“I’d probably tell ye I’m no bargain. I’m about to have a baby.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Harlow’s arms enfolded Belle again and as she turned he kissed her, and then he let her go.
“I like your spunk and how you’ve dealt with--,” he hesitated, “well, you know what I mean. You’re quite a woman.” Until she heard those words, Belle had no idea how much she needed to hear someone say them.
Early the next morning, Harlow packed some ore on his buckskin and headed down to the assay office in Boise. He had enough samples to make it worthwhile.
While he was gone Belle thought about him, and not much else.
She had feelings for him, she was sure of that, but it was so strange to think about Harlow when she was having another man’s baby.
Bursting with energy, Belle wanted to be able to do everything about the ranch. She asked Cal Riemers, the man who milked the cows for Harlow, to teach her how. Cal was rough, abrasive and too mouthy to suit Belle. He was too free with the latest canyon gossip as well. Belle wondered what he told other folks about her.
On milk stools, they sat under a cow as Cal’s big rough hands pulled rhythmically at the cow’s teats and milk pinged against the bottom of the bucket. “Open your mouth,” he said. Belle opened her mouth just in time to feel a burst of warm milk squirt into the back of it.
“Whew, that took my breath away,” she said as she swallowed.
“Move over here, closer,” he said. “Now you try it. Easy does it. Takes a while to get the hang of it.”
She pulled the teats of the cow but the milk didn’t come.
“Like this,” he said. As he put his hands over hers, the length of his arm brushing against her breast, again and again. When she realized what he was doing, Belle leapt to her feet and stood ramrod straight. “Get out of here and don’t come back,” she snarled.
“You’re pretty uppity for a dance hall whore,” Cal said.
Belle was furious. How dare he? She doubled up her fist and punched him in the face.
Cal looked stunned as he climbed on his horse and rode off. The bug-ugly nincompoop! When Harlow came back, she’d have a little explaining to do--sending Cal off like that, but she had no intention of having another encounter with that damn fool.
Harlow brought a bouquet of wild flowers for Belle when he came home from Boise the next afternoon. He seemed changed somehow. He’d slicked his hair down and he’d changed his shirt before he went down to the orchard where she was picking cherries. He smiled, handing her the flowers and a box of chocolates saying, “I’ve never forgotten that day riding into the ranch. You buried your face in those wild flowers as the sun made your hair glisten.” She sensed a different side of Harlow, one that he’d kept hidden.
“I’ve had time to think,” he went on. “Belle, you don’t have to work so hard,” he said as they walked together back up to the house.
Belle put a lot of elbow grease into wiping off the oil cloth on the table. “I’m just trying to do a good job for ye--to earn me keep. Which brings up something I need to tell ye,” she said swallowing hard. “I think I gave Cal a black eye.”
“You what?”
“He had it coming.” Belle unraveled the whole story as Harlow's expression went from amusement to concern.
“I know how to milk now--I can milk the cow. I just don’t want Cal around here, Harlow,” Belle said, waving a fork at him to emphasize what she was saying, as she set the table.
“Lord, Belle, I’m sorry. I set you up for that without thinking. I told Cal about you.”
“You said I was a whore?” Belle asked.
“No, I never said anything like that. But I did tell him you were a dance hall girl and he figured . . . I guess . . . Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’ll set him straight. I don’t blame you for taking a punch at him. He had no business getting fresh and talking to you like that. About the milking, I’ll teach you how. I should have done that in the first place. Why can’t people mind their own business? That damn old busy body. He’s probably the reason the canyon women haven’t come to call on you. They haven’t, have they?”
Belle shook her head.
“Guess they’re not likely to with Cal spreading stuff like that. They liked Etta, even though she was forever doing her Mormon proselyting. You know what you ought to do? Go to church on Sunday and get acquainted. Let them see what a fine lady you are. That might help. Think you need to meet them halfway.”
“You think I’m a fine lady?”
“Course, I do.”
Belle was glad he thought that. Harlow wasn’t a handsome man but there was a softness in his green eyes, a strength in his features and charm in the way he spoke, yet she didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in his mind. He’d been so moody and erratic. But, he’d always been a gentleman and he’d made her feel safe, cared for. Harlow didn’t leave the next morning for the mines as he always had before. He spent the day with her.
She found herself telling him about Scotland and the home she grew up in. She brought out the few pictures she had of her family. Harlow picked up a picture of a white-haired lady. Though her face was wrinkled, there was fire in her eye. “Oh, that’s Granny Ferguson. She’s full of stories, a funny woman but a hard taskmaster. She had a way of making a game out of the chores and pitted us against each other to do the most, the best. Later, at the supper table, we’d all look to see who got the extra stewed plum. It went to whoever Granny figured had worked the hardest. Funny how that extra plum meant so much. It wasn’t just a matter of winning--that was important--but it was a crown on your head to please that old lady. She stayed with us for quite a while after Mama died.”
As they thumbed through the pictures of Belle’s sisters, she told Harlow how they shared an upstairs alcove in a stone house. Narrow, hand-hewn beds, with their warm wool batts, were stacked along a wall with only room enough to step between. A dormer at one end provided the only light.
“I remember the night our mother died and little Nan came into the world. In darkness we held hands from bed-to-bed as we listened to the cry of the newborn babe downstairs. Our father and Granny Ferguson were tending to it while our mother’s body lay in the next room waiting for the mortician. I was only nine and Meg thirteen, the rest younger.
“With a lamp in one hand, and the wee babe in the other, our father came up the stairs and into the darkness of our room. He stood looking at us as we swallowed our tears, and sat up in our beds trying to look brave for his sake. It was no secret how deeply our father loved our mother.
"'We’ve got our work cut out for us,' he said. 'I’ve come to ask your help. It’s up to us now to give this motherless ween a good life. I can no do it without ye. We must be strong, and do for little Nan the way your mother would, had she been spared--'
“Then he did a peculiar thing--although Granny Ferguson was still downstairs, he handed Meg the ween, hooked the lamp on the wall and walked away. We took turns, holding little Nan and trying to comfort her, giving her a sugar tit and warm water. It wasn’t like we were unfamiliar--babies had been a regular occurrence in our family--but never had we been allowed such freedom or given such responsibility with a newborn. We made her our own and before morning, with the lamp burning low, humming every lullaby we had ever heard, we lulled her to sleep and in the process we began to take our mother’s place; we began to heal our hearts.”
“You had a good father, a good beginning Belle. I have nothing like that to hang on to. My childhood was a sham,” Harlow said.
“What do you mean?” Belle asked.
“My father had nothing to do with us kids and I don’t think the woman that raised me was my mother. She liked the others but she never had one kind word for me. She was always . . . Ah, never mind.” The sadness in his eyes made Belle wish she could hear more about it. They sat in silence for a while, then he spoke again. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but that’s what’s happened. I can’t stand the idea of y
ou going away. Something happened to me when I got on that train that day. You were sitting there looking so darn pretty. It seemed strange. I’d just left Etta that morning and didn’t trust my feelings anymore. And you expecting a baby, it was just plain crazy.”
Belle had feelings for Harlow, too, but she didn’t know how deep they went. It wasn’t how she thought love would feel, yet she couldn’t imagine life without him, either. He was a fine man and he’d saved her life, and she’d grown to love this magical place he had hewn out of the wilderness.
“Marry me, Belle.” Harlow was holding her again, brushing her cheek with his rough hand. “Say you’ll marry me.”
Was she being too impulsive? Was this happening because she was lonely and they were isolated from other people? Belle hesitated. Marrying Harlow would solve all of her problems. She could quit worrying about where to go, what to do. It would give her unborn baby a good home and Harlow needed her. Harlow needed to be loved. “If I was going to marry a man, I’d have to see his face first.”
Harlow felt of his beard. “You mean it’s gotta go?”
Belle nodded.
“You don’t like my beard?”
“I like it well enough, I just want a look at what’s under it.”
“You mean you will?”
“Yes, Harlow, I’ll wed ye.” The anxious look on Harlow’s face grew into a broad grin.
Chapter Eight
On Saturday morning Harlow sat with a mixing bowl upside-down on his head while Belle sheared his locks trying to achieve some degree of evenness.
Looking in his hand mirror, he said, “Looks fine, just fine. For four bits I can have my beard groomed, my hair cut and my boots polished down in Boise. So, I guess I owe you something. Here.” He pulled her down on his lap and gave her a kiss. “I’ll give you another if you’ll shave my beard.”
Belle had never shaved a man but she didn’t want Harlow to change his mind. The straight-edge razor made her nervous; so, she went about it cautiously. She rubbed the wet shaving brush across a bar of soap and lathered his face. Harlow’s face emerged scrape by scrape.
Harlow kissed her. “Well, so what do you think?” he said, throwing his head back so she could get a good look.
“It was like kissing a stranger but a nice-looking stranger,” Belle said, feeling that his face would take a little getting used to. He had a long upper lip and a square jaw. Maybe he looked better with the beard.
“Let’s go down to the county seat and get our marriage license. There’s no time like the present. I’ll hitch up Baldy while you pack a picnic and we’ll make a day of it."
Harlow’s excitement grew. He planned to invite everyone in the canyon to the wedding. He’d roast a steer over a fire pit and hire fiddlers from Montour.
“Would it be better Harlow, if we waited for the baby to come?” Belle asked, holding her swollen belly.
“What difference would it make? I don’t want to give you time to change your mind.” His tone changed. “Belle, you know how bad I feel about what happened to you. Let go of that nightmare, once and for all, and move on. We can have a good life together if you don’t let thoughts of that lecherous bastard get in our way.”
“I know. I’m doing my best to forget. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come into my life,” she said. “Yes, let’s go get the license.”
The morning after their long trek to the courthouse in Idaho City, Harlow left before sunup for the mines. The house felt cold, empty. This was a good day to return Colleen and Gracie’s social call.
Creaming sugar and rich butter together in an earthen bowl, Belle let her thoughts drift to the stone-floored kitchen where she’d played, and where she’d learned at her mother’s knee, to make shortbread. The recipe handed down by her Gaelic ancestors who had worshiped the sun in a country that saw little of it held the soul of her heritage. She shaped the dough in large flat wheels to represent the sun and fluted the edges which symbolized sending out rays of warmth and love to the world. She could hear her mother’s voice: “Handle the dough, lass, with joy in your heart, makes the shortbread that much sweeter.” Cutting the rounds into eight pie-wedged pieces, she chanted: “We are all separate but part of the whole.” She placed the pieces in the pan and put them in the oven. Once baked she put them back tightly together in their rounds to be stored. Her mother’s voice again: “Gently. They are fragile as fine china and will bring a day of rain for every wedge you break.”
Belle’s mother had such a gentle nature and Belle longed to cultivate that quality in herself, a quality that didn’t always seem to come as naturally as she would like.
With a tin box of shortbread beside her, Belle clucked Baldy, the dray horse, into a full run. She was eager to go visiting. Being isolated was a new experience for her and not one she had adjusted to. At home, privacy was a welcome relief but here, haunted by a feeling of detachment and loss, she yearned for company. There would be more confinement ahead when the baby came. Running off like this on a whim wouldn’t be easy. How could she be a mother when she wasn’t through being a child?
Belle drove into O’Donnells’ barnyard. A little girl playing with her doll jumped up to greet her.
“Good morning. I’m Belle Mackay from across the river. I’ve come to call. Is your mother home?”
“I’m Kathleen. Ma is in the kitchen. Come on, I’ll show you.”
In the kitchen, a man stood on the table in a sleeveless dusty-rose chiffon frock, his muscular hairy arms looking humorously incongruent. Colleen stood below him, her lips pursed around some straight pins as she marked the hem. “Stand still, Harold.”
Harold was a slight man, but quite a man just the same. Behind ruddy cheeks and pouting lips, he chuckled when he saw Belle standing there.
“Belle, you’re just in time,” Colleen mumbled through the pins. “Would you take the cookies out of the oven while I finish this? This is my husband, Harold. Harold, this is Belle Mackay; she’s working for Harlow.”
“Morning, Belle,” Harold said.
“Good Morning, Harold.” How had Colleen managed to get Harold to put on her dress? Most men wouldn’t be caught dead doing that.
“’Ain’t I the cat’s pajamas, Bell?” he said and then to his wife, “Get me out of this fluff, Colleen. It’s giving me a rash.”
“I’ve come to tell you, Colleen,” Belle said as she lifted the cookies onto wax paper, “Harlow and I are getting married.”
Silence . . . A startled, almost troubled look flickered across Colleen’s face but it was quickly replaced by a weak smile. “How nice, Belle.” Colleen thinned her lips and stared into space. Another silence. “Yes, that’s good news. When is the wedding, dear?”
“Soon, I think. We haven’t set a date.”
Colleen pulled her dress up over Harold’s head, freeing him and as he disappeared, she turned and took Belle’s hands in hers and gave Belle a look of approval that Belle sorely needed at that moment. The next Sunday morning, Belle donned the fine coat her father had tailored and placed her bonnet firmly on her head and with her chin held high, she headed for Sunday Services in Horseshoe Bend. It was a long ride in the hack and Belle wished Harlow had come with her but he refused. She felt uneasy and considered going back home. But he had wanted her to do this, and do it she would.
Just north of Horseshoe Bend, above the river, a little white church with its sharp spire was an oasis in the sagebrush hills. From the church, you could see the Payette bending almost double widening into the valley. The morning sun lit the stained glass windows, throwing stripes of color against the west wall: a blue-robed Moses stood before the multitude, the Virgin Mary held baby Jesus in her arms, circles of glory around their heads. A pulpit stood under a hand-hewn wooded cross. It wasn’t unlike her church in Aberfeldy, Belle thought, and she was halfway around the world. She found an empty seat while the pipe organ filled the air with “Rock of Ages.”
Whispering, like the drone of swarming bees, hu
ng in the air all around her. Then, one by one, the ladies got up and moved to the other side of the aisle.
At first, Belle didn’t realize what was happening, but when she did, her anger got the best of her. Impulsively she got to her feet, projecting her voice so that could be heard above the music just as the hymn came to an end. She couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I’m glad you ladies moved,” she sniped. “I did not come to be with the likes of you, I’m here to be with God. I thank ye kindly for giving me so much room.” She sat, satisfied she’d made herself known to the canyon women, although she knew it wasn’t exactly what Harlow had in mind.
When the preacher stood behind the pulpit, the pipe organ ground into the “The Morning Hymn.” Standing, the congregation filled the room with off-key voices. The worse their pitch, the louder they sang.
In his black robe, the preacher rolled into his sermon with all the warmth of a storm cloud. Full of hellfire and damnation, he delivered a moving sermon on brotherly love. Belle looked into the faces of the women who had moved across the aisle and wondered if they were taking it to heart.
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