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The wind whipped past the barn, miniature whirlwinds of powdered snow carrying up on the breeze. Inside, only a lantern and a few candles offered any real warmth or light. Wrapped in a blanket stolen from her own home, nestled back in an empty stall among the hay bales, Mary shivered and waited, cursing the weather and Arthur and, above all, herself.
She had half a mind to go inside, to leave him to wait in the barn for morning as he’d done once before, but no. She wasn’t that spiteful, and she didn’t want to risk Jamie stumbling upon him and causing enough of a ruckus to make her father notice. She chewed one nail down to the quick and waited. She was very good at waiting.
At half past twelve, a heavy hand knocked on the door. She crawled up out of her seat and tiptoed to the door, peering first out the window and then opening the door. Arthur stood, sheepish as he always was, halfway up to his knees in snow, holding Boadicea by the lead.
“Hi there, Gillis,” he said, and any ideas Mary had about punishing him for making her wait so long melted away, icicles in the spring sunshine. She tugged him in through the doorway, taking Boadicea’s reins from him and giving her an affectionate pat.
“Arthur,” she said, smiling as she guided the horse into another unused stall. “What took you so long?”
Arthur grumbled, making a vague motion with one hand that explained nothing. “You know how it is,” he said, and then found himself a barrel to sit on. Mary came towards him to stand between his legs, beginning her usual ritual. She took off his hat and ran her hands through his hair (getting long now — unwashed and sweaty and sticking at odd angles due to the snow), then ran her fingers down his jaw (stubbled, and she stopped briefly on the scar on his chin, tracing it with one thumbnail), then settled them on his shoulders, sufficiently satisfied that he was in one piece.
“Thought we said sundown.”
“You said sundown. I said I’d do my level best.” His hands came up to rest on the small of her back, arms looping around her to tug her closer. When he looked up at her, Mary felt a pang of joy strike her heart, blowing clean through her like a bullet. Her hand came back up to the sides of his face, thumbs working small, gentle circles in the stubble there.
“At least you’re here.”
“‘Course I’m here. You wrote, so I’m here.” He said it without shame, the same kind of happy, unquestioning loyalty a faithful dog has, the kind without question, without even the notion of questioning. Mary brushed hair behind his ear and he tilted his head, catching her wrist with his lips. Outlaw though he was, his kisses were always startlingly chaste, tentative, shy. Between the two of them, Mary felt more like the overeager schoolboy finally able to kiss the girl he’d pined after, the way she often threw her arms around him and kissed him in ways that were far, far cries from chaste.
“Charmer,” she said, and he looked at her, mischievous.
“Always for you,” he said, and stood, holding her wrists in his hands with a suddenness that brought Mary’s breath to a quickening pace, heart rabbiting in her chest for half a moment. That sweetness he had with her, those innocent, closed-mouth kisses, that shyness that he had far, far, far outgrown by this point, she liked it well enough — but it was always the thrill of danger, the tiny flashes of the knife edge, that made her blush. She smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing, head buried in the space between his chin and chest.
“I missed you,” she breathed. In the moments between her words and Arthur’s response, she listened to the sound of the fabric of his coat shifting, the gentle drip of melting snow from the hem of his pants, the soft, barely audible half-wheeze of breath from his lungs. Reminders that he was alive, that he was here, that he hadn’t been gunned down or stabbed or hanged. One large, soft hand came to rest on the back of her hair, dirty, short fingernails scratching gently at her scalp. A kiss was pressed to the top of her head, and she closed her eyes and smiled wider. Her Arthur, all hers. Her little slice of adventure in a life otherwise painfully starved of it.
“Missed you too,” he said. “Always do.” His hand came from around her head, tilted her chin up. His mouth was a line now, a firmly set one. Her heart, so light with joy moments prior, sank. Her eyebrows knitted together, and his face showed nothing but resignation.
“You’ve got bad news,” she said, voice soft not anymore with affection, but with sadness. He was wearing the same face he had when he’d showed up on her doorstep after being gone a whole year, told her he was a father now, that he was sorry, that he didn’t mean for it to go that far. She’d forgiven him, and the only witness to her tears had been her pillow that night, betrayed and alone but unwilling to let him simmer in that guilt. It was just another thing for her to put in her pocket, to carry on her back. Mary was good at that by now.
The bad news was bad news alright. Arthur tilted his head back and forth like he was trying to think of how to say it, or how to get out of it, or how to change things so they weren’t like this at all. He couldn’t figure it out, so it just had to come out. “Dutch’s moving us again,” he said, and it dropped between the two of them like a stone. A stone that Mary knew that try as she might, was too big to slip in her pocket, too big to carry on her back. She swallowed.
“How far?” she murmured. Arthur sniffed, looked down, shrugged meekly. “How far, Arthur?” she asked again, knowing that his silence didn’t mean he didn’t have an answer.
“Wants to try for the New Mexico territory,” he said, and Mary shook her head the second the words passed his lips. “I know,” he said, “I know.”
“Tell him you can’t, Arthur,” she said, and some small, proud part of her, the tiny part that stood unbent and unbroken by her disgraceful, servile life, sneered at her. Pleading.
Arthur shook his head now, looking up at the ceiling of the barn like he couldn’t bear to look at her. “I can’t,” he said. “You know I can’t.”
“What…” Mary tried, and then failed to finish the sentence. “What about us? We’re supposed to get married,” she said.
“We will,” came Arthur’s reply, a bit too hasty. His hands moved again, cupping her face, insistent. “We will. We will. We’ll—we’ll just have to wait, or…”
Mary didn’t have to say ‘or what’. She knew what he’d suggest. In one of his less intelligent moments, he’d already proposed it. “Come with me,” he’d said as they’d laid under an itchy blanket, hay sticking to it and to their sweaty skin, bare beneath the covering. She’d laughed. “I mean it,” he’d said. “Come with me.”
But Mary couldn’t then and she couldn’t now, and she knew that. And he knew that. She shook her head.
“I told you, Arthur, I can’t. It’s not like that for me. I’ve got my brother, I’ve got Daddy—“
“To hell with your Daddy.” Mary’s gaze turned up to glare at him, and he raised his hands in defense. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. And Jamie, he’s practically a man. He’s got to learn to take care of himself.”
“It’s easy for you to say that,” she said, and then regretted it instantly. She ran a hand along her forehead, then sighed. “No. No. Arthur, you have to tell him you can’t.”
“I can’t.”
Wasn’t that just like him. Mary stared at him, hopeless. She knew as well as he did that he only half-meant it. What was true was that Dutch would never let him go. What was also true was that Arthur would never try to leave. She ducked her head, nodded, then raised it. Hot tears pricked at her eyes, and Arthur groaned.
“Mary, don’t—“
“Then we can’t,” she said, interrupting him. He stared at her for a moment. “Get married,” she clarified. “We can’t. I can’t live like that, and you—“ She took a deep breath. “Well, Arthur, it seems to me you’re already committed to something.”
Arthur stared at her. Only rarely had Mary ever put her foot down like this — usually he encouraged it. This time, though, she couldn’t help but feel she was putting her foot down right on his heart, then grinding the heel in.
As if it didn’t feel like death to her, too.
“That’s unfair, Mary,” he managed after a moment.
Unfair.
Mary had had enough unfairness piled on her shoulders in her life to crack her shoulderblades. She wanted to grab Arthur and scream, scream a lifetime of unfairness at him. But she couldn’t, and she wouldn’t. She brushed a piece of hair behind her ear and swallowed her anger like a hot stone, let it burn in her esophagus, char her stomach, and then settle into nothing. She nodded.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe.” A pause. “But it’s true.”
And it was. And he seemed to know that. They stood in silence for a few more moments, Mary’s eyes downcast and Arthur staring helplessly at her.
“I’m sorry,” she added, tone so soft it could barely be heard.
“You shouldn’t be,” he said after a long moment. “No. You shouldn’t be.”
Damn him and his self-pity. Mary wanted to strangle him.
She barely heard the rest of the conversation. Too busy replaying in her mind the day he’d given her the ring. The money he must have saved up for it. His joke, to hide how shy it was. “I’d say let me make you an honest woman,” he’d said, “but let’s be truthful. You’d be making me an honest man.”
She’d laughed. She’d accepted it, of course. Kept the ring in her drawer. She couldn’t wear it, not with Daddy around, but she’d waited for the day she could. When Arthur would come and say “Come along, girl,” and they’d go off and she’d be free.
What a silly, silly dream.
“I’ll write,” she said as Arthur left through the barn doors. “I will.”
“I know,” he said. He gave her one look, then leaned forward as if he was about to kiss her, but then thought better of it. “I know,” he repeated, and then left through the barn doors. The cold wind creeped in to replace him, seeping into Mary’s bones.
She watched him leave, helpless as she was every time he left.
Once, just once, Mary had almost had a horse. It was a stallion, wild, on a hill near her father’s farm. She’d walked up to it, and it hadn’t spooked — maybe it hadn’t heard her, maybe it just didn’t think she was worth it.
She’d reached one hand out to it, almost close enough to lay trembling fingertips on a powerful, tawny flank, almost close enough to feel those muscles, the short, stiff hairs.
She’d drawn her hand back, too scared to do it. She only watched as it lifted its graceful neck, shook its head as if chiding her for missing her only chance for adventure, and then moved away, down the hill, joining a herd that moved on. She’d only watched.