Daughters of Eve

The Cowboy

The House of Eden sits quietly just behind the veil of human awareness, only to be discovered by those who have lost their way. 

“Tell us a story; we know you’re not boring,” said the sisters. They spoke in unison as they sat before him at the table. He would have called it unsettling, but they had offered him pie as soon as he passed the threshold into the house. He loved pie. The Cowboy had passed maybe twelve closed doors, painted black with little specks of white like stars, as he made his way to the one right off the kitchen. He now sat at the table as they served him a slice of cheese huckleberry pie, his favorite and not a fruit usually found in this area. But as the Cowboy thought about it, this type of house wasn’t usually found in this area either. He considered asking them how they got there, but then he might have to answer how he got there, and he couldn’t quite remember. Though he felt it wasn’t a story, he should tell in polite company. 

“This is an odd house,” he said. His mama always told him not to ask too many questions of nice folk. So the man had made a habit of making statements that sounded suspiciously like questions. 

“It was all the rage last year at the World’s Fair. Italianate is what they call it,” said the middle one. She had soft curls that occasionally bounced up and tickled her nose, causing her to wrinkle up her face. 

“We redecorated the whole place when we got back from Chicago. New paint and all,” said the oldest. Her green lace dress brought his attention to her dark emerald eyes. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone with eyes that color or hair that dark. The man noted that, just like the doors, her black hair was speckled with white, making it look like she wore a veil made of stars. She was starkly different from the blonde hair and blue-eyed middle sister.

“New rugs, too,” said the youngest, her black hair was chopped short, and she sported bangs that laid a few inches above her eyebrows. The Cowboy’s eyes couldn’t help but catch on the ring of metal that adorned her nose; he had only ever seen that sort of piercing on the Crow woman. She had spoken with a bit of attitude he couldn’t place until he saw her almost black eyes shift downwards towards his boots. A ring of red desert dirt was now embellishing their new rugs. The man sheepishly looked behind him. Red-rimmed size 12 boot marks mapped his journey through the narrow hallway. They even showed the spot he had stopped to admire one of the many portraits they had hanging on the walls. Nearly every inch, from the crown molding to the baseboards, was covered in frames of different sizes. “The many visitors of the House of Eden.” They had told him when he asked about their origin and subjects. 

He returned his attention to the sisters, “Pardon my mess. I’ve been on the trail for a few weeks now.”

“Oh, hush now, no need to apologize. Delilah is just upset that Martha saw you coming first. She can be a bit competitive and fairly petty when she doesn’t get her way. But that’s sisters for you,” said the older one with a voice that calmed him. It reminded the Cowboy of how the small creek that ran through the ranch made him feel. But he was a long way from Wyoming, and unlike how he felt on his ranch, he was starting to feel uneasy. The man looked from Delilah to Martha and sensed he had known their names all along, but he was certain that this was the first time they had been mentioned. Then it hit him, and he spoke almost without realizing it.

“Judith,” the Cowboy looked at the eldest sister as he said it. 

“That’s right,” said Judith. She was proud; he could see it in her eyes before the smile spread across her face. 

“See, I told Martha he was a quick one, even if he was a cowboy,” said Delilah with the first look of anything light he’d seen across her face.

“No, Lilah. You said, ‘Ugh, why does it have to be a stupid cowboy they’re always so whiny,’” replied Martha. The two younger Eden sisters’ argument fell into the background, and the Cowboy started to get the slightest inkling that it may not be just the house that was a bit odd. 

“Well, I reckon I should be on my way. I’ll be wanting to get back to the ranch before dark,” the Cowboy said as he pushed back his chair. 

“But you haven’t finished your pie,” said Martha.

“Didn’t even take a bite,” said Delilah.

“You don’t want to be wasteful,” said Judith.

“Oh, It was some of the best damn pie I’ve ever eaten-” the Cowboy’s voice faded in his own ears as he caught a glimpse of his plate. A piece of pie sat perfectly presented, just as it had been when he arrived.

But he had eaten the pie. He had wanted to lick the plate, but his mama had taught him as a boy that it was rude to do so at the table of others. 

“I reckon,” he started, but he struggled to find the words. The Cowboy looked from sister to sister, but they didn’t help him. They just kept looking. 

“I coulda swore I ate every last bite of that dadgum delicious pie,” he said finally.

Judith smiled at him; it was a sad smile that told him to her he was like a poor creature caught in a trap.

“The House of Eden provides,” said Judith. 

“For as long as you are with us,” said Delilah.

“You shall not want,” added Martha.

“Oh, I’m just passing through; needed a place to find my bearings, water my horse, wet my lips. But…,” the Cowboy was getting worried now as the sisters continued to stare, “I think I oughta get going. They’ll be missing me on the ranch.”

He pushed back from the table. His eyes were weary as he backed his way to the door. Something told him it was safest if he didn’t turn his back on the sisters. If he treated them more like predators than three women in the middle of the desert, then he may be able to leave. 

“I’ll see myself out, then,” said the Cowboy. It came out quietly as he stood up from his chair and stepped towards the kitchen’s doorway. 

“Should we tell him,” whispered Delilah. He would have asked her what they wanted to tell him, but he was already retracing his footprints toward the front door. 

“He’ll figure it out soon enough. Let him believe a little longer,” returned Martha. The Cowboy was walking a little faster now. He was passing the third or seventh large ornate portrait that led to the exit when he noticed that all the eyes were following him. The one of the Ancient Greek couple embracing no longer had them looking longingly at each other but glancing from him to the door. The Cowboy stopped for just a second to decipher the look; it was pity. 

Panic rose from the tips of his toes, becoming a wave of heat as it nestled next to his heart. The Cowboy started to run. The eyes of a man in a yellow hard hat painted with elaborate brushstrokes followed. The impressionist’s rendition of a laughing Victorian-era woman was no longer laughing. In fact, tears ran down her face once happy face as she watched the Cowboy reach the door.

“Stop, dear.” Judith’s voice made his hand go still. It was hovering right above the knob, a pretty brass thing with flowers carved into the flat part. He didn’t want to stop. Stopping meant something more than just not leaving. He could sense everything they were trying to tell him just behind his actual thoughts. Like someone was whispering everything to him, everything he needed to know, if only he would listen. 

“I don’t want to listen,” said the Cowboy, “I want to go home, to the ranch, to my wife, my little girl. Hell, I want to go home and break that damned colt that’s been giving me trouble.” 

“And your other troubles,” said Delilah.

“The bank, the Lee Cory Gang,” asked Martha. 

“Do you want to go home to those,” finished Judith.

The Cowboy looked down at his boots and then back to the door knob. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and let go of a few of the tears he had been holding back. Wiping his eyes, he turned towards the sisters and said what he had feared since stepping into this strange house in the desert. The thing that had been festering just under awareness. He was afraid of it, terrified that it might be true.

“I’m dead, I reckon.” 

“Only one way to visit us,” confirms Judith.

“And a bus ticket isn’t one,” chuckles Delilah. The Cowboy couldn’t help but notice Martha’s foot shootout to give Delilah a quick kick in the shins.

“Ow!” Delilah growled. 

“Don’t confuse the poor soul anymore by mentioning modern things,” Martha chastised. 

He wanted to ask what Judith meant by that and what a bus was. He wanted to question everything and beg for it not to be true, but all he could do was look at the sisters. He scanned their faces hoping for a smile to emerge and to be told it was all just a joke. Something you’d see in the big city Sunday papers that sometimes made it out to Laramie. But they didn’t smile. 

It was the dread that made him do it that made him turn so quickly and twist the door knob before thrusting the door open. It was knowing that there might be no going back. He needed to believe that there was something that could be done. And from his experience, when prey gets scared, they run.

The Cowboy was two steps out the door before he realized his boots weren’t hitting hard desert but sinking slightly down, as if in fresh dirt. 

“You can’t go back,” said Martha as the Cowboy spun around. He was surrounded not by the miles of red dirt and barren rock valleys he had come through to find the house but instead a dense jungle. Vines and green moss climbed the trees, and water dripped from creeping ferns, washing the dust from his prized black Stetson. 

“What is this place? Hell? Purgatory?” The Cowboy was desperate now.

“We’re not Catholics, Protestants maybe. Lutherans sure. Definitely not Catholics, though,” said Delilah. 

“Purgatory doesn’t exist,” answered Judith

“Then it’s Hell?” 

“No, no. You weren’t so bad. Just a little lost.” Martha answered this one.

“Heaven,” he asked. It was a quiet question. Not much more than a whisper. One filled with unbelieving hope. 

“Not yet,” said Judith. With that, he removed his hat and rubbed his hands through his hair, exacerbated and confused. 

“I don’t understand. I was in the desert. I was coming home. Sure, we’ve had a bad year, and sure, I had thought more than once how, if I was gone, gone for good, my wife’s father would take her back. Take them both back to the city and their wealth. Sure, I was thinking about it, but I didn’t do it. I was going home. I was in the desert.” The Cowboy was breathing fast now. He was looking around, frantic, confused. The sisters stood, calm and stoic. 

“I was going home,” he said one more time before his pleading eyes finally met Judith’s.

“Think back to those final moments; what do you remember,” prompted Judith.

“Why can’t you just tell me,” asked the Cowboy.

“Because we cannot tell you what you already know,” said Martha.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Sure you do,” goated Delilah.

“You were on your way home,” provided Judith.

“It was raining,” added Martha. The heat left his body as the Cowboy studied the sisters. Memories surfaced above the fog, and the jungle felt very unsettling.

“Can we go back inside,” he asked. The sisters nodded and led him back through the door. Martha was the last to enter, and upon crossing the threshold, the jungle behind her began to vanish. The Cowboy caught a glimpse of nothingness as the door closed, and Delilah set the three locks.

“Can never be too careful,” said Delilah off the Cowboy’s quizzical look. 

“Let’s continue this in the parlor. We can have Chiyo make up some tea,” said Judith. The mention of someone else surprised the Cowboy. 

“Someone else is here?”

“Oh yes, many reside in the House of Eden. Some stay for a short time, some for longer. Chi has been with us for quite some time,” Judith replied as she led them all into one of the rooms off the main hallway. It was large, with multiple lounge chairs and loveseats scattered about. The Cowboy couldn’t help but notice the fabric. Florals, his wife, had been wanting one of those loveseats the home catalog put out a few months back. She had wanted the one with embroidered roses. He had had to tell her no. He had promised her he would get it for her someday. 

The sisters found spots that seemed like their own. A comfortable familiarity as they settled into their spaces. Judith sat in an oversized rocking chair that the Cowboy couldn’t help but notice had hand-carved chickadees landing on the arms. Delilah took her spot on the floral loveseat before leaning back to tug on a lamp’s string, lighting the room with a hazy orange glow. The Cowboy noted strangely that Martha sat in a weird-looking chair unlike one he had ever seen. For her part, Martha noticed his squint and took it as a question. 

“They call it postmodern, but to you, it won’t come into style for another sixty years,” she said. He nodded, confused by the statement but unable to ask all the questions this strange encounter was bringing. They had motioned for him to sit when they first entered, but he was finding it hard to settle, so he paced by the large window overlooking a small stream. The jungle had returned, or at least the window made it seem like it had. The stream cut through the ground cover as it trickled towards a small grass-filled pond. This was so different from the desert, the ranch, really everything The Cowboy had ever known. His wife would love this. She grew up in the swamp of Louisiana and was forever missing the dense water that filled the air. She always said her breaths felt too light out in Wyoming. He laughed at the thought, breaths too light.

“Care to share?” Said Delilah. He had almost forgotten the sisters were there. 

“Huh,” replied the Cowboy.

“What’s so funny?” Said Judith. 

“Nothing.” He couldn’t bring himself to share that moment with the sisters. It had played in his mind for years now whenever he was down or fixing fences. The Cowboy was ready. He was ready to ask all the questions that had suddenly broken the surface of the shock. “Why am I here? And what is here?”

Judith opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the side door swinging open. A small woman in an unusual dress backed into the room, pulling a tea cart with her. As she turned around, The Cowboy couldn’t help but examine her dress; he had seen one like it before. The women that followed the railroad workers wore those dresses. Orientals are what the bosses called them. 

“This is Chiyo, or as her friends call her, Chi,” Martha spoke as she rose to help Chi pour tea. 

“She makes the best tea. Makes us go all the way to the mountains of Japan just to get the leaves.” Delilah stuck her tongue out at Chi as she said the last part. 

“We all need a little piece of home,” Chiyo retorted before returning Delilah’s playful gesture. She poured the rather fragrant tea into the last teacup on the trolly and handed it to the Cowboy. It was an intricately hand-painted cup with a gold rim. It may have been the most expensive thing to ever grace his lips. He nodded a thanks to her as his eyes were once again brought to her dress.

“That’s a lovely dress you’ve got there, if not a bit different than the ones I’m used to seeing.” He couldn’t help but comment on it, his curiosity about his situation had been piqued, and politeness be damned, the questions were flowing. 

“A kimono; my father had it made for me by one of his concubines.”

“Beg my pardon; I apologize for asking in polite company.” He lowered his gaze from the ladies as his cheeks reddened at the mention of a word he’d once asked his mama what it meant, and she’d made him wash his mouth out with soap. Chiyo giggled at his embarrassment as she turned to the sisters.

“White men are always such prudes.” Chiyo bowed to the group before backing her cart back toward the room.

“You aren’t staying,” asked the Cowboy.

“No, it is always the same. I hope to see you around, or not.” Chiyo giggled again as she disappeared through the swinging door. 

Judith sipped her tea as Delilah pulled a cross stitch from the side table. The Cowboy was still waiting for Chiyo to swing back through the door when Martha lightly tapped him on the arm.

“Don’t want your tea to go cold, dear,” said Martha.

“You had some questions,” said Judith.

“We were beginning to think you’d never ask. You wouldn’t be the first to stall,” added Delilah. 

“I don’t understand; who are you, and why are you here? His calloused fingers played with the delicate teacup in his hand. The dirt under his fingernails was stark against the white of the cup. He never much liked tea, but the first sip seemed to calm him, so he took another. 

“Not many do. As the daughters of Eve, we are here when you need us and gone when you don’t,” explained Martha. She had joined her sisters in their stitching endeavor, except she was working on sewing a basket of quilting squares together. Her fast work with the needle reminded him of his mama. She could produce a new pair of pants for Daddy or him in less than an hour. 

“Why do you need us?” asked Judith. The Cowboy finally became still, taking a seat on the lounge chair in front of him. He shifted a bit to get comfortable. 

“Did I do it?” He needed to know. He had been thinking about it when he had left the ranch. The quietness of the trail made the thoughts louder. 

“If you’ll notice, your six-shooter is still neatly in its holster tied down to your leg,” said Martha pointing to his right thigh. The Cowboy now felt the weight of the colt where it always was. 

“Not the usual choice of gun for a rancher like yourself; certainly unusual to see it tied down as it is,” said Delilah, “That’s the mark of a hired gun if I’m not mistaken.”

His eyes flittered down towards the grip. His initials were carved crudely just below the hammer. The gun was a gift from his older brother right before the war. He had died at Gettysburg, and the Cowboy had left the war, as many did, with a need to roam.

“Life on the trail wasn’t always as easy as I’d hoped, but I’m settled now. Some habits are harder to kill than others.” It was a practiced statement born of too many good folks asking too many questions. 

“You’re not so easy to kill either,” prompted Judith.

“If I never pulled my gun…It was raining.” The chill once again returned to his bones; he felt heavy, his clothes pulling at him. 

Drip, drip, drip. The Cowboy’s eyes struggled to focus as the water fell from his hat. He followed the drops down. His clothes were soaked, and he stood in a puddle of water. He took a breath and looked back up at the sisters. They were no longer paying any attention to their tasks but focusing solely on him. 

“The Lee Cory gang was on my tail. I was making good headway through the canyon when they caught up to me. I reckon I owed them a fair amount of money, Lee was an old partner of mine, and when the bank stopped helping me out, I made the mistake of going to him,” he said as a crack of thunder shuddered the house. Rain began to pelt at the windows.

“It had been raining all day, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun Lee and his men much longer. I took a small offshoot; it was barely big enough from my horse,” he struggled to continue. His eyes pooled with tears; his death was becoming clear. The haze of the initial shock was wearing off. “I don’t understand,” he finally spoke. His voice was small.

“Death can be hard to understand,” replied Judith.

“It can be even harder when it seems so accidental,” added Martha.

“We find it helps if you actually say the words,” said Delilah.

“I could hear the water coming, and it was on me before I could turn around. I’d heard about these kinds of floods in the canyons, but….well, it just wouldn’t let me up. My lungs were screaming, and then they weren’t. Then, I was here, at your doorstep,” finished the Cowboy. 

“How do you feel?” Asked Judith

“Clearer of mind?” Added Martha 

“I don’t want to leave.” 

“Would you like to stay?” Asked Judith.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice, Cooper; everyone does. Are you ready to go forward, or would you like to hang on a little longer,” said Delilah. It was the first time his name had been mentioned, but he can’t remember telling them it. 

“I don’t want to be dead. I know that.” 

“Then stay with us for as long as it takes. Until you want to be dead,” said Martha.

“I do believe we have an open gamekeeper position,” added Judith. 

***

Cooper found that as he followed the sister through the jungle that surrounded the House of Eden that it only lasted a few miles before fading away into rolling prairie lands. An odd geographical transition if he’d ever seen one. While he hadn’t traveled much, he did like to read, and from what he had read, jungles and prairies did not go together. He had ridden his black mare, which had been tied on the post just outside the back door, and the sisters led him through the thick vegetation in an uncovered wagon mysteriously drawn by no horses. Cooper supposed he should have been surprised, but after everything, he couldn’t even bring himself to ask any more questions. 

“The House of Eden is not only home to a variety of people from a multitude of times, but animals as well.” Judith hollered back at Cooper from her place on the wagon. He nodded; he hadn’t quite gotten his bearings enough to respond. The House of Eden still felt unfamiliar even though he’d been there for a few days now. After the second day of breakfast at dawn with the sisters, afternoon tea with the sisters and Chiyo, and dinner once again with the sisters, he was ready to move on. He shifted in his saddle and compiled a list of all the things he knew about the house and the sisters. 

The sisters called themselves the Daughters of Eve and the house the House of Eden. He called forward to the sisters, “Is this the Garden of Eden?”

He heard Delilah snort after a short chuckle escaped her throat. She was the most peculiar of the sisters and the most intriguing. Delilah would often disappear for hours at a time and speak in a strange way he’d never heard before. 

“Of a sort, dear. It’s the last remnant of God’s gift. And we, as the Daughters of Eve, are tasked with keeping it,” said Martha.