The City of Lovely Brothers (13 page)

Walking home after Caliban's third fitting, which had taken over half an hour, Callie said, "There has to be more to that hip than we know. It's really got me worried. I'd like to have a look at it."

"You mean
it
, my bare hip with nothing covering it?"

"And your leg, too."

"I ain't thirteen no more, Callie. It wouldn't be decent."

"Well, show it to Robert, then. It'll reassure me."

"I don't mind showing it to Robert. But
you'll
have to tell him. I'm not going up to him and saying, 'Hey, Robert, you want to come in my room and watch me take off my pants?'"

* * * *

Several incidents were to occur that made Caliban realize there were a number of men in Laramie who would have been more than happy to accept the offer. A man came up to Caliban's table at the café one afternoon and said, "Hello, pretty boy. Can I buy you a coffee or a sarsaparilla?"

Caliban pointed out that he already had a cup of coffee and the waitress would refill it when it was empty. It startled him to hear a stranger call him "pretty boy", but lots of people called him 'handsome', men as well as women, so he ignored it. "Mind if I sit here?"

Caliban pointed to the empty chair with his hand, inviting him to sit. The man took his hand and shook it, holding on to it longer than a normal handshake. "My name's Texas," he said.

"Cal." People always made some comment when he introduced himself as Caliban except at home or at the school, and just about all the men in Laramie had names one syllable long, so for as long as he stayed there he had taken to saying his name was Cal.

Caliban had led a sheltered life on the ranch and was too naïve to realize the man was hitting on him. The people at the other tables did, though, and watched the two of them from the corner of their eyes.

Texas sat talking to Caliban while he ate his lunch.

Caliban didn't say much, for the most part just answering his questions and nodding politely to acknowledge what he said and show he was listening. Then Texas put his hand on Caliban's knee. Caliban froze, and for fifteen seconds or so he didn't say a word. Then he said, quietly and firmly, "Please don't do that."

Texas removed his hand, leaned into him and

whispered, "I know. Folks can see us here. Why don't we go someplace else?"

"No." Texas stood up and shook hands again. "I'll be waiting outside," he said quietly.

Everyone in café waited to see if Caliban would

follow him. Caliban, mortified, just sat there, not moving, his half-eaten dessert in front of him. At last the man sitting at the table next to him said, "Why'd you just sit there and take it? How come you didn't punch him in the face?"

Caliban answered by getting up from his chair and walking a few steps to show him his limp.

The man understood. "If you can wait around till I finish my lunch, I can walk out with you, so he won't bother you if he's still there."

"Thank you. I'm not used to that sort of thing happening to me."

Caliban told Caleb about the incident in a letter.

Caleb answered that it didn't surprise him. A guy as handsome as he was would attract the queers no less than the ladies.

* * * *

When Caliban showed his brother-in-law his hip,

Robert must have thought it looked bad, because Callie urged him to see a doctor and eventually got him to go. The doctor said there was nothing to be done, but that in his 16opinion, the hip would stay as it was or perhaps get a little worse in his old age. Caliban knew better. His condition had steadily worsened, too imperceptibly for others to notice, but if he compared what he could do now with what he had had little trouble doing the year before, the evidence was undeniable. He thought it hurt more, too, but he was accustomed to it hurting and could not be sure.

In April of his first year in Laramie, Caleb wrote to Caliban:

I met a girl. Her names Amanda. I like her alot.

She's very very pretty and real nice. I'll introduce you to
her when you come home for summer. I think you'll like
her. She's young too, younger then you. Anyway I'm
courting her, if you know what I mean. I been thinking its
about time I got married and settle down. Haven't made up
my mind for sure though. Now dont you go stealing her
from me or I'll whup your ass.

PS: I'm courting her, I aint fucking her. She aint
that kinda girl. Wouldn't marry her if she was would I? But
I will if I marry her. Fuck her I mean.

Caliban met Amanda when he returned for the

summer. Caleb drove him into town to introduce them.

Caliban liked her, but he imagined she must be somewhat of a wallflower. She was pretty enough in a flat-chested sort of way, quiet and unassuming, and very shy. It surprised him that she should have fallen in love with a man as boisterous and broad in his movements as Caleb, but she obviously had.

Caleb asked him his opinion while they were getting ready for bed. Caliban encouraged his brother to marry, but Caleb was far from ready to make up his mind.

"When you marry a girl, it's forever," he said.

"I think it's about time you thought seriously about forever, Caleb. There isn't much forever left for you."

Amanda liked Caliban, too. As she told Caleb,

"Your brother Caliban's so distinguished the way he dresses in his city clothes and talks all proper and grammatical.

And he's so nice and friendly and considerate. You know, he even asked if it wouldn't be hard on me living way out on the prairie without no people around, me having grown up in town and all."

"Caliban got used to it."

"He said that, too, but he said it was on account of it reminded him o' when he could be out on the range with the cattle far away from everyone before he broke his hip.

Ain't it a pity about that hip? Such a good-looking fella. I don't think I ever seen a man half so handsome!"

"Now don't you go getting sweet on 'im. Remember who else is thinking o' marrying you."

"I ain't forgot, Caleb," she said, taking his arm and laying her head on his shoulder, "but don't you agree he's pretty?"

"Yeah, he's real pretty," Caleb said.

* * * *

Caliban took leave of Jaggers when he left at the end of August. He knew he would never see the dog again.

In the middle of September, Caleb wrote:

I proposed to Amanda & she said yes. We're gonna
get married in june cause we're waiting for you to get your
sertifikit and come home to have the wedding, but I'm
gonna start building another room onto the house now in
case we have kids right away. I mean like in 9 mos. I mean
9 mos after the wedding not 9 mos from now.

Tell Callie that if she wants to come we'd be pleased
to have her.

Me & Amanda want you to live with us in your
room. You aint strong enuf to live alone and anyways I
gotten used to you being around. If you wouldn't a gone
away & left me alone here maybe I wouldn't a thunk about
getting married. So its your fault ha ha. You living with us
is ok with Amanda. I think she's sweet on you & that's ok so
long as you 2 behave yourself.

Caliban answered:

You go build a house for you and Amanda on your
quarter of the land. A married man needs a house of his
own. If you build it now it will be ready and waiting for you
as soon as you're married. You can carry her over the
16
threshold into a house no one's ever lived in. It isn't
October yet and won't snow for a while. Remember how
you got ours put up in 3 weeks?

Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I can live on my
own; I'm not an invalid. But I've been thinking that maybe
I'll ask Nick if he wants to move in with me. You know he's
my best friend after you, and he says the guys in the
bunkhouse pick on him because he's friends with the boss.

Caleb's next letter said that Jaggers had died.

* * * *

Calvin did not let on that he was none too happy with Caleb's plans to marry. He didn't want any more children to break up the ranch, and they would not be long in coming if Caleb screwed his wife as often as he used to go to the whorehouse. Amanda was young, too, and would be able to have a lot of them, unlike Darcie, who had dried up. When Caleb told him he meant to start building a house right away, he asked, "What about Caliban? You gonna leave him all alone out on the far end of the range?"

"My building a house is his idea. I told him he was welcome to live with us. He says he's gonna ask Nick to move in with 'im."

"The stable hand Nick?" "Yeah. A real nice guy."

"It don't seem right, the boss living with one of his hired hands."

"I don't see nothing wrong with it. Look at Calhoun.

He camps out with his cowpokes and stays with 'em in the bunkhouse in Billings when they drive 'em to the stockyards."

"That's different. It ain't his
house
."

At first Calvin didn't tell Darcie Caliban might be living with Nick.

Except for the furniture, Caleb's house was ready to move into by November. He planned to spend the winter building tables and chairs and cupboards and a bed. He took Amanda to see it, and she fell in love with it. The house was little more than a two-bedroom cottage, but he had lavished care on it to make it comfortable and pretty for Amanda. It had slatted shutters and boxes for flowers outside the windowsills and a porch with a swing like the one he had broken apart to make a gurney for Caliban. He painted the house grey and pink, like the swing.

* * * *

A few days after Christmas, Calvin told Darcie at supper, "I fired Nick." "What for? Something wrong with his work?"

"Work's okay, I guess. I just don't like the look o'

him."

"You can't fire a man for that."

"I got other reasons. I hear from Caleb that him and Caliban mean to live together after Caleb and Amanda's married. I don't like the idea of the boss living with one o'

his stable hands. It ain't right."

"That ain't a good enough reason. Seems like a good idea to me. Caliban can't live all by himself with that bum leg. He'll need somebody to help 'im with the heavy work."

"He can come back and live here."

"You know he won't do that. He likes that little house o' his. Anyways, it ain't your place to fire Nick.

Caliban's in charge of the stables."

"Not when he's gone he ain't."

"It ain't up to you. You can fire anybody you want, except Nick. He's Caliban's friend. And you didn't hire him, Caliban did."

"It's too late. I done it already."

"He leave yet?"

"New Year's."

"Then it ain't too late. You go and tell him you changed your mind, or I'll do it for you. Just see if I don't!

And if I hafta do it, I'm upping his pay a whole dollar."

* * * *

Nick wrote Caliban that Calvin had fired him and Darcie had hired him straight back. Caliban was certain Nick must have made some mistake that put the horses in danger, but couldn't imagine what it might have been.

Caliban had hired Nick two years before he went to Laramie. He had been raised on a ranch and had a lot of experience with horses. He worked well with them, and they liked him, and he rode better at nineteen than Calhoun, who was thirty-two. He was very attentive to Caliban. He was quick to come to his aid when he saw he was having trouble doing something because of his hip, and he spent a lot of time talking to him when they were working in the stables. Caliban thought he said interesting things and had a lot to teach him about horses, although Caliban had worked with them all his life.

Saturday night was bath night at the bunkhouse.

Before the men had dinner, they brought in two large metal tubs from the storage shed, boiled up a big soup kettle of water, and had their baths. Caliban used to bathe with them when he was first put in charge of stables because he liked doing everything with the men he worked with. He did not mind them seeing his hip. It showed them why there were some things he could not do and why he sometimes had to stop in the middle of something he was working on and have one of the men do it for him before he could go on.

Calvin said it was undignified for the boss to wash up with 17the men who worked for him, so after that Caliban had his bath behind the partition attached to the back of the house, and in winter he and Caleb brought a tub into their room.

But Caliban still went with the men after work on Saturday and sat around talking with them while they washed up.

Nick would come over sometimes and strike up a

conversation with Caliban while toweling off after his bath, and if the conversation turned interesting, he would sit down next to him and finish before he went to put on his clothes.

The other stable hands teased Nick and said he was sucking up to the boss.

"I ain't sucking up," he told them. "I really, really like the guy. Don't you like him?"

"Sure we like him. Everyone likes Caliban. But he's still the boss."

Caliban was happy for Nick's friendship. He was

always glad to have a friend.

* * * *

Nick said it was a shame Caliban was not able to ride. He asked if maybe he could sit sidesaddle. "It bother you that that's how some ladies do it?" he asked.

"Nah, I wouldn't care about that. I seen some men 17ride like that too. Tried it once. Had trouble getting my leg around the top pommel, and I wasn't so stiff then. And if I went any faster'n a walk, I got bumped around too much."

"How would it be if I get up in the saddle and you sit in front of me facing to the side? You think that would work?"

"We could give it a try, but it sounds like I'd fall off."

"I'll hold on to you."

Getting him into the saddle was not easy. Caliban could not mount by himself, so Nick had to get down, lift him onto it, and then get back behind him. He had to slide forward underneath Caliban's rear end to get him half onto his lap.