by Joyce Wright
“You’re a pretty thing,” Beckie said. “Armeda was smart enough for that. She knows her son better than he thinks, and Owen is ripe for falling in love with a pretty woman. I’m guessing you’re smart and strong too, or Armeda wouldn’t have chosen you. It might not be the most romantic way to wed, but this land will test you. Better to start out with what you need. Love comes deeper with the years that go by. Now you get yourself prettied up for your wedding night. When I go back, Owen will know it’s time to come to you.”
“You talked about this with him?”
“I told you,” Beckie said patiently, “he knows women, not wives. And the kind of women he’s known aren’t the kind waiting in a marriage bed for their husband to come to them. Owen wants to do the right thing. It’s up to you to let him know what the right thing is, and that meant it was up to me first to get him on the right path. Armeda wouldn’t think of it, and Owen wouldn’t ask. Those two are oil and water. You’re going to have to find a way to mix ‘em together.”
“I don’t see that happening.” Willovene let Beckie help her with the buttons at the back of her dress. She’d done the occasion of her wedding the honor of wearing her best dress, attiring herself for an occasion that did not claim her heart but was something to be addressed in ceremony.
“Give it time,” Beckie grinned. “And grandchildren. Once Armeda doesn’t have to worry night and day about who’ll take care of the ranch when she’s gone, she’ll lighten up. You’ve got one son, odds are you’ll have another.”
Their eyes met in understanding. That was why, Willovene realized, that Armeda had been so interested in Eli’s health, his intelligence, and of course his gender. She wanted to make sure that there would be other males born of Willovene’s body. It was always on a woman, she thought bitterly, to produce the male child; no one ever blamed the man if girls were the result. “There’s be precious few baby boys born if girls hadn’t come first,” she said.
Beckie acknowledged the truth of this. “I’m glad I’m a woman,” she said. “I know where my brains are and I don’t lose any of ‘em every time I unbutton my trousers like a man does.”
Willovene laughed out loud. It was a ribald comment, but an accurate one.
Modestly, Willovene went behind the wooden screen to take off her clothes and don her cotton nightgown. When she emerged, her hair loose and falling upon the white fabric like warm lava, Beckie nodded her approval. “You’re a pretty thing,” she repeated. “Now get under the covers.”
Willovene Winchester was wedded for the second time, but Beckie had a hunch that she wasn’t the kind of woman who gave her heart easily. The physical surrender that was an intrinsic part of marriage was a matter-of-fact transaction between body and desire that sometimes grew into intimacy and passion. But that was for husband and wife to work out. Beckie had done her part.
The room was dark except for the lamp on the table that cast a warm yellow light upon the bed, blocked from the view of the sleeping baby by the wooden screen. He was aware of Willovene beneath the blankets, and he could sense her fear. It was odd, he thought, that’d she’d fear him and what was to come, when she was a widow. But as he undressed, he spoke casually of routine matters.
“I don’t know if you’re any kind of cook,” he said, hanging his trousers on the clothes hook against the wall. “Ma isn’t. Aunt Beckie got all the cooking wiles.”
“I can cook,” said a faint voice from the barricade of bedlinens and pillows.
Owen stripped off his undergarments. “Good,” he said, pulling back the covers and getting into the bed. “I’ll be sure to stay on your good side, because if there’s anything that’s needed at the Circle W, it’s someone in the kitchen who can make beef taste like it’s supposed to, and not like an old pair of worn-out moccasins.”
He turned on his side, facing her. “You sure looked pretty today,” he said. He lowered his face to hers.
He was disappointed that she turned away from him. He wanted to hold her, and whisper sweet, foolish things into her ear and tell her that she was beautiful. But he couldn’t cuddle a woman whose back and shoulders were facing him. Then he heard her.
She was weeping.
“Willovene, darlin’, what’s the matter?” He pulled her into his arms and let her cry, not knowing why she was crying but not asking. She soaked his chest with a waterfall of tears that gave no sign of stopping. “I’m sorry, darlin’, I don’t want to rush you? I didn’t mean—I’m sorry,”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, repentant, despite her grief, that he thought himself at fault. “I’m—I never thought to be with anyone but my husband.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Did she feel as if she were unfaithful to her husband’s memory? He was 23 years old and none of the saloon girls ever cried when he was in bed with any of them, but they were with other men as well in the course of their profession. This woman was pure, and only a man who said the words and put a ring on her finger would share her bed.
At least she was letting him hold her. He smoothed her hair and held her in his arms. “Is Eli like him?” he asked, willing to talk about her son, but not her husband.
“Very much,” she said, life returning to her voice when she referred to her son.
“He’s a fine boy; I’m proud to have him as a son,” Owen said, meaning it. He intended to have other sons, and daughters too, but family was family and he meant to father the boy.
She cried a little more; Owen didn’t know that it was because ‘Lige wasn’t alive to be a father to his son, but her tears slowed then ceased as she realized that she’d done what she needed to do. Eli would grow up in a family, with a father who would provide for him and teach him what a boy needed to know to be a man. She did not resist when Owen’s embrace turned from comforting to a caress, and this time, his slower, tempered, deliberate approach aroused something within her and when he kissed her, she kissed him back.
CHAPTER FIVE
Armeda Winchester did not exactly concede that her daughter-in-law was the better cook, but when Willovene asked, choosing her words carefully, if Armeda would object to her trying some of the recipes she’d brought with her, Armeda simply asked if they needed to go to the general store first. She’d been at the Circle W for two weeks and hadn’t gone into town, so she accepted Armeda’s offer.
“This is my son’s wife, Willovene Winchester,” Armeda made the introductions to the storekeeper. “You will see her in here again.”
The storekeeper, Mr. Benjamin Loggins, nodded his head. “Pleased to meet you ma’am. Welcome to Maple Grove.”
“Are there maples in Wyoming?” Willovene asked eagerly.
Loggins barked out a laugh. “Not that I’ve seen. Wishful thinking. But never you mind, Mrs. Winchester. You just wait. Nothing’s prettier than a Wyoming summer. Winter will be settling in soon, and it’ll get cold. But it’ll pass, and the spring comes again. This is a beautiful place. Wild, but it can be tamed.” He winked. “Just like the menfolk can be tamed by beautiful women.”
“We need flour, sugar, and corn meal,” Armeda said briskly. “Willovene, give Ben your list and he’ll get the other things. Ben, my daughter-in-law and I are going do the rest of our shopping.”
Their trip was not conversational, but Armeda took Willovene to the dry goods store and the feed store, and when they returned to the ranch, they brought a full wagon with them. Owen praised her beef stew and ate two helpings of her apple crisp. Armeda was not inclined to praise, but she agreed that Willovene served a good table.
“Bedtime for a little boy,” Owen announced; sitting on his lap, Eli’s limbs were loosely sprawling across Owen’s chest and arm. He moved Eli so that he was encircled by Owen’s right arm. “I’ve got a surprise for this one.”
“Surprise?” Armeda asked sharply. “What kind of surprise can you give a boy who’s not breeched yet?”
“He will be,” Owen relied. “I’ve got a pony for him.”
“A pony! Owen, you can�
�t be serious,” his mother replied. “He’s just now walking without toppling over. How can he possibly ride?”
“Not on his own, of course, Ma. But he loves horses. I’ll teach him when he’s old enough, but he’s going to have his own pony.”
“He’s too young for a pony!”
“I’ve already picked his pony out for him, and when summer comes, it’ll be his. I’m not going to let him ride alone, but he’s part of this ranch and he’ll have what a son of mine will have.”
“I’ve no objection to a child having a pony. This is a ranch,” Armeda said, scraping off the plates to wash with crisp, exact motions of her hand. “But you can’t put a child on the back of a horse at that age.”
“I just told you that I’m not going to put him on horseback. He’ll have a pony that he can ride one day.”
“Owen, you are being ridiculous and you are not making sense!”
“Ma, I’m not sending him out on a cattle drive!”
Willovene banged a tin cup on the wooden table. The noise of it stopped the squabbling as the Winchesters, mother and son, turned to her.
“Eli will be very glad to have a pet pony,” she said. “He will not be ready to mount a horse for some time. As long as one of us is with him at all times when he’s around the pony, and as long as he does not ride it, I have no objection. Mother Winchester, would you like my help with the dishes?”
“I’ll do them. You’d best get that boy to bed.”
Owen was still grumbling when he was in bed and Eli was sound asleep in his cot. “I’m not a damned fool to put a boy Eli’s size on a horse, or even a pony,” he said, watching Willovene brush her long hair. He never tired of the sight and she was too modest to realize how the sight stirred his desire for her.
“I don’t think she meant any harm, Owen,” Willovene said. Her hair braided, she rose from the bench in front of the mirror, picking up her nightgown to undress for bed.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice thick. “Let me see you.”
“Owen . . .”
“Please. Let me see you.”
‘Lige had never asked such a thing. But ‘Lige hadn’t had roving hands that found the places of her body where bliss awaited. Nor had he known how, in the midst of heartstopping passion, to make her laugh out loud. The winter, with its dark, early nights, had given the couple more time to spend in private, and as the weeks evolved into months, the marriage bed had become a welcome place.
“Owen,” she pleaded, moving away.
He threw back the heavy blankets and bounded from the bed. “Owen!” she exclaimed as he chased her. “Your mother will hear us!”
She shouldn’t have paused to speak, because Owen caught her in an embrace, lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the bed. “I knew you’d be like this,” he said as if he’d witnessed the exposing of a long-kept secret by spying her without clothing. He touched her everywhere with no clothing to conceal her and she let him, turning sinuously to anticipate his hands.
“You’re making me a harlot,” she protested.
“Oh, no,” he argued. “I’ve known my share of harlots. You’re a wife.”
Eli’s face was flushed and his skin moist and hot when Willovene placed her hand on his forehead. “He never gets ill,” she said. “We’ve been so lucky. He was fine yesterday when we went into town.”
Armeda put her palm to Eli’s cheek. “Fevers are common,” she said. “Keep him drinking. I’ll make broth.”
Willovene put Eli in the big four-poster, on top of the quilts. She dipped a cloth in a basin of lukewarm water and after wringing it out, placed in on his forehead. His bright red-orange curls were already damp with sweat. Winter was coming to an end but the temperatures outside had not yet given way to spring. Dear God, she prayed, please let him be all right.
Remorse welled up within her. During the winter, her feelings toward Owen had altered. She hadn’t forgotten ‘Lige, but she was Owen’s wife now and she had come to accept the understanding that the heart could love two men from both past and present, but the body could not divide itself. Owen was an affectionate and confident lover, a complimentary husband, and a doting father to the child that was not his. The winter had nurtured a love she had never expected to find. But now, her son, the child to whom she owed a mother’s complete devotion, was ill, possibly dangerously ill. She felt as though she had let her womanly desires distract her and in that time, malevolent fate had entered to punish her by striking her son.
The bedroom door opened. Owen came in. “He was all right this morning,” he said.
“I know. Your mother said fevers are common. He’s never ill, you know that. He’s always—“
“Ma is right, fevers are common,” Owen repeated. He didn’t tell his wife that his older brothers had had fevers and died of them. He hadn’t known them, but he knew the family grief that had put them in the ground. “She’s making broth for him. She says he needs to drink it.” Owen sounded as if he were reading from a book of cures that had been tested and were guaranteed to succeed. “As long as he drinks, the fever will come down.”
But liquids didn’t bring his fever down. Willovene consulted the medical book she’d brought with her from Indiana, and followed its advice, but nothing changed. Evening came and he was still feverish; Willovene had changed his dress because it was saturated with perspiration. She and Armeda took turns placing wet cloths on his forehead. He whimpered, and called for his mother; Willovene held him while Armeda, her face tense and white, cooled his legs and feet with the cloths that she continued to moisten and apply with monotonous efficiency. Owen paced back and forth in the bedroom. Supper had been forgotten; no one was hungry.
He was going to die. Willovene knew it. She was going to lose her child. It was her punishment. She was going to pay for the child she carried, the knowledge so new that she had not told anyone yet, by losing the child she had borne. Fate would strike her for the unseemly joy she had found in her second marriage.
“What did you say?” Armeda asked.
Willovene’s eyes were streaming. “I can’t lose him,” she cried. “I can’t replace Eli with this baby.”
“What baby?”
“I’m carrying,” she said. “It’s early, I was waiting until I was sure . . .”
“Owen!” Armeda’s voice cracked in the silence of her son’s reaction. “Go fetch Dr. Allison. Tell him there’s illness in the family and he must come.”
Owen looked at his mother, then at his wife. He saw what she had noticed; the spots of color reddening Willovene’s cheeks, and the unnatural brightness of her eyes. “I’ll see to her and Eli,” Armeda said. “Get Dr. Allison.”
Willovene was unaware of the doctor’s presence when he arrived and stood by her bed. Eli’s fever seemed to have gone down slightly and he had fallen into a restless sleep, but Willovene’s skin was blazing hot and she was murmuring words that were unconnected to sense. The doctor looked worried.
He had been in town and told Armeda and Owen that fever had broken out. No one was sure what it caused. Owen told him that Willovene had been in town the day before to buy supplies. She had taken Eli with her because he had wanted to go and he was always so well behaved in the stores.
“Cod liver oil under the tongue,” he said. “Keep them drinking water. Make sure the water is pure. Boil it to make sure.”
“Cholera?” Armeda asked, her eyes showing fear.
The doctor didn’t think so but he wasn’t taking chances. “Just boil it,” he told her. “Keep her cool, but don’t let her take a chill. The boy is on the mend, but she’s worse off.”
“She’s in the family way,” Armeda said. Owen was silent as he cooled off her body with the cloth that he soaked in the basin.
“Make her drink. Cod liver oil under the tongue,” he repeated. It won’t hurt if you both do the same. What cures her can prevent you from getting it.”
Mother and son didn’t speak. Armeda kept the basin filled. They took turns in applyin
g the wet cloths and persuading her to drink.
“She’s a good wife,” Armeda said suddenly.
Owen nodded. “And a good mother. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me.”
“Women wait until they’re sure and until it’s safe. Babies in the early months are fragile.”
Miscarriages were common; no one could fault Willovene for keeping her news private until she was confident that this child would continue to quicken within her. But Owen felt that he’d been cheated out of the joy of her news.
“If I lose her,” he said, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Armeda thought of her losses; children, a husband, dreams. But Owen’s love for his wife was still fresh and young. It would deepen, but it would change. She was not the one to explain to him that living meant loss. “We’re not going to lose her,” she said firmly.
Owen looked at his mother, hope stirring. Armeda was always right in her pronouncements. She was strong-willed and unyielding, but she was never wrong. He wished he could tell her that she’d chosen well for him, but the words remained unsaid. But he had said enough and done enough; Armeda wanted a wife for him who would make him a man, and that Willovene had done. Now she had to survive to continue her work.
Willovene opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt heavy, as if they had been shut for a long time. Her hair was matted and thick upon her pillow. Her nightgown was damp. Why was she still in bed, it wasn’t nighttime, she could see daylight outside the window—then she remembered. “Eli!”
“He’s well,” Armeda said. “Owen is feeding him.”
“Truly? Eli isn’t dead?”
Armeda smiled; her mouth was stiff after the days of worry. “He’s ravenous. I made oatmeal for him. He’s so hungry that he’s eating it.”