by Joyce Wright
Jesse felt the lightness of relief ease the burden he’d felt since morning. “I understand,” he said. “Please tell the Reverend that we understand.”
“He wanted to make sure you understand what that means. He asks if your intended can spend the week with your sister until he is able to perform the ceremony?”
“Certainly. I’ll let them know.”
The young man continued. “Rev. Kleiger was most insistent that I should deliver the word. He said that―“ the youth looked away. “You have waited a long time, but you must wait longer.”
“Of course I’ll wait,” Jesse said. “Come inside then, and tell her.”
Malinna took it well. “Of course,” she said. If Mrs. Lancaster was willing to have her as a houseguest, she would spend the waiting week becoming acquainted with Aimee-Anne and learning what she needed to know about Montana housekeeping.
The lad was sent on his way; he was eager to return. Old Mrs. Kleiger was a redoubtable woman, a Montana landmark who had buried three husbands to the Sioux, gangrene, and a knife fight in the mining camp. She had borne nine live children and her lands were encircled by the ranches of her offspring. She was the oldest person in the community and she remembered Montana from before it became a territory, before Custer, before the terrible blizzard the year before. As a child, he was terrified of her, with her white hair pulled back severely from a lean, unsmiling face. But after Aimee had died, she’d approached him at the funeral meal. “Now you know,” she’d said. He hadn’t had to ask what she meant. He knew.
Sarah linked arms with Malinna. “Please tell Rev. Carlysle that my sister-to-be is welcome here. This will give us time to get to know each other and also to prepare for the wedding celebration. ”Sarah’s gaze caught her brother in its pinioning stare and held him fast. “We will grieve for Mrs. Kleiger and rejoice for my brother and his bride. Please deliver that message back to the Reverend.”
When he had gone, Sarah suggested that Jesse unload the trunks so that Malinna would have her possessions with her. Malinna protested; she only needed one trunk. The rest could go on ahead of her. Sarah invited Jesse to join them for supper but he made his escape; the hands would be wondering where he’d gotten to. “I’ll leave you to say your good-bye to your bride in private,” said Sarah, walking out of the parlor. The sound of pans clattering told them that she was beginning to prepare the evening meal.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect this.”
“No,” she agreed gravely, her chin high. She had striking eyes behind the lenses of her spectacles. They measured him; he could feel it. He thought he was effectively hiding his emotions.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I have to get back to the ranch.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come back for you. I’ll meet with the Reverend and find out when we can―when he’ll be―when—“
The measuring in those gray-blue eyes continued. He doubted that he was showing to advantage.
“You’ll be in good hands with Sarah.”
“She is very kind.”
He fingered the brim of his hat in his hands, eager to leave but unsure what to do.
She stepped closer, stood on the tips of her toes, and gave him a brief kiss on his cheek. “I will be here when you return, Mr. Greenhow.”
Chapter Three
She wore a dress that she’d made herself. She had not lied when she said she was skilled as a seamstress; he knew nothing about women’s fashions but he could tell, by the appraising looks that the women gave her, that it had been a long time since they’d seen something so stylish. It was some shade of green and it suited her hair.
“Bustles are narrower,” he heard Nan Lysander say to her oldest daughter. He had no idea what that meant. He remembered standing in the church―for in the week of waiting, Sarah had managed to plan a wedding that redeemed any embarrassment Malinna might have felt at the matrimonial postponement, as if the funeral had been his fault—and making promises to a stranger. He’d placed a gold band on her finger and kissed her swiftly in full view of the congregation while Rev. Carlysle beamed.
Sarah had not exaggerated. Montanans loved a celebration and she had baked and cooked, with Malinna’s help, all week. The wooden tables outside were covered with meats, potatoes, tomatoes, and beans, corn dodgers, buttermilk biscuits, pies, and cakes. The women had surrounded her to ask about her dress, the fashions back East, and her hat. Jesse was not hungry, but the beer was refreshing on a hot summer day and he kept his glass filled.
The men, with the ceremony out of the way and the drinking underway, were content to let their womenfolk gossip while they gathered by the keg of beer. The talk returned, as it still did, months later, to the winter blizzard that had devastated their herds. Jesse had lost his share of cattle, and he’d lost his wife, but as he drank, he found it easier to listen to them reminisce about the bad times than to engage in hopeful talk about the hope of better times ahead. The subject had changed from the past to the future but the topic was cattle.
Stenner Caine said, “Free grazing is going to be a thing of the past. We’ve got to plan. Those Easterners are going to own everything if we don’t get together.”
Jesse knew from his hands that the talk was of forming a cattlemen’s association so that Montana ranchers could compete with the Eastern investors who wanted to own the cattle market, overriding the independence of the Montanans who had capitalized on Montana grasses to build herds that brought good prices to the market. The sun overhead and the beer in his hands made him drowsy. He agreed with them as they planned their meetings; no one expected him to do anything but nod his head at the right times and this he was glad to do. Talk of meetings and associations and cattle kept his mind free from gnawing at the thought of what it meant, now that he was married again to a woman he didn’t know, who wasn’t Aimee and was nothing to him and had no sweet, pulling claim on his heart.
The men were jocular, themselves none too sober, as they brought Jesse into the house, his feet dragging, their arms supporting his frame. “Reckon he’s not the first groom to be the worse for liquor,” joked Calvin, one of Jesse’s ranch hands. “You want we should bring him to the bedroom?”
Before Sarah could reply, Jesse tried to stand up. He was dimly aware that his legs seemed to be reluctant to obey him. But he released his hold on his supporters too soon and he fell to the floor.
“Mrs. Greenhow and I will take care of this,” said Sarah. “You may return to the ranch. My brother and his wife will be there tomorrow. Please make sure that everything is in order.”
It was a dismissal and Calvin knew it. He bowed his head to his employer’s sister and wife. “Everything will be in order, ma’am,” he promised, his words sloping into each other as if they were heading down a mudslide, indicating that Jesse had not been the only one to freely indulge his thirst.
Jesse could hear voices; he heard his sister’s disapproving tone, and then, clearer, he heard Malinna’s voice. “We shall leave him as he is,” she said. “My uncles are abstemious men, but regrettably my grandfather was not, and it was my grandmother’s practice to leave him as he came in,” she said. “She told him when she promised herself to him that only a gentleman was welcome in her bedroom. It is very good advice. I believe I will follow it.”
The August sun came slicing in through the parlor windows, splitting his head and peeling his eyelids. He groaned. He heard noises and activity in the house, too much noise.
“Mornin’, Uncle Jesse,” greeted his nephew Matthias. “Ma had us load the trunks into the wagon. Malinna made breakfast and we all ate. There’s eggs and sausage if you’re―“
“I’m not.” He struggled to sit up, although the motion sent an army of invisible soldiers inside his head into battle. He groaned. “Where’s your Ma now?”
They were getting baby Aimee-Anne ready. “You’d best be standing up by the time they come out,” Matthias grinned. “Ma’s none too pleased with you.”
“I’m none too pleased with myself.” He accepted Matthias’ hand and made his way outside. Progress was painful but a man who drank to excess deserved the head it left him with, Jesse thought as he made his way to the well. When he pulled up the water, he emptied the bucket over his head. A second bucket provided water for him to rinse out his mouth. His shirt was soaked and his hair was dripping wet, but at least he was upright when Sarah and Malinna came out of the house, Aimee-Anne nestled securely in her aunt’s arms. Matthias sprang into action, helping his new aunt into the wagon. Malinna bent down to take the baby from Sarah.
“Come to Sunday lunch,” Sarah called in a voice much louder than it needed to be.
He let Malinna accept the invitation. He concentrated on climbing into the wagon and taking the reins. He nodded his farewell to his sister, who looked as if his physical discomfort was a source of mirth.
They had not traveled far when Aimee-Anne began to fuss. Malinna smoothed the soft locks of hair on the girl’s head and began to sing to her, the words of Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah joining the sounds of the summer day that were so familiar that he would not have noticed them if it were not for the song lyrics joining the chorus that nature had been singing longer. The thick Montana grass rustled with the occasional breeze; the low, somnolent hum of insects buzzed beneath Malinna’s rich, low-pitched voice.
“Land me safe on Canaan’s side . . .”
“I’m powerfully sorry for the drink,” he said. “I’m not a drinking man. You needn’t fear such.”
“That is what Sarah told me. I was heartened to hear it; a drinking man is ruin to a home.”
“I heard what you said about your grandfather. Your grandmother must be a strong woman.”
“She had no choice. My grandfather was in the War and caring for the household was entirely on her. There was much privation during the War. I was a child during those years and I remember very little of what happened.”
“My family is from Texas originally,” he offered. “I was born there, but my parents moved us to Montana Territory when I was young. It’s all I know.”
“You have always been a rancher?”
“My father was a miner; he was one of the lucky ones. He made some money and bought land. Sarah’s husband was a miner; he and my father were in the same camp. I don’t remember much of that time. I was reared on the ranch. It was Pa’s, but I’ve built onto the house and the barns, and added to the herd.” And now the herd was back to what it had been in the early days, the fault of the blizzard that had struck last winter and robbed him of his wife and his prosperity.
“Before coming, I read whatever I could find about your Montana Territory. Your winters, until last year, were renowned for their benevolence for the cattle who grazed. “
Jesse gestured toward the grassland. “The grass is rich. In winter, it’s so thick that it stands, and it’s not covered by snow, so the beeves can graze. Last winter the grass was covered and the cattle couldn’t graze.”
The grass covered Aimee’s grave in the churchyard.
“Such an anomaly must have been unfathomable. Virginia has upon occasion had inclement seasons but we are accustomed to a more benign calendar. But lovely though Virginia is, I have never seen such a sky. It has no end. I read of this, but until seeing it, I could not conceive of it. I must marvel at such a landscape, Mr. Greenhow. I must try to paint it.”
“You paint?”
“It’s a trifle. I am not skilled, but I enjoy painting. My grandmother believed that the women of her family must make a showing in all the arts.”
“You won’t find much of that out here,” he warned.
“What if Aimee-Anne shows herself to be skilled?”
“I can’t say.” How could anyone? Aimee-Anne was still in her cradle; how could he possibly think of what she would show talent at? This was Montana; it was all a woman could do to run a household and manage the family’s finances and survive.
They were silent again. Aimee-Anne continued to slumber. Malinna was not as talkative on this journey as she had been the previous time after disembarking from the train. But he had noticed that she and Sarah seemed to have entered, during the week, into an alliance. He was Sarah’s brother, but she had taken Malinna into her family circle and he knew what that meant. Sarah’s loyalty was steadfast and although the wedding celebration was partly to chastise Jesse for being willing to postpone marriage for a week, as if there were anything he could have done about it, the enjoyment had been genuine.
“Songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.”
His head still throbbed but it served him right. He’d shamed his sister and made a fool of himself, falling down drunk in front of his hired hands and his new wife. It wouldn’t happen again.
Chapter Four
He had put her belongings in the guest bedroom. It was a pretty room; the bed in winter was covered with a quilt that his grandmother had made. He’d made certain before leaving yesterday for his wedding that the bedroom was clean and inviting. Bright rag rugs were on the floor and the pitcher and basin next to the bed had belonged to his mother. It was not a forgotten room. There was no insult intended in putting her here. But he explained to her that, until they were used to each other, he thought she’d be more at ease in her own bedroom.
“I shall keep Aimee-Anne with me”, she said, studying him with those dark-dawn eyes.
That was the obvious choice. And yet, as he lay awake that in the bedroom that he had shared with Aimee, he pondered the oddness of it; that his daughter should be in the bedroom with his second wife, and he alone in the marriage bed. It was not easy to explain but he was not ready to undertake marriage in all of its intimacy, not with Aimee still so vivid in his thoughts. She hadn’t even been gone a full year. Sarah should not have prodded him into this marriage, he decided as he fell asleep.
When the breakfast aromas came into his bedroom the next morning, he sat up in bed. It was still early; the sun was soon to rise but had not yet done so. He realized as his stomach reacted to the smells of bacon frying that he had not eaten since the wedding meal. And he’d drunk most of that, he reminded himself as he donned his clothes.
Malinna had clearly found her bearings in the kitchen. Eggs and bacon were frying on the skillet and he smelled biscuits baking.
“Smells woke me up,” he said. “Where’s Aimee-Anne?”
She smiled. “She’s been fed and changed and is in her cradle. This afternoon I shall bring a blanket outside and let her enjoy the fresh air.”
He supposed she’d seen what Sarah did to care for the baby, and there was no reason not to spend an afternoon outside. She would have plenty to do indoors, but the times to do it were up to her. He noticed that she did have simpler dresses than what he’d seen her in previously. This one was a blue and white checked cotton dress with a wide white collar and blue buttons on the cuffs. Over it, to protect the fabric, she wore a full-sized apron. She placed a plate in front of him; the biscuits, fresh from the oven, quickly melted the butter he smeared on them. She filled her own plate and sat at the table across from him. That was better; Aimee had always sat next to him when they ate.
“Good,” he commented.
“Thank you,” she replied. “You are well stocked with food.”
Sarah had seen to that, bringing jams, pickled vegetables, salt, molasses, and flour from her own stores. He had cured meat that had been salted and preserved, but he’d need to hunt soon. Meat spoiled quickly and even though other perishable supplies were kept in crocks in the spring next to the house, meat didn’t last long.
“I can’t offer a woman much,” he said, “but you won’t starve.”
She smiled. She had a full-lipped mouth; with her high cheekbones joining in the smile, she had a cherubic expression that easily lent itself to cheerfulness. He supposed she’d had reason to smile in her life. He couldn’t guarantee that would be so here in Montana Territory.
When he returned to the ranch at
the end of the day, sweaty and grimy from his labors, Malinna met him at the door with a basin of water and a clean shirt. “We will eat in half an hour,” she told him. “You will wish to be fresh after your long day.”
If she was going to keep this up, she’d have her hands full with laundry and sewing, he thought, but he stripped off his dirty shirt and washed his upper body free of the perspiration and dirt that the day had brought. When he went into the house, his annoyance faded as he was greeted with the hearty fragrance of the evening meal. And on the table, in a bureau drawer, surrounded by the soft, worn quilt that his great-grandmother had made, was Aimee-Ann, perched upon its height, surveying the table with bright, interested blue eyes.
“I think she should join us for our meal,” Malinna said.
He accepted the plate from her hands. “She’ll be jealous because she can’t eat.” It wasn’t much of a joke, but Malinna’s laughter pealed as she sat down. She took his hand, and reached for Aimee-Anne’s tiny fingers. “Lord our God, we thank you for this table. Bless us in our labors; take care of your servant Jesse Greenhow as he provides for his family; protect this child, Aimee-Anne as she grows; lead me, Lord, in servanthood to you. We ask that you give your blessing to our sister Sarah, to her sons . . .”
The aroma of steak, smothered in onions, tempted his appetite. The beets had been pickled and the tart scent tantalized him. Potatoes, baked in salt and split in half with butter seaming the insides, sent up hot drifts of steam. In the center of the table was a peach pie, the sweet odors coming up through the lattice crust. Aimee-Anne made soft, sibilant cooing sounds as Malinna’s prayer continued. Jesse met his daughter’s eyes, unseen by Malinna whose head was bowed; he smiled at her and she smiled back. He detected Aimee’s imprint in the smile, but the resemblance inspired pleasure rather than remorse.