They stand. One of them makes a noise as if clearing his throat. They are slow about it. They pull on their boots, lace them up, take the time to tuck their shirts, and when finally they pass me by, their sleeves brush against my bare shoulders. One carries a jacket draped over his arm, heavy wool, sour like the doctor’s had been because it’s never able to dry through and through. They move slowly, knowing they’re allowed to look.
And they do. They look. They don’t bother with my face or hair or shoulders. Their eyes settle on me, on whichever spot is to their liking. One stands to the side of me, one to the back. Those eyes stay on me until the bed creaks beneath Ellis, and then the men move on. A burst of warm air fills the room when they open the door. It closes again, and Ellis exhales that deep breath.
“Why you here?” he says.
“I need to explain?”
He smiles. Not that I can see it on his face, but I can feel it. I’m sure I can feel it. I wait for him to call me to his bed. That would be his way. He’s one to call a person to him, never one to cross the distance himself. But he doesn’t. He swings his feet over the edge of the mattress. His boots hit the floor with a thud. The thin planks rattle beneath my bare feet. He groans as he stands, like maybe it’ll be some effort to have me. He takes a step in my direction and stops.
Outside the door, chairs topple; more heavy boots hit the floor. Someone bangs on the door to the small bedroom. It shakes in its frame. Footsteps pound across the room; voices shout. Maybe one sounds like John Holleran.
I bend to grab the thin cotton gown pooled at my feet, but before I can gather it and thread my arms through its sleeves, Ellis reaches for me and lifts me. He grabs me by my shoulders, slides his hands down my arms, and tugs the gown from me. Outside the room, there is more shouting, more banging on the door. Ellis stands before me, holds one wrist at my side, and lifts his other hand to my breast. He rests it there, not moving it. The door behind me opens, and in two steps, John Holleran is in the room.
I pull back, wanting to cover myself, but Ellis won’t let go. He pinches my wrist to hold me in place, lifts his hand from my breast, turns that hand over, and strokes my bare skin with the back of his fingers. Maybe John was going to raise his shotgun, maybe he was going to throw a fist, but the sight of Ellis Baine touching me that way—or, worse still, me standing in that room alone with the man—stops him. My clothes don’t lie torn and shredded on the floor. My boots sit neatly, side by side near the bed. He knows I’ve come here because I wanted to, and it breaks him somehow.
“Will wait outside to see you home,” John says.
He leaves as quickly as he came. Someone closes the door. When the voices and all the knocking about quiet in the next room, Ellis takes his hand from my chest, unwraps his fingers from my wrist, and as he waves at my clothes still lying on the ground, he turns away.
When I am dressed and have buttoned up my jacket, Ellis walks from the room. He says nothing, but I follow. We pass through the kitchen full of men, most of them scattered across the floor, their heads resting on rolled-up jackets or blankets, a few sitting at the table, where they lean on their elbows. Ellis pushes open the door and walks through ahead of me. At the stone block leading off the porch, he stands aside so I can pass by.
A full moon lights up the path ahead just enough that I can make out John Holleran leaning against the back of a truck. Outside the house, I take deep breaths of the cold, fresh air. John never lifts his head to see it is me walking his way, and he doesn’t stand until I have passed.
“See to it she don’t come back,” Ellis calls out from the porch. “What’s left is yours.”
? ? ?
THEY BUILT THE gallows from scrap wood, used threepenny nails instead of screws, and they’ll hang Joseph Carl when the first orange sliver of sun breaks the horizon. It’s another cold morning, damp, sodden. This is what I’ll remember, the dampness and the dark and how I wiggle my fingers inside my cotton gloves to fend off the stiffness. I’ll remember the ache in my knuckles, the numbness in my toes, our warm breath, Juna’s and mine, that turns smoky when it hits the cold morning air.