by Judith Pella
Caleb’s offer represented what she was most looking for at the time—an escape from the war and from the constant reminders of her shattered world. Against the proof of harsh realities, she tried to convince herself that she might yet find happiness in that faraway land of Texas, married to a rancher’s son. She did not hesitate to accept the offer.
However, from the vantage of an outlaw’s camp, the shadow of the gallows only recently removed from her life, Deborah wondered at the utter fool she had been, thinking she could run away from pain and grief. Oh, how God, if He did indeed exist, must be laughing at her now! As if the death of everyone she had ever loved was not enough to teach her, a tiny spark of hope had still tried to ignite out of the dead coals of her life. She actually had thought she could find a new beginning as Leonard Stoner’s wife!
What she found was a new kind of nightmare.
6
The ramparts around Deborah’s heart were sturdy, but because they were built of sorrow and not stone, they were not entirely impenetrable. Try as she might, she could not shore up all the cracks. She desperately wanted to be hard, cold, unfeeling and numb to all the anguish and discouragement. If part of her was made of steel, there was yet another part, often buried deep in the core of her being, made of a softer fiber. And she could not completely quell her innately sensitive nature, the very part of her that made her able to feel her losses so deeply.
That first night in the outlaw’s camp Deborah cried herself to sleep; mute tears heard by none save the God she had repudiated in her suffering.
Deborah hated herself for those tears of weakness, as she defined them. That was the kind of vulnerability that made her fair game for others to hurt. How else could Caleb and Leonard Stoner have so destroyed her?
She should have sensed her peril the moment she arrived in Texas and found only a hired hand there to meet her. Yet she had already begun to insulate herself against false hopes. If she expected nothing from these people, perhaps they in turn would expect nothing of her.
Nevertheless, their casual reception when she arrived at the ranch did prick the tender part of her nature. She was young, after all—only eighteen, and vulnerable. A portly Mexican woman opened the door for Deborah and ushered her into a spacious, well-built house. Obviously the man who had constructed it must have had great things in mind for it, and for himself. The furnishings were simple and rather austere with a decidedly Spanish flavor. That it was a home occupied solely by men was clearly evident, and in truth, no woman had lived there for over ten years.
The servant led Deborah into a parlor, then went in search of the patron. Deborah waited fifteen minutes before the master of the house appeared.
Caleb’s first words to her were, “I see you continue to wear mourning.”
Unprepared to respond to this blunt, unexpected comment, her face flushed with pink as she floundered for a proper response.
“My—my father has not been … gone a full year.”
“No bride of my son’s will wear black.”
“Of course. I do not intend to wear black on my wedding day.”
She began to gather back her wits, remembering that she had not been raised to cower before others, even a stern prospective father-in-law. How many times had her brother told her she was as capable as any man?
“My son will receive you at supper this evening, and I expect you to be dressed as befits such an occasion. In the meantime, Maria will show you to your room where you can rest and partake of some refreshment.”
Only hindsight revealed to Deborah that this was a fitting introduction to what lay ahead.
She wished she had had some of that same hindsight that first day. Perhaps she would have thought better of her behavior, subduing her natural tendency toward independence. But she instantly rebelled at Caleb’s heavy- handed welcome. The moment he turned on his heel and strode from the room, she decided she must stand up to this man immediately or forever be bullied by him. So she appeared for dinner that evening in black. Granted, the neckline was cut low with a sheer black inset, and she stretched her strict mourning even further by adding her mother’s cameo to the ensemble, but the message was clear enough.
If Caleb silently fumed at this brazen disobedience of his orders, his son was quite enchanted with his father’s choice of a bride, the black notwithstanding. In fact, the contrast of the somber color tended to set off to better effect the finely chiseled delicacy of her lovely features, especially the golden tones of her hair, pulled back into fetching ringlets, tied with a black velvet ribbon. He thought he was getting a fragile southern belle, indeed.
Leonard Stoner himself was a strikingly handsome man, tall and strong, with a muscular frame. His brown hair and brown eyes should have softened his angular face, but his eyes were penetrating and hard. At twenty-four, he physically resembled his father; even his charming manner could not entirely hide the innate arrogance common to both men. But it was this charm, and the ready smile accompanying it, that fooled Deborah at first. She did not notice then that his smile was empty of warmth. He inquired of her needs and her wishes, especially in regard to the wedding. He seemed most willing to put her at ease. He gave all appearance of being the perfectly bred southern gentleman.
Present at that first meal also were Leonard’s two younger half brothers, Jacob and Laban. They were both half-Mexican, the sons of Caleb’s second wife, who Deborah later learned had died when Laban was five years old. Laban, the younger of the two, was not yet fifteen, while his older brother was Deborah’s age. They were dour, quiet young men. It became quickly apparent, even to a newcomer like Deborah, that these sons were held in far less esteem by their father than Leonard. Caleb never had a positive word to say to them, if he had any words at all. Leonard all but ignored them.
Dinner did nothing to soothe Deborah’s tension. And later that evening, when three men from town stopped by for a visit, the tense atmosphere only thickened. When the men ambled into the parlor for brandy and cigars, Deborah naturally followed them. After all, they said they had come to welcome her! But, barring her way at the door, Caleb turned on her.
“What are you doing?” he asked in that throaty voice that ever sounded like a volcano about to erupt.
“I—I did not want to be rude to our guests,” she stammered. Somehow Caleb always managed to reduce her to a babbling idiot.
“You are not needed,” he said flatly, as if she were his house slave.
“Oh, let her come, Caleb!” said one of the men. “We so seldom get the pleasure of a pretty face around here.”
Grudgingly, Caleb conceded, though he made it clear it was for the sake of his guests and not for her.
Most of the talk was of the war, in which Deborah had absolutely no interest. But when the conversation drifted to ranching, she perked up. This was a new realm to her, and she thought she ought to learn more about it if she was about to marry a rancher’s son.
“I have always been curious why Texas has never thrived in the slave market,” she said, speaking for the first time. “It might well be the rest of the South could learn something from you Texans.”
Caleb flashed her a lethal look. She squirmed, thinking she had unwittingly stepped into a touchy issue.
“Darkies ain’t very profitable for the cattle business,” replied one of the guests. “The eastern part of the state has its share for the cotton crop, though.”
“What exactly does it take to raise cattle?” Deborah asked again.
“Lots of grass!” laughed one of the men.
“I’m surprised you haven’t made more of the cattle trade then.” Deborah was perhaps getting carried away, considering Caleb’s displeasure, but she felt as if this was the first intelligent conversation she had had since coming to Texas and she couldn’t stop.
“No market.” The guests were enjoying watching this beautiful young lady as much as she was enjoying talking. “We sell some in New Orleans, and even a few went to California before the war.”
&
nbsp; “The way they’re multiplying on the prairies,” added another guest, “something’s going to have to give eventually.”
“Have you ever considered foreign markets?”
“Don’t pay. We lose too many cows in shipping.”
Thus the exchange flowed for another half hour, during which Deborah forgot all about Caleb. But when the guests departed, he accosted her immediately.
“Your behavior tonight was appalling!” he said.
“My behavior? I—I don’t understand.”
“I thought you had been bred better than that, young woman! Parading before our guests as if you were a cantina hussy. Shameless!”
“I was merely conversing. I see no harm—”
“I’ll not have our friends and neighbors thinking we are bringing a loose woman into this home.”
Deborah gaped, speechless.
It was Leonard who stepped in with a conciliatory gesture. “What my father is saying, Deborah, is that in this home we observe a certain decorum.”
“I was just talking!” she sputtered.
“You are young,” Leonard said. “You’ll learn.” There was no gentle entreaty in his voice—rather, the words almost sounded like a command. But by comparison to Caleb, Leonard sounded like the voice of reason, and Deborah allowed herself to think he was different.
“She had better learn quickly,” said Caleb. “The circuit rider will be here on Sunday.”
“The circuit rider?” said Deborah, bemused.
“Yes,” said Leonard, “for our wedding.”
7
Deborah attributed nothing more than normal youthful jitters to that initial panic she felt upon hearing Leonard’s sudden revelation of their wedding date. If only she had taken it as a sign and fled Texas at her first chance.
If nothing else, she had hoped to have time to acclimate herself to the new environment and the new people before her wedding took place. Yes, she had come in order to marry, fully realizing it was a marriage of mutual convenience, not love. Yet she had hoped, in her youthful romanticism, that she would have the opportunity to fall in love with this stranger before she began to share her life with him. Now she had only five days! Even for a young girl, that was hardly time enough to stir the emotions she was seeking. Yet she managed to convince herself that Leonard was handsome and charming, in his own way, and it would not be so difficult to fall in love with him eventually. She resigned herself, therefore, to the set date, and in the whirlwind of activity involved in making plans for the affair, she forgot her initial panic.
Caleb, for all his asperity, was not opposed to a festive celebration—especially if he could use it to affirm his esteemed place in his community. The marriage of his son to a genteel lady from Virginia proved such an opportunity. And, from the beginning, Deborah felt distinctly that she was on display, not as a person of worth, nor even as a gentleman’s lady, but rather as a prize, a trophy, an object of no more worth than one of Caleb’s thoroughbreds. And what was worse, she soon sensed the father’s attitude in the son.
She wore her mother’s wedding dress, which she had brought along for sentimental reasons and because she knew that wartime privations would probably prevent her from purchasing a new one. If she had looked lovely in black, then in the oyster white satin wedding gown, trimmed with antique lace and studded with pearls, she was stunning. The black had given her a fragile appearance; the white, almost an angelic one. But this was a vivid angel, with skin that glowed, hair that shimmered, and eyes that sparkled. For that day at least, she let herself forget her mourning and the emptiness she still felt when she thought of her lost loved ones. That day was one of the few times the citizens of Stoner’s Crossing saw what a smile could do for the new Mrs. Leonard Stoner. And Deborah had to admit, it felt good to smile again, even if it did not completely well up from her heart but came more from her intellect, which told her that a girl ought to smile on her wedding day.
When Leonard slipped his arm through hers and they turned to face the guests for the first time as husband and wife, she truly believed her life was about to turn around. When her new husband kissed her lightly on the cheek, she detected a pride in his eyes, if not love, and she thought she could accept that. But a disquiet crept over her at the same time that she could not trace until later. For she noted something besides pride, something disturbing, making her smile momentarily fade. His penetrating brown eyes also wore a look of triumph. As quickly as the feeling of disquiet came, she shook it away. She was being trivial and overly sensitive. Men behaved stupidly around women and were apt to strut; that was their way. Leonard was a bit arrogant, she fully realized, but she told herself she preferred that to a coward or a bore.
It did not take a month for all her illusions to be shattered; it did not take a week. It happened that very night.
She was, of course, totally ignorant of the relations between a man and a wife. Maturing without the guidance of a mother had left her without a female confidante. And certainly such things were never discussed at the Young Ladies’ Day School.
Was it possible … ? Did men commonly turn into animals when intimate with a woman? No other words could describe Leonard Stoner that night.
He led her into his bedroom, closing the door behind them firmly and turning the key in the lock. He nudged her immediately to the bed and began groping at her dress, never saying a word.
“Leonard, be careful. I don’t want to tear my mother’s dress.”
How odd, that her first thought was of the wedding gown when her heart was pounding with fear and her body trembling.
“To blazes with your dress!” He yanked at the fabric, making buttons pop.
“Leonard, please!” She tried to move away, but his hands held her firmly. “Wait just a moment while … I get ready.” She had no idea how one prepared for such a thing, but she was desperate for more time. She had begun to consider the possibility of fleeing.
“I’ve waited a week … watching you … that lovely, lovely body of yours move and tempt me. I have waited long enough!”
“I—I don’t know what to do!” she blurted out, frantic. But if she hoped for a sympathetic reprieve from her new husband, it was an empty hope.
He laughed—a hard, dry laugh. “That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?”
Then followed one of the most horrifying experiences of her life. Even the prospect of hanging from a gallows had not equaled it, and death certainly did not frighten her as much as the mere thought of intimacy with Leonard Stoner.
He ravaged her that night. He took his prize and had his way with it, deaf to her pleading, to her screams, to her anguished tears. And when he was done with her, he left the room and she spent the rest of the night sick and alone, her flesh feeling like filthy rags. Even the bath Maria drew for her in the morning did not fully cleanse her, though she scrubbed her flesh nearly raw.
The next night he came to her room, but she was ready this time when he came at her with that vile stain of lust in his eyes.
“Leonard, I am not feeling well tonight.”
“You look perfectly sound.”
“Please, I am just not up to it tonight.”
“Are you refusing me?”
She shuddered at the stark accusation in his tone. She began then to realize that people did not refuse the Stoner men—at least not Caleb and Leonard.
“Of course not.” Her voice shook weakly, unconvincingly. “But I … I just thought—”
“It is not your place to think, my dear. Leave that to the menfolk, for whom God intended it.”
A brief smile flickered across her lips. Surely he was jesting!
“Are you laughing at me?” he demanded.
“You cannot be serious about women not being able to think,” she replied. “Such ideas are becoming antiquated.”
“Not in this house! And it is best you learn that quickly. Here, a man is still master of his house and his wife. Your place is only to look as lovely as you are and to service my needs.
Remember that, and you will be happy.”
“I have a mind, Leonard, and I plan on using it,” she retorted, finding courage in her utter astonishment at his medieval attitude. “I am not your nigger!” She had never before used the derogatory term for Negroes, but it was the only way she could describe her husband’s behavior toward her.
His hand shot up so quickly she did not even see it coming. The blow hit the side of her head, not her face, and it made her ears ring and her vision go black for an instant. She fell back against the bed, but she was stunned more from the shock of the unexpected attack than from the pain. It was the first time in her life that anyone had ever struck her. This was almost as shocking as his maltreatment of her on their wedding night. But when the initial shock faded somewhat, a new insight occurred to her. Perhaps Leonard was as ignorant about how to treat a woman as she was toward a man. If she could but suggest to him what could most make her happy, that might be all he needed.
“Leonard, this is all so new to us,” she began, choking back the knot that had started to rise in her throat. “But it seems to me that gentle treatment might be more appropriate at a time like this. A woman responds much better to a gentle hand and a kind word.”
“You would like that, my dear?”
“It would greatly help.”
He snorted derisively. “My father was right about you. He called you a spoiled, strong-willed vixen. Give you a ‘gentle hand’ and you will ride all over a man. On the contrary, what you need is to learn quickly who is in control.”
“That’s not true!”
“Every word you speak tells me the opposite. Your very first act here was to defy my father. And now you would defy me. Deny me my marital rights, would you? Ha! Yours is a spirit that must be broken quickly.”