by Ember Pierce
* * *
He knew how much his father wanted to help him, yet how helpless he was to actually do it. Kristian knew these things, and they made him angry.
* * *
It was like his Pa just wanted him to turn into a duplicate of John.
* * *
“I don’t want to learn how to run the ranch,” Kristian snapped. “That was John’s life, you know that. I’m not going to be the stand-in for your better son.”
* * *
The venom in his voice didn’t even begin to touch the anger Kristian felt deep down to the core of his being. He couldn’t let go of the rage that had filled the hole John had made when he was ripped from Kristian’s life.
* * *
How could his brother leave him to face these responsibilities alone? Didn’t John know how much Kristian had needed him? Still needed him?
* * *
Kristian ignored the hurt look that flashed across his father’s face. “We never loved John more than you, Kristian,” Pa said.
* * *
The sadness in the older man’s voice made Kristian’s stomach ache worse. He knew that what his father was saying was true, but he refused to admit it.
* * *
Suddenly, the heat of the day was too oppressive; the weight of the world pressed down on Kristian and he couldn’t breathe.
* * *
All he wanted to do was get away from his Pa, the ranch, this life. He turned to go, starting to walk back the way he had just come.
* * *
“Where are you going, Kristian?” Pa’s voice seemed to echo around Kristian, the anger, the disappointment, the hint of desperation threatening to engulf him.
* * *
“The saloon,” Kristian answered without so much as a backward glance.
* * *
His feet planted firmly in the reddish dirt, dry and cracked into odd rivulets molded during the last rain storm, Kristian knew he was making a choice that might seem irrevocable a few minutes in the future.
* * *
It was a decision that he needed to make, though.
* * *
“Not on my dollar, you’re not,” Pa yelled.
* * *
Kristian barely paused, his footsteps faltering for a moment before he forced himself to continue down the road away from the ranch. Sweat began to form as he trudged back through the summer heat.
* * *
Despite it still being early in the season, the grass was already dry and browning. Wind rushed through the grasses, stirring them, making them whisper secrets that Kristian sometimes felt he could hear.
* * *
Normally he liked the desolate nature of Wyoming’s Red Desert, with its scrubby sagebrush and large expanses of sandy nothingness. Today, it felt like the most miserable place on earth.
* * *
He was so far from civilization that he wondered if anyone would even miss him if he just disappeared. Kristian knew he wouldn’t leave a hole in anyone’s life like John’s death had left in his.
* * *
Kicking at a rock in the dusty road, Kristian felt all the fury that he wanted to unleash on his father barreling down on him. How dare his father threaten to cut him off!
* * *
After everything they had all been through. But, no matter—Kristian knew Graves would lend him the money he needed for his drinking and gambling.
* * *
Despite his need to numb his pain, there were moments like this that threatened to overwhelm him completely. Kristian looked up at the sky and let out a primal scream at the heavens.
* * *
He wasn’t sure if he believed in a higher power, but if he did, then raging this way was the only prayer he had anymore. Another scream ripped through him, and he was glad once again for the isolation of this place.
* * *
Kristian felt kind of terrible about the way he had been treating pretty much everyone since John died. He had been belligerent to his father, short with his mother, and ambivalent to anyone else.
* * *
When he was sober, he was worse. He used his anger to numb the feelings of grief.
* * *
John had been his best friend, hands down the person Kristian looked up to more than anyone in the world. John had always been the calming influence on him, his guiding light, North star.
* * *
Kristian had always looked up to his brother. John had believed in him in ways that no one else ever had. Kristian had always known that John would be there for him.
* * *
Now, though? No one was there for him.
* * *
Feeling sorry for himself had become his new hobby, but Kristian didn’t care. Whenever the feelings of guilt threatened to surface, he let his anger and grief take over until those unwanted feelings subsided.
* * *
One of his last memories of John was a fight the two of them had. Kristian could never remember who had started the fight, but he always remembered the way it ended, because he had ended it by punching John in the face.
* * *
The punch had only been a glancing blow, but John’s nose had bled so much it looked like something had been slaughtered nearby.
* * *
John hadn’t stayed angry, but Kristian had, mainly mad at himself for getting so carried away. And then, before he could make amends, John was gone.
* * *
Kristian paused beneath the shade of a lone tree and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. This day was hot as blazes. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the summer.
* * *
The cool, dark interior of Red’s Saloon continued to beckon him like a siren call. Kristian knew that John would be disappointed beyond belief in Kristian’s current choices.
* * *
Part of him wanted to do what Pa suggested, clean up his life and be the man John would have wanted him to be. That wasn’t the path he was interested in pursuing, though.
* * *
Kristian didn’t know how to deal with all the feelings John’s death brought out in him, so he was taking care of it the only way he knew: drinking and gambling. He craved the euphoria he felt when he was intoxicated or when he won a high hand at poker.
* * *
So what if he was on a losing streak at the moment? The tables would turn in his favor, as they often did. Although, he had to admit, they had not turned lately.
* * *
But O’hara always seemed ready to loan him money, and even to encourage him to take the money. At times, he at first said no and turned down the loan.
* * *
But O’hara kept at him and said it was fine, and with this loan maybe he would win the hands at the poker table and pay back all his loans. It was only a matter of time.
* * *
The man was a friend, a very good friend. Loaned him money for whisky and power. Of course, it didn’t help his card game when he dealt with shaky hands, which had happened at the tables a number of times lately.
* * *
A hot breeze rustled the tree branches and Kristian closed his eyes, trying to feel the relief the wind offered.
* * *
There was no relief from the burning rage inside his chest, though, only momentary obliteration. That was why he allowed himself to follow the path to Red’s again and again.
4
Bonny’s stomach was a wreck. She hadn’t even been able to eat the small amount of thin broth she had made for her siblings’ supper.
* * *
Despite the fact that she was weary from the day, Bonny wanted to take the time to get away from the duties that she would soon pass on to Katie.
* * *
With her birthday rapidly approaching, Bonny knew that the time to make choices about her future were running out.
* * *
Stepping out of the tenement building and onto the squalid Philadelphia street, Bonny looked first one way and th
en the next, seeking the solitude she so desperately craved.
* * *
From all directions, the city teemed with life. The stench of so many animals and humans living in such a confined space overwhelmed her senses and made the churning in her stomach worse.
* * *
How she longed for the wide, open spaces of the West! She had seen a few pictures of the landscapes out there. After looking at them, she knew why the West was called “the wide, open spaces.”
* * *
In contrast to her squeezed living quarters, the West had miles and miles of open land. It looked free. It looked like liberty and.. and a chance.
* * *
A chance at happiness. A chance where squalid, crowded despair would not linger at her door. A place where she would find solace and, perhaps, even happiness and joy.
* * *
She gave a wry smile. There was still a little hope in her. But that hope was located in the West. At the rate things were going, though, she would never get there.
* * *
If she walked toward the river, she should be able to find a shady tree on the bank where she could reread the letter—the only letter she had received, from a Mr. Silas Adams.
* * *
A shudder ran through her body, so she forced herself to keep her mind in the present. This proved easier than she had expected as she dodged horses and carts and the masses of people moving on foot.
* * *
Her concentration was so taken up with finding her way through the humid summer night that she didn’t think about the letter again until she got to the riverbank.
* * *
The river was low from the lack of spring rain and it stank with the smells of stagnation and fish. Still, Bonny liked it better here than in the middle of the city.
* * *
Here, she felt like she had some space to breathe, to think, to simply be herself. That was one of the things that appealed to her about moving west: all that space to move and live and be in!
* * *
Taking a deep breath, Bonny settled herself in the thick grass and leaned against the rough bark of the tree. The letter from Silas Adams seemed to be burning a hole in the pocket of her apron.
* * *
It was the only reply she had received despite the fact that her mail-order bride ad had been out for nearly a month. Maybe the letter wasn’t as bad as she had remembered.
* * *
Maybe, somewhere in the starkness of the reality before her, was something she had missed in the first reading, something she had missed that would promise her better things to come.
* * *
Slowly, Bonny took the letter out of her pocket. She unfolded it, but before she could read any of the words, tears blurred her vision and she blinked rapidly to clear her sight.
* * *
She had to get past these feelings of self-pity. Bonny was no cock-eyed optimist. She was a realist, and she knew that life wasn’t easy.
* * *
No one out there was going to promise her anything. That was okay with Bonny, though, because she knew how to be self-reliant.
* * *
Still, she was getting pretty worried. If she didn’t get more replies soon, she would be forced to make the choice between Mr. Silas Adams and working in a factory.
* * *
That was why she had come down to the river, so that she could read the letter again in silence. The first time she had read the letter, all of her brothers and sisters had been making so much noise she hadn’t even been able to hear herself think.
* * *
Not one full, coherent thought had come into her head. That was why she hoped she might have missed something.
* * *
Taking another deep breath, Bonny looked down at the small, tight script that somehow seemed hurried.
* * *
Dear Miss Wightman,
* * *
I was right happy to see your advertisement offering your services as a mail-order bride. I myself am a widower, two times over now, and still have no children.
* * *
Bonny paused and reread the first two sentences again. What services had she offered that would appeal to this man so much?
* * *
The cooking and cleaning? Or the fact that she was a living, breathing female? She suspected it was the latter.
* * *
And she wasn’t looking forward to having children with anyone, so his appeal to her maternal instincts hit her in the wrong place. She went back to reading.
* * *
My name is Silas Adams. I own a small ranch in the foothills of Colorado.
* * *
At one time, I was a miner out in California, but as nothing came of that venture, I decided to settle into farming. The growing season in Colorado is mighty short, so raising cattle is the next best thing.
* * *
I expect anyone I marry to be able to do chores right alongside me, so being a hard worker is a must.
* * *
Well, at least she had that going for her. She was definitely not afraid of hard work. Her whole life had been one long chore list to be completed.
* * *
I should tell you right now that I am not a young man. I am fifty years old, and I don’t have time for nonsense.
* * *
Fifty years old! That had been the thing that had caught her attention on the first read-through of the letter, and not in a good way.
* * *
Fifty was more than twice her age. What could she possibly have in common with a man that age? How many more years did he really have to live? Realistically.
* * *
If she were to go out to Colorado and marry this man, she knew what kind of life she would end up leading.
* * *
They would have a few children, and then he would die of some frontier disease, leaving her with their little brats and an unprofitable ranch that she had no idea how to run.
* * *
Still… it wasn’t like she had so many options, not with her birthday fast approaching. Her mother had been making comments, dropping little hints that she was wondering what Bonny intended to do after she turned eighteen.
* * *
Bonny hadn’t mentioned her mail-order bride plan to her parents, not that she thought they would discourage her.
* * *
When her older sister, Martha, had become a mail-order bride, the entire family had rejoiced with her. And if her letters were all true, her life out west seemed to be working out quite well.
* * *
It was just that Bonny didn’t want to disappoint her parents if her plans didn’t work out. She had always felt such a sense of responsibility to them that she hated when they were sad.
* * *
She did need a solid plan soon, though, or she would end up working in one of the factories like two of her older sisters and one of her older brothers did. Their lives were one long waking nightmare of unsafe conditions and drudgery.
* * *
Sure, it was an honest wage. There was nothing wrong with honest work, but Bonny knew that the conditions inside the factories could easily kill you.
* * *
So many people she had grown up with had started working in the factories when they were eleven or twelve, and few of them were still alive.
* * *
She worried every day for her sisters and brother. She would rather die than be forced into that life.
* * *
She kept thinking she might have a home with that little poetry room. She could sit, sip a little tea, and read. Enjoy the beauty of language and the beauty of life.
* * *
She had never experienced the beauty and kindness of life but she could, at least, read about it.