorbed the shock he had just received—was an old friend from Texas days. His name was Restless Frank, and he answered to Restless rather than Frank. Blue had first met him in Tascosa, many miles and many years back down the trail.
Restless knew T. Blue was disturbed the moment he saw him. If he had known Blue was in town, he would have known he was disturbed without even seeing him; T. usually strode in like a lord of the prairie, but this morning his carriage was that of a whipped dog.
“If that unfriendly blacksmith has lied to me I’ll kill him,” Blue said, to open the conversation.
“I don’t find Jones unfriendly,” Restless remarked, hoping not to have to address any painful subjects before lunch, or after lunch, or any time.
“Friendly or not, I might shoot him,” Blue said, thinking what a relief to his feelings it would be to pop a few shots at the blacksmith. He and Calamity had often relieved pent-up distress by shooting at rocks for an hour or two.
“Now, Blue, I hope you won’t disturb the peace,” Restless counseled. “The jail ain’t up to your standards. Besides, we need Jones. He’s far more reliable than the other blacksmith we’ve got.”
“Well, you’re free to move to a town with better blacksmiths,” Blue said irritably. “There’s plenty of communities with fine blacksmiths. You’ve spent most of your time moving anyway, or you’d still be in Tascosa. What’s keeping you in Belle Fourche?”
“The pleasant company,” Restless said dryly.
As he turned from setting a nicely polished glass on the bar, he happened to see Ogden trot past on Charley; the mule, though large by local standards, looked as if it should have been riding Ogden. Restless stood in the door and watched Ogden ride away; the news that he was leaving might provide just the lift Blue’s spirits needed.
“She must still like you,” he said. “There goes Ogden. Your old girlfriend must have coaxed him off on a hunt.”
Blue jumped to his feet and went outside to watch Ogden go. He then came back in, feeling slightly better, and finished his whiskey.
“I doubt one whorehouse will keep that youngster in mules,” he said.
“That’s a new rifle he’s carrying,” Restless remarked. “Maybe he’ll waste up all his ammunition shooting at buzzards or something and not have any left to kill you with when he comes back and finds you with his wife.”
“Buzzards could feast a long time on a carcass as big as his,” Blue said moodily.
“Oh, can that talk,” Restless said. “You’re a cowboy, not a killer. You never scared nobody much in your Tascosa days, and you were tougher then.”
Blue let that pass—Restless Frank had always been hard to impress. “Anyway, he ain’t gonna catch me with his wife,” he said. “I just come to Belle Fourche for the ride.”
“I’m the one who’s named Restless,” Restless said. “I doubt you’d ride all the way from the Musselshell just to listen to your horse grunt.
“You always have an excuse when you show up to see Dora,” he added. “This has been going on for twenty years, which is as far back as I can remember. Why do you still think you need an excuse?”
“If I were you I’d polish them glasses, and mind your own business while you’re doing it,” Blue said.
“Anyway, you should have had her roped and branded years ago, if that was your plan,” Restless said.
“I guess you consider yourself an expert on marriage, is that right?” Blue said, irked by the man’s effrontery—he was even more casual than the blacksmith.
“Personally, I prefer just to bartend,” Restless said. “If there wasn’t nice saloons to go to, I doubt many marriages would hold. I tried a couple when I was younger. Give me saloons any day.”
Blue plunked down his fifty cents and strode off without saying goodbye. He had decided to leave at once—mount up, ride directly out of town, and make an attempt to put the past behind him. If Dora DuFran wanted to communicate with him, she could post a letter.
As he passed the Hotel Hope he happened to glance up. For a second he glimpsed Dora’s face in the window. It was only a glimpse, but it stopped him dead: How many times, as the two of them climbed the ladder of years, had he raced up to
some rough house in some rough town, and looked up to see that face in a window, waiting for him to race up? He stopped his horse; the window was empty for a bit, then Dora came back and looked down at him. She didn’t smile; neither did he. But in a bit he rode around the house and hitched his buckskin mare by the back door.
4
WE CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE—I’D BE TOO ASHAMED OF myself,” Dora said, nervously fastening her dress.
She already felt too ashamed of herself. Blue had merely been sitting in the kitchen, teasing Doosie. It was she who had drawn him upstairs; he had seemed uncharacteristically reluctant; for once he might have preferred to stay in the kitchen and enjoy his chat with the cook.
T. Blue felt a little melancholy, though he was not distraught to the extent that Dora was. They had disappointed themselves—why, he couldn’t quite grasp; their long love had not been built on disappointment. Still, it seemed to him that Dora was more upset than the occasion required. Life was a sturdy business; it wouldn’t founder because of one mess in the morning.
“What possessed you to marry?” he asked, clinging to her hand. He felt that if she would just settle in his arms for a bit she might calm down and things might go better. But Dora, with the hand he wasn’t holding, was brushing her hair desperately, as if well-brushed hair would hold back chaos.
Dora dropped the hairbrush in discouragement; what was the point? She allowed him to pull her back on the bed, though for a while she remained stiff.
“I don’t know, T.,” she said. “He carried me out of the mud—I guess that’s why.”
T. Blue couldn’t help grinning. It was the sanest reason for getting married he had yet been presented with. Few of the other explanations he had heard made half as much sense.
“Now why didn’t I think of that, in Dodge or somewhere?” he said. “There was plenty of mud around when we first got acquainted. If I’d just spotted you in the slush somewhere, we might have ten grandkids.”
“Don’t talk about it,” Dora said miserably. “Don’t talk about things that can’t happen. I’ll get too sad.”
“Oh, hush that!” Blue said. “Stop this moping. The sky ain’t fallen that I can see. You’ve got a strapping youth to help you now—I’m sure he’ll serve you far better than a broken-down cowpoke like me.”
“That’s fine, but I love you most,” Dora said. “I can’t help it. I love you most.”
“Well, I know you do,” Blue said. Dora was in such a delicate state, he thought he had best exert himself and be tactful. “You’ve had sort of a tricky way of showing it, though.”
Dora immediately bristled. “Tricky?” she said. “I deny it! When I can get you to show up, I show it fine. Don’t I?”
Blue had been referring to her long refusal to marry him, but he felt there was no advantage to be gained by clarifying the matter.
“You show it fine,” Blue agreed; in her state, if she had said the moon was green he would have agreed.
After a bit Dora felt a little calmer and became a bit less stiff.
“Things just get away from me,” she said. “You live so far away now.”
That was a little too exasperating to let pass, Blue felt. “Who moved?” he said. “Who moved to Belle Fourche? Was it me?”
“No, but you married first,” Dora said, realizing she had been a trifle illogical in her last statement.
“Let’s not argue that,” Blue said. “We can argue that till hulls grow teats, and not agree.”
They both slowly relaxed; they took a little nap. When Blue woke up, Dora had spread a towel under his head and was trimming his hair—it had grown shaggy in the last months. Trimming his hair had always been her special joy.
“Sit up,” she commanded. Blue sat up sleepily, and she finished the job.
“Now I’ll itch all the way home,” he said.
“It will serve you right—you deserve to suffer worse!” Dora informed him, but she was no longer distressed.
“What’s that strapping youth like?” Blue inquired. “Is he old enough to talk yet? Has anyone taught him his letters?”
“He reads better than you can, I’ll have you know,” Dora said. “Don’t be mocking my husband. He’s a peach of a boy and I’m mighty, mighty fond of him.”
“I intend to call him Ox,” Blue said. “An ox is a beast that has only one use, and that’s to tug you out of the mud. If you’ll restrict him to mud duty, you’ll hear no complaint from me.”
Dora almost laughed, as she had so often laughed at his sallies, but the laugh never came.
“T, he’s my husband,” she said. “I wanted someone—Ogden’s nice.”
Then she put her face in her hands and began to cry. Her hands were covered with his hairs—likewise the bedsheet. Quite a few had made it down the back of his shirt.
“Oh, no, now, this is tiresome, it’s a pretty day,” Blue said. “I was merely joshing—I’ve joshed you a thousand times. What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry. I’m not myself,” Dora said.
Doosie had fixed a fine meal. They lingered at the table a long while, and Dora repaired her mood a little. Blue, trying hard, persuaded her to play the piano. He insisted on dancing with Doosie, hoping it would make Dora laugh. She did laugh, but mainly at Doosie, who was far too proper a woman to keep up with Blue in a dance.
Still, underneath the effort, the day was a failure. They were able to be their old selves only for a few minutes; the other parts of their lives could not be pushed away as neatly as had once been the case. Dora could not stop worrying that Ogden might make a quick kill and return while Blue was still there. The thought crossed Blue’s mind too. At other times, whatever the obstacles, when he really put his mind to wooing Dora he had always succeeded; it was just a matter of persisting until he uncovered the real Dora, the woman who had no need to resist him, and every need not to.
The sky might not have fallen, but that fact didn’t preclude let-downs and other disappointments. When they kissed at the back door, Dora thought she saw a tear in T.’s eye. She kept smiling when he mounted the buckskin mare and rode off; when he turned at the edge of town and waved she waved back vigorously. But Blue didn’t turn away again and leave briskly and dashingly, as he always had. She could only see the white spot that was his face, still turned toward her—just his face, looking. Finally he did go, but for the rest of her life, in moments of sadness, she would remember that distant white spot—T. Blue’s face—hanging there at the edge of Belle Fourche, looking at her.
It was sad; Dora went upstairs and did what she always did when he left—cried for two days.
When Ogden walked into town on the third morning, proud as could be, the mule Charley loaded with most of an elk, he felt fine until he saw Dora, and then lost the shine off his mood. She kissed him and hugged him tightly, but she looked worn, as if she had been mighty upset while he was gone. Doosie was happy with the elk, and Dora happy to see him, but Ogden wondered guiltily if perhaps he had stayed gone too long.
5
DORA FOUND OUT SHE WAS PREGNANT THE DAY CALAMITY and Bartle finally returned. She had been married three months; almost two months had passed since Blue’s visit. Once such news would have made her joyful; this time she received it with foreboding—a foreboding that had little to do with the question of who the father was. She felt convinced that T. Blue was the father, but was not ready to face the question of whether she would inform him of her conviction once the child was born.
The task that caused her to worry came before any question of choosing a father: before she needed to decide on a father, she had to get a living child. Her first child, a girl, had scarcely lived three hours; her second, a boy, had lived almost two months—she remembered all too well the year of grief that had followed his death. Without Blue, she herself would not have lived, she was convinced.
She had known women who had lost five or six children—it was common on the frontier—but could not imagine that she herself would want to
survive such a load of grief.
When she told Doosie her news—she had already told her of her suspicions—Doosie at once tried to order her to bed.
“Get in it and stay in it,” Doosie said. “You ain’t gonna do a lick of work until you have that baby.”
Dora ignored her. Ogden was off hauling some freight to Deadwood—he was due back that evening. Dora felt her first dilemma was whether to be truthful with him—or, rather, to decide how much truth would be good for him. She doubted that Ogden knew much about the technicalities of reproduction; he had begun in complete ignorance of all matters connected with it, but had quickly acquired a lot of enthusiasm for some of them. But certain niceties of timing might be lost on him unless she explained them. Ogden’s trust in her was profound; he would believe whatever she told him.
“I’ve got too much to think about just to get in bed,” Dora said, pacing around the kitchen.
“Well, think lying down,” Doosie said. “You can’t just walk around in circles in my kitchen for six months.”
“You seem to be mighty cheerful—you’re not the one who has to have it!” Dora said, annoyed that her moody maid had suddenly turned into a sunbeam.
“I hope it’s a little girl,” Doosie said. “Be nice to have a little girl around here. Wouldn’t be so dull if we had a little girl.”
“I don’t see what’s dull about it now,” Dora said. “I’m out of business, and I’ve got a husband who can eat a beef a week.”
“This girl might not be too little—it’s got a big Daddy,” Doosie said, watching Dora closely to see if she would confirm the statement.