The City of Lovely Brothers (20 page)

The condemned man had lured an eight-year-old

boy to his house and raped him.

"I can't think of any crime worse than that," Caliban said, "but I don't want to watch a man hang. Not that I think he doesn't deserve it."

"Ain't got no choice. We're stuck here, and will be till it's over. You can't cover your eyes, neither, or people'll call you a sissy."

"It won't bother you?"

"No. It's no fun seeing a man die, but no."

"This won't be your first hanging?"

"Nope, I seen one before. I hear sometimes the rope snaps your neck when you fall through the trap, and you die quick, but the guy I saw strangled. It wasn't pretty. Want me to hold your hand?"

"In public? People would think we're something worse than sissies."

"Well, ain't we?"

"Just grip me by the arm, as if it were affecting you."

The gallows had apparently been built in front of the new jailhouse. After about half an hour of sitting in a wagon wedged inside an ever more impatient crowd, someone they were told was the hangman came and took 25his place on the gallows platform. The people who had come to watch settled down a bit, but the tension increased.

Ten minutes later, a sad and frightened-looking man was led out of the jailhouse between two marshals, his hands tied in front of him, a preacher with a Bible walking behind them. The crowd hissed and booed. The preacher mumbled a prayer nobody heard, then said something to the man. He shook his head. "What could 'e say, after what he done?"

they heard a man ask no one in particular.

One of the marshals fitted a black sack over the man's head, and the other placed the noose around his neck and tightened it. The hangman pulled a lever, a trap door opened, and the man fell through. His body stiffened, his legs kicked wildly a few times, then he went limp and hung there, swaying back and forth from the momentum of his legs.

"Did ya see it?" Nick asked.

"No. I shut my eyes."

"I think this time it snapped his neck, lucky bastard.

Someone told me once that when you're hung, you squirt. I didn't believe 'im, so I went up and had a look at 'im afterwards at that hanging I seen. Must be true, 'cause there was a wet stain on his pants."

"If he just squirted, you wouldn't have seen it. He must have pissed himself." The man was dead. They left him hanging there the rest of the day. The crowd slowly broke up. Nick got into the rear wagon to follow Caliban, who knew the city, or used to, but there were too many people milling in the street to drive blithely though, and they made slow progress. A pretty woman in her mid-thirties approached Caliban's wagon, a young boy on either side of her. The littler one, maybe eight years old, she held by the hand; his brother looked about twelve, but short for his age.

"Caliban?" she asked uncertainly.

"June Brewster?"

"June Mitchell now. You see? Jerome and I have two sons. This one's Cal," she said, meaning the older. "His brother's Christian."

"Cal after me?"

"No, his name's Carlton. Cal is how it came out when he started talking."

Caliban turned to Nick in the wagon behind him.

"Nick, come on over and meet June, Doctor Brewster's daughter. She nursed me while I was in her father's hospital."

"I assisted at your operation, too. You were very brave."

"I screamed my lungs out and cried my eyes out.

Are you still a nurse?" "No, I gave it up when I married Jerome."

Nick had come up to them, and Caliban introduced him to her. "Nick, my chief stable hand and closest friend.

How's your father doing?"

"Still practicing medicine, if you can believe it. He has a partner now, Doctor Bradley, who lives across the street from him. Both houses have hospitals upstairs.

Doctor Bradley's is for the men, and Pa's is for women and children. Pa doesn't do operations like yours anymore, Doctor Bradley does them."

"And Mrs. Brewster?"

"She died six years ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"So Pa's alone now. My old room's empty, and so is my brothers'. You're going to see him, aren't you? He'll be thrilled to see you. How long will you be in Billings?"

"At least a week. My oldest brother, Calvin, is setting up a general store on the ranch, and we've come to buy everything he'll need. It's quite a list he gave us, I can tell you. I just hope we can find all of it and fit it all in the wagons. And of course I wouldn't dream of coming to Billings without visiting your father."

"You should go straight there. Do you remember where it is? But Billing's changed so much since you were here. I don't suppose you recognize it. Do you think you 25can find your way?"

"I hope so. But first we have to find a hotel and wash up from the road."

"Go to Pa's first. There are those two extra rooms, and I'm sure he'll ask you stay with him. You know you were his favorite patient; he still talks about you. And hotels are costly and not as comfortable as a family house, and Pa will be glad for the company. It was good meeting you, Nick. I'll be seeing more of you both if you'll be staying at Pa's, and I'm sure you will be."

* * * *

When Jacob Brewster opened the door, his face

broke into a big smile and his eyes lit up. "Caliban Caldwell!"

"I'm flattered you recognized me. June recognized me too."

"How could I forget you? You say you've seen June?"

"Yes, she came up to me in the street with her two boys while I was in my wagon."

"At the hanging," Nick said.

Doctor Brewster frowned. "She took the boys there?

I can't say I'm happy about it. That husband of hers must 25have told her to. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"This is Nick, from our ranch. We share a house together. Nick, this is Doctor Brewster.
The
Doctor Brewster, who saved my life… and my leg."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Doctor. We all got a lot to thank you for."

"But I see I didn't cure his hip."

"No one could've fixed it. You gave me many years of being able to walk with it, and they aren't over yet!"

"You two live together, do you? So you aren't married, then?"

"No. My hip."

"That shouldn't make a difference."

"I don't want to be a burden on my wife. I won't be able to walk forever."

"We don't know that. How long are you staying? Do you have time for me to make us all a cup of coffee and sit awhile and talk about old times?"

"I'd like that, and we'll have plenty of time to do it again. We'll be in Billings a week."

"Will you? Then you have to stay here with me. I insist on it. I live alone now, as I expect June told you, and there's lots of room in the house."

"Yes, June told me about Mrs. Brewster. You must 25miss her very much. She was a fine lady."

"The best. But death is no stranger to us doctors.

We know it's coming, and we're used to it. You will stay here, won't you? I'll have to put you both in my sons' old room; June's is piled floor to ceiling with old junk. But the boys' room has two beds."

"Thank you. We're pleased to accept your

hospitality."

"Well, come on in and make yourselves at home.

Get your bags, and I'll show you your room."

"I remember which one it is."

"Did you say you just arrived in Billings?"

"Yes, we were on the road most of the morning."

"Then you must be covered in dust. You'll want to wash up right away. Or maybe you'd like a bath."

"We would love a bath. We haven't had a proper wash since we left the ranch, have we, Nick?"

"Closest thing to it was when we took off our clothes and stood in the thunderstorm two nights ago."

"The bathroom's upstairs, with a porcelain bathtub,"

Doctor Brewster said. "I don't remember if we had it when you were here."

"I've never been in a porcelain tub."

"It's pure pleasure, one of man's greatest inventions.

Mine has hot water, too, straight out of the tap. You light 25the gas, and the water travels through the pipes with the fire around them, and it comes out hot. You have to turn on the cold, too, or you'll scald yourself. Have you ever seen one of those water heaters?"

"I can't imagine how it works."

"You'll figure it out. There are instructions on the tank, and a box of matches on the windowsill, and the towels are in the closet next to the bathroom. You take your time and enjoy it. You'll have to be careful getting in and out, though; wet porcelain is slippery. The tub's big enough for two to soak in, too. I don't imagine you'll think twice about sharing a tub if you live together. You can scrub each other's backs. Lux-u-ri-ate. The coffee can wait. In fact, why don't I run down to Mrs. Allen's and ask her to come over? She always has fresh baked cookies on hand. I don't know who eats them all. Shall I tell her in an hour? Will that give you long enough?"

"Doctor Brewster sure talks alot," Nick said on their way up the stairs.

"He's excited to see me. You'll see. He's a good listener, too. You didn't say very much. I didn't know you to be shy in front of strangers."

"It's the way I talk, bad grammar and all. I oughtta know better from listening to you, but it still comes out the old way." "Doctor Brewster won't even notice. How do you think his patients talk? Why, I talked just like you when I was in his hospital."

"Do you think he guessed? I mean about us. Telling us to take a bath together, and all."

"Not at all. Doctors don't think twice about nudity; they see people naked all the time. It doesn't automatically mean sex to them. Won't this be a new experience for us, stretching out together in a hot tub?"

"I was thinking the same thing. Maybe we should buy one for the house, long as we're in Billings."

"You think so? Whose bedroom will we put it in?"

Doctor Brewster was waiting for them in the parlor when they came down after their bath. "Mrs. Allen isn't here yet," he said, "but she should be any moment. The coffee's ready. And June stopped by to invite us all to dinner tomorrow night while you were having your bath.

Now sit down, and we can start our chat while we wait for Mrs. Allen. She got so excited when I told her Caliban was here. And she isn't just bringing cookies. She had taken a pie out of the oven not fifteen minutes before I showed up on her doorstep. An apple pie!"

Mrs. Allen arrived shortly after. She marveled over what a fine, handsome man Caliban had become. "Not that I thought you would be anything but handsome," she said.

"I don't know that I've ever seen such a beautiful child. But I remember you as slender, almost too thin, and slight, and frail looking."

"I was slight as a boy, Mrs. Allen, but I was never frail. When you knew me I had broken my hip, a very severe and dangerous fracture, and I left before it had entirely healed. I still needed a crutch to walk, and couldn't stand more than fifteen minutes without resting, even with my weight of the other leg." "Oh, yes. I remember you were in considerable pain, but you bore it bravely."

"If Caliban had been frail, he would never have survived," Dr. Brewster said, and shooed them into the dining room to dig into the pie.

They took their places at the table. Mrs. Allen took up from where she had left off. "What I meant to say is that you've grown so manly. When you were… thirteen, I believe… you had such soft skin, softer than a girl's. And your arms look very strong, too. They look ready to burst out of your shirt sleeves."

"I feel as though I'm on display," Caliban said.

"You will be, later," Doctor Brewster said. "I mean to have a look at that hip before we go to bed."

"I'm afraid there's nothing you can do for it now."

"More than fifteen years after it was fractured? No, there's nothing anyone could do, short of a miracle. I still want to examine it, though, to see how it healed and how it didn't heal, and the effect years of growth and use have had on it."

"Examine and probe all you like."

"I'd like to be at the examination," Nick said.

"Doctor Brewster won't be able to fix it, but he'll know enough to tell you how you should and shouldn't use it. I think you're much too careless with it sometimes, and he 26may suggest some sorta exercises or other treatments for it, like hot water bottles or a salve for when it's hurting you. I don't know."

"Strengthening and limbering exercises, yes," the doctor agreed. "I think it's a good idea for your friend to be there, Caliban. That is, if you don't mind. A medical examination is… well, it's just about the most private thing I can think of."

The conversation came do a dead halt for a few

seconds when he said it. They must all have been thinking the same thing, even Mrs. Allen: "Except for sex."

"I don't mind Nick being there," Caliban said. "He's more than welcome to look on."

"They share a house together, Mrs. Allen," Doctor Brewster explained, "and if they go on living together, the day may come when Nick has to care for him. I couldn't say; I haven't seen the hip yet. I may very well not be able to say after I've seen it, of course," he joked. "How long have you two been living together, by the way?"

"A little over three years, but we've been friends for close to ten. Best friends for most of them."

"Then I suspect you'll go on being best friends.

How did you meet?"

"I got a job as a stable hand at the Caldwell ranch,"

Nick replied. "Cal was my boss. Still is, sorta." "Nick knows more about horses than any of us,"

Caliban explained.

"Working with horses, eh, Caliban? I'd be surprised to hear you can ride them."

"I can't, but I do. I sit sidesaddle in front of Nick, and we go for an hour's gallop about once a week as soon as the snow's gone. I steer the horse."

"If you don't put weight on it or hold it in the same position for too long,
and
if the animal doesn't toss you about too much, then it's good exercise."

"When he first came to work for us, Nick said it was a shame I couldn't ride. He talked me into getting up on his horse—"

"With my help."