by Pamela Morsi
He hushed her tears and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He held her close and reassured himself that there would be time enough to tell her later.
Sallisaw was a pretty little community in the foothills of the Ozarks about thirty miles west of Fort Smith, whose citizens were mostly fruit growers. Strawberries and peaches were the main crops, but it was good land, this corner of the Cherokee Nation, and a man could farm just about anything.
As the two stood on the train platform and surveyed the little town, Hannah sighed longingly.
"Do you think we'll ever have real little towns like this out our way?"
Henry Lee smiled at her. He understood her need for community. He felt if too.
"Towns just take time, Hannah. There have been settlements here in Indian Territory for over fifty years. You can't expect Oklahoma Territory to accomplish as much in less than ten."
They smiled at each other, feeling a sense of accord.
"You really think that it will be this way out on the border?"
He nodded, smiling. "Our children will grow up knowing ah there is to know about towns."
Hannah blushed at the reference to children. She felt a rush of pleasure at the prospect of having a child of Henry Lee's. In her mind she saw an impetuous toddler in knee pants, thick black hair and shining blue eyes. She wouldn't meet Henry Lee's gaze for fear he would see her longing there.
Henry Lee misinterpreted her evasiveness and thought her to be embarrassed about the child she carried. Pulling her into a deserted alleyway that offered a modicum of privacy Henry Lee pressed her back against the clapboard building and placed his hand on her belly, openly claiming the child for his own.
"I mean all our children, Hannah," he told her quietly, placing a tiny kiss on her forehead. "This one too."
Hannah enjoyed the loving caress but didn't comprehend his words.
"What are you saying?"
His voice soft with sincerity he told her. "The child that you carry is mine in every way but blood. I'm going to accept him as my own and I want you to know that I won't ever allow him to believe anything else."
Hannah was bewildered as she gazed into the depths of her husband's eyes. "Henry Lee, you are not talking sense. I can't be carrying a child. We haven't . . . well, you know ... we haven't." Hannah blushed as she attempted to explain her confusion.
Looking at her quizzically, Henry Lee was more specific. "I'm talking about the child you already carry, the other man's child."
"What other man?" Hannah's voice was a little too loud and clearly shocked.
Henry Lee stood stock-still, looking at her. He would have told anyone that he was very good at getting a quick grasp on a situation. But at the present time he was struggling pitifully to figure out what wrong turn he had taken to get to the unfamiliar ground he was now treading.
"You're not having a child." It was a statement more than a question.
"Hannah, why did you marry me?"
She looked at him quizzically for his strange turn of mind.
"We've been through all that, Henry Lee. It embarrasses me to even think about it, I sure don't want to have to talk about it, again. I told you I was sorry. I really never meant to do it to you."
He took her hand in his own and squeezed it gently.
"I don't want to embarrass you, Hannah. But I need to know exactly what you were doing in the wellhouse that night. You knew your daddy was going to find us, why did you let that happen?"
She tried to turn away from him. He understood that she didn't want to face him. Pulling her back to his chest, he held her close and comforted her, so she wouldn't have to look him in the eye.
"Just start from the beginning and tell me everything."
Hannah took a deep breath gathering her courage. She didn't understand why Henry Lee wanted her to confess it all at last, but she knew that she owed him this explanation for a good long while, and at least she would be glad to have it over and done.
Henry Lee quietly listened to her story, tiny seeds of joy timidly blooming in his heart.
"Myrtie was near grown and Papa had remarried. I didn't have any reason to be at home anymore. I wanted to marry, to have a family of my own. But I didn't have a suitor. To tell the truth, Henry Lee, I never had one, not even one," she confessed sorrowfully. "But Will Sample hung around the house all the time. I was sure that Will had feelings for me. He was so shy. Every time I would try to talk to him, try to draw him out, he'd get all clumsy and red-faced. I just convinced myself that he wanted to call on me, but that he was too shy to do it."
She pushed an errant lock of hair from her face, securing it behind her ear. "The months were just passing by and nothing was changing, he never tried to talk to me or sit with me, or walk out with me, and I just couldn't wait any longer. I wasn't in love with him, but I knew I could make him a good wife. I can keep a good house, you know that, and I'm a hard worker. I always have been."
Henry Lee listened to her ill-fated plan to trap Will Sample with a smile on his face and blossoming good humor. It was hard to imagine, his Hannah as a man-hunter. But it was a sure bet that it took a desperate situation and a lot of Bible reading to turn her into one.
When she finished her shameful tale, she hung her head and spoke pleadingly.
"I know you can't forgive me for mixing you up in this foolish mess."
"Forgive you," Henry Lee laughed and turned her to face him. "I don't want to forgive you, I want to thank you. Believe me, Hannah. I am a much better husband for you than Will. He's a decent, hardworking man, but the two of you together would have made the most boring couple in the territory. You need a man to bring a little sparkle to your pretty cheeks. And I am definitely the man for the job!
He punctuated his appraisal with a series of feathery love bites to her throat. Chills of delightful fire flew down Hannah's neck as she glanced around to assure herself that no one was looking.
“You're not angry?"
“I'm elated. You won't believe what I thought your reasons were."
Hannah looked at him questioningly and he briefly explained about overhearing her conversation with Myrtie and the conclusions he had drawn.
“How could you think that of me?" Hannah protested.
"I didn't know what to think, it made sense to me. A woman with a child on the way needs a husband and pretty near any husband will do."
Hannah shook her head as if it were too much to grasp.
"And you didn't mind. You thought I carried another man's baby, that I was using you to cover up my own wickedness, and you kept me anyway."
"I was crazy mad at first, Hannah, but I couldn't blame the child, I knew it wasn't his fault. After a while, when I came to care for you, well, I couldn't blame you either."
He lifted her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. He wanted her complete attention. He wanted her to understand what he was saying, so there would never be a question in her mind.
"You are my wife, Hannah. Because of that, your child would be my child, no matter the circumstances."
Hannah felt her eyes welling up with tears.
"You know what I think?" she told him, wiping away the evidence of her emotions with the back of her hand. “I think God was hearing my prayers all along, and he sent you into that wellhouse, just for me."
Henry Lee smiled at her tenderly, not willing to dispute, but wondering if God ever took a hand in the personal lives of whiskey peddlers.
To chase his darker thoughts away, Henry Lee pulled her eagerly into his embrace, his lips tenderly bearing fire to her blood.
Hannah wrapped her arms around him, tracing the strong, sinewy muscles of his shoulders and back. Kissing him with her tongue, the way he'd taught her, she heard a moan deep in his throat, and felt the reaction of his body pressing against her.
"Hannah darlin'," he said pulling away. "I don't think I can live until this day is over. How many hours is it until we can go back to the hotel?"
Giggling at his tone of desp
eration, Hannah placed her hand in his, her heart was in her eyes, as they walked down the dusty main street of the sleepy town.
"It's a long time, Henry Lee, but I've got a feeling that it will be worth the wait."
They made one stop at the telegraph office. Henry Lee had promised to send the money for the south Tulsa land to Morelli and he was grateful to get rid of the whiskey profits that he carried. Hannah was somewhat surprised to see such a pile of currency. She couldn't imagine why he had brought it all the way to Sallisaw to send it to Tulsa. As the telegraph operator counted out the cash, neither paid any attention to yesterday's date scrawled in pen across the face of one of the bills.
Feeling uncomfortable under Hannah's gaze, Henry Lee quickly asked, "Which way to the Sallisaw Table Company?"
“Just keep going right down to the end of this street, when the road curves away, that's it," the operator told him, leaning out from the counter and pointing to the west.
Henry Lee thanked him and retreated as quickly as possible, taking Hannah's arm and escorting her outside. He didn't want to make up any false explanations for Hannah, he wanted honesty between them and soon.
"You forgot your receipt!" the man called after them, but they were already gone.
The Sallisaw Table Company was a large brightly painted barn of a place at the edge of town.
Henry Lee, matching his step with Hannah's, gazed down at her. His eyes dancing with mischief, he relayed the story of the company's proprietors.
"It's owned by two brothers, Hiram and Willard Oscar. But as anyone in Sallisaw can tell you, the Oscars are more than brothers. Shortly after they came to the territory, Hiram married Nellie Winkle, a fine-looking widow a few years older than himself."
Hannah nodded, encouraging him to go on.
"Now Nellie had a pretty little teenage daughter from her first marriage. She and Hiram hadn't been married no more than a year or two before Willard, Hiram's younger brother, and the daughter, Maude, fell for each other and got themselves married."
Henry Lee hesitated in his discourse, allowing Hannah to add up the ramifications of this consequence.
"That made Hiram Willard's stepfather-in-law as well as his brother," Hannah concluded. "And it made Willard Hiram's stepson-in-law, as well as younger brother."
Smiling at her quick wit, Henry Lee continued. "When both Nellie and Maude gave birth not three months apart, the cousins born were also uncle and nephew."
Hannah shook her head in disbelief. "I bet that was prime fodder for gossip for a good long time."
"About thirty years," Henry Lee agreed. "But it wasn't such a bad thing for business. The story was told and retold so much that nearly everyone has heard of the Sallisaw Table Company."
Henry Lee regaled Hannah with the story. "It might have died down just with the passage of time," he said, "but the two boys when they grew up fell in love with identical twin sisters!"
Hannah giggled, her eyes wide with amusement. "Did that make their children double cousins or what?"
"I don't know, but it sure made the Oscar family famous in these parts."
Neither Hiram nor Willard had yet retired to rocking chairs, and both greeted Henry Lee and Hannah in the shade of a young maple outside the building. Hands were shaken all around and the prerequisite discussion of the weather completed, before Henry Lee stated his business.
"I'm hoping to make some pews for a new little church over in the Oklahoma Territory," Henry Lee said. "I need some good lumber, and as much advice as you're willing to give. I know a bit about working the wood, but I'm self-taught and always willing to listen to those that know more about it."
As Willard talked to Henry Lee asking what his ideas were and what kind of lumber he was hoping to afford, Hiram stood back and took the young man's measure. He seemed a straightforward, upright young man and his woman seemed clean and decent, hanging on his every word. He decided that he liked the boy. When Hiram made a decision, it was rarely revoked.
"Come on in here, boy," Hiram called to him. "Let's see what you know about wood."
Henry Lee and Hannah followed the two men into the building. The smell of sawdust was fresh and pungent, but not a pile of it could be seen anywhere. The Oscars were fastidiously clean and knew well the fire dangers posed by their line of work.
The walls and cupboards contained more kinds of saws, chisels, clamps, planes, and calipers than Henry Lee had ever seen in his life and in the corner near the back window was a huge lathe run by a foot treadle. A fine piece of white oak waiting immobile in a vise, a bow saw ready at its side, was prepared to become part of a fancy chair back. A door stood open on the far wall and revealed an open area full of cut lumber of all descriptions and a huge pit saw in the middle of the yard.
Henry Lee felt a surge of excitement go through him and he quickly shared it with a smile to Hannah.
Hiram saw it, and with a nodding smile from his brother, was reassured that he was quite right about this boy.
"Come on now, let's see what you can do. See how much you know then we can figure out what we can teach you."
Henry Lee eagerly handed his jacket to Hannah and rolled up his sleeves. He felt like a kid who had just been given free rein in a candy store.
Willard drew Hannah away.
"My house is right through the woods there, down that path," he said pointing out the front door. "My Maudey would be mighty pleased to have a brand-new person to gossip with," he told her smiling. "Your husband's going to have his hands full with Hiram, so tell my wife to set a couple more plates for dinner."
Hannah gave one last lingering look to her husband. He was diving into the work with cheerful enthusiasm. Pleased for him, she hummed a catchy tune while making her way through a path of cottonwoods to the house sitting on the rise.
Maude Oscar's kitchen was bustling with activity when Hannah arrived. Children of various sizes and ages wandered in and out as Maude alternately scolded or praised. She seemed delighted at her unexpected company and immediately set Hannah to peeling peaches for canning.
As soon as word got out that Maude had a guest, her mother/sister-in-law, Nellie, showed up and the twin daughters-in-law were not far behind. Daisy and Dulce were about Hannah's age, both pregnant and with toddlers in tow.
"I got a look at your husband down at the shed," Dulce said to her and then expressively drew the attention of the rest of the crowd. "He is some looker, your man! Why, he nearly took my breath away."
"Dulce May!" her sister scolded her. "Don't pay Dulce any mind," she told Hannah, patting her reassuringly on the arm. "She's always looking at the men, it don't mean nothing, it's just her way," Daisy explained to Hannah.
"It never hurts to look," Dulce insisted. "That's all I could do anyhow," she complained, patting her rounded stomach. "My man keeps my belly big as a cow with his young 'uns all the time. The only way I could get a man to look at me these days would be to set my hair on fire!"
Hannah laughed along with the rest, but sensed in Dulce a free spirit that was not so sorry to be tamed by a “belly as big as a cow."
“When are you due?" Hannah asked the twins.
"I'm expecting mine in about six weeks," Daisy answered, "but Dulce could have hers anytime, and she always does it early!"
"What about you?" Dulce asked her, "Maudey said you was looking pretty peaked when you came in this morning."
"Dulce!" A chorus of disapproving relatives scolded the young woman for her curiosity.
"Oh no," Hannah told them, blushing furiously, "I'm not in the family way."
"You sure?" Nellie asked her. "That's one of the first signs, you know, feeling like to puke in the mornings."
"No," Hannah insisted. "We just got married." She felt a strange sense of pleased embarrassment. "We are kind of on our honeymoon."
"On your honeymoon!" Dulce exclaimed. "And you let your man get away for a whole day to build furniture? I wouldn't let my Jacob leave even to go to the outhouse!"
The wo
men howled with laughter. Hannah covered her face in embarrassment. She had never heard women talk of such things in her life. But then, she reminded herself, she had never been one of the married women before.
She felt surprisingly comfortable with these plainspoken women and she felt safe enough to risk a question.
"It's kind of natural, then, to want your husband to be in bed with you?"
"They ain't nothing in the world more natural!" Dulce insisted.
"You don't think it's unbecoming for a Christian woman to be so ... so lustful?" Uncomfortable now, Hannah wished she had never brought the subject up.
"Didn't your mother talk to you?" Nellie asked.
"She's dead, and my stepmother did talk to me, but she never said anything about the kinds of feelings I have . . . well, with Henry Lee," Hannah admitted, blushing.
"Honey," Maude said, taking a seat at Hannah's right, “that's exactly how you're supposed to feel. It makes perfect sense. Why would a woman go through all she had to go through to get a baby, if the making of them was something she hated."
Nods of agreement were seen all around. "God intended for a man and a woman to enjoy the mating, so they'd be fruitful and multiply," Daisy put in.
"Besides," Dulce added, "it ain't fair that only the sinners should have fun!"
Laughter ricocheted through the kitchen again, and Hannah joined in.
The noon meal was served on the biggest table Hannah had ever seen. It was at least twenty feet long, large enough for every person in the family.
"That's one advantage of making your own furniture," Nellie told her. "You can have exactly what you want."
Henry Lee came in with the other men, looking flushed and happy. Woodworking was a hard job, but it was clean, satisfying work. He was basking in the admiration and respect he had received from the Oscar brothers.
"You've a natural feel for the wood," Hiram told him. "You can look at the raw lumber and see what's best to be done with it. That's not something that can be taught." The old man shook his head. "My boys, they work hard and do exactly what I tell them, but they don't have what you and I have. It's a gift, just like singing or playing the fiddle."
