Sagebrush Serenade

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “I’m going to take Ben to my parent’s house,” he told Sara. “You stay with Marcel. Once she recovers, we will decide what to do, but we can’t leave her on her own, with a newborn, until the danger is past. After that, we will have to send for her brother, or the father of her child, whichever is the easiest to do.”

  “It is in the middle of winter. There would be no way to get over the passes, to send for either,” Sara said. “We should find some Indian woman to take care of her. That’s what we should do. I will check around and see if there are any that would be willing to do it.”

  “Maybe that is best,” Albert agreed. “Come on, Ben, I need to take you home.”

  “No, I have to stay with Marcel. She doesn’t have anyone else,” he murmured when he felt his brother’s hand on his arm helping him up from the chair.

  “You are sick, man. You need to be in bed. You won’t be any help to Marcel if you are too sick to care for her. Sara is getting a woman to come take care of Marcel.”

  Marcel watched Ben leaning against Albert as his brother led him out to the buggy. She knew Albert would never let him return. Now she would be all on her own again.

  Doctor Baldwin leaned his head near Sara’s. “I know an Indian woman who will come out,” he mumbled in her ear. “Stay here, and when I get back to town, I’ll send her out.”

  “Thank you,” Sara said, glancing over at Marcel as she held the foreign-looking child in her arms.

  Sara shook her head. To think they were trying to encourage Ben into marrying the girl. You just never could tell about people, she thought. Marcel had come from an upstanding family. Her belongings were expensive, and she could afford to buy a huge wagon to bring them all with her, yet she lowered herself to the likes of a wild Indian. If Marcel’s grandmother was still alive, she would be ashamed of her granddaughter, Sara thought.

  An hour later, there was a tap on the door, and an Indian woman with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders came in. She was a Walla Walla Indian and looked rather young, but Sara didn’t care. She was ready to wash her hands of her nearest neighbor.

  “You can probably sleep in the loft,” Sara said. “Otherwise, there is a cot in the wagon outside, I understand. It is up to you.”

  “I will stay near her in case she needs something,” the woman said, looking down at Marcel and her baby.

  “The baby is part Sioux,” Sara Said.

  “I know,” the girl told her. “I met him once. I heard her play her magic box. I will take good care of her.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” Sara said.

  “She is very special,” the girl insisted. “She has magic in her fingers when she plays her magic box.”

  “It’s not magic,” Sara frowned. “It’s just a piano. I can play it myself, but probably not as good as Marcel can.”

  “She is special. She kept two tribes of warriors from attacking her wagon by playing her magic box.”

  “Well, like most superstitious Indians they fell for her trick,” Sara said and left the house.

  Blossom looked down on the face of the sleeping young woman with the baby in her arms. That woman did not seem to like Marcel, she thought. Only she was happy to help. She had been sent from the mission to help the doctor, and he had asked her to come here. It had only been by chance that she was there when Marcel came near her village where the people came out to listen to her play. They had told her of the warriors the stayed the night listening to Marcel play her magic box. She didn’t care what the woman said. There was something magical about the music that came out of that box at the tip of Marcel’s fingers.

  When Marcel opened her eyes, Blossom was sitting in a chair next to her bed.

  “I am Blossom,” she told Marcel. “I will take care of you and your baby.”

  “Where is Ben?” Marcel asked.

  “There is no one here but you and me. There was a woman when I came, but she went away. The doctor said there was no one to take care of you.”

  “He meant there was no one who wished to take care of me,” Marcel murmured.

  “I wish to take care of you,” Blossom smiled.

  “You are kind then,” Marcel replied.

  “What have you named your child?”

  “Raven-Ben” she murmured.

  “I know Raven is his father. I have heard of him,” Blossom admitted.

  “And Ben remained with me to try and help me through,” Marcel told her. “Thank you for coming, Blossom.”

  “Can I ask one favor of you?” Blossom asked.

  “What is it?” Marcel asked.

  “When you are feeling up to it. Could you show me how to play the magic box?”

  “I will happily do that,” Marcel smiled. “But between you and me, it is not magic. It is only how hard you practice to make the keys move the way I do.”

  “Then I will practice hard,” Blossom promised.

  Blossom took good care of Marcel. She also cared for the animals until Marcel felt better. Doctor Baldwin came to check on her to make sure the bleeding stopped and to check to make sure the baby was healthy.

  “How is Ben?” Marcel asked him.

  Doctor Baldwin gave her a quick glance, as though he didn’t want to say anything. “He is not well. He caught a chill and his lungs are congested. It is touch and go right now. Only you are not in any position to leave in order to visit him. I will let you know when he gets better. Then he will probably come to see you.”

  “This is all my fault,” Marcel bellowed. “I told him not to leave me!”

  “Anyone would have done the same. He said you thought you were dying, and you may have been right. It was touch and go with you as well. I am sure Ben will pull through, but his brother does not want you disturbing him. He asks about you every day. We have told him you are fine.”

  “He is a good person,” Marcel mumbled. “I know why Albert won’t let me come. He will never let Ben come to me either.”

  “No one can stop Ben if he wishes to come see you. He wanted to stay by your side, but he needed taken care of the same as you.”

  A week later, when Marcel still had not heard about Ben’s health, she begged Blossom to go and find out how he was. “I will be fine by myself for that amount of time. I feel much stronger now, and I will stay right here in the house until you return,” she promised.

  When Blossom returned, she merely shrugged. “They wouldn’t let me in. They told me that they sent Ben to a warmer climate for his health. They also told me to tell you not to inquire about Ben anymore. I think it is because they know he wants to come see you, but they won’t let him. When he comes back, he will probably come to see you then.”

  “He’ll never come,” Marcel frowned. “His family will keep him away, and I don’t blame them.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There is nothing to be done now. He is someplace else and you are here. I will be with you to make sure you get better too.”

  “I am glad you came,” Marcel said. “I am feeling better now, so I will start to give you piano lessons. I gave Raven reading lessons once and he did very well. Let’s see how you do with piano lessons?”

  Marcel distracted herself by giving Blossom piano lessons and caring for her son. She tried not to think about Ben or Raven. She just had to take it a day at a time until spring came and Trapper Dan returned. She couldn’t wait to see him again.

  After another month, when Marcel had not heard anything about Ben, she sent Blossom over to Albert’s house again to inquire about him.

  “I know he doesn’t want me bothering them, but I have to know,” Marcel insisted.

  Blossom shrugged and hitched the mule up to the wagon to do as Marcel asked. When she returned, she was hanging her head. She looked up with tear-brimmed eyes.

  “They said he died,” Blossom said quietly. “They said they already had the funeral, so you didn’t have to bother to ask about it.”

  “They didn’t let me know and invite me to the funeral?�
� Marcel gasped in disbelief.

  “They said they didn’t want you to come,” Blossom informed her.

  Marcel ran into the house and threw herself on her bed, letting the stormy tears dampen the quilt. It wasn’t fair. She should have been allowed to come. She would never set foot off of her property again, she vowed. She didn’t want anything to do with such unfeeling people who didn’t want anything to do with her either. Ben had been her only friend. Now Blossom was her only friend. Why did they hate her so much just because she chose to love an Indian?

  The thought of never seeing Ben again, sent Marcel into a depression. She thought she would be able to get over the friendship that had built up between them over the last several months, once she had the baby and he went his separate way. Only he had known the baby was part Indian. He had indicated he would still remain with her if she requested him to. Losing Ben was so final. Knowing she could never look into his green eyes again to thank him for all he had done for her was worse than him going away on his own accord.

  It dawned on her that Ben meant something more to her than she had been willing to admit. She had been so caught up in her lover for Raven, whom she had known for a shorter amount of time than she had known Ben, that she had been blinded to everything Ben had started to mean to her. She thought about all the times Ben made her laugh at her problems, assuring her he would be there to help her through them. He had been eager to help her build her new home with Trapper Dan when he came, and helped her draw up the plans. Now the very house would remind her of Ben. He would haunt her the same way Raven always haunted her. How was it possibly to be in love with two different men in two different ways, she wondered?

  Only her love for both was in vain. Ben was dead and Raven was beyond her reach.

  Marcel tried to make it through each day as the weather changed and started to grow warmer. She watched her son grow, reminding her of Raven every time she looked into his dark liquid eyes. When Spring came, Trapper Dan would finally be there to start on the house, only neither Raven or Ben would be there to help him build it. The thought saddened her. She wondered what Josiah was doing? Was he happy with his new wife and child? Would she ever see him again? Maybe she should go to California and join him there, she thought. No one here would ever accept her and her child.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  arcel could see three riders approaching. They led a mule behind them with supplies on its back. Blossom came out on the front porch to stand beside Marcel. She handed Raven-Ben to Blossom as she started to tremble. She could see Trapper Dan and Raven riding towards her, but who was the woman on the other horse?

  “Take Raven-Ben into the house and don’t come out unless I call you,” she said.

  Hesitantly, Marcel walked out and approached the riders. Trapper Dan got down off of his horse and Marcel threw her arms around him. “I told you not to bring him,” she whispered in Trapper Dan’s ear.

  “He insisted on coming. He said he promised you he would help with your home and he was a man of honor.”

  Marcel turned and looked up at Raven as he sat on his horse. “Thank you for coming,” she smiled, trying to keep from shaking.

  He slowly dismounted, but instead of coming to her, he went to the horse next to him and helped the Indian woman down. It was then that Marcel saw that she had a cradleboard on her back with a small baby, probably a couple months old, inside of it.

  “This is my wife, Willow,” Raven said.

  Marcel started to back up. A man of honor, she questioned? He had said he would never stop loving her and the first thing he does when he returns to his village is to find himself a wife and then get her with child as soon as possible?

  When Trapper Dan saw the look on Marcel’s face, he stepped forward and took her hand, leading her away a few paces.

  “Ya told me not ta tell em about the baby. Ware ya actually carryin’ his child?” Trapper Dan asked in a whisper.

  Marcel merely nodded.

  “I tried ta talk em out of getting married only ’e said it was the only way ta get ya out of his system. After he married, I didn’t have the heart ta tell him bout ya carrying ’is child. He don’t know nuthin’ about it, Marcel.

  “And he won’t know anything about it either,” Marcel said softly. “I should introduce my friend who is in the house right now. She is a young Indian girl with a new baby, about six months old,” she said loud enough for Raven to hear.

  Marcel went back to Raven and smiled. “It is nice to see you again, Raven. Congratulations on your new child. Come and meet my friend, Blossom. She is a young Walla Walla girl who is staying with me. I’ll go get her.”

  Marcel went into the house where Blossom was sitting in the rocker, holding Raven-Ben. “You must do as I ask you,” Marcel stated. “You have to pretend my baby is yours. I don’t want Raven knowing it is his son, so we must call him something else. Give him any name you choose until Trapper Dan and Raven have left.”

  “Only you are the one who must feed him,” Blossom stated.

  “I will do it in secret. What do you want to call Raven-Ben?”

  “Eagle,” she said. “He is more like an eagle than a raven, she insisted.

  “Eagle it is, then,” Marcel smiled, then requested Blossom come out and meet her friends.

  When Trapper Dan saw Blossom with the baby in her arms, and Marcel introducing her to Raven, he knew the game Marcel had decided to play. He had no choice but to go along with it.

  “How long do you think it will take to build my new house?” Marcel asked Trapper Dan, trying to keep her distance from Raven, knowing the tears were so close she could taste them in her throat.

  “Did ya make up some plans?” he asked.

  “A friend of mine did. He was going to help build on the house, only he ended up dying a few months back.”

  “That’s ta bad,” Trapper Dan said.

  “I’ve picked out a place to put it, not far from the stream,” she continued. “Let’s go down there, and I’ll show you.”

  Trapper Dan followed her to the steam where she showed him the stakes Ben had pounded into the ground to mark the corners of the house.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Trapper Dan. I almost died having Raven’s baby, and my best friend who was helping me with the house plans, got sick and died because he went out in bad weather to get help. Now Raven shows up with a wife like I meant nothing to him? He wanted to get me out of his system? How did he think I was going to get him out of my system?”

  “He thought ya’d find yerself a man ta marry as well, I suppose. When I told him it wasn’t a good idea ta come with his wife, he said even if ya hadn’t chosen anyone else, it would give ya more reason ta, once ya saw he was willin’ ta forget ya an move on with ’is life.”

  “Only he didn’t know I was carrying his child. He didn’t know that everyone would shun me, that even Ben’s family would not let him near me, once they discovered I was an unwed mother with an Indian papoose!”

  “Ya made me promise not ta tell!”

  “What would he have done if you had told him?” Marcel asked.

  “I’m not sure. Ya know the Indians ken take a second wife. If ya told him…”

  “Never! I wouldn’t even agree to be his first wife. Why would I want to be his second wife? Let him live his fantasy if he chooses. He will never learn that I had his son, and you better not tell him either!”

  “I don’t want ta make this any worse than it is,” Trapper Dan admitted.

  “Then we should get started on building the house. The sooner it is finished, the better!” Marcel mumbled.

  Marcel told Raven he and his wife could sleep in the wagon, using her old cot. There was a lot more room, since she had taken the piano, and all the supplies out of the wagon, she told him. She hoped while they slept in that cot he would remember every moment he had spent in that cot with her, Marcel thought angrily.

  Trapper Dan said he would sleep under the wagon as usual, and after breakfast the n
ext day, they would get started on felling the trees for the new house.

  Marcel spent as much time as possible at a distant from Raven. She did not talk to him unless it was necessary, and even though he asked to speak to her in private, she refused him. She did not want to hear any of his reasoning or apology for his decision to take a wife as soon as he reached his village. She only looked briefly at his new daughter, thinking that his son was more beautiful than his daughter was. Perhaps because he was a half-breed it softened the Indian features in his face, she thought. She hadn’t even asked him what he named his daughter because she didn’t care. She couldn’t wait until he was out of her life forever.

  As she calmed down though, she realized it was probably for the best. She had refused to become an Indian, and he wouldn’t’ live a white man’s life. No matter how much they loved each other back then, or even now, it would not change that fact. Had she never had his child, it would have been much easier, though, she thought.

  Everyone was down by the stream, watching Trapper Dan and Raven putting in the foundation for the house. All the logs had been cut and planed square in preparation for making the outside walls of the house. Blossom had little Raven-Ben on a blanket, watching him crawl around. Willow was tending to her own baby as she sat on the blanket with Blossom. Marcel was standing next to Trapper Dan, dressed in her brother’s trousers, prepared to help with the building of her house.

  “I see you are all starting to build that house without me,” she heard a voice say behind her and turned to look because the voice sounded so familiar.

  Marcel stood paralyzed. Had she just been hearing things? Was she looking at a ghost? She blinked the tears from her eyes as she tried to clear her vision. It couldn’t be Ben standing there. Ben Was dead.

  Then the apparition began walking towards her.

  “Ben?” she questioned as she took a step forward herself.

  “Don’t you recognize me, Marcel?” he asked

  “You are supposed to be dead!” she shuddered.

  “Is that what Albert told you?”