1

I have heard it from my family, my friends and even passing acquaintances who feel as if everyone's business is theirs. They are all of the opinion that as a man of thirty-seven, I should be married with children and I suppose they're correct; that does seem the way life should be lived. There are certainly enough husband-hungry widows and single women in Virginia City for me to find a wife among them—should I wish to do so. In the past, I have come close a few times to marrying but there was always something that I felt—or should I say, didn't feel—when I held the woman in my arms. It was their slight resistance, their holding back—for the sake of their reputation I'm sure, and I'm enough of an egotist to want a woman to give herself to me freely, willingly and with a hunger and desire to make me feel wanted. But it was never there and so I would end it. The idea of day after day with a woman who didn't encourage passion in me, who didn't arouse the heat in my blood, well, better to end it before the relationship went too far and many times, I was already out the door before I was ever fully in their parlor. It left many females in Virginia City and its environs with a poor opinion of me—not completely underserved.

But I have certain ideas of the kind of woman I want in my life and in my bed. It's not as if I've only lived here in Virginia City and limited myself to the narrow choice of women here. When I was back east at college, I met many young women but again, the seed of love was never there but I was also young and wasn't particularly inclined to tie myself to a wife. I have also traveled widely in Europe and even though my purpose wasn't to find a mate, a "cara sposa," I secretly hoped that some French mademoiselle or Italian signorina would catch my eye and in due course, my heart. But no, although I did enjoy the many continental and diverse pleasures they had to offer.

And then there was the war. I entered the Union Army in 1864, two years before the end but it was enough to change me, to destroy my soul. I experienced so many horrors that I still relive in my dreams—and even during my waking hours. I'll smell a familiar odor such as flint being struck, a smell linked with battle and the memory of bodies blown apart by cannon fire comes rushing back, or the weather will look a certain way, the way it did while my patrol was marching through mud and cold and I'm there again, tried, hungry, lice-infested and miserable. So many men died and I lived. Nevertheless, it's difficult to live fully when part of yourself is stuck in past atrocities that you yourself ordered, even committed with your own hands.

And now I find I'm back on the homestead, having resigned myself to a life of increasing the family's wealth as well as my own, and taking my pleasures when I can; life only offers so many and no more. And yet, my father still treats me as his son who needs guidance through the morass of social requirements. Fuck society.

"And what was wrong with Melissa?" my father asked, pacing the room while I tried to enjoy my brandy-laced evening coffee. "She's a wonderful woman, gentle and church-going and with two of the nicest, polite children a person could find anywhere. And she's pleasant to look at."

"She is all that, so why don't you marry her, Pa. I mean the Chinese elders use their grandchildren to warm their old bones at night—you could use Melissa—much more pleasant that sleeping with one of Joe's two boys."

"I don't need your sarcasm—not now, not any time. I'm trying to have a serious conversation here. Adam, you're going to be forty soon…"

"I know how old I am, Pa, and I'm aware that in all this time, I haven't yet met a woman to marry—and when I think about all the times I almost did marry, well, if I believed in divine intervention, I would think the hand of God stopped me. But since I don't—I was just lucky. Luck I believe in."

"Did it ever occur to you that they might be one and the same thing?" He scowled at me.

I had to laugh at that—my father had out-thought me. "I suppose they could be, Pa."

What was really stuck in my father's craw was that of his three sons, only Joe, his baby son, had married. Joe's wife, Aggie, was a pretty, little blonde who birthed twin hellions, Ike and Jake, who I swear were spewed forth from the very bowels of hell and should probably have been drowned at birth like ill-formed puppies. Not only that, but Joe was hen-pecked beyond redemption and many times I was down-right embarrassed for him. Joe would look at Hoss and me and give a small, apologetic grin whenever Aggie ragged him about anything and then he would do just as she asked.

"I'd have to tell her to shut her goddamn mouth iffen she was my wife," Hoss said one evening as we rode home from a spontaneous dinner at Joe's; he had invited us after a day checking line

I just smirked. "You know what uxorious means?" I asked.

"Hell, Adam, I don't even think I could say it?"

"Well, that word describes a man who is excessively submissive to his wife. And that's our brother Joseph."

"Well, why you think that is, Adam?" I raised my brows at Hoss and then he grinned. "Yeah, a man'll do most anythin' for that." And Hoss is right about that. There's not much a man won't do for just a few minutes of pleasure between a woman's legs.

"But we're going to hear it from Hop Sing for missing his dinner and eating at Joe's—and there's no reward for ducking our heads and letting his tongue whip us like Aggie does little brother." And Hoss and I both laughed. We knew that our pa had borne the brunt of Hop Sing's furrowed brow and complaints about food gone to waste and cold potatoes, over-cooked roast and coagulated gravy many a time over the years. So we kicked up our horses.

I truly enjoy Hoss' company—never met a man who didn't. My brother is a man of large appetites and enjoys his pleasures of all types—food, women and drink. He is convivial, generous and always takes up for the underdog—a trait that has landed him—and Joe and me in more trouble than could be imagined.

I had thought that quality had left me as I had come to realize that people seldom acknowledged any charitable act, especially if they are the underdog, and if they did, it was in preparation to ask for another favor. But unfortunately the trait hadn't cleared from my bones as I had thought, and the quality of mercy—which according to Shakespeare, is never strained, lived on in me, much to my surprise.

I always knew it would be my downfall.