The Hen House

by Sharon Sala

  “If I may be so bold, I believe it’s the hostess’s duty to start the dancing. May I?”

  She put down her cookie and walked away with her hand on Robert Lee’s arm.

  The room fell silent.

  The blacksmith ran the bow lightly across the fiddle strings, testing the tone.

  Robert Lee couldn’t quit staring at her. She stood out in the room like a wild rose in a bed of plain daisies. The dress was satin and a deep shade of garnet, making her skin appear as white as the snow outside. Her hair was magnificent, like a crown on the queen she’d become. He wanted nothing more than the pleasure of taking it down and thrusting his fingers through the depths.

  Just as the first notes of the waltz began, she looked up at him and smiled.

  He put one hand lightly at her waist as he held the other level with his shoulder. When he swung her into the first steps, he felt like he was flying. The lights of the room spun around them as they dipped and swayed. Within a few moments, they were joined by more than a dozen other couples, until most of the room was awash in rhythm and dance. When the music was as loud in Robert Lee’s ears as the thunder was in his heart, he leaned forward.

  Letty felt his cheek slide against the side of her face. She could smell the witch hazel from his shave, as well as the scent of the man, himself.

  She shivered.

  He felt it.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said softly.

  Letty surprised him when she leaned back in his arms enough to meet his gaze.

  “So are you.”

  A sharp glint came and went in his eyes.

  “Are you teasing me again?”

  “No.”

  He tightened his grip at her waist. His voice was shaking as he whispered again.

  “You know what’s in my heart.”

  He felt her sigh, then saw the corner of her mouth tilt slightly upward.

  “I know.”

  He swung her around again, following the couples circling the room until the people around them seemed to have danced out of sight.

  “You don’t have to love me,” he said. “I love you and your son, and your crazy family enough for the both of us.”

  “Is that so?”

  He ventured a look. She was smiling.

  “Jesus, Leticia… just say what’s on your mind and put me out of my misery before I die at your feet.”

  “You’re what’s on my mind,” she said softly. “Have been for some months now. I guess what I’m needing to know now is… if you’re as good in person as you are in my dreams.”

  He stumbled, stepped on both of her feet and then cursed.

  Letty laughed out loud.

  The echo of it rocked him all the way to his toes, just as it had the night her son had been born.

  He didn’t know what it was going to be like to be married to a woman who could laugh at giving birth, as readily as she could at making love, but he was damn sure going to enjoy finding out.

  EPILOGUE

  The war had been over for four years. Letty had been married to Robert Lee for eight.

  On his seventh birthday, Little Bit announced he was going to black the eye of the next person who called him by that name, except of course if it was Mama, although he would certainly appreciate it if she would stop and just call him Slade.

  He was tall for his age, and in Robert Lee’s opinion, the spitting image of his mother in all the ways that count.

  He had her dark hair and blue eyes, and most times, her disposition, which meant he was mule-headed, but enough like Eulis to find a way to keep out of most troubles.

  Robert Lee went to sleep every night knowing that if he died before morning, his life thus far would be enough.

  Letty had bloomed under Robert Lee’s love in a way she would never have believed possible. The home she and Eulis had built had become the center of Denver society. The grounds once awash with wild flowers and knee-high grasses were now clipped and landscaped, with the help of three gardeners.

  They had a stable of horses, and a six-foot high rock wall around the perimeter of the mansion, with only one way in and one way out.

  Robert Lee had never gotten over the sight of seeing Letty held captive under a stranger’s gun, and wasn’t going to make it easy for anyone to repeat the deed. The protectiveness he’d felt toward her then had multiplied a thousand times since their marriage. He didn’t have words to explain what she and her son meant to him.

  Three years ago, they’d built Alice a home of her own down in Denver. Katie had gone back East to a finishing school, and had come home last Christmas with a fiancé. Alice had wept copious tears, and then set about planning a grand wedding, which was to take place within the next six months.

  Mary had taken ill and died the spring after Letty and Robert Lee married. She was buried two spaces over from Eulis, and next to Alice’s baby girl.

  The spring after Little Bit turned three, Delilah was introduced to a new lawyer who’d come to town. Within months, they were married.

  Except for Letty, there was nothing but roosters in the hen house these days, and few left down in the growing city who even remembered what that meant.

  There was a steadfastness in Robert Lee that Letty treasured above all else. She loved him in a way far removed from the love she’d had for Eulis. They had been bound by tragedy and a comedy of errors, and separated as harshly as they’d lived.

  Robert Lee had offered a stronger, more peaceful kind of love that had proven to grow with time.

  Each night when the weather was good, Letty would walk out onto the back porch and sit down on the top steps.

  And wherever he was, that was Little Bit’s signal to come running. He would sit down beside her, and then, weary from the long day at play, would lay his head in his mother’s lap and wait for the weight of her hand on his head.

  Together, they would sit in silence, watching the sun going down behind the tall, stately pines, while waiting for the moon to appear.

  And as night came to the land, the first fireflies would come out, darting about in somewhat of a frenzy that never made much sense. Usually, the owl who lived in the barn would be the first to venture out, swooping past them on silent wings as they sat in growing darkness.

  “Mama… do you hear it?” Little Bit would ask.

  “Not yet,” Letty would say.

  The screen door to the back porch would squeak, signaling the arrival of Robert Lee.

  Without word, he took a seat on the step beside Letty, and put his arm around her as he patted the little boy’s head. At this point, Little Bit would look up and whisper…

  “Daddy… we’re still a listenin’.”

  “Okay,” Robert Lee would say, his heart full to bursting with love for the pair.

  There, with her hand on her son, and her head on her husband’s shoulder, Letty would let go of the day’s frustrations.

  Dark settled around them like a comfortable blanket. From somewhere in the distance, the first call would come—a plaintive, but persistent trill piercing the silence of the night.

  Crickets always honored the call with a momentary hush. Tree frogs suspended their chorus, like Letty, awaiting the answer to the night bird’s plea.

  A second trill would sound, and Little Bit would tense.

  Letty often caught herself holding her breath—waiting—always waiting.

  And then the answering call would come, as it always did each night when the lone whippoorwill got an answer from its mate.

  “There!” Letty would always say, with quiet satisfaction. “He’s found her.”

  “Just like I found you,” Robert Lee would say, and then kiss the smile his words put on her lips.

  “And me!” Little Bit would cry. “Just like you found me, too.”

  At that point, they moved from the porch steps to the house, shutting them in and the night out—right where it belonged.