by Natalie Dean
A few minutes passed. When darkness completely owned the sky overhead, the air was cooler. She shivered; the cooler air was a relief after the daytime heat, but she’d left her shawl indoors.
His arm went around her. She said nothing but leaned closer against him. He didn’t move, but his arm tightened around her.
“The sky looks so big,” she said. “Bigger than at home.”
“I know,” he replied. “I come out here every night to look at it, and every time, it looks bigger.”
“Is that why you came to Texas? You wanted to look at a bigger sky?”
He didn’t answer right away. She nestled closer to his body and rested her head against his chest, her head under his chin.
“I didn’t know about the sky when I came west. Now that I do, I could never go back.”
She had the feeling that his answer was about more than the sky. Perhaps it was an answer to what she hadn’t asked. James Turner might have left West Virginia as a soldier, but Jim Turner was a Texas rancher, and he wasn’t leaving.”
“I’m not leaving either,” she said, tilting her head up.
Her lips met his, but he was the one who lowered his face so that the kiss became his claim, his lips warm and seeking. His arms tightened around her. “Molly O’Hara,” he breathed, “you are a temptress.”
“Someone told me that once,” she said, and then her arms were around his neck, eagerly matching his kiss with her ardent lips.
“And you didn’t marry him?” Jim demanded jocularly when the kiss had gone on longer than any kiss they’d shared, and her body was pliant in his arms.
“It was a woman in the household where I worked,” she said, snug in his embrace. “I was wishing that my hair wasn’t so red. I was almost fifteen, and I was at that in-between stage when a girl wants to look like a woman but doesn’t know how. I said that no one would ever marry me. She told me that my red hair and green eyes made me a temptress. I felt better after she said that. I still didn’t know if anyone would want to marry me, but at least I felt like I looked the way a woman should look.”
“She was right about you being a temptress,” he said in a rough voice. “She was mighty right about that.”
Chapter 5
Molly still didn’t know any more about Jim Turner’s past than she had before, but after that night, he didn’t seem quite so much a stranger. He was getting ready for the cattle drive coming up and his days were long, but when he returned home at the end of the day, Molly had the big metal tub filled with water for a bath. The first time she’d taken a cloth to wash his back, he’d protested, but she just continued to rub the cloth against his aching muscles and he sighed with contentment. She left him to dry himself while she put supper on the table, conscious of his eyes upon her as he dressed.
“Molly O’Hara,” he said, “I’ve said it before, but you really are a temptress.”
“I’m not going to look like a temptress for very long,” she told him, sitting down after placing chicken, cornbread, rice, and beans in front of the both of them.
“Texas sun can be harsh,” he agreed. “If you brought a parasol, you might want to use it.”
“I didn’t bring a parasol, just bonnets, mitts, and gloves. But it’s not the weather that I’m talking about.”
He stared at her in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
She put her hand on his. “Jim,” she said gently, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to have a baby.”
“Already?” he asked in a voice so incredulous that he squeaked on the last syllable.
Molly raised her eyebrows. “Do you mean that? It’s June; we’ve been married nearly two months.”
“No . . . I just didn’t think . . . I didn’t . . . know.”
“Well,” Molly said, “you should have.”
“A baby.”
“Yes. And that baby will be baptized. And James Turner, you will be there.”
She fixed him with a green stare. His blue eyes showed rebellion, but she didn’t flinch.
“I guess women in the family way have strange ideas,” he said finally, turning his attention to his plate.
She knew that ladies didn’t disclose such information until they were safely beyond their third month of carrying the child, but it was hard to keep the secret to herself. When the ladies’ sewing circle met in Mary Grace Watson’s parlor, Molly couldn’t keep herself from stealing glances at the sleeping baby in the cradle by Mary Grace’s feet.
“He’s just the most beautiful baby,” Molly said.
“He has a face like dough and arms like sausages,” Mary Grace argued, but her smile belied her tone. “I expect he’ll be able to help me in the garden before he’s wearing trousers.”
“Your garden looks like it’s doing well,” Molly said.
“This year,” Mary Grace said philosophically. “I hope to have plenty to put up for the winter.”
“A baby and a garden, all in one year.”
“God’s been good,” was Mary Grace’s answer
The women nodded. Molly knew that the year had brought its share of hardship to Mesquite. Cree Hardwick had been widowed during the winter; Callie Sykes had nursed her brother until he passed. They cherished their blessings, knowing how rare they were.
It was hard to write letters to Mr. Fall to explain her progress. She wasn’t sure of how reliable mail was; her first letter had been met with an answer, but not her second. All anyone knew was that she was traveling in search of Mr. James Turner and that she had headed west, and had sent instructions to address her mail to Mesquite, Texas. No one knew that she was married, not even Mrs. Rollings, and no one knew that she was with child. Jim didn’t know that his father had left a bequest for her on condition that she try to find his son, either, so as far as Molly could tell, she was living a peculiar kind of secret life.
But she was troubled by the secret past of her husband. She sensed that he knew who she was, but he had not directly acknowledged her as the Molly O’Hara from his home. When the opportunity came to drop an oblique reference to the Turner Plantation, or Reddington, West Virginia, she did not miss it. But Jim never revealed anything about his past, even at night when they were together in bed. He talked of the cattle drive to come, and the herd, and even of the baby, but it was as if he had come to life in Texas and everything before that had not happened.
“Will the ladies look after you while I’m on the drive?” he asked.
It was the first time that he had shown any interest in her friendships with the women of the church. They were sitting on the porch as they always did, close together, her head on his chest. Supper was done, and the dishes were washed. She had begun to sew clothes for the baby, but there was no way for the proprietor of the general store to guess why she had purchased fabric, and her secret was still hers and Jim’s alone. She had been discussing the plans for Cree’s wedding; widows didn’t stay unmarried for long in Texas, and when she told Jim the news, he didn’t seem surprised. A woman had a hard time running her own spread, and when men knew there was a marriageable woman in town, Jim said they hovered around like they were in a herd of rival beasts.
“You’ll be gone two months?”
“About that,” he said. “If all goes well, we’ll come back with a decent amount of money; beef goes for a good price. But it’s a long trip.” His arms tightened around her. “I’ll miss you, Molly O’Hara.”
He had never told her that he loved her. But those words confessed how he felt.
“I’ll miss you too, James Turner.”
She lifted her lips to the kiss she knew was coming. His mouth took hers in the passion that they shared, an ardor that was comprised of what they were learning about each other as well as what they did not know.
“James Turner,” she whispered, pulling him closer to her. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
He didn’t answer, but kissed her harder, this time as if he feared losing her.
“When are you going to t
ell me who you are?” she asked.
“You know who I am,” he said. “I’m your husband.”
“Who else are you?”
“I’m your baby’s father. Isn’t that enough?”
“Jim,” she said, “we didn’t just come on this earth like this. We had pasts, we were children, we had our beginnings in other places. Don’t you want to know about mine?”
“Is this something that women who are having babies want to talk about?” he asked, trying to sound as if he were in jest. But she heard something in his voice that sounded shaken.
“It’s what a woman who loves her husband wants to know. I should think you’d want to know about me, too.”
“I do know you. You’re my wife. I know you.”
“Jim . . . my parents came to Virginia before I was born. I was born in Reddington, Virginia before that part of the state left to become West Virginia. My father died in battle in 1862, and my mother never recovered. When she died, I became the housekeeper of Turner Plantation. I was just over thirteen-years-old, but age didn’t seem to matter much; the war aged us all. There were two sons at Turner Plantation; one joined the Union Army and one the Confederate side. Will Turner, the Rebel, died in 1864. That same year, James Turner was captured at Cold Harbor and sent to Andersonville Prison…”
“Stop!”
There was no mistaking the trembling in his voice now.
“Why?”
“The past doesn’t matter, Molly. It’s now that counts. A man who stops to take note of what life was before becoming a prisoner becomes weak. Is that what you want?”
“I want our child to know who his father was before he became a father,” she said stubbornly.
Jim’s hands loosened around her. “He doesn’t need to know anything,” he said. “Don’t pester me with questions that don’t need answering.” He stood up and walked down the steps, his back rigid like a wall to shut her out.
Molly felt tears rush into her eyes as she watched him head toward the barn. She could feel the pain of his silence as deeply as if it were her own. She could not, however, let the questions lie unanswered. His past was a part of who he was, and whether he understood it or not, he owed his child the truth. He owed her an acknowledgment of the past they shared. He was now Jim Turner, but he hadn’t come to Texas that way, and she was determined to somehow make him recognize the man he’d been. What had happened in Andersonville that had been so dreadful that he could not allow himself to include it in his current life?
That night, when he joined her in bed, he held her in his arms; there was an apology in his limbs and the way he enveloped her in an embrace that made her feel safe and secure. She recognized his actions now as if they were words: he didn’t want to hurt her, he was worried about being away from her when he was away on the cattle drive, and he was uneasy about the role that his unanswered questions might play in their future. As she responded to his touch, allowing her love for him to give him physical respite from the torment that his soul recalled, she knew that, as much as he resisted, she had to free him from the shackles that bound him. Jim Turner could not be a free man until he met James Turner on equal ground.
That Sunday, after church, she managed to get Mary Grace Watson off by herself on the pretext of asking her for advice about her garden. When they were alone, she confessed that she had something to tell her.
“Jim and I are expecting a child in the winter,” she said, shy and proud all at once.
Mary Grace exclaimed aloud until Molly’s warning finger to her lips reminded her that the news was not yet to be shared. “He’s worried about being away on the cattle drive,” Molly said. “He wanted to know if the church ladies will look after me while he’s gone.”
Mary Grace was indignant. “Of course we will! What does he take us for?” You know we’ll be on your doorstep every day to make sure that you’re thriving. He needn’t worry about that.”
“But I’m worried about him.”
“Sure you are, but the men know how to handle the cattle. I’m not saying there isn’t danger, but they’re experienced. They know what to do out there.”
“It’s not just that. I’m worried about his soul.” That wasn’t a lie; she was concerned that a man who chose to live apart from the Lord was in danger of being separated from the Chosen on Judgment Day, but they were alive now, and her concerns were for the earthly James Turner and not the spiritual one. She could not tell Mary Grace the truth about her past or his, or that in earlier times, James had been the son of the owner of the plantation where she and her family had lived and worked.
She couldn’t divulge her husband’s secrets. But Mary Grace would understand her anxiety about his soul; church on earth was for the Kingdom to come.
“I’ll keep him in my prayers,” Mary Grace promised. “But you need to let him know that you’re worried about him. Even if he doesn’t understand why you’re fretting over something that doesn’t matter to him, he’ll appreciate that you care enough to trouble yourself. Men are puzzles, Molly. Claude and I have been married for ten years, and we were sweethearts before that, but there are parts of him that make no sense to a woman. Claude doesn’t understand why I used to cry, year after year, when not much came of my garden but a few scraggly plants and a lot of work. He didn’t understand that the garden was all I had that would grow because I didn’t think I’d ever have a child. I sobbed one year because I watered my garden every day and nothing came of it. ‘Mary Grace, it’s a garden,’ he said. ‘You’re acting as if it’s a living thing.’ But to me, it was. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so. Claude’s happy now, isn’t he? With the baby?”
“Delighted. He wants more. So do I. But I don’t know if that will happen. So, I’m grateful for Matthew because he’s a gift I didn’t expect. Men don’t see it that way, but men don’t birth children. They don’t understand a lot of things. Sometimes they seem like children themselves. Big, brave children who can’t admit when they’re afraid of the dark.”
“Afraid of the dark?”
Mary Grace nodded. “The dark is different for every man. The war showed a lot of them a darkness inside that they can’t accept.”
“Was Claude in the war?”
“No; we left Missouri when we saw the way things were going. But my kin fought on both sides. They’re still fighting it, sometimes, but now the war isn’t between North and South. It’s within. That’s harder. Men need a lot of praying. Eve gets all the blame for the Fall, but if you ask me, Adam didn’t show much gumption.”
Molly laughed. “Have you told Rev. Lawrence that?”
Mary Grace shrugged. “Rev. Lawrence is a man. He does the best he can.”
Chapter 6
Molly considered what Mary Grace had said. She wasn’t sure that her friend’s account of the Book of Genesis was something that the minister would agree to, but there was a feminine logic to what Mary Grace believed. Mary Grace was perceptive in her interpretation of the dark places that lived within a man. Those dark places dwelled within Jim as well, so dark that he couldn’t even claim the name that he had grown up with. But how could she unearth that part of him so that he could meet his past and move forward?
She hadn’t joined Jim on the porch at night since their argument, but that evening, she went outside where he sat. He turned around when he heard the sound of the door opening.
“I missed you,” she said.
His arm encircled her. “I think the sky missed you.”
She laughed. “James, you have a funny way of saying things.”
His arm stiffened. He didn’t let her go, but she could feel the tension in his muscles as he held her.
“Jim,” he reminded. “I’m Jim.”
She didn’t take back what she had said. She let the silence grow; it didn’t separate them this time, however. His arm stayed where it was, and she continued to let her head rest against his chest.
“What do you want to know, Molly?” he finally asked in d
efeat.
“I want you to tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Why does it matter so much to you?” Jim sounded as if he was pleading with her.
“Because as long as you don’t tell me, you continue to live through the torment and our baby will have to live that way, too.”
“No, he won’t,” Jim argued. “I’m going to be a good father. I’ll do my best to be a good father.”
“Your father was a good father.”
Silence. Then, “Yes. Yes, he was.”
“Why didn’t you come home?”
“Andersonville isn’t the kind of place you can just go home from.”
“Why not?”
“Andersonville was hell. How do you leave hell and return to a place where everything felt perfect?”
“When you placed the advertisement for a mail-order bride, did you want to love her?”
“No. But I knew I needed something more than just the ranch, and a mail-order bride was the easiest way of having it. But when you answered, I knew who you were. I pretended that I didn’t because it was easier than having to bring it all back. You were---you are---the purest part of my past. I thought I could keep all the pieces separate, but I should have known that I couldn’t shut the door once you opened it.”
She nuzzled the edge of his chin where the stubble of his beard was rough.
“I need to shave,” he said.
“I don’t mind. You used to have a beard.”
“I shaved when I left Andersonville. I washed, and I shaved, and I deloused, and I swore that I’d never let Andersonville claim me again. It was hell, Molly, it was sheer hell. The men were like skeletons, dying all around me. I didn’t know if I wanted to die or not. I didn’t want to live, I knew that. I wanted to be free of Andersonville. Sometimes that meant wanting to be dead so that I wouldn’t have to wake up another day. Sometimes it meant trying to rally my men so that they would have enough hope to hang on.”
“You’re strong, James.”