Land Grant.
He walks in circles to keep from losing his mind. When she screams it echoes out across the hills and coulees, all the hidden things can hear her. At twilight coyotes will answer her. At those times he wants to scream himself, to tell them they have nothing to do with her. That they never will. At night he lights two fires, one on either side of her, and sits beside her, holding her hand. Letting go only to keep the fires burning.
At first, she clung to him, digging her nails into his flesh, and squeezing his hands so hard he thought she might break one, and where would they be then? But after two long days and even longer nights, her strength began to wane. She was using it to fight for herself. She would turn her face away and he knew he must give her time alone. He wiped her face and neck with fresh water, got her to take a few sips, she looked up at him with glazed eyes, tears in runnels down her face. How could he leave her side? Even for a moment?
“Please,” she whispered, panting like a tortured thing.
So, he got up and walked in circles around her, through the grass and blowing dirt, chased by the wind, that blew endlessly here and never gave him a moments peace. When his circles brought him far enough away, she thought he could not hear her sob, and moan like an animal caught in a trap. He forced himself to walk on, his circle now taking him around the well, 13 feet and still no water. He had to stop digging and build a longer ladder, its pieces lay waiting to be put together.
They had lain that way for two days now, shovel, hammer, all of his useless tools still lying where he had left them. The pile of lumber for the house, white gold, gleaming under the sun of this treeless land. The faint ruts in the dust leading from it going straight out into the horizon, into infinity. The driver and his man were the last people they saw, before the immenseness of this land swallowed them up, and there was only the line to show that they had been.
He stops, the screams are weaker, coming farther apart, for a while now. The sun has moved, it’s time to put her shade screen up. He goes to the wagon to get it, listening to the silence that surrounds them. She takes short, shallow breaths, he holds his. Never has he felt like less of a man. What kind of man? The worst, most useless kind. What good is it to build a house and dig a well and do the best job because you know what you are doing, and you have tools you can use. What good is it now?
Unfolding the cloth and tying it to the stakes with perfect knots. Ah, there’s more blood, it’s time to change the sheet. It’s time to wash her face, it’s time to take her in my arms and keep her with me by any means. Sell my soul to the devil, I’m ready for him. I curse the baby; I curse it for not coming, I do everything it takes not to scream. My lips bleed, my head shrieks, my soul beats out its frustration against my ribcage.
“Drink, please my love, just a sip, please drink for me.”
She holds her breath for a moment, looking at his hands, bruised black and torn. She raises her eyes to him, ravaged and swollen, almost blind, she is still in them. She tries to smile, “I will for you”. He moves behind her, she’s soaked and trembling as she tries to raise herself, she whispers, “wait,” then suddenly he feels the powerful contractions wringing her body like a rag. He feels her fighting, her will to endure this moment and survive.
He understands the power he’s facing, the utter ruthlessness of nature and how it will do what it wants with his wife and his child who refuses to be born. She sags back into his arms, limp and starting to become someone else. Someone who is beginning to think of compromise. He clutches her as hard as he dares, trying to give her his own will, his strength, his rage. She looks up begging, wasting her precious energy on pleading, no. No, the answer will always be no.
He gently eases her to the ground, then leaps to the wagon, the oil lamp, the lamp has grease in it, he unscrews it quickly and carelessly, throwing the top away and running back to her. He spills some on his hands, pulls her dress up and feels for the baby, where is the baby? Yes, here is a head, unmistakable, here on the side, where are the feet? Yes, yes. They’re there on the other side. He closes his eyes. Knowing nothing about it, knowing everything. Now he must scream. He must. He closes his eyes again, shaking, with nothing to fight. No battle to fight, no chance for him to show nature what he’s worth.
Play fair. Come out and fight with me. With ME. Ah, no screaming, get your breath under control. Tears wiped and forbidden.
He covers her carefully, rubbing her arms and her legs to ease them. When the pain comes, she cringes and whimpers, he holds her face between his hands and she focuses on him, in her eyes the green has gone grey. It’s time to feed the fires, the sun is finished for the day and soon the night will rule. In the vast land around them things will hide, move, run, pounce, and fall. Things die all the time here, the land as primal and real as it was a thousand years ago. He knows this now. The coyotes are calling, just to remind him of their presence. To make sure he understands that they will come.
Never has he hated a land more, hated the very naked earth, with its slicing cruelty. The lush rolling hills around them, the endless ravines filled with wildlife, the pure and simple beauty of lines as time carved them, these he knows to be false. The loveliness a lie.
It will be dark soon. He leaves her to build the fires tall, spending wood like he has it to spare. Then he finds the other lantern and by its light he tears the wagon apart. Every box, sack and bottle, her bag of private things, her box of keepsakes, their stores, he ransacks them all until he finds what he is looking for. He kicks the mess around until he finds a spoon, then takes the bottle of laudanum and the lantern and goes back to her.
The light is dim, he puts the lantern close to her and builds up the bedding behind her so she can swallow. Her face white and waxen, her black hair pulled back and braided, one shoulder gleaming bleached in the circle of light. He shudders, then rubs her arm to connect with her, he cradles her head in his arms like a baby’s. In tiny sips at first, with a drop of water between. Slowly, between her pains, he coaxes it into her mouth and rubs her throat to help her swallow.
Above him the incredible sky spans his world, black as sin and lit with diamonds. Anything is possible under such a sky. The stars move slowly across, cold and forever leaving. He just keeps working the drug into her, long after she slips into a safe place, until the bottle is empty and she lies limp, with the faintest of breaths, gone to him. Gone to this world that claims her so callously, she sleeps in sweet oblivion, in his arms. The fires slowly die, only the lamp keeps the darkness waiting. He can feel faint spasms, her body still trying, doing what is done until it suddenly it simply can’t.
He gathers her close, curled around the baby, he holds her until she is cold, and the lamp begins to sputter. Even then he can’t move. He gently rubs her face, closes his eyes and does his best to memorize the feeling. He places his hand on the baby’s head, it’s the hardest thing, this missing life. He screams then. Like a soul sent to hell, like dying prey, like a man lost. The coyotes answer him, telling him they know.
The sun comes over the eastern hill and lights on the magpies, waiting and watching from the lumber pile. Insects come for the blood; nothing is wasted in this harsh place. Awkwardly he gets to his feet, her weight in his arms almost more than he can bear. What it means, to him and to everything around him. He listens to the silence with new ears. The horizon is sinister, the very earth under his feet an enemy.
What can he do? He tries to climb into the wagon with her, but it’s impossible. He must put her down, just for a moment. No. No, that’s asking too much. Even the earth will never have her, it must never touch her. He forces himself to put her down. Just long enough to clear a place for her in the wagon, among the meaningless detritus of their lives. He throws out whatever comes to hand, until he’s made a place where he can lay her straight. Wash her face, free her hair, inhale its fragrance and reach for his knife, some of it will stay with him. He winds her in her shroud, winding the canvas tightly and tying it with ropes. His hands freeze, unwilling to make the knots. Unwilling to do what he must. Six Magpies remind him.
He ties the knots, then finds the water pouches, bringing them away from the wagon. The fires are cold, the lamp empty. Two of the magpies on the bedding tearing at it with ugly beaks. Try to kill them with just your thoughts. He sends them flying and gathers every scrap of linen, the rugs and furs, pulling them free of the grass beneath them. They go in the wagon. The lumber next. Make a tipi shape around the wagon, back and forth with the boards until there’s nothing but flattened grass, white and dead and curled in unholy shapes. He brings the empty lantern and what oil is left from the open one. All of it in the wagon, then dried shrubs, of which there is endless supply here. Armfuls of sagebrush, for her. Now the work is done. Nothing remains but to light the fire. Make yourself.
He waits for the darkness, let them think they will have her. Let the stars see something new. He looks up into infinity, how small he is, how very little in this immense place. He strikes the flint, the dry sage crackles and disappears in curls of smoke. Will it light? He throws some on the floor where it lights the oil and then it understands that it’s being born. The fire. It leaps up, ravenous and ready. He walks out into the blackness beyond and finds a place to lay down. He looks at the sky and prays for wind.