by Natalie Dean
He was silent along the ride from the town, which was not much of a town, she realized, with a dozen or so places of business and perhaps a few more homes, all located along an unimpressive street that had no refinements to distinguish it from the rest of the sun-bleached earth. As she rode, Molly looked around her. There was some vegetation, she saw; strange looking plants with what looked like barbs protruding from them, and occasionally, a rolling ball of what looked to be dried twigs that seemed to move on its own power as if it had been released from its roots.
“Tumbleweed,” the man at her side offered. He had noticed the direction of her gaze. “They’re a nuisance, and they roll around every time the wind blows.”
“Oh.”
“You’ll get plenty used to seeing them.”
There seemed to be no answer that she could give to that response, and she fell silent. As they rode, she noticed an occasional structure that looked like a home, but nothing like Turner Plantation. These homes were built so that people had a roof over their heads; the boards were textured and plain, windows rare. But then they passed one house which, she could see, had a small garden in the front and her spirits lifted.
“Watson spread,” he supplied, again seeming to read her thoughts by noticing where her gaze landed. “Mrs. Watson spends a mess of hours trying to get her plants to thrive. She gave up on roses.”
“Do any flowers grow?”
“No use for flowers,” he replied dismissively. “You can’t eat flowers.”
“Actually,” Molly replied, “dandelions make a very nice dish. We often eat them back home. My mother made tea with dandelions,” she added with asperity. She was wondering if he would recall the brew that he had drunk when he was feeling ill. Or when he and a group of his friends had imbibed too much liquor at one of their male engagements that brought him home in the morning’s wee hours, loud and inclined to sing at the top of his lungs.
“They’re here, too. Bitter. You’ll do better in the winter with them.”
He gave no indication that he recalled any personal memory from his younger days of having drunk her mother’s dandelion tea. But Molly took hope. If there were dandelions in Texas, there was at least something familiar. Her mother had taught her how to make do with what grew, and Molly figured that there had to be something that grew out of the ground worth making do with.
After half an hour or so, he steered the wagon down a pathway; on one side was a small cabin, on the other side, a large barn. Farther down she could see fencing; beyond the fencing, there were cattle grazing in the distance.
“Home,” he said, alighting from the wagon with a single motion that bespoke familiarity. Coming to her side, he helped her down, the action again impersonal. She wondered if she looked so untidy from the journey that she was utterly lacking in appearance. She was not vain, but Mrs. Rollings had told her that she was a beautiful girl who would have the young men’s eyes following her if she were in a part of the country where there were still young men left. ‘Red hair and green eyes,’ Mrs Rollings was fond of saying, ‘those are the looks of a temptress.’
If that were the case, Molly thought, then Jim Turner was as immune to temptation as a saint.
She followed him into the cabin. A soberly dressed man in the garb of a parson was waiting inside. He had a Bible in his hand and a patient expression on his face that eased when he saw Molly.
“There you are, my dear. Welcome to Mesquite. Texas has great need of women like you; we Texans need a little more Eastern refining, and here you are, all the way from Virginia.”
She smiled. “Thank you. It’s West Virginia now.”
“So it is, I’d forgotten. Out this far, the war didn’t touch us in quite the same way. Has it been hard on you?”
“It has been,” she answered.
Jim had taken off his hat and was standing at the preacher’s side. He wasn’t actively showing impatience while they chatted, but made no effort to join the conversation either.
A stubborn imp of mischief took hold of Molly. “I lived on a plantation,” she said. “I was the housekeeper there. One son was killed in battle, another was imprisoned at Andersonville. Their father was a very kind, loving man and losing his sons was something he never recovered from.”
“Many homes, I fear, have empty chairs that will remain so,” the minister nodded. “It was a tragedy for our nation.”
“Reverend Lawrence, I know I’ve taken enough of your time. If you’ll marry us now, then you’ll be free to continue on your day,” Jim said.
The words were not unkind, merely businesslike but Molly felt ashamed that a visitor to the cabin should be so abruptly spoken to. She gave the minister a wide smile in an attempt to take the rough edges from the words. “I apologize for taking so long to get here,” she said. “The stage was running late.”
“No apologies necessary, my dear. It’s always late. The elements are not always with us. I’m sure that you will be longing for a good rest after your journey.”
“Rest and a wash,” she admitted. “I’d no idea there could be so much dust in the air.”
“You’re right about that my dear, there is certainly no shortage of dust around here,” the minister agreed
Jim took a ring out of his pocket. It was a simple gold band, but she hadn’t been expecting anything ornate. He handed it to the minister, who took the hint.
It didn’t matter that the words of the ceremony were not those of the Roman Catholic service of her forebears in Ireland, nor the eloquent text of the Episcopalian services of the ceremonies in Reddington. When the minister finished, she was Mrs. James Turner. At the minister’s genial prompting, Jim leaned down to place a smooth kiss upon her lips. The kiss was nearly as impersonal as his hands had been around her waist when he helped her out of the wagon.
It was done. The minister and Jim shook hands. The Rev. Lawrence hugged her. “Our congregation will look forward to seeing you on the Sabbath,” he said.
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
The minister looked at Jim as if he wished to say something, then thought better of it. Jim said nothing as he walked the minister to the door and went outside with him.
Molly removed her hat and coat. The cabin was clean and plain. The rooms were small, but not cramped with furniture. The kitchen had a table upon which two plates were set, along with forks, spoons, knives, and mugs. The hearth fire was out, but the Dutch oven awaited. Pans hung on hooks at the side of the hearth. It was a room ready for the purpose for which it had been built; there were no “pretties” as her mother would have said in years past to alleviate the functional impression: no vase of flowers or embroidered tablecloth or even a painted piece of slate with a verse from the Bible. It didn’t look like the sort of room that would house Mr. James, who liked to have paintings on the walls of the plantation and had even made a few efforts to paint scenes from the plantation. Molly had brought one of the paintings with her and intended to hang it prominently.
It was easier to think of her husband as Jim, rather than Mr. James. His resemblance to his deceased brother, Will, and the change in his personality rendered the name by which she had once known him as foreign. He was Jim Turner now. But she knew that, in another life, he had been Mr. James. What had happened in between, she could not say.
Chapter 4
Molly did not hide her surprise when Sunday morning saw her husband donning his regular weekday work clothes. She had put out one of her pretty dresses for church; it was a simple design with a creamy white bodice with blue buttons down the front and a full blue and white print skirt. With it, she wore an unpretentious straw bonnet that she felt would be suitable for worship.
“Aren’t you going to church?” she asked.
“Work doesn’t stop for Sunday.”
When she did not respond, he said, “You can go if you want. You know how to handle a horse and wagon.”
They had been married less than a week and by Sunday morning, Molly still felt that s
he was married to a man she did not know. Jim was polite, if brusque. He did not shower her with compliments when she prepared dishes that he liked, but he told her that the pie was good and the steak done well. She had been cooking since childhood and was confident of her ability to deliver a tasty meal to the table, but she realized that her husband expected her to do her part and was not going to be effusive because she had scrubbed the floor until the boards looked brand new or because she churned creamy butter. She had been a servant in the Turner household and in some ways, she felt as if she were a servant here. But she had been valued as a housekeeper. She didn’t know whether or not Jim thought he had gotten a good deal when he married her.
But their intimacy was different. Jim was tender when he held her, and at night, when the two of them were in their bed, she thought of him as James. Not because there had ever been any physical contact between her and Mr. James on the plantation, but because, in the bedroom, her husband was a gentleman, sensitive and alert to her body and her emotions. He was silent, but she learned that his body was a means of communication that relayed awareness and affection. It was a peculiar juxtaposition of day and night, but it made her married life bearable. She was not a servant in her marriage bed.
“Yes,” she said with a trace of belligerence, “I learned when I was working as a servant. We were all taught to ride so that we would know how to manage a horse.”
But all he said was, “Good thing to know.” Then she heard the front door of the cabin close behind him.
She dressed quickly and made a quick breakfast, slicing bread that she’d made the day before and toasting it. She toasted two slices for him and fried eggs for both of them. It would be there when he returned, and if the toast was hard and the eggs cold, it would be his own fault.
When she left the cabin, Dionysius was hitched to the wagon. Dionysius was the brother of Bacchus, the spirited, impatient horse that Jim rode. Dionysius was calmer, less likely to be easily spooked. He surveyed her placidly as she approached but otherwise made no objection to her presence. Jim was nowhere in sight, but she was sure he was around somewhere, perhaps in the barn. She didn’t need his help getting into the wagon, in any case.
She flicked the reins and Dionysius set forth. It was a pleasant day; warm enough to prove that the Texas sun was going to be out in full force, but with a clear blue sky and its own kind of barren beauty. She still had not acclimated to the look of Texas, although she tried not to think longingly of the lush green hillsides and gentle mountains of home. She wondered if her parents had missed Ireland as much as she missed West Virginia; Mother had told her that home was where the heart is, but that premise only worked for a woman sure of where her heart had taken root and Molly did not have that reassurance.
The Reverend Lawrence was at the door of the church, welcoming the members of his flock as they arrived and his eyes lit up when he saw her. “Mrs. Turner!” he called out. “Welcome to church!”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s good to be here.”
“I’m sorry that Mr. Turner could not join you,” he said.
There was no answer for that. She simply smiled and entered the small church. The benches were a far cry from the elegant carved pews and family boxes of the church in Reddington where the Turners and their household had worshiped. She was a trifle concerned that she would not know what to do, but it was no worry, as the worship service was much plainer than what she was used to. The hymns were unfamiliar, but she knew she would learn them. The members of the congregation smiled at her and that buoyed her spirits. Church was a center of the community in Reddington, a place where the women shared their sagas of marriage and childbirth and the men acted in like fashion with their labors. The holiness of church was as much a gathering of people enjoying the fellowship of each other as it was a means of worship. It didn’t seem that it would be much different here. God was the same no matter which church he was worshiped in.
After the service, the women gathered around her. “So, Jim Turner has taken a wife!” exclaimed a round woman whose walk indicated that she was in the later months of pregnancy. “Maybe now we’ll get a chance to get to know him. He’s kept to himself since coming to Mesquite, and we don’t see him much.”
“But he’s a hard worker,” said another woman who introduced herself as Cree Hardwick. “He’s done the work of ten men with that ranch, and all that with just two hired hands. He’ll be driving a full herd on the drive to Abilene, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t know much about ranching,” Molly said. “I guess I’ll learn.”
“Oh, child, that’s all anyone talks about here,” said the woman who had spoken first. “You’d think God never made anything but cattle during the six days of creation. Cattle to breed and beef to eat. I’m Mary Grace Watson.”
“You’re the one with the garden,” Molly recalled.
“Not much of a garden,” Mrs. Watson said, but her pleased expression showed that she enjoyed the notice. “It’s not like what I had in Missouri growing up, but when the war came, Claude and I decided that Missouri was no place for us and we headed west. We got a late start,” she explained to Molly as her hand rolled over her belly, “but now that we’re here, it looks like we’re going to have a family after all. Maybe when this one is old enough, I’ll have some help for that garden.”
“You’ll need more than an extra pair of hands,” scoffed another woman. “I swear all this earth can grow is Texas Longhorns. I’m Callie Sykes. Next week we’re having a potluck lunch after church, and we’d be pleased if you’d stay and join us.”
“I’ll be pleased to do that.”
“Maybe your husband will join us?” suggested Callie, not sounding optimistic
Molly made a noncommittal response, but as she headed for home, she thought again how different Jim was from Mr. James, who was always the center of any social gathering and the life of the party, not a loner like her Jim. She wondered why Jim Turner shunned his neighbors. They didn’t speak ill of him, but he barely spoke of them at all; the observation about Mrs. Watson’s garden had come from the attention she had paid to it, not to any personal interest on his part.
It was time to find out more about her husband.
She prepared lunch when she got home, and the sun was high overhead when Jim returned to the cabin. He scanned the contents of his plate: fried potatoes and onions with strips of beef.
“So, you cook on Sundays?”
“Work doesn’t stop for Sunday,” she responded pertly, echoing his comment from the morning.
A slight smile tilted at the corner of his mouth. He looked at her and then the smile spread further across his face. “You’re something, Molly O’Hara,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “I used to know a James Turner who called me that.”
“James Turner is a common name,” he said, the smile fading.
“So’s Molly O’Hara,” she persisted. “I want to try a garden. Will you dig one for me?”
“If you want one,” he said, raising a generous forkful of potatoes to his mouth.
“Mrs. Watson has one. I talked to her at church. She and her husband came here from Missouri. She said they left because of the war.”
“A lot of people did the same.”
“The ladies invited me to a church lunch next Sunday. They said you’re welcome to come.”
“You go along,” he said.
“You don’t mind if I go? What will you do for lunch?”
“I reckon I’ll find something. I wasn’t starving before I married you.”
“Why did you marry me?” she blurted out.
The question took both of them by surprise.
“I guess most men think of marrying,” he said after a pause.
“Were you tired of cooking for yourself?”
“Some, I guess. I’m not much at cooking.”
“Tired of cleaning and washing clothes and keeping house?”
He scrutinized her warily. “I didn’t mar
ry you so I’d have a slave,” he said finally.
“No. A war was fought to prevent that.”
His eyes, intensely blue against his tanned skin, did not leave her face as if he were reading her features for answers. “Yeah, it was,” he said at last, then returned to eating.
“They seem nice,” she persisted. “The folks at church.”
“Good. You’ll make friends.”
“You don’t mind if I have friends?”
“Not as long as I don’t have to be friends too.”
“You don’t want friends?”
“You sure are asking a lot of questions,” he said. “What did the preacher say in his sermon? Whatever happened to women being silent in church?”
“I was silent in church,” Molly answered. “But I’m not at church. I’m at home now, aren’t I?”
He knew that the question meant more than the words, and he didn’t shirk the intent. “You’re at home now.”
That evening, as the sun went down and the air turned a bit cooler, she decided to join Jim outside on the porch rather than remain inside with her sewing. She had a number of projects that she’d begun; Jim’s shirts were frayed, and he needed new ones, for starters. But the day’s conversation, and that intriguing half-smile when she repeated the comment he’d made in the morning, had ignited a curiosity in her that was not going to be forestalled.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked when she went out to the porch.
Jim was seated on the front step of the porch, long legs spread out in front of him as he leaned against the railing. All he said was, “I don’t own the night.”
She sat next to him, so close that their arms touched “That doesn’t sound like a welcome.”
“It must have been welcome enough; you’re sitting.”
“If you mind, I’ll go back inside,” she offered.
“I don’t mind.”
She didn’t say anything as she sat close, gazing up at the brilliant stars shining brightly in the sky.