The City of Lovely Brothers (28 page)

"I'm doing it more to please Caliban. Ain't nothing I can do to keep 'im here. He stays 'cause he's Caliban's friend."

"You know what I think, Darcie? I think that if Nick goes, he'll take Caliban with him. I also think we said enough about all this. Let's get on with planning that party!"

* * * *

Darcie gave up on the idea of roasting a pig. She figured there was no way to roast one over an open pit in a smokehouse. But she could smoke a turkey, one of Nick's favorites.

Caliban kept the party a closely guarded secret. He got him to go by telling him he had something to thrash out with Calvin and needed him there for support.

"That serious, huh? You gonna tell me what it is?"

"You'll hear when we get there."

"Why're you getting dressed up in clean clothes just to see Calv?"

"To make myself feel respectable, so I won't back down. Maybe you should, too." "You won't back down with me there."

"Just put on something clean, will you, and we'll go."

Walking into Calvin and Darcie's front room and

seeing the table nearly buried under holiday food, and hearing everyone yell "Happy birthday!" caught Nick totally unprepared. His eyes teared up, and he hugged Darcie and said, "Thank you so much. I can't tell you how good this makes me feel." Then he turned to Caliban and said, "Since when 'a you started keeping secrets from me?"

Darcie gave Julia a significant glance, and Julia nodded.

Only Darcie gave Nick a birthday gift. Except for Caliban and Nick, grown-ups on the ranch did not exchange birthday presents, not even husband and wife, but Darcie thought that without at least one gift it would not seem like a birthday party. She gave him the tiny unwrapped box after he had blown out the candles on his cake and made a wish.

"Since when do people get things for their birthday except little kids?" Calvin asked.

"Oh, it ain't nothing costly," Darcie said, "just a trinket to remember the day by. And I got it at our general store, so the money'll come right back to us. Open it, Nick."

It was a keychain attached to a small enameled fob with the letters 'NC' in dark blue on a silvery background. "The NC stands for North Carolina," Darcie said, "but it made me think 'Nick and Caliban'."

"Thank you, Darcie. I love it. You got a present for me too, Cal?"

"I left it home so you wouldn't guess about the party. I'll give it to you tonight."

"What's Nick need a keychain for?" Calvin said.

"Nobody locks nothing up on this ranch."

"Except your strongbox and your store and your church," Calhoun muttered.

Calvin ignored him, but one could see he was

fuming. Hester tried to defuse the situation by making light of it. "And the till at the store, too. Don't forget that, Pa."

"Just don't want to tempt nobody. For the good of their souls."

Julia grabbed her husband's wrist and squeezed hard to remind him to keep his mouth shut. "Well, I'm tempted by that cake," she said. "Go ahead and cut it, Nick.

Whattaya waiting for?"

Darcie had worried that Calhoun would start an

argument with her husband, but it was Calvin who tried to pick one with his brother, probably because of what he had said about locking the church and the store. "I got a bone to pick with you, Calhoun," he said.

"What about?" "It's them three new herders you took on. You're always complaining I make all the decisions around here without consulting nobody, and then you go ahead and do the hiring, and turn around and do this." Calhoun had hired two Mexicans and one full-blooded Lakota Sioux.

"Calhoun oughtta do the hiring, since they'll be working under him," Julia said. "Don't you think so, Darcie?"

"What's wrong with 'em?" Calhoun asked. "They're good workers."

"They are," Nick confirmed. "I seen 'em."

"It's just that there's only white women on the ranch," Calvin said. "I don't wanna see no white women marrying outta their race."

"All the women on the ranch're married already."

"But they got little girls who're gonna grow up.

Ain't you worried about Lettie, Caleb?"

Caleb shrugged to say he wasn't. "Lettie ain't but thirteen. Don't see her getting married for awhile yet."

"But what'd ya say if she married one o' them?"

"Don't know the fellas."

"Ain't up to you to tell people who they can or can't marry," Darcie said.

Calvin usually ignored his wife when she disagreed with him if her contrary opinion would not make a 35difference. He almost always gave in to her when she pressured him, but he did not see her pressuring him to hire more Mexicans, so he sidestepped the question of mixed marriages. "Injuns drink too much," he said flatly.

"So do alot o' the white hands," Darcie replied, "and they get plenty loud when they do. Joe's quiet."

"Next thing we know you'll be hiring a nigger."

"Why shouldn't I, if he's good with horses and can rope a steer?"

"Some o' the men wouldn't like living in the bunkhouse with a darkie."

"That's their problem."

"Whattaya think about having a nigger in the bunkhouse, Darcie?"

"Why'd I think anything?
I
don't sleep there."

"But what if you did?"

"Lord, Calvin! First you go on about Lettie marrying a Mexican, and now you ask if I'd sleep in the bunkhouse if a black man was there. I wouldn't sleep in the bunkhouse if all the eligible crowned heads in Europe was working here. Now, will you just drop it and let us enjoy Nick's party?"

"Can you believe how Calvin carried on about Calhoun hiring a couple of Mexicans?" Caliban asked when they got home.

"If you ask me, he was just trying to get Hooner's goat. One o' them marrying Lettie, for Chrissake!"

"But honestly, how would you feel if your sisters or your daughter married someone of another race?"

"I ain't seen my sisters in close to a quarter century, and I never will. And I ain't about to have a daughter."

"Maybe I could give you one."

"You could try. Wouldn't do no good, but the trying'd make one hell of a birthday present. Let's see if ya can get me pregnant tonight."

"I bought your present already, and it's no more likely to make you pregnant than I am."

"So, what kinda present you get me? Is it a new toy?"

"We have two toys already. Isn't that enough?"

"We're old men now; we're gonna need toys. Our pricks ain't got many more years of life in 'em."

"Mine does, and yours just better have, too."

"So what's my present then? Are you my present?" "I'm your other present."

"What part o' you?"

"My ass and my prick and any other part of me you feel like making your birthday present. Now, do you want to see what I bought you or not?"

"I want to see you…
naked
. Your ass and your prick and all them other parts I want for my present."

"Okay. If you stoke the stove as hot as it can get, I'll go in my room, I'll get naked, I'll get your present, and bring it to you naked. You sit right there." Although they always slept together in whichever room they happened to go into, they always called the bedrooms "your room" and "my room." Nick sometimes forgot whose room was which. Caliban remembered because he had lived so many years in the house with Caleb.

Nick surprised Caliban by also being naked when a naked Caliban came back with his gift, a slim box attractively wrapped. The room was still chilly, but slowly warming, and Nick had pushed the table closer to the stove.

Caliban turned a chair to sit sideways by the table and lifted his bad leg onto another chair to stretch it out.

"Go ahead and open it."

It was a kind of toy after all— two pair of silk skivvies, one bright yellow, the other lime green. The others had worn out three or four years ago. "Just what I was hoping for! You just better 'a bought some for you, too."

"I did."

"What color?"

"One black, one red. I look good in those colors."

"Where'd you get 'em?"

"In Billings, where else? I took the train and came back the same day. Aren't you going to try one on?"

"I'm gonna put 'em both on, so you can peel two offa me. You go put yours on too, so's I can peel 'em offa you. The red ones underneath. Then I'm gonna pick you up and carry you into the bedroom and play with my presents, because yours are my real present. Mine are for you."

Caliban put his right leg back on the floor, swiveled to face the table, and leaned on it to raise himself.

"Your hip's hurting bad tonight, Cal, ain't it? Maybe we should put off… What's a big word for when you use something for the first time?"

"Inaugurating?"

"Maybe we should put off inaugurating my birthday present for another night."

"As if we could put off sex when you've turned on to one of my big words. But it would be a good night for one of those Doctor Brewster massages. I can wear the skivvies for that, and we'll take it from there." "It ain't just your big
words
that turn me on. But if your hip's hurting, let me get 'em for you. No need for you to get up. Where are they?"

"Top drawer under my work shirt."

"We'll get into 'em at bedtime. No reason to turn it into a fashion show."

"I'd like you to put yours on so I can see how you look in them. Before you go for mine, so it'll be like a real fashion parade. Why is it always girls who model in fashions shows, anyway?"

"'Cause men don't got styles. They wear the same old dungarees and work shirts every year."

"You got style, sugar. But we'll leave mine on the table for now until I've rested my leg a little."

Nick picked up the skivvies, one in each hand, and held them up. "Which on top and which underneath?"

"The green on top. I got the yellow for summer, when your skin's dark and tan, and the green for when you're paler."

Nick put on the skivvies, adjusting his cock to make a nice bulge. "Whattaya think?"

"You look like a million bucks. Come over and stand next to me so I can mouth it a little."

Nick went up to him and ran his fingers through

Caliban's hair while Caliban slavered over the bulge and 36traced the contours of his backside with his hand. When he was done, what had been a bulge had become more of a cylinder pointing to one side, and there was a large wet stain on the front of the underwear. Then Nick went to get Caliban's. He admired them and set them on the table. "I guess we'll be skipping supper tonight," he said. "I stuffed myself at the party. You want me to make coffee?"

"Coffee'd be nice."

"And what'll we do till bedtime?"

"I was thinking you could read to me from your diary."

"I ain't wrote about the party yet. Would ya like to hear what I wrote about our first time? You didn't want to hear it back when I told ya I got a diary. But I gotta go look and find the notebook it's in. Funny, ain't it, how Hester thinks it's for you when I pick up a notebook at the general store?"

"I was self-conscious then. You've read me a lot about us making love together since then, so I'm not anymore."

"You weren't self-conscious the first time we did it."

"Oh yes, was I ever! You were just too randy to notice. But why read me that now?"

"Because tonight's the twentieth anniversary of our 36first time. You didn't know that, did you? Best birthday present I ever got."

"And the one that's lasted longest. No, I didn't know. I didn't know when your birthday was then, and I don't remember what day we did it. Why didn't you tell me?"

"'Cause I forgot, too, and I didn't remember till after I come live here and went back and read what I wrote. And since I come here, we celebrate with sex anyways, on account of it's my birthday, and I get the royal treatment."

"For me our anniversary will always be the day after Caleb's, when you carried me over the threshold."

Nick got the notebook and read:

"Nobody wished me a happy birthday today cause
they didn't know it was, but I was walking on air all day
cause I got the present I was hoping for. Yep, I had sex with
Caliban. We did it in the middle of the night, so my
birthday started off with a bang. I stayed up with him with
the mare that was gonna foal and after she foaled I come
onto him again, real direct this time, and for once he got it
that I was coming onto him. Can't say how many hints I
dropped. He wanted it, but he was nervous. But once we
was doing it he wasn't nervous no more. We climbed up in
the loft and I got us blankets and took off his clothes. He's a
damn sight prettier underneath them clothes than I thought,
362

and I thought he was a knockout the first time I saw him.

And shit, is he ever big! Couldn't wait to get it in me. If it'll
fit, I thought. But he said he wants to do it again. No need
asking if I do! Good luck on us finding a place to do it I
say! Didn't do it this time, though…"

Caliban had been listening to him and smiling,

trying not to laugh. "But I did, Nick, when we got back to the house, after Caleb left."

"You gonna let me finish? I ain't got to that part yet."

"This time I just worked him over, sucked and
fucked. Turns out it was his first time, but I wouldnt a
known it if he wouldnt a told me, except maybe for him
being nervous. He was embarrassed at me seeing his hip.

As if someone would notice his hip with what gotta be a
ten-inch prick staring you in the face. Ha ha."

The 'ha ha' was too much for Caliban, and he broke into gales of laughter.

"You laughing at me, Cal?"

"I'm laughing at us. How young we were! Your enthusiasm is delightfully refreshing."

"So you wanna hear more?"

"Every word."

"We joked around alot so he was nice and relaxed
when I poked it in him, and it slipped in real easy, and he
36
didn't hide how much he liked it. And he naturely done
everything that makes the guy on top feel good, though he
ain't never done it before, like wiggling his backside which
is a beaut and squeezing his cheeks around my prick. And
not only is he gorgeous and got skin like satin and the
biggest prick this side of the Mississippi except for stallions
that squirts the best cream I ever tasted and alot of it too,
and nuts that roll around in your hand like soft candies, but
on top of all that he is the sweetest guy I ever met. Like I
musta wrote here hundreds of times. I didn't wanna come
onto him too strong on account of he's my boss. But I think
if he liked girls he'd a just said no and not told the other
guys. That's how nice he is. Here I am going on and on
about him. You'd think I was in love with the guy. Well I
am, and I been in love with him since I got to know him. I
never worked a place more'n three or four months before,
but I wanna stay here forever. Does it get any better'n
this?"