The Widow Garrett's Wedding Night

by >>Jae

There's a soft sound in Jane's ears when she wakes, a low wet pull and drag, repeating over and over again like a river just stirred by the wind. It's been going on a while, Jane can tell by the way she wakes up easy and slow, like she's floating up to the top of that river. She usually wakes up hard and fast, eyes wide open and fingers already reaching for whatever's closest to hand. She usually wakes up ready for anything.

"Sleeping indoors is making me fucking soft," she says.

"Sorry," Joanie says, and Jane jumps a little, surprised as much by the sudden stop of the sound as by Joanie's voice. "I didn't think you'd - I guess I thought you'd sleep through."

"I know what you thought," Jane says. "You thought I'd been indulging in strong liquor and had returned here so sodden that you could invite the whole town in, dance the can-can over me and I wouldn't hardly roll over."

"No one's dancing the can-can in here, Jane," Joanie says crisply. Jane fumbles with the candle she'd left on the floor next to her, and Joanie sits back on her heels and shades her eyes. The candlelight is white and soft around her, like she's covered with a fine layer of frost. "That's enough light."

"What're you doing, anyway?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Joanie pushes her hair from her forehead and picks up her scrub brush again. Soapy water slops out of the bucket.

"Looks like you're sitting there in the middle of the night fussing with a stain you spend most of your daylight hours trying to pretend isn't there," Jane says. "Of course, I'm just the town drunk. You can't always go by what things look like to me."

"No, I'd pretty much say you've got the rights of things," Joanie says without looking up from her work. "Anyway, I'm sorry to wake you."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Jane says, although she can still remember the dream she's just left behind. She was sitting on a riverbank with her boots off, cooling her feet while Bill stood over her, tossing rocks into the water just to see it ripple out in circle after circle. Charlie was somewhere in the background fooling with something that most likely didn't need fooling with, his low steady grumble just lapping at the corners of her mind as Bill smiled down at her. Jane stands up.

"Might as well earn my keep, seeing's how I'm already up," she says, and grabs the first rag that comes to hand. It's the pair of drawers Joanie stuffed her into earlier, and Jane's not sorry to see them put to some actual useful use for once. She dips them into Joanie's bucket, cursing the chill of the water, and starts scrubbing vigorously.

"Jane," Joanie says. Her hand is rough and cold as it pulls Jane's away from the stain. "Don't. It doesn't need doing, I know, it's faded as light as it's likely to get for now."

"Some things take time to fade away complete," Jane says. Joanie's hand is still on her arm.

"I was just - restless, I guess. Couldn't sleep, so I thought …" Joanie laughs suddenly. It's the one thing about her that's harsh, swooping through the room like a hawk that hasn't yet sighted its prey. "Guess I thought someone ought to be awake past midnight on the Widow Garrett's wedding night."

Jane laughs too, glad to see that Joanie's put down the scrub brush. "What, you don't think they'll be roaring and carousing till all hours across the way? I'd wager it's a regular all-night frolic over there, what with one child asleep right next to the happy couple and another about to swell right through the widow's stays. He's a lucky man, that Ellsworth."

"The widow too," Joanie says. "Although I guess we shouldn't call her the widow anymore. It's funny, isn't it?"

"It's a fucking minstrel show, tying yourself to a man you hardly know while you're carrying another man's child."

"I didn't mean that," Joanie says. "It's just - every time I've heard her spoken of, she's always been the Widow Garrett. She's been defined for so long by someone else's death. And now, one night, one man and all that falls away from her, like it never even happened. She's Mrs. Ellsworth now, not the Widow. She's someone completely new. Reborn."

"Yeah, well, life is funny," Jane says. Joanie's the philosophical type sometimes, and that type has always made Jane uncomfortable. Bill got that way too, musing over the meaning of words and other things that reasonable folk didn't worry about, and it never led anywhere good that Jane could remember. Bill would always end up dragging them into some noble doomed venture, or else dragging himself into his room for days and nights of gloom he could never rightly explain. Jane has moods herself, but she can always explain them. She doesn't always choose to, but that doesn't mean she can't.

"Go back to sleep, Jane," Joanie says. "I didn't mean to trouble you." She reaches up to push a lock of hair away from her forehead. It's hanging down on the right side, the same side Jane's on, the same side as Joanie's hand that's still holding Jane's arm, but Joanie doesn't let go. She uses her left hand, still wet and soapy, and manages to do a worse job than if she hadn't tried at all. Jane can't bear to stand by and see a thing poorly done. She tucks Joanie's hair behind her ear and smoothes it into place. Joanie smiles at her.

"Thank you," Joanie says, and kisses her. On the mouth, Joanie kisses her.

The first taste of Joanie is sweet and loud, almost, a little fake, the trace of some paint Joanie must not have washed off. Beneath that is a bitterness and a bite, distant taste of cold bourbon and something even harder. Jane recognizes it and she's glad of it, both the fake sweet and the sharp. She's never been one for the soft sugar girls, the kind who'd faint before they ever dreamed of letting paint or bourbon touch their lips. It's lucky, too, because those kind'd probably also faint before they let Jane touch them.

Joanie is just what she likes, Jane likes them just like Joanie. She's never been this near to anyone just like Joanie, but Joanie is just what she likes. She could fall into Joanie so easily, but she feels Joanie's breath hitch a little where it slides into hers and she falls back instead. She doesn't pull away, just eases back a little so Joanie can pull away if she likes. Joanie falls back a little herself, touches the back of her left hand to her mouth but keeps her right hand on Joanie's arm. Jane can feel her clinging there.

"Why, Jane," Joanie says, laughing a little. Her laugh sounds lighter than it did before, though it feels heavier somehow to Jane. "You are a surprise."

"Maybe not like you think," Jane says, and maybe it's not. It's maybe not like anyone thinks. She's kept herself as far from men as she could, that's for certain sure, ever since she had a choice in the matter. There was Bill, but Bill was never like that. Bill was never like that, and Jane knows deep down that she was never like that either. That sharp piece of Bill's saw that too, that pretty little wife of his they all think Jane hates because she got what Jane always wanted. Bill's sharp pretty wife knew better, and Jane has hated her ever since she heard the woman say to one of her sharp pretty friends, "It's not just that Bill would never look at her. Why, if Bill should ever happen to, you know she'd run so fast the other way." Bill never did look at her, not like that, but there's still a part of Jane that's been running the other way for as long as she can remember. She ran and she wanted to keep running.

The thing is, you can't run fast and far without ever falling down, and every once in a long while Jane's found herself falling. Never anything like Joanie, there's never been anything in this world like Joanie, never anything so pretty or so smart. But every once in a while, Jane's found herself a soft place to fall.

"How do I think?" Joanie says, her words so soft in the dark room, her eyes and her hand never leaving Jane.

"I always … I've stayed as far away as I could from all of that, not just men and women together but the other too. I stay away from all that, as a usual thing."

Joanie leans a little closer, her whisper so low and sure it's almost not a question anymore. Almost. "Am I a usual thing?"

"No," Jane says. "Oh, no. That is one thing you will never be."

One thing about keeping desire so distant is that when it finally storms in it's all the stronger, maybe just because of the simple shock of feeling it rise again. Jane doesn't want to fall into Joanie anymore. She wants to leap, to race, to grab Joanie's hands and fly with her into something Jane's never found with any of the hard men or the soft women she's known, something she's never even glimpsed but that she knows, suddenly, certainly, is waiting for them. She can see it in Joanie's eyes.

Maybe it's in her own eyes, too, because Joanie sways toward her. It's all Jane can do not to clutch at her greedily, desperately, but she swore a long time ago that she would never do that to another person and she never has. Instead she leans in and kisses Joanie. Her mouth is gentle on Joanie's mouth, her hand gentle on Joanie's cheek, but no matter what you do some kisses can't be anything but fierce. Jane never knew that till just this minute.

Joanie's breath hitches again but Jane doesn't fall back when she feels it. She waits for Joanie to pull away, and she does, but not as fast or as far as she could. She pulls back and looks at Jane, and her look is a question.

"Your call, Joanie," Jane says. "Always."

"My call?" Joanie says slowly. She stands up just as slowly and Jane looks up at her. Even crumpled and waterlogged Joanie's robe is a thing of beauty, at least the way it ripples down from her shoulders and pools around her feet. Joanie's body is a thing of beauty too, her skin pale like a secret, pale but crossed with scars on her stomach, marred with an angry purple bruise on the side of her thigh. She is a thing of beauty, beauty the only way Jane has ever been able to understand it. Her whole life Jane has never seen anything worth seeing that hasn't passed through pain.

"Can't you hear my call, Jane?" Joanie says, and her voice is slow and beautiful and as cold as anything Jane's ever heard. Jane doesn't move, though, doesn't do anything but keep watch. She's seen the look Joanie's giving her in plenty of men's eyes before, and she knows to keep her mouth shut and her hands in plain view. Joanie walks away from her and then back, her body hard and straight, shoulders thrown back and breasts pushed out. "A siren song, some have said it is. That's from a myth, siren song. I don't know if you know that. I don't think you've had the benefit of the education I've had."

Jane keeps watching. She's heard the tone of Joanie's voice in plenty of mouths before, though never from men and never directed at her. Usually the only thing that tone rouses in her is a dead dull pity, but tonight is different. Tonight it makes her angry.

"Course, I'm sure you know plenty already, even without a classical education," Joanie says. "I'm sure there's plenty you can teach me, Jane. Don't you want to teach me?" She crouches down next to Jane, her breast brushing the side of Jane's arm. She's so close Jane can see where her skin is stippled finely with gooseflesh from the chill. "Don't you want to touch me?" Jane doesn't move except to flinch away from where Joanie's touching her.

"Don't be scared of little old me," Joanie says, and Jane pushes herself back violently.

"I'm not a fucking man," Jane spits, even though she knows it will make Joanie laugh. It does, but Jane stands up and keeps looking at Joanie as hard as she can and that laugh shatters like ice on her lips and falls around them. "You don't have to trick like that for me. I've killed my share of men and I've hurt more, and women too, when I had the need, but I ain't yet made anyone pretend they liked it while I was doing it. If I want to kill a man I shoot him, straight out and honest. I leave his mind the fuck alone." Joanie is looking down, huddled on the floor below her but Jane doesn't stop. "I'm no man to take whatever the fuck I want no matter what anyone has to say about it. What I want - what I want can't be had just by taking."

Jane slams out of the room and onto the front porch. It's late, so late it's early, almost sunup, and still with that predawn calm that prickles your skin no matter how hot it is. The town is as quiet as it ever gets, which isn't all that quiet but quiet enough. Most of the drunks are sleeping it off in alleys and corners, but she could still find a drink if she wanted one. One thing Deadwood's always been good for is finding a drink whenever you want one. Jane's always been good for that, too. She doesn't go looking, though. She sits on the top step and keeps watch over the fading night.

After a time, not long but long enough when you've been doing nothing but keeping watch over the dead dark and dead drunk of Deadwood, the door opens behind Jane. She hears footsteps drag over the sand on the porch and then Joanie sits next to her. Jane doesn't look but from the corner of her eye she can see that Joanie's got her robe on again, held shut tight at her neck.

"Sorry," Joanie says, and puts one hand on Jane's arm, very lightly. Her skin is chillier than the cool dead air around them. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just act that way sometimes, when I get scared. I learned it long ago, and some things are harder to leave behind than you'd think."

"I don't know what I did to make you think I wanted you to …" Jane sniffs and swipes the back of her hand against her nose in pure fury that her voice can still break like that. "I don't know what I did to scare you."

"Not you I'm scared of," and Jane looks at her full on for the first time. Joanie looks back.

"What then?"

"Scared of me," Joanie says. "That I can still … that I want …" She pauses, but she's tougher than Jane. Nothing about her breaks as she sits there in the dark night, cold and white like some statue that Jane wouldn't know the name of. "This house is here because of me, because of what I wanted, and those girls, I brought them out here because I wanted, and Maddie, and now they're dead, dead and they weren't innocent, I know, but no less innocent than me and I'm alive and they're dead, dead because of me and what I wanted, they're dead and I can stand in that house, stand over their blood soaked into my floor and still, still dare to want. Who wouldn't be scared of that, of me?"

"That woman Maddie was your friend," Jane says. "I don't think she'd mind. And the others - well, where they are they're past fearing and past minding."

"Maybe they're past it," Joanie says, "but I'm not. I thought if I stayed in that house, if I stayed there where it reminded me then maybe I could remember all that comes from wanting. Wanting's not for women like me. That's been taught to me hard, more times than I can count. They say I'm quick; you'd think I'd learn."

"Maybe it's not the right lesson," Jane says.

"And what is? Should I stand in that house over their blood and act like it never happened? Act like I've forgotten it until I do forget? Should I stand in that house over their blood and one night, oh, maybe not tonight, maybe it'll take time, but there'll be one night, one night and one - one woman, and then I won't be the woman who wanted what I wanted anymore? I'll be reborn, completely new, and they'll be forgotten, like they were never there."

"Some things don't fade that complete," Jane says. "Most things don't. And I'll tell you, no matter what some preacher says, there's no night and no man, no one who can make any one of us reborn. You think that woman, Mrs. Ellsworth we're meant to call her now, but you think a new name'll make her stop being the Widow Garrett and the sheriff's woman and whatever else she was before she was even the widow? Ain't none of us reborn in this life, Joanie, and no matter who else you become before you leave it, you'll never stop being the woman who wanted what you wanted, who loved what you loved. You'll never stop wanting, as long as you're living, no matter who else is dead and gone. No matter how fucking hard you try," Jane says. "Believe me. I've tried pretty fucking hard."

"And that doesn't scare you?" Joanie says, and she's tougher than Jane but her voice is frozen and fragile like a shard of ice, so close to snapping that Jane can hardly bear it.

"Scares the fuck out of me," Jane says. "But what else can you do? As long as you're living, the wanting seeps in."

"Seems like I've been afraid for so long, I can't hardly remember what it was like not to be. Can't hardly remember if I ever wasn't. I'm afraid, and I want, and that's a poor look on me, Jane, you saw that inside." Joanie puts her head on Jane's shoulder, so lightly, like she's afraid Jane will shake her off.

"Maybe you can learn another way," Jane says, and it's almost a question but not quite.

"I'd like to," Joanie says. "They always said I was quick. And - if I could, would you still -"

"No one ever called me quick," Jane says. "Slow as a mule, and stubborn like one too. What I want I stick to."

Joanie laughs, cool and light. With her head thrown back she doesn't look like a statue anymore. She doesn't look like anything of stone but like some living thing, some strange sharp plant that doesn't thrive on sunlight and open fields but on clouded skies and rough wild corners. "Persistent, Jane, not stubborn. That's what the fancy folk call it."

"Well, you'll have to excuse me. I don't have the benefits of a classical fucking education." Jane stands up and Joanie stands up with her, pulling her robe around her with one hand and tucking her other hand lightly, so lightly, into Jane's arm.

"Will we go in?" Joanie says.

"Let's stay out here a while," Jane says. She covers Joanie's hand with her own, just for a minute, so Joanie knows she doesn't have to touch Jane lightly, so she knows Jane's not falling back. "I figure someone ought to see the sun rise on the Widow Garrett's wedding night."

And as you stumble out of the bar into tequila dawn
and the cacti are tipped with fine sharp frost
and the sand is cold under the dark of your shoes

Written for the [Free Verse Challenge]