Thy strong arms are around me, love,

My head is on thy breast;

Though words of comfort come from thee,

My soul is not at rest.

For I am but a startled thing,

Nor can I ever be

Ought save a bird whose broken wing

Must fly away from thee.

-Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 1899

Chapter 1

Jud

The moon was enough to light his way to the farmhouse. He didn't even need it most nights; he could make his way unerringly across the fields. But it was riskier when he was drunk, easier to lose his bearings. He'd even fallen asleep one night in the middle of the cornfield. He'd woken up before anyone found him, but he'd been more careful since then. He knew the way rumors could start and spread, and a story about Jud Fry falling asleep under Laurey Williams' window with a bottle of whiskey in his hand would make his life even worse. Something like that could get him fired, and would probably be enough to stay with him unless he moved far away from the Territory, and he was done with moving. But that night, he wasn't drunk. Just tipsy enough to make him feel better. Just tipsy enough to dull the constant, crushing ache in his chest.

Her light was on, the soft glow from the oil lamp drawing him closer. He tread as lightly as possible toward the house until he could see her at her vanity chair, brushing her long blonde hair, wearing nothing but her see-through shift.

He didn't have to wait long for the excitement to start—he knew her nighttime routine by that point. After she was done with her hair, she stood up and stretched a little bit, then she took off her shift, natural as anything. She did it swiftly and unselfish-consciously, shaking her hair out when she was done. He held his breath as he watched her, taking in every detail of her body that he could from that distance, despite the number of times he'd seen her like that. Framed by the window like that, she was like one of the pictures on his wall, undressing just for him, whether or not she knew it.

Some days he enjoyed the fact that she didn't know he was watching, got a thrill out of knowing something she didn't for once. But some days he told himself that she had to know, that she was undressing like that just for him. A woman couldn't take her clothes off that easily and naturally without being a little bit of a whore. She probably liked the thought of being watched and admired.

He had felt guilty the first time he saw her. It had been an accident—he had investigated a commotion by the lake, and it turned out to be her swimming, too loud and self-absorbed to notice him. He had tried not to look, but the memory had burned itself into his head, until her undressing in front of the window every night in the summer became too great a temptation for him to resist.

Even if she found out, she couldn't rightly complain about it. He wasn't some cowboy, he worked the land for her. He made the money that she used to buy her clothes, it was only right for him to see her take them off at the end of the day.

He forced himself to stay rooted to the spot. There had been too many times a snapped twig or thud of a boot had made her look out the window or even cover herself up, and he couldn't have that.

She blew out the light and he imagined her sliding into bed under her crazy-quilt, getting warmer as it settled around the dips and curves of her naked body. Tried to imagine what kinds of things she thought about when she was naked in bed. He stayed looking up at her window for a few minutes, content just to know she was near him, content to know she belonged to him for that brief period of time.

Eventually, once he knew she was safely asleep, he walked back, picking his way slowly, so he wouldn't wake her. By the time he got to the smokehouse, it was too dark to see the pictures on the walls. He didn't need them anyhow, he never did on nights when he'd seen her. He let himself dream of her instead. He dreamed of the day when she'd realize no one loved her—could ever love her—the way he did.