by Natalie Dean
“In the parlor, getting a last-minute lecture from Grandmother.”
“A lecture? Why? He’s about to meet his bride. I thought Grandmother approved of him marrying.”
“Grandmother wants to remind him that Mary Ellen is dead.”
“I think he knows that.”
William Henry Harrison Kennesaw was as contemplative as his twin brother was spontaneous. For Will Henry, losing Mary Ellen was the same as losing part of himself and his grief had settled deep inside him.
“Grandmother just wants to make sure. If he’s going to be a husband to your sister, he can’t be a widower to a girl he wasn’t married to.”
It wasn’t like Z to be critical of his twin brother, who was his elder but only by three minutes. Although, with Will Henry’s quiet and mature demeanor, one would think him several years Z’s elder.
“Do you think he’s still mourning for her?” It was a serious question. When Will Henry had asked Bonnie if she thought that one of her sisters might be willing to come to Texas as a mail-order bride, Bonnie had been delighted. Mama had married off four daughters counting Bonnie. Elzbieta was twenty-three years old now, but when she was younger, she’d been engaged to marry a young miner. He had died of consumption before they could wed and after that, Elzbieta had shown little interest in finding a husband.
Mama was a practical woman. Girls got married and had babies. That was life. Mama was happy about Elzbieta coming out west to marry Will Henry. Elzbieta had said so in one of her letters. She had been sending more letters to Will Henry too. Bonnie didn’t know what she’d written, but Will Henry had seemed satisfied. That correspondence and preparation had taken months until now, a few weeks from Christmas, the day had finally arrived. Elzbieta would be coming in on the weekly stagecoach. For Bonnie, this Christmas promised to be a special one, the Christmas in which she would become a mother for the first time, and the one in which she would have a family member from home present. Bonnie was a Kennesaw now, but just because she was married didn’t mean that she stopped being a Yankovich.
Z replied to her question, “I think he was still mourning for her up until your sister started writing him.”
“I hope we’ve done the right thing,” Bonnie said. If Grandmother was having second thoughts, that could indicate doubts about Elzbieta as the choice of wife. Eldora Kennesaw was not overly fond of foreigners and she looked askance when Bonnie prepared a meal with foods that had graced the Yankovich table at home. Fortunately, Elzbieta, although she spoke accented English, was intuitive and intelligent and, Bonnie was confident, she would soon win Grandmother’s approval. But Will Henry was no milksop and he would stand by his wife, just as Z did, whenever Grandmother made a comment that the twins felt was unfair. As Z had reminded his grandmother when she voiced her opinions about foreigners, people came to Texas from all over, so that they could become Americans. It wasn’t often that Z waxed philosophical, but his words had hit their mark. The next Kennesaw to be born would have a Texan father and a Polish mother and would be an American.
“Course we have,” Z said, giving her a quick hug. “Will Henry wants what we have and he’s not going to get that by walking across the property at night mourning for a girl who’s in her grave.”
“I suppose he really loved her,” Bonnie said sympathetically, remembering her first night at the ranch when, looking out her bedroom window, she’d seen the lone man walking late at night. She hadn’t known his story yet, but the more she learned about Will Henry, the more she respected him.
“I suppose he thought he did,” Z corrected. “But they just courted. Courting isn’t real. Marriage is real.” He put his hand on her belly. “Babies are real. Will Henry has been half-dead himself since Mary Ellen and I don’t understand it.”
“You wouldn’t mourn for me if I died?”
Z’s forehead furrowed in puzzlement. “Of course I would, you’re my wife. Mary Ellen wasn’t Will Henry’s wife.”
Bonnie wasn’t quite sure whether her husband’s analysis of the difference was authentic or merely practical. She realized that life went on, as it had to do for her mother and grandmother when their husbands were killed years before in the mines. Nonetheless, Bonnie respected the depths of her brother-in-law’s emotion for a lost love. She hoped that he was ready to take a wife. No doubt, Grandmother was making that very point to her grandson right this moment.
Eldora Kennesaw had lost her own husband, Daniel, in the war. Death was part of life; it was even more a part of war. She accepted his death and acknowledged the mourning part of her that had been buried deep inside. Later, she lost her only son, who was also named Daniel, in the same war that had brought death to so many families in the North and South. But she managed to gather up every last bit of strength she had. She owed it to the remaining members of her family, her daughter Dora and the twins, Zachary and Will Henry.
William Henry Harrison’s long descent into private mourning had been a source of concern to her, but, as he continued to do his work at the ranch, and he remained part of the family’s activities and had not been obviously melancholy, she had not seen reason to question him.
“There will be a new member of the family,” Eldora said to her grandson.
They were seated in the parlor. When Grandmother held court there, it was her ‘parlor’. Otherwise, it was the room where the family gathered.
Will Henry wasn’t entirely sure why he had been summoned to the parlor. He was a little nervous and a lot eager to get into Mesquite so that he could meet his bride. It helped that Bonnie and Z would be there. It was Z’s happiness with Bonnie that had inspired Will Henry to think of marrying, and naturally, to think of finding a wife among Bonnie’s sisters. Bonnie was so pleasant-natured, resourceful, and pretty, with just the right amount of spirit in her to keep a maverick like Z in line. Will Henry could be confident that one of her sisters would suit him just fine. He was twenty-seven years old now, and if he wanted a wife and family of his own, he knew he had to leave Mary Ellen behind in that private place she would always occupy as his first love.
Will Henry nodded.
“You marrying a sister to Bonnie makes it seem like we’ll just be welcoming someone who’s already kin. We want her to be happy here. Bonnie’s happy; she’s been good for your brother. She’s settled him.”
Will Henry’s eyes showed amusement at his grandmother’s assessment.
“Settled him some,” Grandmother corrected herself. “I doubt there’s anything short of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse who could settle Zachary Taylor. But you’re settled enough for two men, so I reckon it works out. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. This girl, this Elizabeth—"
“Elzbieta,” Will Henry corrected gently. He liked the strangeness of her name. It was Polish, Bonnie had told him. Polish for Elizabeth. He liked Bonnie’s accent and the way she pronounced things; her English was excellent, but that bit of an accent was like a garnish on a home-cooked meal. He looked forward to hearing his Elzbieta talk. He looked forward to many things. Not the kind of things he could discuss with Grandmother, but he and Z had talked about them, man to man, and according to Z, there was nothing about being a bachelor that wasn’t made better by having a pretty wife sleeping alongside him in a warm bed. He was looking forward to that a lot. That was something that he and Mary Ellen had never shared; death had taken her before they could be man and wife. Elzbieta would own that joy all to herself.
Chapter 4
Grandmother gestured impatiently. “If she’s in America, she should have an American name,” she countered. “When you two start a family, don’t be giving my grandsons any outlandish names. I want names I can pronounce, names that folks will recognize, not some strange name that doesn’t sound Christian.”
“What about granddaughters?” Will Henry teased. There was no point in informing Grandmother that people in Poland were just as Christian as Texans, because she wouldn’t believe him. Grandmother viewed their Roman Catholic faith with su
spicions.
“You know what I mean. I don’t want people asking why I let my grandchildren be given names that don’t suit a Texan.”
“It’s a little premature to be talking about naming children, Grandmother. The stagecoach hasn’t even arrived yet.”
But in Eldora Kennesaw’s experience, it was never too soon to be talking about children. They were the reason for marriage. They were the reason people kept on living when there was no reason to get up in the morning because life seemed as if it held nothing but heartache. They were the way the human race continued. Texas needed young people; the nation needed new blood if it hoped to carry on after the terrible war that had robbed the Confederacy of its young men. The Union, too, if it came to that. There were too many dead on both sides and those men who would never father children and the unmarried women left at home who would never bear babies depended upon the next generation to make up for the losses. Birth was an obligation. In her eyes, the Kennesaws had a debt to pay to Texas. They would honor the debt by siring children to carry on the legacy of their forefathers, those brave, undaunted men who had settled in Texas when it belonged to Mexico, fighting for their liberty, and dying for it rather than surrendering. Texas had been its own country before it became a state, an important distinction, in Eldora Kennesaw’s eyes, from the other states.
“I want to make sure you’re ready,” Grandmother went on.
“Grandmother, Elzbieta and I have been exchanging letters for almost a year. She’s agreed to come to Texas. The arrangements have been made. She’s journeyed across the country to marry me. She’s in a stagecoach now, and when she arrives, she’ll come to the ranch like Bonnie did, and we’ll get married. You’ve seen how well it’s worked for Bonnie and Z.”
“I don’t think you should get married right away. Bonnie and Z waited a couple of weeks, and they were the better for it. Spend a little time getting to work things out, just like they did.”
“That was different, Grandmother. You know that. Z needed to figure out a few things. Bonnie helped him figure them out,” he grinned at the memory of his sister-in-law when she wasn’t yet married to Z, showing up in her pretty red dress to confront her fiancé at the poker table. It had taken guts to do that, and brains as well, and Bonnie had both. “I’ve already got those things all figured out. I’m not going to be hankering for poker in a saloon on Saturday night. It’s just dandy with me if, on a Saturday night, Elzbieta and I are sitting in the parlor, just talking.”
Grandmother scrutinized his face. He was the exact image of his twin, and yet she had never had any trouble telling them apart. Will Henry’s smile paused before it showed up on his face; Zachary Taylor’s smile burst out of him like cannon fire. Will Henry’s eyes studied a person; Z’s gaze invited everyone to a party. They were as different as night and day, and as close as the leaves on a tree, independent but brushing against one another in the breeze. Twins were a peculiar sort of thing, she thought, but she was mighty glad that Daniel’s wife had given birth to them. Having two boys to raise after her husband and son, and then Daniel’s widow had died, had kept her mind occupied on the task before her rather than on the reasons for it.
“I just don’t want you regretting anything.” His grandmother knew that Will Henry was not as able to shrug things off as his brother. Whatever mattered to Will Henry mattered deeply. Z could cut his losses and move on; if he hadn’t fallen in love with his mail-order bride, he wouldn’t have ended up with a broken heart or a sense of loss. But Will Henry had a romantic streak in him. Eldora wasn’t sure where that streak came from, but she knew that her husband Daniel had been like Will Henry, whereas her son Daniel was so much like Z that there were times when she felt like she’d gotten him back.
“You mean you don’t want me wishing that Elzbieta was Mary Ellen,” he said shrewdly.
She should have known better than to beat around the bush. When it came down to brass tacks, Eldora thought, they were her grandsons. Each one spoke the truth without icing it to hide the flaws in the cake.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Mary Ellen is gone and she’s not coming back.” Her tone was deliberately blunt. “Bonnie’s sister will be here and alive. She’ll want a husband who’s alive as well, not someone who’s half a ghost.”
“You don’t have to worry. I will never forget Mary Ellen. But she’s not going to stand in the way of me being a good husband to Elzbieta.” His smile widened. “I’m not going to be a ghost, Grandmother.”
Eldora nodded. If Will Henry said it was so, then it was so. He was not a dissembler. Neither was Z, but Z could charm the birds out of the trees. She loved her grandsons with all the ferocity of a woman who had lost her husband and son too early, and she wanted them to be as happy as mortal life could allow. It was hard for men to understand how love could grip a woman so tightly that she never even thought of loosening the chains. Men didn’t bear children. They didn’t know. It was, at least to her way of thinking, as simple as that.
“All right then,” she said briskly. “Elsie will be cooking while you’re gone to fetch your bride and when she arrives, we’ll welcome her. I expect she and Bonnie will have a lot to catch up on. Just make sure they speak English.”
Will Henry smiled indulgently. The sisters could speak in Polish if they wanted to do so when they weren’t in Grandmother’s company, and he guessed that they might choose to. Bonnie would need to warn Elzbieta about Grandmother’s autocratic ways, and that might be a message better delivered in Polish than in English. But from her letters, and what Bonnie had said of her older sister, Elzbieta was tactful and kind, and she’d figure out how to get along with Grandmother, just as Bonnie had been able to do. Bonnie had explained that Elzbieta had been engaged to a young man who had died. It seemed as if he and Bonnie’s sister were meant to be married, and the more he learned about her, the more his eagerness overcame his nervousness. That was why Will Henry didn’t want to wait for a wedding. They didn’t need a big, family wedding like Bonnie and Z had had, he argued. A simple ceremony in the preacher’s home would do fine. He just wanted to settle into marriage without an elaborate prelude, and since Elzbieta wouldn’t have any family nearby except for Bonnie, he figured she’d agree with him.
Z, with his knack for condensing feelings into brief explanations, put it simply: Will Henry wanted to be married, but he wasn’t all that taken up with the process of getting married, unlike Z, who had wanted the family gathering, the elaborate spread of food, the dancing and the fiddle playing.
Just then, as if thinking of Z had conjured him, Z poked his head into the parlor. “You finished planning out Will Henry’s life for him, Grandmother? We need to get him to the stagecoach before his bride arrives. What if he’s not there, and she runs off with the driver?”
“Go on,” Grandmother said. “At least Will Henry isn’t going to meet her without his shirt on and embarrass the Kennesaw family like you did.”
“It turned out all right,” Z said with a grin. “I can’t wait until Baby Kennesaw is old enough to hear that tale.”
“Mind what you tell a child,” Grandmother advised. “It can come back and bite you.”
“I’ll probably have the son that Will Henry should have, and he’ll have mine,” Z said. “Mine will be sober as a judge, and his will be a little hellion.”
“Nothing Mesquite hasn’t seen before,” Grandmother said. “Will Henry, you drive the wagon. I don’t want Z setting Whistler up for a trot and bumping Bonnie all over the road before she’s ready to deliver that baby.”
“I hitched up Cabot to the wagon, Grandmother, and you know he doesn’t have a pace above slow,” Z defended himself. “He’ll go so slow and steady that Bonnie will probably fall asleep.”
Will Henry obeyed his grandmother and took the reins while Z lifted Bonnie into the wagon with care. Z grinned at her when she was settled in before leaping into the seat himself. “I don’t know why Grandmother is fussing. Does she think I want to be delivering my baby on the ro
ad?”
“Another month,” Bonnie said. “Right around Christmas time. I hope Elzbieta didn’t bring too many warm clothes; she won’t be needing them.”
“Mesquite gets cooler in the winter,” Z argued. “Maybe not cold like back East, but it’s sure not as warm as it is in July.”
“Mesquite isn’t cold, ever. You think it’s cooler because it’s blazing hot in the summer and because you’ve never lived where there’s ice and snow so cold the rivers freeze and the men skate across them to go to work.”
As Bonnie and his brother argued good-naturedly about the winter weather they had experienced, and Cabot plodded along with his usual disregard for any semblance of haste, Will Henry let his mind drift to thoughts of the woman he would be greeting soon. Tonight, Elzbieta would sleep in the guest bedroom where Bonnie had stayed upon her arrival to the ranch. Tomorrow, she would become his wife. But first, he’d show her all around the ranch after Elsie’s lunch; he’d take the wagon so that she could see for herself how much land the Kennesaws owned. With the busy season over, there wasn’t a lot of activity to see; the crops were harvested and the fields barren, waiting for spring. The cattle would be grazing placidly, oblivious to anything but the search for grass to nourish them through the months until the growing season came back, and the ground fed them well. But she’d see the fencing and the stables, and she would come to know how a ranch ran, the way that Bonnie had learned.
