The City of Lovely Brothers (34 page)

They say the lady doth protest too much. Amanda

went on talking, more to herself than to the others. "It wouldn't 'a mattered none to him, about Caliban and Nick.

He musta known already when he went to show 'em them postcards. But Lettie says he didn't. And then he wouldn't say goodbye and stayed in our room. Musta hurt him bad.

Men're touchy about that sorta thing, ain't they, Logan?"

"Yeah, Mama. Alot o' men are." "Caleb was real fond o' his brother Caliban. Used to talk about him alot. And I liked to listen, the way his eyes lit up. He liked Nick an awful lot, too. I don't understand why some people kill 'emselves when what's getting 'em down ain't about them."

"I told you already, Amanda," Darcie repeated.

"Caleb's death ain't got nothing to do with Caliban."

Amanda turned to her son. "Logan, just being in this house makes me sad. Everything in it reminds me o' Caleb.

I don't wanna stay here alone tonight."

"You didn't hafta tell me that, Mama. I was gonna stay here with you anyways."

"No, I wanna stay tonight at your place. And after we bury 'im, too, is it okay if stay with ya? We can let Brandon and Emma have this house till they go back to Dickinson."

"'Course you can, Mama."

"And when I think how happy he was just a little while back, when Brandon and Emma got married.

Remember how he danced with me? And how pretty their cake was?"

After a long silence, Amanda asked, "You all think Nick and Caliban'll make it back in time for the funeral?"

Amanda stayed on in Logan's house after he left to find work for winter at the beginning of November. She did not drive and used the old shay when she had errands in Caladelphia, so she gave him Caleb's car. She had decided she did not want to go back to her house. Some of her furniture she missed —the settee, her hutch, her dishes, the Singer sewing machine— and Logan had brought them over. Before he left, she asked him to get her washing machine and set it up for her. Now she felt at home there.

Her sons' house was smaller than Caliban and

Nick's with a medium-sized front room, two tiny bedrooms, kitchen and bath, but it was well built and less rustic. The seals around the doors and window frames were tight, and it had a roofed-over front porch, a roofed breezeway between the house and the garage, a fireplace, and indoor plumbing and a windmill to keep the cistern full. Logan and Brandon had furnished it with the bare minimum. They had window shades but no curtains, for example, and the closest things they had to wall decorations were a calendar in the kitchen and the mirror over the bathroom sink. Little by little, Amanda moved little things from the house where she had lived with Caleb to make the place feel more 43homey, like cushions, throws, framed prints, house plants and knickknacks, so her house looked at once tidied and cluttered. She made the garage a stable for her horse, and kept the shay in the breezeway.

Amanda was content living alone. She had become

so used it to as a wife with Caleb gone all day working on Calhoun's ranch, for a week during the roundups, and all night often enough when he went out drinking, that one might have said she was born to be a widow. She had her radio for company and her magazines and needlework for amusement. Darcie, who thrived on social interaction, worried about her and gave her a parakeet for Christmas.

"You can teach it to talk," she said. But Amanda didn't; she was content to hear it squawk.

* * * *

Calvin came to see her one afternoon in early

March. To check up on her, he said, and see how she was getting along; then he quickly turned the conversation to the purpose of his visit.

"I been thinking, Amanda," he said, "a how I'd like to get back to doing some real ranching. Now Caliban's old quarter that he sold me, it just ain't big enough for a decent size herd, so I was thinking maybe I could buy Caleb's 43from you." He was counting on her not knowing that Julia owned a two-mile-wide strip between the two properties.

Caleb had stayed at home brooding after he refused to buy from Caliban, and the dirt road on which Amanda drove the shay to and from Caladelphia did not cross Caliban's land, so she would not have seen the fences Calhoun had put up.

He felt confident that if he got Caleb's land from Amanda, Julia would sell him the strip. "You ain't thinking o' buying a hundred head or so and hiring men to work 'em, are you?"

he asked.

Amanda smiled at the image of herself owning a

ranch and running it. "I don't know, Calvin. Caleb woulda wanted it for our boys."

"Brandon don't need a little piece o' grazing land way off in Montana when he got a whole sheep farm back in North Dakota, and Logan ain't showing no interest in setting up for himself. If you listen to me, the way he goes off to some city every winter, one o' these days he's gonna find a job he likes more'n ranching, and find himself a girl, too, and he's gonna settle there and won't be coming back to Caladelphia no more except on visits. Now my son, he'll be staying right here."

Amanda reflected that Calvin Jr. had less interest in ranching than Logan, and that two winters didn't make every winter, but that Calvin was probably right. "All the 43same, it ain't mine to sell," she said quietly.

"How's it not yours? You're Caleb's widow, so what was his goes to you. He make some kinda will?"

"Caleb wasn't thinking o' dying so soon."

Calvin hadn't been either, until Caleb shot himself and he realized that at sixty-two he wasn't getting any younger. Now he had one. "Then it's yours to sell," he said.

"If you ain't gonna ranch it, selling's the only way you're gonna make any money off of it."

"I could lease it out to somebody that wanted to graze 'is cattle on it."

Calvin looked hurt. "That ain't very family minded o' you, Amanda."

"I didn't mean rent it to you."

"Then how'd you find somebody to lease it to? You gonna advertise?"

"If you wanna graze cattle on my land, Calvin, you go right ahead. You're more'n welcome to."

"So I get rich offa your land and you get nothing.

That don't seem none too smart. It's why I come asking to buy it."

"I don't like selling it without asking Logan what he thinks."

"But I gotta know soon, so's I can think about how big a herd to get me, and Logan don't get back till after 43April." Calvin's only interest was owning as much of his father's ranch as he could get his hands on. Had he been serious about investing in cattle and honest about the size herd he could afford after he bought Caleb's quarter, he would have said how small a herd. "I was gonna offer you ten dollars an acre," he continued, "because you're family."

Amanda smiled. "Since you're
my
family, I oughtta take less for it, don't you think? But I can't sell you more'n half. This part where Brandon and Logan's house is belongs to them. Caleb made it theirs when Lettie got married."

Calvin was aware of that, but he felt certain the boys would honor any sale their mother made. On the other hand, if he tried pressing her further, Amanda might refuse altogether and wait until Logan returned, and Logan, who sided with Calhoun in the dispute Amanda was oblivious to, would oppose her selling any of it. He adopted a conciliatory tone, hoping to close the deal.

"You understand that if you want to go back to living in your old house after you sell, it's fine with me. I only want the land for grazing. 'Course you wouldn't mind if I built me a barn on it, would you?"

"You build whatever you need, Calvin. And no, I ain't going back."

* * * *

When Logan discovered that his mother had sold

Calvin her half of Caleb's land for five dollars an acre, he hit the ceiling, and told her Calvin had robbed her blind.

"Calvin wouldn't do that to me," she said.

"Ha! If you don't believe me, go ask Darcie what it's worth. I bet Calvin didn't dare tell 'er what he paid for it.

How much you get for it, exactly?"

Amanda told him. He grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled some numbers on it.

"Calvin ain't even paid you for all the acres. The plot was bigger'n that. Like I told you, Mama, you can't trust a snake even if he's related to you."

Calvin had not even told Darcie he had bought

Amanda's land, much less what he paid for it. Amanda had told her she sold it, and she approved of it. She thought that after one more winter alone Amanda would come to her senses and move where she would have people living near her. She did not think it would make Calhoun angry. He had no use for half of Caleb's quarter if Calvin owned all of Caliban's. She also understood Calvin was counting on getting his hands on Julia's strip, but was quite sure Calhoun would not allow her to sell it to him. What she did not ask Amanda was how much she had sold her land for.

Logan told her that, and she was appalled. "How could you cheat a person like that?" she screamed at Calvin. "And her your own brother's widow, too! Don't you got a conscience? You're a selfish, grasping, ruthless man, Calvin Caldwell, and I hope you lose all of it and end up a beggar in the street!"

"If I do, you'll be begging with me," he sneered.

"It'd serve me right for marrying a man like you."

Logan told Calhoun, too, who had not known

Calvin had wangled himself another eighth of their father's property. He got in his truck and drove clear around the ranch to Calvin's house with murder in his eyes. Darcie saw it and turned pale. She ran to him and held herself against him before her husband had a chance to get up from the table.

"Please, Calhoun," she begged, "don't punch 'im, whatever you do. Don't let's have a fist fight."

"Since when do you punch an animal? Drag 'im to the woodshed is more like it."

"That's what all this is really about, ain't it?" Calvin sneered. "You still hold it against me 'cause I whupped your ass when you was a kid. Broke up the whole family for it."

"Who're you to talk about family? I wouldn't 'a gone to live on the Johnson place if we were a family. If we were a family, I wouldn't 'a built a fence between us. If you 43considered me your brother, you wouldn't 'a looked on me like I worked for you. You call yourself part of a family?

Nick told me what you said to Caliban when he sold you his quarter. And now you go and take advantage of Amanda like she was dirt. Is that how you honor your dead brother's memory, by gobbling up her property? And to do what with it? To own it, 'cause you like owning things, and maybe so you'll have a little more to leave to your brat."

"Caleb's dead. We can't bring 'im back. The land oughtta belong to the Caldwell blood."

"Ain't Caleb's sons our flesh and blood too? And if they didn't want it, you shoulda bought it offa them, but you didn't, 'cause you knew they'd 'a made you pay a fair price for it."

"Like you woulda paid, but you didn't have the sense to ask to buy it."

"I had the sense to take the deeds to my property when I lit outta here, or you'd 'a stole it too by now."

"What good's your deeds to me, Calhoun? They're in your name. It wouldn't be legal to say they're mine."

"Not being legal wouldn't 'a stopped you. You're rid o' two brothers, but the brother you thought you'd got ridda already ain't going nowhere. He got a ranch right next to your fancy-pants village, and he's gonna keep an eye on you. Don't think you're gonna get away with no more. Good evening to you, Darcie."

After Calhoun left the house, he went to the

cemetery and stood a few moments by Caleb's grave. It was the last time he set foot in Calvin's quarter. He had the men who worked for him build a stable and corral for his horses, a hay shed, and a medium-size barn for the part of the herd he had not sold. He had them work at breakneck speed and paid them extra for it. He asked Clay and Jared to share Jake's old bedroom, the smallest, and used the other three to house the workers. The men's wages and the building costs used up a fair amount of what he had earned selling the herd, and he took out a bank loan to tide his family over the winter and to replenish the herd in spring. Then, when they had finished the buildings, he had his men drive the herd and his horses onto his land, and took his share of the hay, which was close to all of it, from the shed at Calvin's.

In everything Calhoun did, every gesture he made, even the slightest movement of his head, people could sense his anger. Everyone knew Calvin was on his mind, but he was tight lipped about it and never mentioned his name. His stubborn silence about his brother depressed Julia. "I ain't never gonna see Darcie again, am I?" she said mournfully.

"You go see 'er as often as you want. I ain't got nothing against Darcie. Never have, never will. And next 44time you go, ask her to look if I forgot any papers that belong to me in their safe and have her give 'em to you, since I ain't never gonna go there again, and we might need

'em in case that bastard tries something or something else happens."

After the thaw, Calhoun built a small bunkhouse for the men who had lived with him over the winter. Then he replenished the herd, and spent the better part of the summer building two more large barns for them. He branded the calves with the Johnsons' old iron. "To hell with Caladelphia," he said.

Calvin went to see Calhoun the following winter a week or two after Christmas. He said he had a business proposition to make him. Calhoun heard him out, said he wasn't interested, and told him to leave. Except for that, the two brothers never spoke another word to each other for the rest of their lives.

Caliban and Nick had reserved a private

compartment in the sleeping car on the Union Pacific to Davenport. It was the first time either of them had ridden a train. Nick was excited and kept his face glued to the window. They were crossing the prairie, and the land was flat and uninteresting, but that didn't matter to him. When something caught his attention, even if it was just a few cows munching on grass or a lone buffalo, he would point it out to Caliban, who would glance up, mumble something incoherent, and fall back to moping. Caleb's suicide depressed him too much to take an interest in anything.