Bennett wasn’t on the daybed. She saw only the broad back of him on their bed, lying, as he so often did, on his left side away from her. He had lost his summer tan and his skin was pale in the half-light, the outline of his muscles moving gently as he shifted. Bennett, she thought. Bennett, who had once kissed the inside of her wrist and told her she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Who had promised a world in whispers. Who had told her he adored every last bit of her. She lifted the coverlet and climbed into the warm space inside, barely making a sound.

Bennett didn’t stir, but his long, easy breaths told her he was deeply asleep.

    Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me

 That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire . . .

She moved close, so close that she could feel her breath on his warm skin. She inhaled the scent of him, the soap mixed with something primal that even his military attempts at cleanliness couldn’t erase. She reached out, hesitated just a moment, and then placed her arm over his body, finding his fingers and entwining them with her own. She waited, and felt his hand close around hers, and she let her cheek rest against his back, closing her eyes the better to absorb the rise and fall of his breath.

“Bennett,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.” Even as she was not entirely sure what she was sorry for.

He released her hand and, for a second, her heart stilled, but he shifted his weight, turning so that he was facing her, his eyes just visible and open. He gazed down at her, her eyes great sad pools, begging him to love her, and perhaps in that moment there was something in her expression that no sane man could refuse because with a sigh he placed an arm around her and allowed her to nestle into his chest. She placed her fingers lightly on his collarbone, her breath a little shallow now, her thoughts jumbling with desire and relief.

“I want to make you happy,” she murmured, so quietly that she wasn’t even sure he would hear her. “Really I do.”

She looked up. His eyes searched hers, and then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. Alice closed her eyes and let him, feeling the deep easing of something that had been wound so tightly that she had felt she could barely breathe. He kissed her and stroked her hair with his broad palm, and she wanted to just stay in that moment for ever, where it was like they used to be. Bennett and Alice, a love story at its beginning.

    The life and joy of tongues of flame,

 And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,

 I may rouse the blear-eyed world, and pour into it—

She felt desire build in her swiftly, its fuse lit by the poetry and the unfamiliar words of the little blue book, which conjured images that her imagination yearned to make flesh. She yielded her lips to his, let her breath quicken, felt a bolt of electricity when he let out a low groan of pleasure. His weight was on her now, his muscular legs between hers. She moved against him, her thoughts now lost, her whole body sparking with new nerve endings. Now, she thought, and even that thought was misted with urgent pleasure.

Now. At last. Yes.

“What are you doing?”

It took her a moment to work out what he was saying.

“What are you doing?”

She pulled her hand back. Looked down. “I—I was just touching you?”

“There?”

“I . . . thought you’d like it.”

He pulled back, dragging the cover over his groin, leaving her exposed. Some part of her was still flushed with need, and it made her bold. She lowered her voice and placed her hand on his cheek. “I read a book this evening, Bennett. It’s about what love can be between a man and his wife. It’s by a medical doctor. And it says that we should feel free to give each other pleasure in all sorts of—”

“You’re reading what?” Bennett pushed himself upright. “What is wrong with you?”

“Bennett—it was about married people. It was designed to help couples to bring each other joy in the bedroom and . . . well, men apparently do love to be touched—”

“Stop! Why can’t you just . . . be a lady?”

“What do you mean?”

“This touching and this reading of smut. What in hell is wrong with you, Alice? You—you make it impossible!”

Alice sprang back. “I make it impossible? Bennett, nothing has happened in almost a year! Nothing! And in our vows, we promised to love each other with our bodies, as in all ways! Those were vows we made before God! This book says it’s perfectly normal for a husband and wife to touch each other wherever they like! We’re married! That’s what it says!”

“Shut up!”

She felt her eyes brim with tears. “Why are you being like this when all I am trying to do is make you happy? I just want you to love me! I’m your wife!”

“Stop talking! Why do you have to talk like a prostitute?”

“How do you know how a prostitute talks?”

“Just shut up!”

He hurled the lamp from the bedside table so that it shattered on the floor. “Shut up! Do you hear me, Alice? Will you ever just stop talking?”

Alice sat frozen. From next door they heard the sound of Mr. Van Cleve groaning his way out of bed, the springs shrieking a protest, and she dropped her face into her hands, braced for what would inevitably come next. Sure enough, a few short seconds later there was a loud rapping at their bedroom door.

“What’s going on in there, Bennett? Bennett? What’s all the noise? Did you break something?”

“Go away, Pa! Okay? Just leave me alone!”

Alice stared at her husband in shock. She waited for the sound of the fuse of Mr. Van Cleve’s temper being lit again but—perhaps equally surprised by his son’s uncharacteristic response—there was only silence. Mr. Van Cleve stood on the other side of the door for a moment, coughed twice, and then they heard him shuffle back to his room.

This time it was Alice who rose. She climbed off the bed, picking up the pieces of the lamp so that she didn’t tread on them in bare feet, and placed them carefully on the bedside table. Then, without looking at her husband, she straightened her nightdress, pulled on her bed-jacket, and made her way next door into the dressing room. Her face once again returned to stone as she lay down on the daybed. She pulled a blanket over herself and waited for morning, or for the silence from the next room to stop weighing like a dead thing on her chest, whichever would come first, or would deign to come at all.

TEN

   One of the most notorious feuds of the Kentucky mountains began . . . in Hindman as a result of the killing of Linvin Higgins. Dolph Drawn, a deputy sheriff of Knott County, organized a posse and started for Letcher County with warrants for the arrest of William Wright and two other men accused of the murder . . . In the fight that followed several men were wounded and the sheriff’s horse was killed. (“Devil John” Wright, leader of the Wright faction, later paid for the animal because he “regretted the killing of a fine horse.”) . . . This feud lasted several years and was responsible for the death of more than 150 men.