If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  "I'm just a wife. I promised 'for better or worse' and I'm sure I'll be held to it," she answered, beaming at his approval.

  "From what you've said, it doesn't seem that they really have too much to hold me on. If they don't get some hard evidence, the judge will throw it out of court."

  "What will that mean?"

  "It means that, with luck, I'll be out of here by the end of the week."

  Hannah was ecstatic and excitedly leaned through the bars, throwing her arms around his neck. He kissed her sweetly, longingly, and then quickly pulled away. He wanted her to have no loving memories of her husband behind bars.

  "We have our whole lives ahead of us, Hannah. Our marriage hasn't really even started. I'm going to get out of here and we are going to go back to the place, live our lives, have our children and someday this will just seem like a bad dream," he promised.

  "I know," she agreed smiling. "I feel exactly the same way. It's our future together that's important."

  He planted a chaste kiss right on the end of her nose, causing them both to giggle.

  "Do you think they will call on the Oscars?"

  "Probably." He squeezed her hand, offering comfort. "When they find out about how I make my living, more than likely they won't be our friends anymore. I'm sorry about that, Hannah. I know you liked them, but the disapproval of a lot of folks is just part of the business."

  In truth it bothered Henry Lee more than he cared to admit. He too had liked the Oscars and had cherished their approval. He figured that they would be singing a new tune when they found out about his moonshining. They would still be friendly, probably, like most folks were—slapping-on-the-back friendly. But they would not respect him. He knew Hiram would never see Henry Lee's ability to make good whiskey as his real gift.

  Hannah offered him a smile of comfort. "I'm not a woman who needs a whole lot of people, Henry Lee. What I most need is to get my husband out of jail."

  "I am a lucky man, Hannah, and I know it." He wished that he could say more. Wished he had the courage to say that he loved her, because he knew that he did.

  "No, don't go getting too sappy on me. A wife stands with her husband and that's just the way of it. Besides, we're going to put all of this behind us," she told him cheerfully. "As soon as you get out of here, we'll begin again. Just start from scratch. A lot of men have a checkered past, but what's important is the future. Once you quit the whiskey business and start living right, people will give you a chance to redeem yourself."

  Henry Lee pulled away from the bars and looked at her closely. He thought that she'd understood, but she didn't. Maybe she couldn't.

  "I don't need to redeem myself, Hannah." His voice was very quiet. "I won't have to give it up. Of course, I intend to be a good deal more careful in the future. We are making plenty of money and there is no call for me to get greedy. As long as I am careful and stay close to the border, there shouldn't be any problem."

  Hannah was incredulous. "But Henry Lee, of course you'll have to give it up. I know that you've been doing this a long time. The marshal said you've been making whiskey since you were a boy. But you must see that it is a criminal activity. It's landed you in jail and if you continue you'll end up in the penitentiary."

  "There are risks in every business, Hannah. A farmer can get struck by lightning in his field. A merchant can be robbed by thieves. A cowboy can be trampled to death in a stampede. There are no guarantees in this world, but you do the job as well as you can, and you try to avoid the risks."

  "Henry Lee, the risk of being arrested is entirely different from the risk of being struck by lightning!"

  "Maybe so, but a man takes the risks in his business and that's just the way of things."

  "It might be the way of things to your mind, Henry Lee, but it doesn't have to be." Hannah felt herself growing frustrated and angry. She had grasped the bars to talk to him, but he was now pacing back and forth in the cell.

  "It does have to be the way of things!" Henry Lee insisted. "At least it does for me."

  "Why?"

  "Look, Hannah, I like what I do. I like making whiskey. I'm good at it. You know what they say about me? They say I make the smoothest whiskey in the territory. I'm proud of that; I don't deny it."

  "How can you be proud of that!"

  "Hannah, it's like you said about Cain and Abel," he told her. "God establishes the work of our hands. He gave me the ability to make fine whiskey, I'd be going against my nature not to use that gift."

  "God does not make thieves or outlaws, gunslingers or moonshiners! A man makes himself that and has no one to blame for his choice," she replied.

  "I'm not talking blame, Hannah. I'm talking pride. I taught myself to make this whiskey. I took a little bit of corn and some half-baked instructions and I taught myself to do it. And I do it better than anybody else! My father couldn't do that. None of your upstanding farm boys could hold a candle to me. That's how I can be proud!"

  "But Henry Lee, don't you see what the whiskey does? Don't you see how it ruins lives and causes trouble in the territory?"

  "Hannah, you don't know a thing about it."

  She bristled at his arrogant disclaimer. "I know that it destroys families! That men controlled by drink forget about their responsibilities. That the wives and children of those men never know when they can count on them. I can't imagine what it must be like to live that way, not knowing if the man who left the house sober in the morning was going to come home drunk during the afternoon. I can't imagine what that is like. But I know that you can, Henry Lee. Isn't that the kind of life you got from your parents?"

  Henry Lee flushed with anger at her direct hit. His immediate thought was to retaliate. She hurt him, he would hurt her back. But he didn't want to hurt her. He wanted her to understand.

  "Hannah," he said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. "You are a good person, a Christian person, and I know you see the world as being good and bad, but things are not so clear-cut. I am careful with my whiskey. Like I said, I'm proud of the product I make. I make sure that it's clean and it's pure. People are going to buy whiskey. Even if I don't sell it, somebody else will and that whiskey might be fouled or corrupted. It could be poison if the distiller doesn't know what he's doing."

  Hannah's jaw tightened with anger. "So you're trying to tell me that you make whiskey for the good of whiskey drinkers. You're doing it as a service to the community?"

  Henry Lee kicked the wall in frustration. "I'm not trying to tell you anything!" He raised his voice for the first time. "I'm trying to make you see that making whiskey is something that I want to do, that I am proud of doing, and it is not something I'm going to give up just because you don't like the idea. The whiskey business can mean a lot to both of us if you'll just let yourself think about it."

  "It means nothing to me."

  "It means new pews for your father's church. It means no worries about too little rain, or too much. It's not like farming, Hannah. It's much more certain. People always buy whiskey. The demand is steady, no matter the price. It means a good future for our children. You'd like to see your child go to school or start up a business or buy his own place. The whiskey gives us money that can insure that."

  "What's the use of having money for your children if you can't offer them a proper example and a father who won't make them feel ashamed? Do you think any child would want to have a moonshiner for a father?"

  "Oh, I see, Hannah," he said, sarcasm creeping furiously into his voice. "The question is, do you think any child would want to have me for a father?"

  "Henry Lee, I didn't mean ..."

  He was seething with anger. "I understand now how it is with you, Hannah. You're all ready to stand by me, to be the perfect wife and helpmate, as long as I follow your rules. All I have to do is forget about the life I've made for myself. I just pick up your morals and your ideals and you'll be willing to do me the favor of staying by my side. You didn't get yourself a churchgoing farmer, so you just take what
you did get and try to turn him into what you want. Well, Miss Hannah, no thank-you very much!"

  "Henry Lee, I only want what is best for you," she implored. "What's best for us."

  He turned his back.

  "You are not giving up the whiskey business?" she asked finally, quietly.

  "No, ma'am," he answered turning, at last, to face her with anger in every line of his face. "And if that don't suit you, well, I believe you know your way to the door."

  They stood there separated by bars, but also by a thousand dreams and ideals.

  Hannah turned without a word and walked away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah sat on the arbor swing at her father's house watching the setting sun. She could hear Myrtie and Violet in the house cleaning up the supper dishes. She should be in there helping or there were at least a million other things that she might be doing. Harvest time was upon them, the busiest time of the year on the farm, but lately she seemed to find more time than she needed to lose herself in thought.

  She had been back home for almost three weeks. Time enough for her anger to turn to dismay and her pride to stubbornness. Henry Lee was back at his place. The gossips had made sure she knew. He'd returned from Muskogee only two days after she had. Apparently, he'd been right: the marshal didn't have enough evidence. She was glad about that. Sighing she shook her head, she hated thinking about him in that cell.

  He hadn't attempted to contact her. She'd left him a note on the kitchen table saying that she was moving back to her father's home. Somehow she expected him to at least acknowledge that. But she hadn't heard a word from him.

  She had certainly heard a good deal about him. She was hardly back herself when word of his arrest in Muskogee was prime dinner conversation in every household in the congregation. The entire community seemed to have an opinion about their marriage, and most didn't hesitate to express it. Old Maude Ruskin seemed to sum up the feelings of most of the church people last Sunday when she patted Hannah on the cheek and told her simply to "put that unfortunate marriage behind you."

  Hannah discovered that, except for herself and most of the young girls Myrtie's age, virtually every person in the community had known all along about Henry Lee's whiskey business. She'd even asked her father point- blank why he hadn't told her.

  He hesitated thoughtfully and then said, "At first I thought you must know. By the time I realized that you didn't, well, it wasn't my place. He's your husband," he said, as if that answered everything, "and it's really between the two of you."

  That had continued to be her father's major theme on the subject. Somehow, to him, her marriage vows took precedence over all else. Her father made it clear that he thought Hannah should return to her husband. He believed it so strongly that, at first, he hadn't wanted Hannah to move back in.

  "I've been helping married folks through rough times for a lot of years," he explained. "When a couple have trouble, they've got to stay and work it out. It does no one good if the wife can just pack up and go home to Daddy when things don't suit her."

  "It's not a case of things not suiting!" Hannah had argued. "The man I married is choosing to break the law and has no intention of reforming. You can't expect me to stay there as if I approve of that."

  "You'll never change a man by running out on him, Hannah."

  "I didn't run out on him. He sent me away," she admitted in frustration. "He doesn't want to change. He says he likes making whiskey, that he's proud of what he does and that I should just accept that." She threw up her hands in disgust. "I'd certainly be a hypocrite if I did."

  Her father was inflexible. "You wouldn't be a hypocrite, but you might be a better wife. Lots of women have found themselves married to men who don't live by the scriptures. As long as that man doesn't beat her, starve her, or threaten her, the good wife stays right with her man and shows him by her example how to live right. She doesn't just run off and say, 'It was all a big mistake, let's forget the whole thing.' "

  "Some marriages are just big mistakes," she insisted, "and trying to keep something together that was never meant to be is just throwing water down a rat hole!"

  "Are you saying you don't care for Henry Lee?" her father asked pointedly. "You forget, I've seen you two with your heads together. It'd be obvious to a blind man that you got feelings for each other, strong feelings."

  "What I feel is relief that I've put that chapter of my life behind me!" Hannah lied vehemently.

  Finally, when it became clear that the father and daughter who had once been so close were determined to remain completely opposed to the other's view, Violet intervened. Hannah was sure that her father hadn't heard a word she had said, but he listened to his wife.

  "I know you are right," Violet assured her husband. "But I think these two just need a little time. Let their anger cool a bit and see what's left of their other sentiments."

  Her stepmother convinced the preacher that Hannah should be allowed to have some time to think about what she wanted.

  Time to think was what she got. She had trouble eating, trouble sleeping, but no trouble at all thinking. Her thoughts were constantly in action. She would recall a story that he had told her with his wide-eyed look of mischief and find herself smiling at the memory. She would imagine the sight of him working in the yard or chopping wood and a warm glow of desire would settle around her. In her mind she was talking with Henry Lee, working with Henry Lee, laughing with Henry Lee, dancing with Henry Lee and at night when her exhausted brain had finally given over to sleep, her dreams were writhing in passion with Henry Lee.

  She rebelled at the injustice of it all. They had just begun to know each other. She thought that he could make her happy, she knew she wanted to make him happy. Why couldn't he be a farmer like everyone else? But Henry Lee could never be like anyone else.

  Hannah heard a horse coming up the road, breaking into her thoughts, but she didn't even bother to turn. It was Saturday night, so she knew exactly who it was. The rider spoke as he trotted past on his way to the hitching post.

  “Good evening, Miss Hannah."

  "Good evening, Will."

  She watched him dismount and wrap the reins around the hitching post before stepping on the porch. He straightened his jacket and ran a hand across his head, making sure that his hair was lying down before knocking briskly on the front door.

  That was another surprise she'd discovered when she'd returned. Will Sample was courting Myrtie. The two were so in love they would sit and make calf eyes at each other all evening. It was strange to see them together. Will's shy, red-faced clumsiness disappeared completely when he was with Myrtie. He talked to her with confidence and never seemed to stammer or stutter around her. And Myrtie was a sight to behold! The mischievous little doll was now amazingly serious about such things as the making of pork sausage and the canning of pickles. The bright-eyed little girl who thought all material should be made up into dresses now carefully folded sheets and dishtowels and placed them in her hope chest.

  Hannah remembered her own surprise and Myrtie's giggling blushes when she heard of her new beau.

  "I've always thought he was just wonderful. He was always so sweet to me, treating me just like I was grown up. But I assumed he was coming around all the time to see you, even though you two never really seemed that interested in each other. It never occurred to me that I was the one he was here to see."

  The young girl's eyes were soft and starry.

  "He said he just wanted to be close by while he waited for me to grow up. Claims to have loved me from the first minute he saw me, and he just wanted to be sure he was right in my path when I went looking for a husband."

  Hannah had listened, startled. She fervently offered extravagant thanks to heaven that her well-planned trap had failed so miserably. How close she had come to making her sister—and the man she loved—miserable. How blind and foolish she had been to think that a man, any man, who cared for a woman would be unable to show that feeling. No man is so s
hy that he wouldn't go after what he loves.

  At least the way things had worked out, the only person who was really unhappy was the person who deserved it: Hannah.

  She would have liked to believe that Henry Lee was unhappy, too. He had seemed to be learning to care for her, and surely he had become used to her being around. Did he miss all those good meals and those finely laundered shirts? Apparently not. At the prayer meeting on Wednesday night, one of the women told her that he was seen dancing and laughing at a barn dance near Ingalls.

  "He was flirting and carrying on, just as if everyone didn't know that he's a married man!"

  Hannah could see him, dancing and flirting. But, in her mind, he was always dancing and flirting with her.

  She shook her head with disgust. Never in her life had she been at such cross-purposes with herself. Leaving him had been the right decision. He wasn't about to change, and she could not live with a lawbreaker, imagining the lives that he was ruining, even, maybe, her own life. She had lived with him less than a month and had actually imbibed spirits herself. Living with him for a lifetime might have changed her into a gin-soaked derelict!

  She stopped herself before her mind got carried away. Her fall from grace was none of Henry Lee's doing. And for all that he was guilty of many things, he had never hurt Hannah or treated her in any way except like a good husband should treat a wife.

  She couldn't seem to regret even one small moment that she had spent with him. They were all so precious to her now. Even when he was acting strange and staying out all night, he was still with her. Now she was alone.

  She had carefully gone over all of their time together, realizing how foolish she was, making grits for pigs and cleaning out the fermentation barrels. But she also realized why he'd spent so much time away from her. He was obviously at his still and he hadn't wanted her to know.

  She wished that he had made a woman of her and given her a child to be with her forever. She remembered with a wistful smile her discussion with Myrtie on the morning after her wedding. She pictured the child she dreamed of that morning and the hope that had sung through her veins with pleasure at the touch of her husband. Neither of these things would ever happen now. Because he was a whiskey man.