The City of Lovely Brothers (33 page)

"You interested in buying it?" Nick asked.

"No, ours serves us just fine," Robert said, "but I know a couple o' friends I think might buy it."

"Whattaya gonna do with all that money?" Callie asked. "You ain't gonna stick it in a mattress, are ya?"

"I was thinking we would invest most of it. We'd earn more in interest than we would if we leave it all in a bank."

"I don't trust stockbrokers no more'n I do bankers,"

Robert said. "If I was you, I'd buy them gold certificates the government sells. Banks can go under, but the government won't. And them certificates mean you own the gold. Price o' gold ain't going down like silver done. If anything, it'll go on going up."

They thought Robert's idea was a good one and

decided to use most of what they had to buy gold. They'd hang onto the rest for setting themselves up and open a bank account when they got wherever they were going.

"But that's what we need to decide, and soon, where we're going to go," Caliban said. "We were hoping you two might have some ideas."

"I'll ask around," Robert promised. "Don't know too much about them eastern cities myself. What kinda work you thinking o' doing, Nick? You won't find no ranch work 41in a city."

"I ain't thought much about it. Something I can do with my hands, I guess."

* * * *

Caliban and Nick stayed in Laramie five days. It took them that long to take care of everything they had to do, like selling the car and arranging for the gold certificates, which would have taken a lot longer if they had not converted everything Caliban had owned into cash.

They narrowed their final destination down to Chicago or Davenport and flipped a coin. Davenport won. Nick was glad it was going to be Davenport. He could have found a job easily in the Chicago stockyards, but from what he had heard, Chicago was too big a city, and he did not relish slaughtering animals. He would eat them, but he preferred not to have to kill them himself. At least not the bigger ones. Killing chickens or rabbits did not bother him.

Before they left, Callie asked for a studio

photograph of Caliban. He and Nick both posed for portraits in their ranch clothes. Caliban had three prints made, one for Callie, one to send to Darcie, and the third for himself and Nick. We know this from the letter he wrote when he sent it to Darcie. Nick only had one made 41for Caliban and himself.

A day or two before they took the train east, a

telegram for Caliban arrived from Darcie. Nick, Callie and Robert watched him open it. He turned white as a sheet and said in a broken voice, "Caleb's killed himself. He shot himself in the head."

By what route exactly the sepia photograph of

Caliban found its way into the archives at Bozeman is a mystery. That it was taken in Laramie is an inference. Nick does not mention having their photos taken. Caliban looks about forty-eight —a young forty-eight— which is how old he was when he and Nick left to live in Davenport, and it seems likely that Callie would have asked him for a photograph before he left. She knew they would never see each other again. I am guessing that Nick had his taken at the same time, and it has been lost. We may assume the photos were made before the news of Caleb's suicide reached them, for Caliban looks happy in his, and Nick's diary tells us how the news upset him.

The newspaper photo of Caleb was taken looking

down at him. The photographer must have been standing right at his feet. It shows us a balding man with a fair amount of grey in his beard lying on the floor, his jaw hanging, his arms stretched out to the sides. Surprisingly, his eyes, wide open and staring blankly into space, are not without expression. Despair, or perhaps remorse, are written all over his face, and I have extrapolated his reason for committing suicide from his expression in the photo.

Nick wrote extensively in his diary about Caliban's depression, which stayed with him for weeks. At times he worried that Caliban might follow Caleb's example and kill 42himself. He does not speculate on what caused Caliban's health to decline more rapidly after they left the ranch. I attribute it mostly to the natural aging process, although melancholy at being separated from his home and family no doubt played a part in it, as did the difficulties that come with living in a city. Although the physical demands were fewer, he was unaccustomed to them.

After they left Laramie, Nick stopped writing about the ranch and the Caldwell family, except for an occasional memory from the years he lived there. Information on what happened after they left must be gleaned from the letters Darcie sent Caliban, isolated paragraphs in those Jake wrote to him, and of course from articles and documents in the archives at Bozeman.

Over the years, less and less of what Nick put in his diary had to do with himself, and in the last notebooks almost everything we read is about Caliban, or some novelty that aroused his interest, like Doctor Brewster's water heater and porcelain bathtub. His first person references are all "I thought, I said, I felt" followed by something about Caliban. And of course he is the other half in his descriptions of their lovemaking. Nineteen times out of twenty the words "I did" refer to a sexual act, though that act might be no steamier than a kiss or a gentle caress, and the words "it felt" are sure to occur no more than a 42sentence or two away. He uses those words frequently in the account he gives of the outcome of their bet, written over four weekends. It contains the most graphically explicit passages in the diary and fills fifteen and a half pages. One immediately sees that these pages are the most worn of all the pages in all eight notebooks, whether because Nick opened his diary to reread them over and over after Caliban died or because they provided inspiration for the masturbatory fantasies of my friend who sent it to me, I cannot say.

Whether Nick is writing about making love or what Caliban cooked for supper or what they saw from the train window on their way to Davenport, and however clumsily he words it, we hardly find a sentence where the intensity of his love for Caliban does not illumine the page with gold, and we may infer from his never questioning whether Caliban loves him in return that Caliban's devotion was as great as his. Caliban and Nick may not be one of history's greatest love stories, but Nick's diary is surely the story of one of history's greatest loves.

As much as Caleb's declaration of love had upset Caliban, Caliban's love for Nick disturbed Caleb more. His depression was more pervasive, more consuming than his brother's. Caliban could turn to Nick for comfort; Caleb kept his pain to himself and brooded over it. Amanda saw his gloominess and could guess the cause had to do with Caliban, although she did not know the particulars of their falling out. She kept after her husband to make up with his brother, reminding him how close they had always been.

"It's eating at you," she would say. "You can't go on like this." Caleb would turn a deaf ear, grumble at her, and tell her it was none of her business. Eventually they would argue, and he would storm out of the house and go to town to get drunk.

Caleb drunk in the summer of 1923 was not same

drunken Caleb of previous decades, swaggering and boisterous, whooping it up and pulling ridiculous stunts or getting into fights. The alcohol found its way to his brain faster, and he became the melancholy, weepy, self-pitying kind of drunk that sober people ignore and other, fun-loving drunks shun. His bottle was his companion, and sometimes another down-in-the-dumps drunk or two who 42had been jilted by their girlfriends or lost heavily at cards.

Weepy drunks like to tell each other their troubles when they get together to drown them in whisky. They talk more than they listen, and when they do talk, it is generally to themselves. Caleb did not hold back from his drinking buddies that his had to do with his brother.

"That Calvin being an asshole again?" one of them asked.

"It ain't Calvin. It's Caliban"

"Since when is Caliban an asshole?" said another.

"Not just Caliban. It's him and Nick. I don't like how they're together all the time."

"Yeah. I ain't never seen two men such good friends."

"Ain't nothing they don't do together. Ya know, they even sleep together."

"I thought they got their own rooms."

"Sleep together in the raw. All the time. Winter too.

It ain't natural."

Caleb was blubbering. The men half-listening to

him thought it was because his brother was a queer.

"Jesus! Why don't you chase that Nick fella offa the ranch and knock Caliban around a little so he'll shape up?"

"Yeah, I just might do that."

But the other man was no longer listening. He had 42gone back to moping about his girlfriend.

* * * *

After Caliban left, Caleb stayed in his room for over a week. If Amanda said something to him, he replied with a grunt. She brought his meals to his room and would ask if he would like her to bring hers in, too, so they could eat together. "Nah. Go sit at the table, you'll be more comfortable," he would answer. He would pick at his food and leave most of his meal uneaten. When she came to bed at night, he would have already turned out the light and would pretend to be asleep.

It was not in Amanda's nature to turn to other

people for help. She stubbornly and stupidly believed she could deal with her own problems and handle her man. She was convinced he was punishing himself for not having said goodbye to Caliban. When she brought his supper one evening, she said, "You can't go on moping like this, Caleb."

"You're right," he said. "I'm gonna get drunk." Then he walked out, got into his car, and drove to town.

The saloon was crowded when Caleb arrived. A

half-dozen of his friends were standing at the bar drinking.

"Hey, Caleb, c'mon over and join us," they called. "We're 42celebrating having rode them queers outta town."

Caleb froze. "One o' them queers is my brother," he said loudly, enunciating every word.

"You'd think that'd give you more reason to be happy you're rid o' him."

Caleb drew his gun, and the saloon fell silent.

"Don't take it personal," the bartender said. "It ain't nothing to get all worked up over. Put that thing away and sit down at a table, and I'll pour you a drink. It's on the house."

Caleb raised the gun, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger.

* * * *

When they brought Caleb's body back to

Caladelphia, Darcie sent a man to drive to Billings, hoping he would find Logan, who was helping drive Calhoun's cattle to the railhead, on the way, but the men were keeping the herd a few miles off the road, and he could not find him. She sent a telegram to the stockyard asking them to send Logan back to the ranch as soon as he got there.

"We're gonna hafta tell Amanda without 'im," she said.

"You coming with me, Hester?"

Amanda began screaming and waving her hands wildly in front of her face when Darcie told her Caleb was dead. Darcie had to put two arms around her waist to drag her to the settee to make her sit while Hester ran to get the brandy, and still Amanda screamed and waved her hands.

Hester held the brandy glass to her lips while Darcie held her in place. Amanda took a swallow, coughed, and sipped the brandy again. "How'd it happen?" she asked, as if suddenly more bewildered than grieved.

"He shot himself," Darcie said, and then she added,

"With a gun," meaning that it had not been an accident.

"I understood that," Amanda said, still looking bewildered. "You can't shoot yourself with a bow and arrow."

Amanda was by no means a stupid woman, but

when there was something she did not want to know she could listen to what people said and not understand a word of it. She made a great display of this ability the evening before the funeral, when, sitting in her front room with Logan, Lettie, Darcie, Hester and Julia, she tried to find a reason that satisfied her why Caleb had committed suicide.

Zeke and his brothers had gone out for a smoke on the porch, and Calhoun had stayed home. He was furious that Calvin had got his hands on Caliban's quarter, and he thought he would be there, but Calvin Sr. and Jr. had driven to Forsyth to meet Brandon and Emma's train. "Some people're saying it's on account o' Caliban,"

Hester whispered.

Darcie gave her an angry look and signaled her to keep quiet.

Amanda nodded. "Caleb was real down after

Caliban went away. He wouldn't even say goodbye to him.

Do you really think he'd kill himself for that?"

"Not on account o' he went away, on account o' why he went away."

"Hester!" Darcie hissed.

"It wasn't Caleb made 'im go away. He coulda stayed."

"He couldn't 'a, Mama," Lettie said. "Don't you know why he went? Folks were saying bad things about

'em."

"About Caleb?"

"About Caliban, Amanda," Darcie said impatiently.

"Caliban and Nick."

"What're they saying about 'im?"

"You mean you really don't know?" Lettie asked.

"You know I don't like to listen to malicious gossip, Lettie. It's one reason I like living here so far outta town.

But if got something to do with—"

"It don't," Darcie said. "So it don't matter none, since it ain't why Caleb shot himself. Some people're just 42saying it was."

"You better tell 'er, Darcie," Julia said, "before somebody else tells 'er."

Darcie told her. It took a while for it to sink in. The others thought it would upset or shock her, because she had always seemed such an innocent, but she merely said, "That can't have nothing to do with my Caleb."

"Daddy was real angry about those rumors," Lettie said.

"He told you about them?"

"No, I told him, but he didn't believe me, not till Caliban come and said 'e was going."

"I remember now. That was when he first become real upset. Till then 'e was just little down. Why didn't nobody tell me this? I wouldn't 'a let him go into town."

"You couldn't 'a stopped 'im, Amanda," Darcie said soothingly, "and you couldn't 'a known."