Gil shoved the bottle into a trouser pocket and averted his eyes from mine. “Who said we were in the Ku Klux Klan?”
“What’s more important,” said Robbie, “is what you and Hanalee Denney are doing wrapped up in a blanket in the middle of our Christian family’s property.” He sniffed the air. “The whole place reeks of sin.”
Gil snorted and slid his cigarette between his wet-looking lips.
All I could do was lie there, paralyzed, with my hand pressed around the outline of the holster beneath the blanket. The Junior Order of Klansmen pamphlet remained tucked inside my pocket.
Joe combed his fingers through his hair. “Hanalee and I are eloping.”
I kept my face stoic, despite my urge to shout, What did you just say?
“Oregon won’t allow us to marry,” he continued, “so we’re running off to Washington. We just camped here for the night before we set out to cross the hills and the Columbia River.”
“You’re eloping?” Robbie flicked more ash to the ground by our feet.
“That’s right.” Joe nodded.
Gil reddened again and muttered to his brother, “Jesus. Does Washington really allow fairies to marry mulattoes?”
“What did you just say?” Joe threw off the blanket and jumped to his feet.
“He said,” said Robbie, lifting his chin, “you two make a highly peculiar pair. Does your bride-to-be know you were caught diddling some other fellow?”
Joe clenched his hands by his sides. “What pathetic lives you must lead if you have to make up vulgar stories about me.”
“It’s not true, then?” Robbie wedged his cigarette between his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not a fag?”
“Would you have found me here, wrapped in a blanket with a girl, if I was?”
The twins eyed each other, as if to gauge each other’s opinions. Joe didn’t look back at me, but I could tell from the way he rubbed his hands along the sides of his trousers that the Wittens and that pocketknife terrified him. I kept my face and my body still, worried that the wrong expression or word would bring him harm.
“Prove it to us.” Robbie stepped closer and picked at the end of his knife. His cigarette hung out of the side of his mouth and desecrated the fragrance of the woods. “Kiss her.”
“What?” Joe glanced over his shoulder at me. “No. I’m not giving you a peep show just to prove we love each other.”
“What’s the matter?” Robbie nudged Joe backward by the fist that held that knife. “Do you feel bile rising to your throat over the idea of kissing a colored girl?”
“I think he feels bile,” said Gil, also coming closer, “over the idea of kissing any girl.”
The twins both chuckled, and Joe kept rubbing the sides of his legs.
I pushed myself to my feet, my knees wobbling, and took hold of Joe’s left hand. “Just ignore them, Joey.”
“‘Joey’?” laughed the twins, reminding me of a skinny version of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, standing there side by side, their shoulders shaking, their cheeks bright red. Even their clothing matched—tweed pants, rolled-up shirtsleeves, floppy plaid caps pulled just above ears as large as abalone shells.
“They’re just jealous,” I continued, “that no girl would ever want to sleep with them out here in the woods.”
Robbie’s face sobered, and his laughter ceased. “Is this real, Hanalee?” he asked. “Did you two . . . ?” He gestured with his cigarette toward the blanket on the ground. “Last night . . . did you . . . ?”
I slid my hand across Joe’s stomach and felt his muscles stiffen.
Robbie stared me in the eye and squeezed two fingers down upon his cigarette. “I’d sure feel more certain of all of this if I saw you two kiss.”
I gritted my teeth. “You don’t need—”
“I’ve had it on pretty good authority”—Robbie toyed with the blade of his knife again—“that your boy here likes men. In fact, I feel like puking just from standing so close to him. I feel like . . .” His green eyes darkened, and the knife and the cigarette shook in his hands.
Joe’s arm tensed beside me. I squeezed his hand.
“We just woke up,” I said. “I don’t have any chewing gum or toothpaste to make my breath nice and sweet for him.”
Gil reached inside a coat pocket and drew out his own pocketknife, as well as a yellow packet of Wrigley’s P.K. gum. “Here you go.” He stepped forward with one foot and held out his hand with the chewing gum.
Joe and I took a stick apiece, eyeing the knife in Gil’s other hand, and then we peeled down the paper wrappers and popped the gum into our mouths. A jolt of peppermint hit my tongue, and my eyes watered from both the taste and the fear of what would happen if I didn’t kiss Joe in front of these prying jackasses. Or what would happen if I grabbed up my gun and shot one of the Wittens in the knee with my remaining bullet.