by Debra Samms
"Yeah. I want you to know that I don't need anyone. Anyone at all."
She sighed. "That's right. You don't need anyone. I just hoped you might want me as a wife. We could help each other."
He turned to face her, still tense and angry. "How about the shoe being on the other foot, Delilah? Is there anything you want to tell me?"
She suddenly felt hot and cold all at once, and took a step back. "What – what do you mean?"
"I heard what those girls said to you the minute we were legally wed," Bradley said, in a low voice. "Why did you really come out here?"
She was silent as her fear began to rise. "Because – just like the others – I – I – "
"No. Not like the others. You're here for a different reason."
Delilah could barely speak. "What – are you saying?"
He took a step towards her. "I know all about it. You were supposed to marry some rich boy out east – but he left you at the altar. Didn't he?"
She tried to get her breath, but could not.
"He must have had his reasons, but why? Why would any man leave a girl as pretty as you at the very last minute? What did you do, Delilah?"
Shocked and humiliated, Delilah pushed past him, yanked the door open and ran outside into the darkness, feeling worse than she ever had in her life. All she wanted to do was hide where no one would ever find her.
CHAPTER TEN
Delilah fled into the night, running away from the cabin and up towards the top of the ridge where there was nothing but Douglas fir and pine trees. But she did not get far before Bradley caught her by the arm and turned her around to face him.
"Look at me, Delilah. I'll tell you what happened. Your rich man left you standing at the altar in your wedding dress, waiting and waiting for him. Didn't he? Why?"
She turned away, hiding her face in her hands. "It was Jessamine and Pauline that you heard," she whispered. "I'd sworn them to secrecy. I cannot believe they spoke the way they did at our own wedding!"
Bradley let go of her arm. "Women talk, Delilah. I don't think they were trying to hurt you. They must have thought it was safe, now that you were married to me. They probably thought you'd already told me. But you hadn't."
Delilah tried to raise her chin and look at him. "I did nothing dishonorable to cause James Bowman to reject me," she said, drawing a ragged breath. "He left me for another girl – a girl with more money and a better family. That's all."
"I see. Yeah, some men do that kind of thing. But here's what I really want to know: Did you only marry me because I was the first one who asked, and you figured you'd better not pass up a chance in case I found out about you being left at the altar the first time?"
She took a step back, but was beginning to feel a little less frightened. "If you remember, Mr. Fisher, you asked me once before to marry you. I turned you down. Does that make me sound like I was desperate to marry the first man who asked?"
He was silent. "And besides," she went on, "if you'd opened that note I gave you – even if you'd asked somebody else to read it to you – you would have known that it merely said I missed you and wished you well while you were gone. And you would have seen that pink handkerchief and never taken it with you on the job if you didn't want to."
But he only growled and turned away again. She could feel the anger and the humiliation pouring off of him, even without him saying a word.
Delilah paused. Though she herself was terribly stung by his words, she could see how deeply his own pride had been wounded at her discovery that he could not read.
She smiled a little. "I suppose we are a pair," she said, trying to make her voice light. "We both have our secrets, and we're both shamed by them . . . though maybe we shouldn't be."
Her turned and looked hard at her. "I won't have you telling anyone that I can't read. No one, do you understand? The only one who knows is George. He helps me and I help him. That's all I need."
"Bradley, I assure you – I'm not going to tell anyone if you don't want me to."
"I don't. And I take it you'd rather not have your own humiliation talked about any more, either."
"No. I wouldn't. What I was going to say was – "
"Yeah?" He towered over her in the darkness with his fists on his waist. But she looked him straight in the eye and refused to back down.
"I was going to say that if you'd like, I can teach you to read. And to write."
He blinked, and his expression softened just a little. "Teach me? You?"
"Yes. Me. I taught my younger brother, and a couple of the girls at the mill. They never learned, either. It wouldn't take you long to learn the letters and their sounds. That's really all it is. You're smart. No one will ever have to know."
He looked down, and let his arms relax. "I'll think about it."
She nodded. "You can tell me when you're ready."
Bradley just gazed back at her, with a curious look on his face. She began to feel a little uneasy again, and took a step back. "What is it?"
"This man who ran out on you, back east. What sort of man was he?"
She tried to laugh a little. "Well, obviously a very poor sort, to leave a woman standing at the altar."
"I know that. I mean – what did he do for a living? Working man? Or book type? What?"
Delilah raised her head and took a deep breath, for she was suddenly aware of what he wanted to know. "He was young, and handsome, and wealthy," she said. "He was at university to be a lawyer. So yes, Bradley, he could read. He could read Shakespeare. He even knew Latin. And he could write very well, to go along with it. But he proved to have no more character than a snake.
"I know what you're thinking, and I can tell you that you're wrong. Even pretty girls get stood up for no good reason. Men who only want the prettiest girls always think there's a prettier one around the next corner . . . and they don't hesitate to leave behind the one they've got when that idea takes hold in their heads."
He looked down, and let out his breath. "I suppose – I suppose I'd just thought a girl like you could have any man she wanted."
She smiled. "I've got the man I want. So, Bradley Fisher, if you like, I'll teach you to read. Otherwise I'll think no more about whether or not you can."
Bradley nodded. "And I'll think no more about your life before you came here."
He reached for her hands, and held them up against his chest. " . . . and all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me."
Delilah felt warm with happiness as she looked up at him, searching out his eyes in the darkness. "Yes," she whispered, leaning her face against his broad chest. "The river splashes the water up high as it rushes over the rocks. But the whitewater isn't harmed at all – it's only left clean and fresh and renewed. And beautiful."
"Yes. Beautiful," murmured Bradley, holding her close. And then they turned and walked back down the ridge together, to begin their life along the river in the town called Sawyerville.
THE END
DELILAH AND THE WHITEWATER WEDDING
A Sawyerville Brides story
Clara And The Silent Groom
A Sawyerville Brides Story
CHAPTER ONE
Sawyerville, Oregon
August, 1878
Clara and several of the other women stood at the edge of the road by the forest and watched the fallers swing their axes. Tree after enormous tree fell in quick succession, and then the branches were trimmed off and the logs dragged down to the river by a powerful team of horses.
She leaned over to her friend Susannah, who stood close beside her. "I can only hope that George won't be too annoyed that we've come out here to the cut site to watch them work," Clara whispered.
"The men don't like seeing women at their work sites, that's for certain," said Susannah. "But I think that all us who've come to Sawyerville as prospective brides have a right to understand what loggers do each day. And I'll say that it looks harder than I could have imagined."
Clara nodded. She watched as George looped
the steel cable around yet another log and slid the bell into place to hold the cable tight. Then he signaled to the team driver, and the two very large horses dug in with their hooves on the muddy path and pulled hard.
But this time, the huge log hardly moved. It looked as though it was hung up on something – perhaps a boulder under the slick mud – and so the driver's whip cracked and the horses pulled harder.
"Ohhh, that looks dangerous!" said Susannah, in a rising voice loud enough to carry. She caught hold of Clara's arm. "If that cable slips, someone could get killed!"
Right then, there was a tremendous snap as the steel cable broke and whipped backwards towards the log – right where George and two other men were standing.
All of the women screamed. One man was knocked off his feet, but to Clara's great relief he rolled over and got up again and seemed none the worse for it.
But George was standing and staring right at her, and at Susannah. His face was so white under the black beard that he looked like a ghost. Clara took a cautious step towards him, but then he only turned and disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
He was gone.
***
As told in Journey to Sawyerville:
Sawyerville, Oregon
May, 1878
After making the very long ten-week trip from Manchester, New Hampshire to the logging town of Sawyerville, Oregon by way of steamship and cross-country railroad, Clara Emilia Kingston – who always described herself as having both average height and looks, but good spirit – and some forty-nine other young women finally rolled into town on a covered wagon train.
But they had gotten a raucous and frightening welcome from the hundreds of men working and living in the logging camp – the men they'd come here to marry. The loggers had charged the wagon train and, as a result, the women refused to leave the boarding house they lived in. They were threatening to go back east – and ten of them actually did.
The sheriff's wife, Molly Strong, who had arranged to bring the prospective brides to Sawyerville in the first place, tried everything to get the men and women acquainted: a picnic, a tea, and even a street party with dancing.
But neither the women nor the men wanted any part of it. The women were scared to death of the crude loggers, while the men were put off by the standoffish ways of the eastern girls.
Things improved a little when five more brides arrived – five very strong women who were country-raised and tough as any man, and who would tolerate neither bad behavior from the men nor excessive timidity from the women. Indeed, they'd made the two sides waltz with each other on the very day they'd arrived.
Brown-haired, brown-eyed Clara was approached by one of the most fearsome men in the camp, the very big man known as George the Giant Ox. George had never been heard to say an actual word to anyone and only communicated through grunts and gestures.
But at the street dance, George had approached Clara, and she did not back down from him. He'd held out one hand and whispered "Dance," and Clara had joined him in something that resembled a waltz.
But most of the other brides were not convinced. Life went on in Sawyerville under a very uneasy truce between the ladies from the east and some of the most rugged men in the west.
***
On a warm afternoon early in June, just over a month after their arrival, Clara Kingston and a few of the other Sawyerville brides ventured outside at last.
They'd gone down to the edge of the river at the far western end of the town, far enough past the enormous encampment where the loggers lived – the very noisy, rowdy, muddy, dirty encampment – that it was out of their sight.
Once at a peaceful spot beside the river, some of the girls began searching in the clear, cold shallows for watercress while others browsed through the open grass for dandelion leaves and in the underbrush for any early berries.
Watching over them was Maeve Harrison, one of the toughest of the women who'd come out here as a prospective bride. She had a double-barrel shotgun that was seemingly always with her, and the other women had learned to feel quite safe as long as she was around.
It had actually been Maeve who'd persuaded them to leave the safety of the very large, two-story Sawyerville Ladies' House up on the ridge and come down to the river on this pretty afternoon.
"You can't just hide in the House all the time," Maeve had said. "It's true that these loggers take some getting accustomed to. They're not like the men back east. But you've got to get used to seeing them and they've got to get used to seeing you. So, let's start by going out and collecting a little watercress."
So the little group of women had bravely left the house to follow Maeve, but they never forgot just how close they were to the men's encampment.
CHAPTER TWO
Clara had to admit that it was very nice to finally get outside. The Oregon forests were beautiful with their enormous spruce and cedar and fir trees, and the wide Umpqua River rushed and tumbled through the forest and formed a highway that the loggers used to get their timber to the sawmills down river.
And of course, a collection of young women who'd traveled thousands of miles solely for the possibility of getting married would talk of only one thing: their prospective husbands.
"So, Clara," said Delilah, a very small and dainty blonde, "what sort of man do you hope to find out here? Though they are all so very tough and crude, I don't know if we'll be able to tell one man from another!"
Clara laughed. "Oh, I've always wanted a man who will talk to me – and who I can talk to," she said, sitting down on the grass and untying the laces of her boots.
"Talk about what?"
"Everything! Everything from our hopes and dreams to the simple things that happened to each of us that day. I think that a man and a woman who are also friends make the best marriages."
"Maybe so," said Delilah, thinking to herself. Then she brightened. "Tell me, Clara: Do you like to discuss books? I would so love to start a salon out here, where we read a book and then meet for tea and conversation about the book."
Clara only shrugged. "I don't read many books, but the tea and conversation sound fine! I could bring the cream cake!" She pulled off her boots and then got up and walked to the shore of the river, where she gathered up her skirts and stepped barefooted into the refreshing, but very cold, water at the edge, the better to search out the watercress growing in the shallows.
She looked carefully for a time, and was rewarded by finding some nice stands of the small dark-green plant. Its peppery flavor went very well with almost any sort of meat and she filled her apron pockets with it. She'd be sure to take this straight to the kitchens at the Ladies' House.
But then she heard a small gasp and cry from the women on the shore. Clara looked up to see that all of them were looking towards the west, away from the direction of the town, and that Maeve held her shotgun at the ready across the front of her.
A man walked slowly under the trees alongside the road, looking down at the ground. He seemed to have come out of the forest to the west and was heading right towards them. The other women were ready to run back to the Ladies' House, all the way to the top of the ridge. But Clara recognized the man right away.
It was George Conyers. The other men called him George the Giant Ox. But Clara knew him as the man she had encountered at the picnic a few weeks before – which had not gone at all well – and with whom she had danced a little more politely at the street party some days after that.
He was tall, wide, and very broad-shouldered, and heavier than most of the other men, who all seemed to be whip-thin though very strong. George had black hair, a black beard, and brown eyes. He wore the typical heavy work pants held up by leather suspenders, and seemed to wear his red flannel union suit instead of a shirt all the time. And he had the same thick boots with spikes in the soles that all of the men wore.
But what she remembered most of all about George was that he barely ever spoke. She did not know why, for it seemed that he was able to speak;
she'd heard a couple of words from him in his rough and raspy voice. For some reason, he simply chose to keep his silence nearly all of the time.
Suddenly George looked up, and stopped short. He seemed as startled to see the women as they were to see him. Quickly he ducked into the forest, behind a large tree – but then he saw Clara, and paused, just staring at her.
All the other young women were quite unnerved and stayed well back with Maeve. But Clara stepped up out of the cold river and onto the soft grassy shore. When George stayed where he was, half hidden behind the tree, she raised her chin and walked straight over to him.
The other girls gasped and frantically tried to whisper to her to come back, but she paid them no mind. Once she was near enough to speak, she stopped and called over to him.
"Hello, George. It's a pretty day, isn't it?"
He remained silent, but stayed where he was.
"The other ladies and I wanted to get out for a little fresh air and sunshine, and I'm so glad we did. It really is beautiful down here by the water."
A slight nod. Encouraged, Clara went on. "I came down hoping to find watercress, and there was a fair amount! It will go very well with the cuts of beef we have up at the house. Look."
She reached into her apron pockets and held out the handfuls of wet watercress she carried. He took a step closer, the better to see the watercress, and then turned and pointed back to the west, farther up the river.
"Oh – you mean, the best places for watercress are farther down?"
He nodded.
"Why, thank you, George. Next time, we'll go a little farther."
He remained standing at the tree, watching her closely. She smiled a little, hoping to ease his mind a little. "Sawyerville is certainly an interesting place. It's very different for me. I'm from the east, you know. New Hampshire. I worked in a mill. Most of the women here did."