Page 3 of Repentance and Absolution
In the morning, we woke to bright sunshine streaming in the new glass windows. We needed curtains. Next trip into town we had a list of things to buy. The big wad of cash I’d looted from Spook and Whitlaw—the outlaws who had stolen and almost raped and killed Oscar—still had some bulk to it. I reckoned that the money was rightfully ours, what with all the heartbreak and fear they’d put us through. Although, in the end, it had shown me plain as day how I felt about him—that I’d go through hell and back just to keep this man safe and by my side. I’d shot both of them outlaws dead without a thought, even though I’d sworn off killing when I’d left the gang. Figured I was doing the world a favor in that case.
Oscar and I—with help from Carson Moore, Timothy Jensen and Timothy’s son, Frank—had managed to shore up one small room of the broken-down homestead that Oscar had inherited from his late uncle. T’was a decent-sized space with a fireplace and a cookstove to keep us warm and fed, but with the big bed on the other wall and a chair and a table in it, the room felt small and close.
That suited the two of us, though, for now, and made it cozy and easy to heat, although we were eager for spring to come so’s we could finish the job and get at least a couple of more rooms added on to this one. T’was a huge job, for sure, but we had a will and the means, and I reckoned we could get some kind of decent home built for the two of us in time.
For now, I was content to wake up under the wool blankets and quilts we’d bought, snuggled beside Oscar, who sighed softly and blinked like an angel, even though the thoughts in his pretty head were more devilish, surely.
“Mornin’, Jimmy.”
“Oscar. How’d you sleep?”
He rolled onto his side and watched me. “Well, ’cept for you makin’ so much noise and hollerin’ my name, pretty well I guess.”
I’d forgotten about my nightmare. Now it came back to me with all its ball-shriveling fear and sense of loss. I frowned.
“Don’t remind me. I never want to have it again.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe you won’t.”
I shrugged. The truth was, I’d been having a lot of bad dreams. Most of them were flashbacks to long-gone days, when I’d watched Whitlaw and Spook do some horrible, bloodthirsty things. And I’d done some myself. Seemed all that was coming back to me in my dreams, and I couldn’t hardly get rid of it. I woke from those nightmares feeling hopeless and riddled with guilt, full of disgust at the way I’d lived my life. But this last one, when I was out of my wits trying to find Oscar, brought back all the terror of losing him to Spook and Whitlaw near the beginning of our journey and how lost I’d felt when I didn’t know where he was or how I would find him before they killed him—or did something worse.
I gazed at Oscar, wondering how I’d ever deserved this handsome, heartbreaking lamb of a man and feeling like any moment God was gonna take him away from me. I didn’t deserve Oscar. I felt that deep down in my bones, and I guess t’was coming out in my dreams. But for whatever reason, he loved me, he wanted me and he’d stayed with me all this time. Now we were setting up a home together, the way we’d do if Oscar was a lady and I wanted to marry her, make her happy and protect her.
I truly didn’t see a difference. The fact that he had a cock instead of a cunt seemed entirely inconsequential. I’d bedded whores more masculine than Oscar. He had the sensitivities, delicacy of feeling and ability to nurture that a woman might. He’d taken care of his horse, Sprite, and he’d nursed the kitten we’d got when we’d first arrived in Port Essington. He’d coddled her like she was his baby, and now she was a big mouser with a fierce disposition that still had the tendency to curl up in his lap for loving when she needed it.
Of course, we couldn’t let on in town what we were to each other, and that was a shame. But t’was a price I’d pay to keep Oscar close. I reckoned I didn’t have to tell anyone what they didn’t need to know. What me and Oscar did in our home was a private thing, and t’was gonna stay that way.
Oscar yawned and gazed back at me out of his sweet brown eyes.
“You look like you’re havin’ your deep thoughts again, Jimmy.”
He kneeled up and took my face in his hands.
“You know it don’t do to brood about stuff. You just wind up workin’ yourself into a mess of feelings you ain’t got no control o’er.”
I nodded and sighed, because he was right.
“I guess t’was different when we were on the road. I was too busy getting us safely from one place t’other, I didn’t have time to dwell on things from my past—or worry beyond our survival.”
“The past is the past,” Oscar said. “I told you that once, and I’ll tell you that again. You ain’t the same man. You told me a bit of what happened back then, and it truly is horrible. But you was misled and mistreated, and you ain’t responsible for the things those men made you do. You gotta believe me.”
I nodded in order to placate him, but I did feel responsible. The truth was, I could have left the gang earlier than I had. I could have distanced myself from those men when I’d realized what they were capable of—and I hadn’t. I’d run with them for years, helping them with their thieving and killing and all-around terrorizing, because I was too lily-livered to leave. True enough that I’d hung in the background, but that wasn’t an excuse.
But Oscar was right. There were things to be done and we’d better get at them, rather than brood under the blankets on this chilly, late-November morning.
“Let’s get them horses fed and watered,” I said, as a lump under the blankets at my feet started moving and making muffled mewls.
Oscar reached a hand underneath and pulled Sprite out into the day. The gray and white cat with enormous ears, named for the horse we’d lost to wolves just outside of town, blinked and stretched on the top of the blankets. She let Oscar pet her for two seconds, then jumped onto the floor to search for mice.
“I swear, those ears get bigger every day,” I said. “She part rabbit?”
Oscar laughed. “Maybe. Anyhow, I think they’re cute.”
He hopped out of the bed and grabbed the poker from where it leaned against the iron stove, opening the hatch and stirring the embers that had mostly faded.
“We’d best get this stove goin’,” he said, “before it gets too cold in here.”
“Sure,” I said, grabbing my pants and pulling them on. “Don’t forget to do up your access hatch,” I said, reaching out to cup his bare bottom in my hand.
