Letters for the Devil

My dad died owing money, and not the kind of money you can shrug at and move on from, either. It was four thousand two hundred dollars to Saul Martino, for a tractor repair his crew did on our old place back when Dad was still sharp enough to argue about grain prices. Dad never paid it. I found the invoice in the shoebox of papers my sister and I split up, and I sat on the floor of my apartment and felt my face go hot.

Here's what you need to know about Saul Martino. He runs cattle in eastern Oregon, about a hundred miles from the feed supply office where I've sold for the last eleven years. I met him at a trade show in Boise five years ago, when I was thirty-eight and he was forty-one, and we talked by the coffee urn for two hours about fencing and feed prices and why hotel conference rooms are always too cold. And then, well, in the hallway by the elevators, he asked if he could kiss me, and I said yes so fast I embarrassed myself. We traded numbers. We never called. That was the sad history, or it was until the shoebox.

So I wrote him a letter. My sister said just mail the check, but I've never been able to do anything the simple way, ask anyone who's dated me.

* * *

Saul,

You probably remember my name even if you pretend you don't. Marianne Richards, Dad was Hal Richards, and I found his bill to you in a box of papers, four thousand two hundred for the tractor work your guys did in the fall of 2021. I'm sorry it took this long. He was proud and then he was sick, and neither one is an excuse.

Enclosed is a check for the full amount. I dare you to cash it. Because here's my real offer, and you can laugh at me for it, I'd rather pay you in person. One day of hard work on the Martino spread, whatever you need done, fences, mucking, castrating calves if it comes to that. I'm forty-three, I'm in decent shape, and I don't complain much. You remember I don't complain much.

Cash the check and I'll be disappointed in you. Write back and tell me when to show up.

Marianne

* * *

I got his reply nine days later, and I'll admit I stood at my mailbox for a minute before I opened it, because his handwriting was better than it had any right to be.

Marianne,

I cashed nothing. Check is in the envelope, torn in half, and before you get riled up, hear my terms.

Your dad and I were friends. The tractor work was something I'd have done free if he'd have let me say so out loud, which he wouldn't. I've carried that debt five years knowing it was never really owed, so you paying it now with money, well, that settles nothing as far as I'm concerned.

Here's what settles it. One letter a month for twelve months. Each one tells me something you'd let me do to you, if you ever showed up here. That's it. Twelve letters and we're square, and you never have to haul a bucket of water in your life.

You started with a dare, so I'm giving one back. Are you brave enough?

Saul

P.S. I remember you don't complain much. I remember several things about you.

I read that letter three times at my kitchen table and then I laughed out loud alone in my apartment like a crazy person. Because what kind of man answers a debt with a dare like that? The kind I've been thinking about for five years, apparently.

* * *

Saul,

You are a devil. My father would have liked you enormously.

Fine. Letter one, since you asked so politely. Here's something I'd let you do to me.

I'd let you pull me up into your hay loft. I'd let you back me against the stacked bales and unbutton that flannel shirt you probably wear eleven months a year, one button at a time, while the cattle low down below us and the dust hangs in the light coming through the boards. I'd put my hands flat on your chest and trace the lines there, because I remember you are built as someone who actually works, and I've thought about those lines more than a respectable saleswoman should admit. I'd let the whole ranch go on without us down there for an hour. Maybe two. The fence can wait. The fence always waits.

One down. Eleven to go. Your move, cowboy.

Marianne

* * *

His next letter came with actual homework, which, honestly, should have annoyed me and instead made me grin at my desk until my coworker Harper asked if I'd gotten a bonus.

Marianne,

Letter one was a good start, but it was soft. A man can't work with soft.

New terms, and I get terms now because I'm the one holding the torn check. Each letter has to be specific. What you're wearing. What I say. Where your hands are. Where mine are. You're a saleswoman, so sell it.

And since you're doing all the giving, I'll give too. Every letter you send, I'll answer with what I'd actually do. Consider it a demonstration, so you know your money's well spent.

Saul

P.S. The loft detail was good. The light through the boards. You've been thinking about this.

* * *

Well. How do you answer a man who answers? You answer bigger, that's how. And I happened to be on a business trip that month, two nights in a hotel in Pendleton for a feed dealer conference, which is exactly as thrilling as it sounds, and I sat on the bed after the evening mixer with my laptop closed and the hotel notepad in front of me. Room 214. One bed, too many pillows, a window overlooking the parking lot. I had on the little black dress from the mixer and no plans to take it off for anyone, and then I picked up the pen.

Saul,

Letter two, and I'm writing this from a hotel in Pendleton, so blame the mini bar and the fact that I'm forty-three years old and alone in room 214 with a pen and my imagination, which has been running unsupervised for five years now.

Specific, you said. Fine. I'm wearing the black dress, but in this version I'm not, in this version I'm wearing nothing but your hat, the one in the photo on your website, the one with the creased crown, and I'm standing in the middle of a room that doesn't exist yet, some room we haven't earned, and you come in from outside smelling like hay and cold air, and you stop dead when you see me.

You'd say something dry first, because you would, you'd make a joke to keep your hands from shaking, something like, that's my good hat, and I'd say I know, and I'd tip the brim up so you could see my face, all of it, everything the dress was hiding at the mixer tonight.

And you'd cross the room slow, Saul, you'd take your time, because you're a patient man, I remember that about you too, and you'd set one hand on my waist like you were checking whether I was real, and I'd let you. I'd let you look as long as you wanted. I'd let you take the hat off and set it on the nightstand like it mattered, like it was worth something, and then I'd let you put both