Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

If he had a good night at cards, he could get a bed, a bath, and a woman. The girls knew him by name; they teased him and called him The Tsar. And he liked that. Even if he couldn’t afford the full night, he could often scrape enough together for fifteen minutes. Enough to release the ache between his legs. He looks at the lump of Anna in the bed. He hasn’t touched her in weeks. How could that be the woman he married? Her breasts fold into her belly. She lies there like a sack. Even the whores pretend. His groin tingles awake. He places both hands on the table and presses down hard.

It’s all Teodor’s fault. He thought he would be off the land by now. He would sell the homestead for two hundred dollars. A steal for the right buyer. There’s at least five hundred dollars of improvements and then there’s the fields. Two hundred dollars would give him a new life. New clothes. A house in town. Access to the poker tables and the girls. His groin tilts upward, brushes against his trousers. He’s sick of the letters. It should have been so easy. One letter and have him removed. He didn’t count on Teodor fighting back. He can’t keep all the stories straight, and now the government bastards don’t believe that he did the work. He knows a bad hand when he sees one. He thought if he put everything in, the others would fold. But they’ve called his bluff. If somehow they give him the land, he won’t be able to sell it. They’ll be watching him. They’ll want another six acres next year. He didn’t start this to become a farmer.

The coyotes are wailing tonight. He wonders how much a pelt would bring. But being out there alone in the night with them quashes that idea. He could sell the horse and wagon and the tack. Maybe he could get fifty dollars. That’s a good idea. First thing tomorrow he’ll talk to Petrenko or maybe he should go directly to town. Town would be better: then he could ride instead of walk. His hand rubs his groin. His hips yearn upward. He puts his hand back on the table. He could go outside and relieve himself. Stand in the snow like an animal, but even an animal doesn’t have to relieve itself. He looks to Anna. He deflates.

How has it all gone so wrong? He sits at the table with his back to Lesya and Petro asleep in their bed. He doesn’t want to look at his daughter. She reminds him that he is old. She reminds him of the girls back home, with their long, shiny hair. Hair that doesn’t feel like a woman’s. He surges awake and presses his knees together. The way she looks at him through her hair. The attention she gives him. Serving him his meals. Heating his water for the bath. Putting her hand in the washtub to make sure it’s not too hot. How she never talks. He’s not a bad man. It’s this place that is driving him crazy. Imprisoned in these four walls. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to be a man.

A coyote yelps madly, closer now. He should check on the children. Make sure they’re covered up. Like a good father. Make sure the coyotes aren’t disturbing them in their sleep. He is an officer, a man of discipline. A man in control. He’s not a bad man. He’s a father. He’s a good father. Good fathers check on their children.

LESYA HEARS THE COYOTE FIRST. LATELY, SHE DOESN’T really sleep. Even with her eyes closed, she is always conscious of her mother’s needs and her father’s movements. Tonight, her eyes opened at the coyote’s first faint note.

She has named them. That’s Kozma. He lives in the north. She imagines Kozma to be a big, grizzled male, protective and sullen like her uncle Teodor.

Luka should answer next. She smiles at the sound of his faint, high whine. Luka is younger, maybe a son of Kozma. He always stays south of the wall. His territory is east. His bark doesn’t have Kozma’s strength or authority. She imagines he’s smaller and slinks, whereas Kozma lopes.

They come through at the same time every night. There are three of them. Every night, they call out to one another. Lesya counts between their calls. One thousand one—one thousand two—they answer like thunder.

At first, she was afraid when the coyotes returned. Afraid that they would breach the coop and slaughter her hens. She booby-trapped the perimeter with sharpened sticks that she skewered into the snow. She strung tin cans to the willow fence so she could hear any sudden, unusual movement. For added protection, she barricaded the henhouse door with a log pole that she can barely lift. The coyotes have never bothered her chickens.

Lesya listens for Yvonne. She named the third coyote after one of the Quints. Everybody in town talks about them. Five baby girls born at once. Each one the same. Coming from one egg. Each one perfect. They live in a glass house, where nurses take care of their every need. She imagines that their beds are little nests and that they have wings, but they can’t quite fly. That’s why people need to take care of them and keep them safe. She can’t imagine a happier life.

Lesya doesn’t really know whether the coyote is a female. But she didn’t want Kozma to be lonely. She wanted him to have someone, even if they couldn’t be together. Yvonne has a lonelier cry; it starts low, rises high, and holds. Yvonne comes from the west, toward the lake. But tonight she isn’t answering. She hasn’t answered in weeks.

Kozma still calls her, but now he doesn’t wait for her answer. His yelps and bays spill over each other like alarms. Frantic. His howls bleed east and then west and back again, like he is running back and forth along the stone wall. Lesya looks over to Petro, but he is sound asleep.

Answer him , she thinks. Don’t leave him all alone. She worries that Yvonne might be gone. Maybe she starved, maybe someone shot her, or maybe she just moved on. A flicker of anger responds to Kozma’s hysteria: Then let her go. Get on with your life. She’s not coming back. Immediately, she regrets belittling Kozma’s grief. She’s the one who wanted them to be in love. Poor Kozma .

She is so focused on listening to the coyotes that she doesn’t hear her father get up from the table. He is almost beside them when Lesya feels his presence. She shuts her eyes tight and quells her breathing. I’m asleep , she pretends. Her arms are pressed tight to her chest, her legs crossed.

This is the fourth time he’s watched her sleep. She wishes she was closer to the wall. She could have been two inches farther. Petro is on his side, his back to her. Her elbow nearly touches him. She can feel his heat. It reassures her that something is between her and her father.

She doesn’t know why she feels afraid when he looks at her. She knows that somehow he is dangerous, and when he is too close, she can hardly breathe. Her heart beats as fast as the baby sparrow’s she held in her hands last summer. She held it as gently as she could. But its chest kept heaving and its heart pounded on her fingertips. Uncle Teodor said it fell from the nest and that its mother wouldn’t take it back now that it had been touched. He was telling her how to take care of it when its head dropped down and its heart stopped. Teodor said it died of fright. Her tato makes her feel as though she’s that baby bird and she’s fallen out of the nest. And he’s a cat watching, waiting…

He’s moving. Usually he stands still, then leaves after a few minutes. She hears the door open and shut. Hears his footsteps come back. He’s still again. She wants to open her eyes. She takes a deep-sleep breath. He feels closer.

Then she feels it. Lightly on her hip. A light fluttering. There it is again. His fingers on the blanket, barely touching. He’s reaching over Petro. She feels the goose bumps rise on her leg. His fingers travel down her leg, tracing her outline. They slide slowly across, inch toward her inner thigh. They stop. Pull back. She can sense his hand hovering over her body.