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Butch leans against the barn door, feeling the heat brush across their cheeks. The night's cold at their back, but everyone's dancing bodies inside the barn churn up a heat better and warmer than a bonfire.
Annabelle tried to get her to dance—She always does. It makes Butch smile just to think of it, but it's a sad sort of smile. She knows she ain't got the kind of dancing feet that Annabelle does. That girl can just about fly when she's on the dance floor. Butch can barely even keep time.
Nah, Butch would just muck it up if she tried to dance with Annabelle. So even though Annabelle asked her twice already, with her big hazel eyes and her voice soft and strong as honeyed whiskey, and even though she's so pretty it makes Butch's teeth hurt, this time, they can't do what she wants. Butch has never been the dainty, dancing type—Hell, anyone can tell that just by looking at them!
No, Butch is gonna stay right here, on the edge of the light, and pretty soon some of the old boys will come over and they can chat about the rain and crops and how much alfalfa's going for. And it'll be alright. It took a while, but it'll be alright.
But there's Annabelle, dancing like she ain't tied to the ground at all. The girl can just about fly when she wants to, and Butch can't believe just how lucky they are.
"I know what you're scared of," Annabelle said the last time they went out to the bluffs to watch the stagecoaches roll by down the highway. Butch still tracks them with their eyes, picking out the weak spots, 'cause the easiest bank robbery is the one that happens before the money ever get to the bank. But, says Annabelle with her eyes shining like silver dollars. Easiest robbery don't mean best robbery.
Well, that's what she used to say, what she said before Parker had his fall, and now they pretty well manage the farm. Yessiree, Annabelle and Butch are a respectable couple of folks with their own farm and folks coming 'round for Sunday dinner, and Butch is the kind of person they never thought that they'd be. Why, they can think of all the nights they spent staring into the dark and feeling the weight of it on their chest: Knowing they'd never be good and normal and happy. Knowing they'd always be alone, and they'd never be the type of person with a home and a family. Not the way other people had them.
But that's all in the past, Butch reminds herself. Stubborn as a mule. Folks always said that about Butch when they were coming up. Said it like it was a bad thing. Said it like it was something little girls shouldn't be.
Butch knows they're stubborn, and they also know that their stubbornness has been coming in handy as of late. Butch is stubborn when she reminds herself that there ain't nothing wrong with the way she and Annabelle are, and she's stubborn when it comes to making sure all the farmwork's done the best it can be, and she's stubborn when the boys down at the hay market try to short-change her, and she's stubborn when she decides that it ain't evil for her to be happy.
And she's stubborn as Hell remembering that this life they've built means something to her, and there ain't no one in the world they'd let change that.
So, they don't rob banks anymore—Ain't time for it, what with the crops and the critters and having a spare moment to cool their heels. Nah, Annabelle and Butch are grown folk, with a farm of their own, and the county banks are safe from them. For now.
But there ain't no harm in reminiscing, so every once in a while they go out to the bluffs and Butch lays out her tatty old coat for them to sit on. And Annabelle leans against her, and she holds her. Not tight. Not like she's trying to keep her from moving, or leaving. Arms around her, soft, hoping it tells Annabelle what Butch is pretty well convinced of: That this right here is home and safe and good and sweet, and that this right here will keep Butch and Annabelle pretty well set till they're old.
So an arm crossing her stomach, and the other crossing her sternum, and Butch pulls Annabelle close and rests their cheek on the top of her head. Their hands are rough and tough and cracked and callused from the farm, but Annabelle touches them like they're soft as kid leather and fragile as blown glass. Her fingers, so gentle and kind and good, ghosting over Butch's skin. "You're worrying you ain't good enough for me. For this." She lifted a hand to gesture out at the rolling prairie, the blazing blue sky over them.
Butch always feels so small on the bluffs. They pressed a kiss to the top of Annabelle's head and stayed there for a second, breathing in the scent of the rosehip oil that she used. They felt words piling up in their mouth. Annabelle's always known them better than anyone.
Before they went to the bluffs, the night before, Annabelle cut Butch's hair. It was getting long, kinda scraggly, and even though Annabelle said she liked it and Butch didn't mind the kinda rugged, wild mountain man look it gave them, it got in the way when they were trying to round up the cattle.
That ain't the whole reason, though. Nah, there's always something else, and there was that night: A big rustling in Butch's chest, a sort of trapped-bird feeling like something's trying to get out, get out, get out, and Butch could hardly even breathe.
She was in the barn with Parker, shifting the baled hay over to the side so there'd be some room for the chickens if the rain came, and she could feel it flapping in her chest, miserable and frantic and loud. Not words yet, just a sick feeling like the floor's fallen out from under her. She's felt it before, plenty of times. When Mammy died and when she and Jer jumped that train, and then later again, when that singing man put his oily eyes on Annabelle and Butch felt it all slide away from her, feeling like she'd never get it back.
They stopped moving for a second—Might've been longer—Time seemed so slippery. Parker stopped too and glanced, side-eyed, over towards Butch.
"Go on inside," he said. "Get yourself a cool glass of lemonade. You ain't looking too good." And they wanted to, they wanted to be anywhere that would feel quiet and safe and steady.
Still, they hesitated. Parker ain't getting any younger, and though he insists it don't pain him, anyone can see he favors his right hip. "You sure, Parker?" Butch asked, trying to ignore how choked and swallowed their voice sounded. "I can work still. I ain't fragile."
But Parker waved them on. "I'll be alright," he said. "You go on in."
Butch almost insisted on staying, but there was something low and strong and kind in Parker's voice, something that made Butch understand just how much Annabelle was his daughter, and so they went.
Annabelle was sewing by the window, stitching up one of the saddles with her awl and thread. She looked up once when Butch came in, then set down her work.
"Hey, sugar," she said. And Butch couldn't find anything to say at all; she went to Annabelle and sank down to the floor and buried her face in Annabelle's skirt.
For a long time, she couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do much of anything but hold onto Annabelle and shake. Big shudders running up and down her spine, trembling her limbs. Even Butch couldn't tell if they were shaking from fear or grief, or if it was the kind of shaking that comes from putting down a heavy load.
When the worst of it passed, Butch felt Annabelle running her fingers through their hair. "We let you go a little long without a trim, huh?" she said. "You want me to cut it now?"
More than anything, Butch wanted Annabelle to stay close, touching her hair carefully like Butch was something good, something Annabelle wanted to keep around. Without lifting her head, she nodded.
And that was how Butch ended up sitting in a kitchen chair with the night dropping fast outside, with Annabelle standing up by them with the big scissors, going slow and careful like Butch was one of her mending projects. They didn't speak for a long time. Parker came in from the barn, but he didn't break the silence, just gave them both a good nod and disappeared off into his rooms.
Butch felt their body relaxing as Annabelle worked. Slowly, a feeling snuck into their body, like they were floating at the center of the swimming hole with the brightest sunlight beaming down on them. It was like Annabelle was lifting stones off their chest as she worked. Gentle and tender and soft. Butch wanted to hold her then, but she couldn't 'cause Annabelle's hands were full of hair and scissors.
Still, the thought made them smile. Still, the thought unwound something tied up tight in their chest.
"There," Annabelle said when she was done. Dark strands curled up on the ground. Butch's head felt light, like their whole body was breathing right. Annabelle put down the scissors and pulled up a chair. It was dark out, but Butch could see stars shining sharply in the sky.
Annabelle took their hand in her own and traced her thumb over Butch's knuckles. "I don't know what's scaring you," she said. Annabelle's voice is soft, and folks sometimes think this means she's weak. Butch doesn't think so. Annabelle's voice can fill up a whole room, all the mouseholes and all the cracks in Butch's heart. Annabelle's voice seeps in there, leaving a trail of light. Annabelle let her head rest on Butch's shoulder. "I ain't going nowhere," she said. "Promise." She squeezed Butch's hand, and that felt like a better promise than anyone had ever made them.
But it's different for her. Annabelle always gets what she wants. Had a daddy to dote on her all her life, and now she's still got Parker, and Butch to boot. It ain't that Butch minds. Hell. There's nothing they want more than to give Annabelle what she wants.
But Annabelle doesn't understand what it's like, to feel like the world's falling out from under your feet. She doesn't know what it's like to feel everything shifting, always just out of Butch's reach. And there's no way Butch can explain how it feels; how everything can seem ghostly, liable to fly away at any second no matter how much Butch wants it to stay. Butch can't explain that she's scared, for all her stubbornness and all her hard work, she's never going to be good and safe and loved and home.
On the bluffs, Butch didn't try to explain. She didn't need to, not when the sky was so big and blue, not when the stagecoaches were rolling on like they had nothing better to do, not when their face was buried in Annabelle's sweet hair.
"It's been a year," Butch murmured instead, without lifting their head. "A whole year since we took on the farm. Ain't this further than we ever thought we'd get?"
Annabelle hummed low in her throat. "Ain't too surprising to me," she said. She must have felt Butch lift their head, because she turned to look at them. She smiled, and Butch felt something like a shooting star in their heart at seeing the crow's feet that have started to grow around the corners of Annabelle's eyes.
Annabelle reached out and cupped Butch's face. Without having to think, Butch reached up and covered Annabelle's hand with their own. "I always knew it'd be you, lover," Annabelle said. "I always knew it'd be you and me."
Feeling tiny under a big sky, Butch let the ground grow solid under her.
And now—"Come on and dance." Annabelle's flushed and smiling as big as a full moon on an August night. "Come on. Everyone's dancing, honey. I wanna dance with you tonight."
Butch knows she ain't got silver feet like Annabelle does. She knows she ain't quick or lively or graceful, or anything else that makes a good dancer. She knows she'll mess it up, go the wrong way, probably step on Annabelle's toes and bump into people. She knows it.
But it's Annabelle who's asking, Annabelle who cuts her hair, Annabelle who always knew, Annabelle who holds her under a big sky, and Butch would go anywhere that Annabelle asked them to go. Her hand in theirs is the best thing Butch's ever had. So they take that hand and let it be gentle and strong and home as she pulls them into the dance.