by Bush, Holly
* * *
Jake inched his way through the crowd, Pastor Phillips in tow. He had forgotten completely about the Founder’s Day Celebration. Town was packed with every farmer, rancher and their families for miles around. He wondered if Flossie was keeping her family home because of his new bride coming to town. If so, Danny and Millie would have a thing or two to say to their Uncle Jake about missing the biggest party of the year. He didn’t need to crane his neck much to look for his bride-to-be. He towered over most of the crowd. And he figured Miss Crawper would be easy to spot. A woman near six foot tall. He guessed she’d be blonde. Hadn’t he read somewhere that most folks from those Norwegian countries were blonde? Jake straightened up as he saw upswept blonde hair under a yellow hat. He grabbed the Pastor’s arm and yanked him through the crowd.
“Miss Crawper,” he shouted when he finally got close enough. “I’m Jake Shelling.” The train shifted on the track as the woman turned. Jake couldn’t hear her reply but he could see the gauzy fabric moving in front of her mouth.
Miss Crawper sure was gussied up in fancy clothes for a widow woman just off the boat. Jake didn’t know much about fashions but having listened to his two sisters for as many years as he had made him sure this woman was wearing expensive, fashionable clothing. He introduced Pastor Phillips over the roar of the crowd. The woman seemed to stand in a daze. But then Jake realized she had no idea what he was talking about.
“And you’re sure you want to do this, Miss Crawper?” Pastor Phillips shouted.
The woman’s head turned from the Pastor and back to Jake. The crowd shouted in unison as the woman replied, and he was being elbowed and bumped by every man jack that went by. Jake was pretty sure she had repeated her name.
“We know who you are,” Jake said slowly and very loud as if he were talking to a child. He pointed to his chest, then to her, then to the bible held in the minister’s hand. He motioned as if putting a ring on his finger. She nodded.
Pastor Phillips took the woman’s hand, placed it in Jakes’ and opened his book. She looked up at him and then at the pastor. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he could tell she was a beautiful woman. He had expected her to be big-boned. But for her near six foot, this woman was dainty. Not skinny with no meat on her bones but round, and soft and sweet smelling. Delicate looking and shiny as the intricate yellow fabric she wore. Just glowing like the sun from the top of her yellow hat to the matching purse.
The pastor elbowed Jake as he closed his book. Jake slipped the ring over white gloves . . . and hell’s fire. His bride had fainted. Jake caught her in his arms as the crowd began to thin away to watch the rodeo scheduled in the pasture behind the train station. Pastor Phillips was fanning her with his hat. Jake held his new bride in his arms easily and surveyed her from her head to her yellow shoes. Hell, this woman wasn’t six foot tall. She wasn’t five foot tall. Jake looked down at the station platform beside him. A black trunk sat there. Good God. She’d been standing on a trunk. This couldn’t be Inga Crawper. Who in the hell had he just married?
* * *
Julia woke up slowly as the air around her cooled. At first she hadn’t the foggiest notion where she was. Then she thought she was having her favorite dream. Waking up in the arms of a handsome man. But she wasn’t in her bedroom in Boston. She was in South Dakota.
Everything tumbled back in to her mind. The dreadful shouting and noise that had kept her from hearing her own wedding words were now distant. Her wonder as to why Mr. Snelling had changed his plans, marrying her here and now and not waiting a week as he had written her. Her shock when she got her first look at her husband to be. He would have been a giant had she not been standing on her trunk. The train had pulled away, and the platform where her trunks sat was near empty.
Julia was too petrified too move. Her husband wore a hat so she could did see his balding head. He was much more handsome than she’d expected. And big. How could have his own mother worried he were too thin? He looked as though he could lift the train from the tracks had he wanted. He wasn’t fat but he was nothing like the spindly, shy man she had envisioned. And to her gross mortification she had fainted in his arms.
“Mr. Snelling?” she asked.
“It’s Jake Shelling. Who the hell are you?” he replied.
“Mr. Snelling, you mean. Mr. Jacob Snelling. My fiancé. Why I’m your bride,” Julia said. He was staring down at her and then turned with a monstrous look to the minister.
“Give me that license, Pastor,” he said.
The man in black pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nope. I married ya right and proper, Jake. This here’s your bride. For better or worse.”
Julia turned her head and he did as well when they heard shouting from the train depot house. “Miss Crawford. Miss Julia Crawford?”
Julia fluttered her hands against his chest. “Please put me down. Someone’s calling my name.”
“Julia Crawford,” her husband said.
“Yes,” she replied as her husband lowered her to the wooden platform. She lifted her hand in a wave. “I’m Julia Crawford. I mean, I was, I mean . . .” A thin, balding man was hurrying to her. Julia looked at her giant of a husband and back to the man calling her name frantically. When she saw an aging woman trailing behind the man, recognition occurred.
“Mr. Snelling,” she whispered. As the man came towards her motioning the older woman along she realized he was the man she was to have married. Julia looked up to the man beside her and back to the thin man holding his hat and calling her name.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
The giant blew out a breath. “We got a problem, Snelling.”
“What problem, Jake? Other than you seem to be standing awful close to my fiancé,” Mr. Snelling said. He smiled wistfully. “I’d recognize her anywhere.”
“Jake here’s right, Jacob. There’s a problem. You see I already married this woman to Jake,” Pastor Phillips said.
Jacob Snelling’s smile dropped as his hat fell out of his hand.
The old woman peered around her son’s shoulder. “I told you, Jacob. You can’t trust those city women. Married the first man she saw when she got off the train.”
Julia had no idea what to say. The old woman was right. She looked up at her husband. “What did you say your name was, sir?”
“Jake Shelling.”
Julia turned to the minister. “There’s been a mistake. The names are similar and over the crowd noise, I thought he said his name was Snelling. Mr. Jacob Snelling. You’ll have to void or do whatever you must. I was to marry this gentleman here,” Julia said and looked at the forlorn man standing in front of her.
“Only way to undo a marriage, Ma’am, is death or divorce. You can file down at the courthouse. Might take a year or so to get, though,” he said.
“A divorce,” the old woman shouted. “No son of mine is marrying used goods. Snelling’s don’t marry divorcees.”
“But, Mrs. Snelling, I had no idea I was marrying the wrong man,” Julia cried.
Jacob Snelling looked at his mother. “I don’t know, Mother. It wasn’t her fault.” He looked back at Julia. “But a divorcee?”
The whole of the assemblage turned when the sheriff escorted a tall blonde woman with long braided ponytails to them. She curtsied and said, “Inga Crawper. Husband. Jake Shelling.”
The minister scratched his head. “I’ll be betting this here’s your foreign bride.”
“Hey, Jake. This woman’s looking for you. I think she’s planning to marry you. Ain’t that something?” the sheriff said.
“We’ve got a problem, Sheriff,” Jacob Snelling said. “Jake Shelling stole my bride. Up and married her before I could get here. Mother’s feet were bothering her this morning, and I had to rub them with camphor. Made me late. But still all in all, he married the woman I was supposed to.”
“She’ll be a divorcee, Jacob. We don’t want her now,” the old woman said.
“Don’t suppose somebody could
explain this mess to me. And right quick. The mayor’s set to make his speech soon, and he wants me up on the platform with him,” the man with the tin badge said.
Julia’s new husband told the tale and finished with a curse. “And Phillips here won’t tear up the license even though there was a mistake. I was to marry Inga Crawper. The one curtseying beside you.”
“Scared she was going to get away, Jake?” the sheriff asked.
“Something like that,” he replied.
The sheriff rubbed his chin and then his belly. Suddenly his face lit up with a smile.
“Hey, I got it. Snelling here can marry Inga. It’ll all be settled. You both will have a bride. And seeings how you already tied the knot, Jake, you can hardly marry this one, too. Bigamy’s illegal in this parts.” Sheriff Smith turned to Jacob Snelling. “What do you think, Jacob? Marry Inga here and everything will be solved.”
“What do you want?” her new husband asked Julia. “Do you want to file for a divorce so you can marry Jacob Snelling?”
“Used goods, I’m telling you,” Mrs. Snelling said, wide-eyed. Her son was staring at the blonde woman from Sweden with a hopeful look on his face.
Julia was humiliated. Her fiancé had barely given her a second glance. His mother stared at her as if she worked in a saloon. The only person who seemed the least bit concerned with her wishes was a man she met ten minutes earlier and had married. And if she filed for divorce, her father would sweep her back to Boston before she could utter a single word of protest. She looked up at him.
“I don’t want a divorce,” she said.
“Then I guess we’re stuck with each other,” he said.
Julia stood in the dust of the wooden platform as her new husband turned and stalked away. Inga Crawper was nodding, smiling and bowing to Jacob Snelling. Mrs. Snelling turned to Julia with a smug smile as she latched herself onto the tall blonde’s arm to lead her away. The sheriff was already gone, and the minister was having trouble meeting Julia’s eyes. Her lips were trembling, and her knees went out from under her. Thankfully, her trunk was behind her. She plopped down with a thud, sending a whirl of dust around her. Julia had no idea what to do. The minister knelt before her, hat in hand.
“Been quite a day, hasn’t it?” he asked.
Julia nodded and sniffed.
Pastor Phillips bowed his head and looked up. “I shouldn’t be saying this, seeings how Jacob Snelling’s a member of my congregation, but I’m thinking the foreigner got the short end of the stick.”
Julia looked at him, eyes glistening. “How can you say that? She left with Mr. Snelling and his mother. My husband . . . my husband left me here at the station. I don’t have any idea what to do, where to go.”
“Jake’ll be back. Mark my words. No question he’s got his hair in an uproar, but Jake Shelling’s the most honorable man I know.” The Pastor said. “I just think this came as a shock, if you know what I mean.”
“A shock? I came here to marry a quiet storekeeper and help care for his mother. I don’t know anything about this man. This Jake Shelling. How do you know he’ll be back?”
Her circumstances were beginning to sink in. She had read and reread Mr. Snelling’s letters so often she felt as if she would be in for few surprises. A twist of fate she could have never envisioned put her into the keeping of a man she knew nothing about.
“Told you. He’s honorable. And honest to the core.” The Pastor turned his hat in his hand. “You’re going have to just trust me on that.”
Julia was sure she was in some kind of mental or physical shock. She just did not seem able to make her arms and legs respond to any command. Let alone begin to sort through her thoughts. She saw the pastor rise and turn to look at a wagon approaching. Jake Shelling stopped the horse-driven open wagon beside the train platform. One long leg stretched from the wagon and he vaulted up beside her. He looked down at her and her things sitting in the heat of the sun.
“All this stuff yours?” he asked.
Julia nodded.
He picked up two cases and heaved them in the wagon. Glass shattered.
“My pictures!” Julia shouted.
“Sorry,” he said. He bent down and loaded her trunk on his shoulder.
“Please be careful, sir,” Julia said. He turned slowly to face her and frowned. He stepped on to the seat of the rig and put her trunk down carefully behind the seat.
“Better?” he asked.
She looked down at the two remaining bags. “I’ll hand these to you.”
He accepted the two cases, dropped them beside her trunk and plopped down on the seat. His bride remained standing on the platform. “You coming?” he asked.
Julia swallowed and nodded. The pastor took her hand.
“This is one of those twiny, twirling paths that God puts before us. One step at a time, Mrs. Shelling. One step at a time,” Pastor Phillips said.
This strange man, in this new town had called her Mrs. Shelling. Frightening as that thought was, the minister’s words had given her comfort. The sentiment sounded like something Eustace would have said, and Julia felt tears fill her eyes again. The immediate problem though, the one keeping her from that “twiny, twirling path,” was how she was to get in her husband’s wagon. She looked up at the pastor.
“I can’t decide now whether to be grateful or furious that you won’t let us annul this marriage.” Julia looked at her hands folded at her waist. “In the mean time do you think you could assist me into the wagon so my husband doesn’t desert me?”
Chapter Four
Before the pastor could put his arm to hers, Jake was out of the wagon standing between her and the minister. He looked at his rig to the platform to her wide hooped skirt. Flossie would have a fit if he let his new bride fall and break her neck before she got to meet her. Jake lifted his wife in his arms, stepped into the wagon, and set her none too cautiously onto the seat. An oomph popped out of her mouth as she tried to straighten her skirts and right her hat. Jake hawed the horse and town and its noise quickly faded to be replaced by complete and utter silence.
“I really couldn’t hear you when you said your name,” she said.
Jake didn’t think the woman had set out to trick him but he was in no mood to make her feel better. He felt too lousy himself. He turned to her. “What is your real name?”
“Julia Crawford. Julia Snelling, I mean Julia Shelling,” she stumbled.
Jake whoahed the horses and pulled the break. He faced his wife. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. You married me. Not Snelling and his mother. I can’t imagine why a woman like you would be batting your lashes for that skinny, mealy-mouthed pain in the ass, but the fact is you married me. Get him out of your head.” He took her chin in his hand. “What’s mine is mine, and I keep and care for what’s mine. Got it?”
“If you’re questioning my honor, sir, you needn’t. Crawfords keep their word,” she said.
Jake eyed her. She was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, but she spoke her mind anyway. He had to give her credit for that. “Neither do Shellings. And you’re a Shelling now. And don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m Jake. Always have been.”
She nodded. “Please call me Julia.”
He gave a short snort, released the brake on the wagon, and slapped the horses with the reins in his hands. “I intended to.”
They rode the distance home without speaking another word. Jake could not believe his second attempt into matrimony had ended like this. He had yet to marry a woman of his choosing. Jake stole a glance at his new bride and couldn’t stop himself from wondering what had brought a beautiful woman like her to the prairie of South Dakota to marry Jacob Snelling and wait on his mother. Jake pulled the wagon up in front of the house.
* * *
Julia stood in the wagon. A brown, weathered house sat a short distance away from a barn and several low flat buildings. Silos rose up from behind. As far as Julia could see, lay swaying crops in the fields. The sight was magnificent and t
errifying at the same time. Beautiful like a picture Julia had seen in a book and so vast and endless that she felt tiny, insignificant, and overwhelmed.
“Does all this land belong to you?” she asked. Her husband had jumped down from the wagon and now was holding out a hand to help her down.
“Does now. Didn’t always.”
“When did you buy it?” Julia asked.
“My parents bought it in ’71. Went to me and my sisters when they died. I gave Flossie her share in cash when she got married. Her and Harry bought a farm just south of here. I gave Gloria a piece of land east of this when she married Will. So what’s left is mine. And yours now.”
Julia’s face paled. There was more information in that clipped speech than she cared to know at this moment. His parents were dead. He had two married sisters who lived nearby. And he was willing to make her part of what was his. Julia didn’t want to imagine what his sisters were like. Or their reaction to his marriage. Would they be bossy? Would they point out the fact that she didn’t belong here? Didn’t have the right to their inheritance? Just as confusing was his acknowledgement of that right. He had said it was hers as well. She turned full around slowly and viewed the land. It was the only solid thing she had ever owned. She looked at the ground below her feet. Julia Shelling was a landowner. And her yellow shoes were square on it.
“Come in the house. Out of the sun. Slim’ll get your bags,” her husband said as she noticed a group of men milling about one of the other buildings.
“That would be nice. It is rather hot.”
“You’ll have to get used to the heat. And the cold. It’s either hot as hell or colder ’en hell,” he said and looked down at her dress. “No use wearing all those layers. You’ll die of heat exhaustion before the week’s out.”
Julia gave him a weak smile. He had no idea how appealing it would be to go without a corset and four full petticoats, but then he would notice that her figure was no slim hourglass. She swallowed when it occurred to her he would know eventually. When they went to bed.