The City of Lovely Brothers (19 page)

Calhoun looked at Nick.

"He's telling it like it is, Calhoun," Nick said. "If this is real personal, we can go in my room, where your men won't hear us through the door."

"Gotta pair of pants for me, Caliban?" Calhoun asked. "I'd feel funny sitting naked as a jaybird telling Nick family secrets for the first time."

"Nick's will fit you better."

They went into Nick's bedroom. Nick found a pair of overalls in the dresser he thought would fit him. Calhoun 24modestly turned his back to them while he got into them; then he turned to face them and said, "You all sit down now, and listen good."

Caliban and Nick sat on Nick's bed. Calhoun

remained standing, as if delivering a sermon.

"You know how I kept them fences up around the Johnson place— Nick know about my going to the Johnson place?"

Nick nodded. "I know about the fight you had when you and Julia went to live there, too."

"Lord, Caliban! Is there nothing you ain't told 'im?"

"I gotta know them things to keep from putting my foot in my mouth. Don't wanna rattle nobody."

"Well, I made up my mind to fence off all my property," Calhoun went on, "all of it that touches on Calvin's. I come here to ask if you want me to fence it off where it borders on yours, too, so it don't look like I'm only cutting off Calvin, though I am. Won't do it unless you ask me to. I like grazing the herd on yours and Caleb's quarters, you know, and I feel like they're still part of the old ranch.

It ain't so with Calvin's."

"It's because you think Calvin's quarter looks like a village, isn't it, Calhoun? It's because of that general store he said he's going to open."

"I don't
think
it looks like a village; it does look like 24a village. No, it don't look like one— it
is
one, with or without a general store. In fact, I think the general store's a good idea. It'll keep the hired men on the ranch. The church now, that was a bad idea. The men don't do no work Sunday anyways. But, yeah, I think it's a damn shame what he done to the ranch."

"There's more to it than that, ain't there, Calhoun?"

Nick said softly.

"Like him running the store instead of Caliban, who can hardly work the stables no more? Yeah, it's an example of how he don't give a thought to other people but himself."

"I couldn't run the store, Calhoun. I have the school."

"Summers you don't. Summers you're back with the horses."

"And you bear him a grudge for all of it," Nick said.

"You mean I'm angry with him for what he done?

Yeah, I'm angry, but I'm used to it."

"A lot more'n angry. If you don't wanna say it, I'll say it for you. I said it to Cal, but he don't believe me. Tell

'im if I ain't right."

"What'd you say to 'im?"

"You just said Cal and Caleb's seem like the old ranch, and Calvin's don't. You feel the same about Cal and Caleb. You see 'em as your brothers, but Calvin's a 24stranger, if he ain't an enemy."

"You see a lot, Nick."

"A lot that isn't there," Caliban broke in.

"Oh, it's there alright."

"I'm sure Calvin still thinks of you as his brother."

"Prob'ly, and he considers you and Caleb his brothers, too, but the word brother don't mean nothing to

'im."

Caliban was distressed. "You make it sound like you hate him."

"I do hate him. I've felt like this for a long time, but he's part of the ranch, and I gotta live with him."

"But why now, Calhoun? Why didn't you build them long ago, if you've felt like this for so long?" There were tears in Caliban's eyes.

"For your sake, at least in part. I knew it'd upset you. I said you and Caleb I love like my brothers. Well, you… It ain't that I love you more, and I don't know you that good, but you're special to me somehow, not just a brother. Maybe it's that I learned you to be a cowboy when you were a kid, maybe it's the way you're like a second father to Jake, maybe it's your way o' not seeing no bad in nobody. I know you're closer to Caleb. I don't mind that.

It's only natural, you two bunking together so long. Shit, here I am making you some mushy declaration o' brotherly 24love, when I just come to tell you about them fences."

"But why build them now? You haven't told me that."

"His cruelty. He don't do it to be cruel; he just don't think about nobody but himself, so he don't know how people feel. You see Darcie's face when he said them things about Betsy and Tilda, how the ranch wasn't good enough for 'em? I coulda punched him in the face then. You know damn well why they left, and it broke Darcie's heart. Time was she woulda stood up to him, but all these years of living with him have wore 'er down. They left because he treated their husbands like they was still hired hands.

What'd 'e expect 'is girls to marry, senators? Why wouldn't

'e let 'em have a piece o' his beloved empire? He sees himself as some kinda cattle king on his throne, and me and you and Caleb working the place for 'im."

"I'm just doing my share. I don't even do that much because of my hip."

"Me and Caleb does your share. But to Calvin you're just a worker that owns part of his land. He don't love you, Caliban. He thinks he does, but he don't." A tear was rolling down Caliban's cheek. "There, I said enough.

More'n enough, but at least now you know. You got a hankie for him, Nick, so he can blow his nose? I've had my say. I'll turn in now." "Are you going to tell Caleb all this?"

"Caleb knows already, has for years. It ain't no secret to him. He'd want me to put up fences along his property line, too, if you'd'a told me to fence yours off, but I get the impression you ain't gonna."

"No fences. Fences between you and Calvin are bad enough."

"Okay, then. Good night. You have your cry now.

Try to calm him down, will ya, Nick?"

After Calhoun left, Nick held Caliban in his arms while he wept silently. When his crying had subsided, Nick kissed him and whispered, "You go to bed now." Then he took out his diary and sat down to write.

Caliban stripped down to his underwear and got into bed. "What's with the skivvies?" Nick asked. "It ain't as cold as winter, and you don't wear none then."

"Just in case Calhoun thinks of something else he wants to tell me and comes back." To break the melancholy mood, he added, trying to sound cheerful, "Wasn't it a hoot how I told them you hadn't been getting any and I was only sleeping with you because they were here, when the truth is that you won't be getting any tonight because they are?"

"What I think is that you went a little too far.

Nobody suspects, but I don't think we oughtta be giving them ideas." "It doesn't worry me. But maybe you're right."

Nick put down his pen after a few minutes, closed the notebook, and went to put it in the dresser. "Aren't you going to read me what you wrote?" Caliban asked.

"I ain't sure you wanna hear this."

"Is it about Calvin? I insist you read it to me.

Remember how we went on and on to Calhoun about how we had no secrets from each other?"

Nick sat down again and opened the notebook.

"Ready?"

"And waiting."

"Here goes: 'I saw Hooner naked today. Just the back o' him. His ass is alot like Cal's, slim with tight muscles and the exact same dimples, only hairier, so given a choice I'd take Cal's.'"

"You're terrible. Did you spend five whole minutes writing about my brother's rear end?"

"No, I wrote about yours."

"Did you write what he came here for?"

"No, I couldn't'a wrote all that down so quick. I'll put it in some other time. Gotta think it through first. I only wrote about the storm and how we had three naked men with blankets around 'em watching me try on the shirt, and how I got stuck, and about the blood stain."

"Skip the part about my ass and read me the rest, 24and then come to bed. I've read enough of what you have to say about my ass."

When Nick had finished reading, he blew out the

lantern and got into bed next to Caliban. "Lie on your side, Banni," he whispered. "I wanna slip my hand down your skivvies and feel if I got that description right." That he called him Banni meant that he would caress his cheeks and maybe tickle his hole, but would go no further.

Calvin had intended to send two of his hired men to Billings to pick up what he needed. He perked up like a pig that sees its slop pail coming when Caliban and Nick offered to make the trip for him. He accepted at once, but he did not offer to pay them for their trouble or give them money to cover their expenses, as he would have had to do if he had sent ranch hands.

The list of things he needed was endless. It was not farm equipment he had it in his mind to buy, but stock for his new general store, which he thought he could open two or three weeks after they got back. The wife of one of the hired hands had died of catarrh over the winter, and when spring came, the man had taken his little boy and left the ranch, leaving one of the houses vacant. Calvin meant to use it for the store and build a bigger one —a real store, he called it— the year after. Right now he needed lumber for shelving, and a granite countertop, barrels, scales, a cash register and whatnot, and also some bolts of cloth and patent medicines and sundries to get it started. They would need the two biggest hay wagons to bring it all back, and would not be able to sit side by side on the drive there and back, but it meant they would be away longer. Two miles from the ranch, though, they tied the

reins of the horses pulling the back wagon to the wagon in front, and Nick went to sit beside Caliban. The horses followed the wagon tracks anyway; they only needed a driver to make them go. If they came to a sharp curve or a place where a ditch ran close to the road, Nick would get down from his seat and hop in the back wagon to take the reins, and on steep downhills he went to pull back on the brakes. On the return trip they would have full wagons with very heavy, perhaps overly heavy loads, and both wagons would need a driver.

"So, Cal, whattaya plan on doing in Billings?"

"What do I plan on
us
doing? I mean to show you the town. Did you see much of Billings the time you went there?"

"Nope, I just picked up your present and turned around and rode home. Calv only give me three days off.

Sunday made four, otherwise I couldn't 'a done it."

"I'd like to have a look around myself. There were over two thousand people there when Callie took me to Doc Brewster to fix my hip. A lot of them were railroad workers and must have moved on to continue the building west, but it goes on growing by leaps and bounds. I hear they've put in irrigation, and people have come to settle there from all over the world." "Yeah, I heard. Russians, Japs… Mexicans, too."

"I'd like to meet some of them. I read about people from foreign lands, but Calvin doesn't like to hire them. We had a guy from Russia once. Remember Vassya? I was sorry he didn't stay."

"Must be bigger'n any city I ever seen."

"A regular metropolis. We won't lack for things to do. We're going to have a good time."

"I reckon you can buy just about anything there."

"I was thinking that. I want to buy presents for all my nieces and nephews on the ranch. I was thinking a toy for Caleb's Brandon, and maybe something like spurs for Calhoun's older boys, and maybe a book for Jake —I want to spend the most on him— and something pretty to wear for Hester."

"Spurs cost alot more'n a book."

"And I definitely want to drop in on Doctor Brewster, see if he's still alive and how he's getting on."

"I guess we'll be staying in a hotel."

"They had one over the saloon when I lived there. I bet they have a fancy one now."

"Can we afford it?"

"I hope so. I don't want to stay on top of a saloon.

But I have no idea how much a hotel costs. Never stayed in one."

* * * *

They were in no hurry to get to Billings. Their first night on the road was a mild one. They cooked supper over a campfire, then climbed into the wagon and made love under the stars. The mosquitoes were fierce, and they had to douse their bodies in citronella. It tasted terrible, and they only used their mouths to kiss and to suck cock. The days got hotter and muggier as they went by. The road to Billings followed the course of the Yellowstone River, for a lot of it at a distance of a half-mile or more. Because of the spring floods, though, it was close enough so that there were more mosquitoes along the road than there would have been out in the middle of the range. Halfway to Billings they felt so hot and sweaty and dusty that they hobbled the horses and hiked to the river for a quick swim, but by afternoon they were as hot and sweaty and dusty as they had been before.

That night they had a thunderstorm. They stowed

their clothes under the tarp and stood naked in the cold rain and let it rinse their bodies clean. The night was pitch black, almost too dark to see each other though they were standing only a few feet apart. Every couple of minutes a bolt of lightning would strike somewhere nearby, some too 25near for comfort, followed by a tremendous clap of thunder, and for a split second the range would become dazzlingly bright. They would see the wagons clear as day, and each other white and dripping and shivering. They were chilled to the bone when they climbed back into the wagon and took shelter under the tarp. They toweled dry in the cramped space and then made love. There were no mosquitoes, and as the rain had washed them clean, they made up for all the licking and nibbling they had not been able to do on the previous nights when their skin tasted of citronella. Caliban said it was romantic, making love with the rain pelting down on the tarp just a few inches above them.

* * * *

When they got to Billings, they drove toward the town center to find a hotel and ran into a crowd of people.

There was no way to drive around them and no way to back up the wagon, so they would have to sit there until whatever had brought everyone out was over. Nick moved up to sit by Caliban in his wagon. He asked a man standing nearby it what was going on.

"A hanging." He pointed to a gallows a couple of hundred yards ahead of them. "What's he done? Horse rustler?"