Forced into Marriage

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  Brandon drank all of the water in his canteen and threw it on the ground. It was no use. No matter how much water he drank, it didn’t quench his thirst. He was tired of being thirsty all the time. Whether awake or asleep, his body cried out for alcohol, and there was nothing he could do about it because he’d dumped all the whiskey out.

  He dropped to his knees beside the river and put his face in his hands. He had no idea that going without whiskey was going to be this difficult. He’d had urges for alcohol before, but he honestly thought he had control over his drinking. Now, he realized that Joe had been right. He didn’t have control. The alcohol had a hold on him.

  It had become a crutch he’d used after he found out his first wife was sleeping with his friend. It had been the reason he ended up losing all of his money gambling. It was why he had had to sell his mercantile in order to pay off his debts. He had blamed everything on Omaha. He’d thought if he could just go somewhere else, everything would be better. But he’d been wrong. He’d taken his problems with him because the alcohol had become the root of them.

  With a groan, he looked up into the night sky. Just how was he going to get through this? Each day seemed to be worse than the one before it. He couldn’t sit or stand still for longer than a few seconds at a time. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop shaking. At night, he could barely sleep, and when he did, all he had were nightmares of drowning in whiskey while everyone laughed about how pathetic he was. In the morning, he didn’t feel at all rested, and during the day, he had to battle headaches that sometimes were so bad that it felt like a hammer was going right through his head.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced over at Lokni and the baby. She was by the campfire. If he guessed right, she was nursing him. She was upset with him. And he didn’t blame her.

  He hadn’t meant to snap at her earlier that day. He’d tried to hold his tongue. But the words flew out, and as soon as they did, he saw the mixture of fear and hurt in her eyes. No doubt, he had reminded her of Orson and those men who’d abused her.

  If he’d been in a better frame of mind, he never would have spoken like that to her. He would have watched his tone. He would have made sure he was gentle in his speech. But he’d had such a bad headache and was so irritated with how long it was taking him to get over this craving for alcohol that he hadn’t been thinking straight.

  How was he going to make things right with her? He didn’t want her to be afraid of him, nor did he want her to hate him. He’d thought they had been getting along well, despite their shaky beginning. Neither had wanted to get married. She hadn’t been any more excited about it than he’d been. But since she’d given birth, he’d thought something had changed between them. They weren’t in love, but they had developed something of a friendship.

  They both wanted to do what was best for the baby. She had even trusted him to hold her child once in a while. That trust wasn’t something she easily gave another person, and it’d made him determined to make sure he did everything he could to keep it. Once trust was destroyed, there was no getting it back. He of all people knew it after what he’d been through in his first marriage.

  As much as he didn’t want to do it, he was going to have to tell Lokni the truth. She had to know that he hadn’t been lying to her when he said he wasn’t sick, and she should know that they weren’t in any danger of Orson or the others.

  With a heavy sigh, he picked up the canteen, filled it with more water, and then returned to the camp. She had finished nursing, and the baby was asleep in her arms, looking very much at peace with everything going on around him. Brandon hoped the boy would always feel that way.

  Lokni looked up at him, and the flicker of apprehension that crossed her face made Brandon wince. He’d never hurt her. He hadn’t ever hurt anyone. And he especially wouldn’t hurt a woman. Even when he found his first wife in bed with his friend, he hadn’t hurt her. But who knew what Lokni had been through? He only knew pieces of her past, and the things he knew weren’t pleasant.

  Hoping to set her mind at ease since he was currently standing over her, he sat on the grass and placed the canteen next to him since his trembling was making it hard to hold onto it. After taking a moment to think over his words, he said, “I’m sorry for the way I snapped at you today.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed as if she wasn’t sure he’d apologized.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not sick. There’s no one following us. It’s just that...”

  He took his hat off and rubbed his forehead. Even coming to her and saying all of this was making his head hurt. But he had to do it. If not for her, then he needed to do it for the child. So the boy would have a mother who felt safe with the man she had been forced to marry.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and continued, “I have a problem with alcohol.” That was harder to say aloud than thinking it had been. “I stopped drinking,” he hurried to assure her. “I didn’t realize it was going to be so hard to get over it. I don’t know how long I’ll be doing all those things you noticed earlier today, but I’m going to see this through. I’m not going to take another sip of alcohol for as long as I live. I want to do what’s best for you and the baby.”

  “Did you take alcohol with you when we left the preacher’s home?” she asked after an awkward silence passed between them.

  As much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn’t. If he was going to be honest with her, he needed to answer all of her questions. “Yes,” he softly admitted. “I hid several flasks of whiskey in my sack, and I waited until I was alone before I drank anything. I got rid of those flasks right after your son was born. I don’t have them anymore.”

  She glanced down at the baby and brushed her finger along his cheek. The gesture was so tender that Brandon suddenly wondered if she ever might touch him like that. She loved the baby. Brandon missed being loved. He missed the kind of tenderness a woman showed when she wanted to be with someone, like the kind his first wife had given him when they first married. He remembered how nice it was to be touched like that. It had meant he had a place to belong, that he mattered to someone in this world.

  He pushed the thought away. Those days were long gone. Whatever he and Lokni were going to have, it wasn’t going to be anything like what he’d had with his first wife in the early years of their marriage. This marriage was based on practicality and nothing else. It was just the lack of alcohol giving him fantasies he shouldn’t be entertaining because doing so would only lead to disappointment when none of them came to pass.

  “I want to be a good father to your son,” he continued. “Every boy should have someone in his life who will protect him and his mother. Life is hard. He’ll learn that soon enough. But I’d like for him to have the kind of childhood I did. At least then he’ll know someone in this world cared about him. He has you, of course. I can tell just by looking at you that you love him. It’s nice. A boy might never say it, but he needs his mother’s love.” Noting the way his hands were shaking the hat, he set the hat back on his head and then clasped his hands together. “I want to be a good father. That’s why I stopped drinking, and I promise you that I’m not going to ever take another drink again.”

  She seemed as if she wasn’t sure how to respond. For all he knew, no other man had ever taken the time to apologize to her before. Orson and the others who were with him weren’t the type to treat any woman with respect. Having gone through everything she had with them, he couldn’t blame her. In her position, he might not know what to say, either.

  More than that, she might not even believe all the things he was telling her. Words were meaningless without the actions to back them up. Up until the day he’d caught his first wife in bed with his friend, she’d told him she loved him. She’d greeted him with a kiss when he came home and had acted as if nothing was wrong. Who knew how long she’d been lying to him?

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about earlier today.”

  He grabbed
his canteen and got to his feet. As he was going to his bedroll, she called out, “Thank you.”

  Surprised, since he hadn’t expected her to reply, he turned back to look at her and smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  She offered a tentative smile—one that suggested she was still uncertain about him but was willing to give him a chance—and then turned her attention back to her sleeping son.

  Feeling much better, he sat on his bedroll and got ready to go to sleep.

  ***

  Lokni watched Brandon as he settled into his bedroll. Looking back on their argument earlier that day, she realized he hadn’t really been mean to her. At the time, she had taken it that way. But when she thought over the words he’d actually said, he hadn’t talked down to her or called her names. He’d only said that he wasn’t sick and that he just wanted to get to the next town. It’d been the way he’d snapped at her that made her read more into his words than were actually there. Now that she knew he was having trouble because he hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in a couple of weeks, it all made sense.

  It had taken him a lot of courage to tell her the truth. It’d been difficult for him. She could tell by the shame in his eyes that he wished he didn’t have to even explain the situation to her, but something in him had prompted him to do so. That something could very well have been her son. He did care for her baby. She didn’t think men cared much for children.

  Yes, in the tribe, children meant a continuation of their people. It was a way of making sure the next generation would exist. But the white men she’d known up to this point didn’t care anything for them. If they had, Orson, Hank, Zane, and Barney wouldn’t have gotten rid of her when she came close to giving birth. One of those four had fathered this child. It was impossible to tell which one. Looking at the child didn’t offer any insight, probably because they had been related and, therefore, shared the same features.

  It was just as well. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to look at the child and think of any of them. It was enough that she had a child. After losing her first one, she’d wanted another one so badly. This one had been a comfort in the midst of all the pain and heartache she’d had to endure. Her son was her reward for patiently waiting for things to get better.

  She lifted her gaze to Brandon. He was lying on his back, his hands folded over his stomach and his eyes closed. She noticed the way his shoulders and hands twitched, but other than that, he seemed to have much more control over his body than he had earlier that day.

  She wondered how long it would take for him to overcome his struggle with alcohol. She couldn’t imagine Orson, Hank, Zane, or Barney ever giving up alcohol. They had no qualms about getting drunk. The men in her tribe had avoided alcohol, saying it had the power to control those who consumed it. She would say those who drank it were very much under its control.

  She’d known Brandon had been drunk the night they married, but she hadn’t realized he’d been drinking since then. He’d done a good job of hiding it from her. For the sake of her son, he had given it up, and for that decision, he was paying the price. This was, by no means, easy for him, and knowing that, she couldn’t help but respect him.

  She settled onto her blanket and pulled her son close to her. She knew she was taking a long time in giving him a name. Every time she thought she’d picked the right one, she ended up changing her mind. Once she gave him a name, he’d be stuck with it for the rest of his life. This was the name people would associate with him. She wanted it to be a name that would fit him and the future she hoped he would have.

  Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow the right name would come to her.

  ***

  The next night, Brandon woke up in a cold sweat. His eyes flew open, and he expected to see a man pointing a rifle at his forehead because that’s what the man in his dream had been doing. He’d dreamt he was in an abandoned town. He’d been searching for something. He’d looked through the mercantile, the bank, the jailhouse, the saloon, and even some houses lining the dusty street. But whatever it was he needed, he couldn’t find it.

  And then suddenly, he was in the center of the street. The man standing several yards from him had a rifle pointed right at him. He didn’t get a good look at the man’s face. He only remembered the steely gray eyes penetrating him. Those eyes were the eyes of a killer. A killer who showed no remorse. And Brandon instinctively knew the killer had gotten to everyone else in the town and was now coming for him.

  Right before Brandon woke up, he heard the unmistakable click of the hammer, signaling that the man was about to pull the trigger. And now, as Brandon was lying on the ground near the dying campfire, he honestly thought the man was standing right over him, ready to finish the horrible nightmare.

  But then, in the next instance, someone else was hovering over him. Someone with a worried frown on her face. Someone asking him if he was alright. It took a moment for the image of the man to fade. In its place was Lokni’s concerned expression.

  “What?” Brandon asked once he found his voice.

  “You were calling out for whiskey,” she told him.

  “I was?”

  There hadn’t been any in his dream. In fact, there hadn’t even been a bottle lining the shelf in the saloon when he’d been in there. Was it possible that whiskey was the thing he’d been searching for while he slept?

  He rubbed his head, aware he was quickly getting a headache. He felt worse than he had at any other time in the last couple of weeks. How was it possible he was feeling worse? Shouldn’t he be feeling better? Surely, at some point, this had to stop.

  “Does your head hurt?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It doesn’t usually bother me until after the sun is up.”

  “Maybe I can help. My father often suffered pain in his head, and I was able to relieve it for him.”

  Considering how tired he was of fighting off the headaches, he was more than happy to try anything she had in mind. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to rub your head in certain areas.”

  He nodded. “Alright.”

  “Close your eyes. Take deep, even breaths. My father liked to empty his mind of all his worries. You do that while I rub your head.”

  It was worth a shot. He closed his eyes and then concentrated on breathing, as she had instructed. Though he had expected her touch, his eyes flew open when she brought her fingers to his temples.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked.

  “No. I didn’t know you were ready to start.” He cleared his throat. “You told me you were going to, but…” Realizing he probably sounded like a moron, he stopped himself from making a bigger fool of himself. “I’m sorry. You can keep going.”

  He closed his eyes again, and since she was still touching him, it didn’t startle him when she began rubbing his temples in slow, methodical motions. After she rubbed his temples for a few minutes, she worked her way to other areas on his head.

  The experience was surprisingly relaxing. If he hadn’t been trying to breathe nice, deep breaths before, he instinctively did so now. As for emptying his mind, that wasn’t a problem, either. In fact, he wasn’t even sure when she stopped her soothing ministrations because he drifted off to sleep.

  When he opened his eyes again, it was dawn. Sitting up, he searched for her and found her asleep next to her child across the campfire. The ache in his head was long gone. And better yet, he had slept more soundly than he had in a long time.

  He was still shaking, and the thirst for alcohol was still there. But otherwise, he felt better than he had since he quit drinking. Relieved, he got up and went to the river, determined that he would thank Lokni for her help by giving her fish to eat for breakfast.

  Chapter Nine

  For the next few days, things went a lot smoother. Lokni noticed that Brandon was still pushing through the effects of not having alcohol in his body, and throughout the day, she would rub his head if it ached. This, in turn, seemed to make him less anxious. He never ca
me out and said it did this. All he ever said was “thank you”. However, his trembling wasn’t quite so bad, and he stopped looking around as if he expected someone to come up and attack them.

  At night, she would help him go to sleep by massaging his head. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was because of this that he didn’t have any more nightmares.

  On the day they finally arrived in the small town, it was around noon. She scanned the buildings that lined the dusty road. Further from the buildings were small homes people lived in.

  “The first thing I need to do is make sure we can get a room at a hotel,” Brandon told her. “After all the walking we’ve been doing, I think we should stay here for a short time. It would be nice to earn some money to buy more clothes and camping supplies. We still have a long ways to go before we’re in California.”

  And it would give her time to figure out if she could find a job to support herself and her son. This was what she had been looking forward to ever since they got married. She’d wanted to start a new life—one free from all men.

  Except now, she wasn’t sure if that was what she still wanted. She liked the idea of being independent of anyone—of having full control of her life. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to be free of Brandon. Not now. Not after the time they’d spent together. Not after finding out he wasn’t like the other men who’d been in her life.

  She wasn’t sure what to do about her conflicting emotions. Of course, she didn’t have to make a decision today. Brandon said they would be staying here for a while.

  Her baby let out a cry, and she hurried to pat his back in an attempt to quiet him.

  “I bet he’s hungry,” Brandon said. “Let’s see if there’s a room at the hotel. Then you can feed him while I put the horse in the livery stable.”

  She nodded and followed him to the hotel. He tied the horse’s reins to the post and then led her up the steps and to the door. He opened the door and looked at her expectantly. It took her a moment to realize he expected her to go in first. She quickly did but got behind him as he went to the front desk.