“Yes. You don’t want to fight, and that’s fine. You’re right, there’s no point to it.”
He crosses his arms and gives me an assessing look. “Why the sudden change?”
“Like you said, it’s a long way to Nicodemus, and fighting that whole long way is only going to waste energy we don’t have. We can be civil.”
“Can we, though?” he asks, his voice low.
I make my way over to sit back down on one of the crates, and Jackson takes the other. “How come you waited so long to tell me?”
Jackson shrugs. His posture is stiff, but if there’s anything Jackson enjoys doing it’s relating a story. “When was I supposed to tell you? When we were hiding out in that shambler hole on the Spencers’ farm? While we were chained up in a train bound for Kansas? In the middle of shooting some drovers trying to steal a wagon, or while I ran for my life ahead of an approaching horde?”
“Right before you kissed me outside of Summerland would’ve been a good time,” I say, propping my feet up on the railing that runs the length of the front porch.
“Ah! There it is. I knew you were going to be difficult,” he says, and it’s a spark to the tinder of my hurt feelings.
“I ain’t being difficult, Jackson, I just think it would be nice if the boy who got me upended from Baltimore and sent to the middle of Kansas told me about getting hitched to some trollop.”
“My wife ain’t a trollop, Jane, and you ain’t being fair.”
“I ain’t got to be fair about anything, Jackson. I can be as bitter and petty as I want to be.” I can almost hear Katherine lecturing me that you catch more flies with honey. Why bother catching flies in the first place when you can just smash them with a minimum of hassle? I jump to my feet, pacing back and forth across the boards of the porch, my anger too much to be contained now that I’ve loosened its leash.
“If that’s the way you want to play it, Jane. Then let’s go; let’s have it out.”
I stop. “You want me to fight you?”
He laughs, the sound a rusty blade, and leans back, crossing his legs at the ankles. “I ain’t about to fight you, I know better than that. You want to talk about this, so let’s talk. You want to know why I married some other girl and not you, because we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place if you weren’t feeling some kind of way about the whole matter.”
I freeze, because he’s seen through me in a way that makes me feel naked and cold, despite the lingering heat of the day. And right now I hate him for that.
“Okay,” I say, lowering my voice and choosing my words wisely. “I want to know why.”
“You mean, you want to know why her and not you. Be specific.” The mirth is gone from Jackson’s face, his expression stony, and I know I’ve made a mistake. I’ve overstepped the boundaries we silently set for ourselves, our flirtation and rebuke, the easy push-pull that’s characterized our friendship ever since he put me to the side. I’ve made the mistake of demanding something from him, something I never did even in the time we ran together, and now he gives me the same calculating stare I’ve seen him use on a dozen marks.
It ain’t a feeling I like.
“Yes,” I finally say. “You wanted a wife. I’ve been around longer than any other girl you know.” Shame fissures through me at being so weak, so needy. But I have to know.
Jackson climbs to his feet, paces, and takes a deep breath, scrubbing his hand across his face. “Would you have even said yes if I had asked?”
“You didn’t ask,” I say. Because that’s where my brain gets stuck. He didn’t ask because he didn’t want me. Even if I maybe wanted him.
Jackson leans forward again and stands. The sunlight is fading fast now, and pretty soon there won’t be much light to see by. But I ain’t worrying about that, I’m thinking about weddings and families, and the joy of being wanted. I got a whole lot of experience with folks wanting to see less of me, and knowing that maybe Jackson was one of those folks makes the whole situation even more painful.
Jackson points off into the yard, and I follow his finger with my eyes. “That’s why I didn’t ask you.” It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s pointing at, since the daylight is fading and the world is going to shades of gray, but I finally get it. He’s pointing to the puddle of blood left by the rabbit I shot. “I married because Lily needs a mother. She needs someone who can look after her. And that ain’t you, Jane. You ain’t the nurturing type. You’re a survivor, and I had to do what was best for Lily.”
“How are those two things any different?” I ask. “This world is about surviving.”
“Maybe, but you’re the Angel of the Crossroads, the girl who ran out of a safe place like Miss Preston’s in the middle of the night to put down the dead.” His words remind me of the first time we met, he and a troupe of other folks, their pony nearly overrun. I’d saved their lives, but the next morning I’d ended up getting the strap because I’d overslept and missed morning drills.
“You’re mad because I help people?” I ask, unable to temper my surprise.
He shakes his head, his frustration etched in the taut lines of his shoulders and his fisted hands. “You can’t help but get involved in things, even when you know better. How can I depend on a woman who finds it appropriate to run off into the fire instead of away from it? It’s who you are, Jane, and I’ve always loved that about you. But while that may be admirable in a Miss Preston’s girl, it ain’t in a wife. I want someone I know is going to be there, day after day, not off running on some adventure.”
“Why is that okay for you and not me? Why is it okay for a man to be out running around and not a woman?”
Jackson shakes his head. “I ain’t saying it’s fair, but that’s the kind of woman I want. Someone to keep my sister out of danger, and maybe give me some little ones of my own. But you’d never have wanted to be strapped down, chasing after babies. You know that, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.”
He shakes his head, and I can’t help but feel that in all our time together I didn’t know him like I thought I did, not really.
He doesn’t want a wife. He wants a doormat.
My anger melts away like sugar in the rain, and my shoulders slump. How do I argue with him? Jackson is right. There are a few things I’m good at, but none of them are domestic chores. I’m good at putting down the dead.
I’m good at killing.
And what little girl needs that in her life?
Jackson’s expression starts to go soft, but then he grabs hold of himself, putting his hat back on and resettling the bowler at a jaunty angle. “We done here?” he asks, voice hard.
“Yeah, we’re done,” I say, throat clogged with emotion.
Jackson nods once and stalks off, long strides taking him around the edge of the house, following the same path Katherine and Lily took only moments earlier.
My body is too heavy to carry, my heart is a stone in my chest, but I don’t cry. Instead, I collapse on one of the crates, draw my knees up so that I can hug them, watch the horizon, and try to imagine myself pledging my troth to someone, anyone. To love someone else, to follow them even if it means giving up the fight.