by Faye Sonja
Thomas looked affronted. "Dirty work?" The reigns slid from his hands as he walked towards Jedediah. "This is an opportunity for you, to make some extra money - a lot of extra money - before your wife comes."
"Your wife comes soon as well," Jedediah scoffed, turning back around, heading towards the hills. "And I ain't seen you out here, hunting these wild beasts."
Thomas picked the reins back up as the mare watched on, docile. "I got my hands full tryna' run this town. For everyone's sake, yours and Susan's included."
Jedediah didn't turn round, so Thomas didn't see him bristle at the sound of his soon-to-be-bride's name. He'd never heard it spoken out loud before, only read it in the letters, sent by Susan and organized by the Mail Order Bride company. It felt strange to hear Thomas say it - "Susan" - as though it made it real. Made her real.
"She's going to need you to provide for her," Thomas pointed out, now finding it impossible to keep up with Jedediah and the pace the older man was now keeping. "This is the only way, Jed..."
Jedediah shoved his hands as deep into his thick coat pockets as they would go. The action made the coat tighten around his neck and he shrugged, wincing, trying to get the material away from his neck. Deeper down, the material from his shirt was softer, against the deeper scars, the scars only visible to him. "Susan," he thought, running the name over in his own mind. He didn't know too much about her, but he knew she was stunningly beautiful, and that by some grace of God she had agreed to marry him, to move out to this wild land, largely forgotten by mankind.
"Why does she want to marry a man like me?" he wondered, as his collar scraped against his neck. "What is such a beautiful woman going to make of a man like me, when she sees me in the flesh?"
But a roar ahead brought him wildly out of his thoughts, and, staring up at the woods ahead of him, he knew it was time - time for the hunt to begin.
* * *
3
The Wedding
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“ Please God, let me find a way out of
this mess I have created for myself.”
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"Susan, they all say that town is no place for a woman." The words rang in her ears as she took the first step onto the wagon that would lead her to White Elk.
No place for a woman. Well, those words didn't scare Susan off. After the life she'd led, it would take far more to warn her off. Besides, 'no place for a woman'? That sounded like the perfect place to her. For she didn't feel like most of the women she'd known back home.
The days on the wagon were rickety and long and Susan worried about the health of one of the other women, a girl of only 19 whose name was Mollie, six months pregnant, though she looked even further along than that. Mollie clung to the side of the wagon, waving at her face with a folding fan that one of the other ladies a doctor, named Isabella, had provided her.
Susan leaned over and whispered to Isabella, "Should she really be travelling in her state?" The wagon rocked from side to side, as warm air blew in through the open carriage.
Isabella cast an eye towards the younger girl. "Ideally, perhaps not, but circumstances can make us all do desperate things."
Susan understood that only too well. She wondered what had happened to the father of Mollie's baby, but was too polite to ask. At least just yet. The women had only been travelling for a couple of days and they still had plenty of distance to go yet. She sat back and kept quiet for a while, taking in the scenery of the journey, as the Rocky Mountains began to appear in the distance, and the air gradually began to grow cooler.
In the silence Susan began to day-dream. She could see the mountains approaching, but she could also sense them, feel them pulling her. It almost looks like a magical fairyland, she thought, taking in the majestic landscape of trees and lakes and caves that spread out before her.
"There will be plenty to write about, I am sure of that," she thought, taking in a deep lungful of the fresh air. "It's like an untouched wilderness out here...who knows what I might find." Certainly something interesting, she was sure of that. Great inspiration to fuel her stories lay here in these mountains, and the valley that lay in the center. She was sure that a little bit of time here would be able to change her character, give her greater depth, and that this would affect her stories as well. "I'm sure I'll be able to write something more serious now. Something more respectable. Something that will actually sell."
She reached into her satchel, pulled out her pen and diary and began to scribble something down. "What are you doing?" Mollie asked, peering at Susan as she clapped her belly with her hands. "What are you writing?" Isabella also looked over with interest, curious to know what Susan was up to.
"Ladies, I'm going to become a famous writer, now that I've moved here. And I'm about to write the greatest adventure of my life," Susan exclaimed, with a grin on her face and a sparkle in her eye. "Just you ladies wait and see."
* * *
The wagon stopped suddenly and without warning. "Alright, ladies," the driver, an older man of about 55 with weathered skin and missing teeth drawled. "This is where I've gotta drop ya."
Susan leaned forward. They were still a mile or two out of town. "But Mollie is pregnant," she said, "and our grooms will be expecting to greet us in town, not here in the middle of nowhere."
Isabella reached a hand out to place on Susan's arm, letting her know to stay calm. "There's no use in complaining," she whispered gently. "Let's just make the best of it."
Susan still found the stage coach driver's actions to be very rude, but she climbed out and helped Mollie down, and the three women started their way into town.
It took almost half an hour before the three men approached in the near distance. There was a young, boyish looking man. "That will be Thomas, Mollie's husband," Susan thought, noting there was also an older man, in his thirties, who would belong to Isabella.
That only left her own soon-to-be-husband. Jedediah. Susan's stomach flipped a little as she saw him approach, and she wasn't sure if it was because of the nerves she had about arriving in a new town, or whether the sight of him made her feel slightly giddy. He was certainly the most handsome of the three, or at least, Susan thought so. In fact, with his chiseled cheeks and jawbone, his dimples on either side of his face, and his dark, floppy hair that was tucked under a cowboy hat, Susan wasn't sure how a man like this could still be a bachelor.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself. "He might be handsome Susan," she told herself. "But you still know very little about him." She had to wonder - was something wrong with him? Why would a man so handsome want to marry her? Yes, Susan was stunningly beautiful, and smart, but according to most people she was damaged goods. Back home, she would have had very few prospects for marriage. Her only choices for a husband would be men who were too elderly to mind, or men, like her, that had some kind of shame hidden in the past.
"So what is Jedediah's secret", she wondered, as he rapidly approached her.
She knew, sooner or later, she was going to find out.
* * *
Susan wasn't usually one for social gatherings, and back at home she had sometimes found it difficult to make friends with the other women, but right at that moment she was grateful she had Mollie and Isabella beside her as she said her vows to Jedediah. Something about the man made her incredibly nervous, and she could barely speak as they exchanged their first shy greetings.
Jedediah reached out his hand to take Susan's small, delicate palm in his. She was wearing fine, expensive lace gloves, and she was proud of how she looked, that she looked fit for a wedding. "This is going to be the most special day of my life," Jedediah said, as he led her to the church, with the other two couples trailing behind them.
"Yes, mine too," Susan said quietly, reaching a hand up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. As they walked she took in the sights of the town of White Elk, such as t
hey were. Really wasn't much of a town at all, but that was as Susan had expected. She'd been warned as such, but it was still a little bit of a shock. She wondered how the people out here managed to survive with such few amenities. And so few shops.
"Hope you don't mind me asking you this, Susan," Jedediah started to say, interrupting her thoughts. Susan did think Jedediah was quite forward in his manner, but she could tell that's just what kind of man he was. Very confident, she could see that already. He continued on, "But why aren't ya already married?" He glanced down at the woman he was about to make his bride. "You've gotta be just about the most beautiful woman I ever did see anywhere."
Susan blushed a little. She was used to compliments about her looks, but at this moment they made her feel shy. Plus, she wasn't quite sure how best to answer the question. She had been married before. But she never wanted Jedediah to find out. In fact, she didn't want any of her new friends to find out about her tainted past.
Susan smiled, still averting Jedediah's gaze, as she found the right words to say. "I suppose I just never found the man who was right for me," she said quietly.
He gave her hand a squeeze. "Well, I sure hope you've found him now."
"So do I," Susan thought to herself. "So do I."
* * *
As they said their vows, and Jedediah picked up Susan's hand to place her wedding ring on her left hand, Susan found her hands beginning to shake.
"You're not nervous, are ya?" Jedediah whispered, leaning in towards her. "Susan, please tell me if you don't want to go through with this." He held his hand still, frozen in mid-air with the wedding band poised between his fingers.
But it wasn't that. Susan was having a flash back, to the first time she'd gone through a wedding ceremony. It had been in very different circumstances. Her previous husband, Alfred, was someone she had known for a long while, someone she'd gone to school with, before they'd married at age nineteen. She'd been so sure on that day that she was doing the right thing. That Alfred was a trustworthy, kind man who would never hurt her. But she'd been wrong.
Now she was standing across from a man she'd never met. That she didn't know at all. Would this man hurt her as well?
She shook her head, trying to let Jedediah know that he should keep going, place the ring on her finger. Time seemed to stand still as she closed her eyes and held her breath, feeling the cool metal slide against her skin. She prayed to God. Prayed hard that this man would be nothing like Alfred. That she would never be afraid again. That he would take care of her, and love her.
"After all," she thought, last time, knowing the man she was marrying so well didn't turn out so great. "So this time, taking a leap of faith, putting my trust in God, that He has led me to the right man, might turn out to be a far greater plan."
The ring was in place. Susan looked down at it and smiled, as Jedediah gripped her hand, promising that everything would be alright. He would make sure of it.
* * *
"So what do you make of the town?" Jedediah asked, gesturing around the town with pride. "Quite a place, huh?"
Susan was in two minds about what answer to give. On the one hand, the place was beautiful. Stunning. The sight of the lake with the grand mountains standing behind it was almost enough to take her breath away. On the other hand, she wondered how she was going to survive in a town without any fashion shops.
"It's probably for the best though, that this town has no place for me to spend money," she thought, as she looked around at the shacks and cottages that made up the town. "It's beautiful," she said. "There's going to be plenty for me to write about here, I can see that."
Jedediah raised an eyebrow. "Write about? What, do you keep a journal or something?"
"Or something," she said, looking away, keeping her head bowed. She wondered what her new husband would say if he knew she still intended to keep her career even now that she was married. Not just keep it, but grow it. She glanced up at the handsome man. She wanted to trust him. She hoped she could. But she couldn't open up to him. Not yet. Not when she still didn't know anything about him.
The lake shimmered in the distance, immediately attracting Susan's eye with its sprawling beauty and promise of mystery. "Wow," she thought, hardly able to contain herself from running up to its edge. "Will it be possible to go for a walk in the woods soon?" she inquired, thinking that she'd like to take her pen and notebook out there as soon as possible.
"Soon?" Jedediah asked, furrowing his brow. "Well, you'll need to wait until I'm free to go with you, but..."
"I don't need you to go with me," Susan said plainly. "I'm perfectly capable of taking a walk in the mountains by myself."
Jedediah bristled a little as he pointed at the hills. "Those are dangerous places up there, Susan. They're no place for a woman. Especially not one on her own. There's all kinds of things hidden up there. I don't want you going up there on your own, wandering around, you hear me?"
Yes. She'd heard that before. She stopped walking and looked her husband square in the eye. "Well I might be a woman, but I don't think there's any place that is, or isn't for me. As soon as I can, I would like to go up there. On my own, or with you. It's your decision if you want to come. And it's my decision on whether I go or not."
Jedediah nodded, then turned away, as they walked back to their house in silence.
* * *
4
Jedediah’s Secret
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“ Please God, let me find a way out of
this mess I have created for myself.”
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White Elk,
1871.
Jedediah watched Susan, admiring the way her long, flaxen hair fell down her back when it wasn't tied up. Her hair reminded him of liquid gold, which she spun during the day, fastening it up underneath that modern green bonnet she wore.
It only took him one or two days to realize she was a woman with fine taste. He saw the way she pulled her delicate lace gloves on over her fingers, treating them with care. "They expensive?" he asked casually on their second day together, waiting for her to respond, though he already feared he knew the answer.
"Yes," she said, smiling, her voice smooth and warm as honey. "The finest I could find. I do so adore them." She reached up and tied her bonnet around her head and Jedediah was in awe that a woman that looked like her could want to be married to him.
"I'm going to have to do the best by her I can," he decided, reaching up to gently touch the scar that lay hidden underneath his collar. "Once she sees what I really look like, that I'm not so handsome after all, she'll realize she can do better. At the very least I need to provide her with the material goods she needs." He could hear a distant roaring coming from the woods. "If that means I need to keep hunting, then that's what I'll do."
But as he made the decision, he realized he had to commit to another one. He decided that Susan could never find out what he did. It would only frighten her, worry her. Perhaps even disgust her. He needed to keep her away from the woods.
"So where are you heading off to, looking so pretty like that?"
She blushed a little, and the scarlet of her cheeks stood out against the green bonnet. "I was thinking I could take a little walk."
His stomach dropped. "Where to?" he asked, as casually as he could muster.
"Why, the woods, of course." She let out a little laugh. "Where else?"
He walked around and stood in front of the door. "Susan, there's lots to see in the town, before you go wandering off up there. Why don't you go and visit Mollie, or Isabella? I'm sure they'll be keen to know how you're getting on."
She dipped her head and tried to step past him. "Oh, they will be settling in to their homes. Have you seen the house Mollie lives in, with Thomas?"
Jedediah had seen it. The biggest house in town. For the biggest money earner in town. Thomas was five years Jedediah's junior - a
nd thirteen years Kit's junior - yet, if you were to judge by who had the biggest house, the most money, or the greatest power, it was young Thomas that claimed seniority. "I still think you ought to go say hello. Check on Mollie maybe. She has the baby on the way, after all."
Susan stopped, pondering this. "Yes, hmm, you are right."
Jedediah reached down and touched her hand gently, still shy about touching her, and wrapped his fingers through her laced gloves, just ever so slightly. "Besides, you're not exactly dressed for a walk in the woods." He nodded at her gloves, and then tapped her bonnet gently. "Maybe we should get you some more sensible garments before you go trekking around."
She bowed her head a little, looking embarrassed. "Yes," she said, quietly. "I suppose I'm not properly attired. I would make quite a fool of myself." She looked up, brightening. "I will go and see Mollie after all."
"I think that's a splendid idea."
* * *
Jedediah didn't expect Susan to be back for hours - assuming the two women would be caught up, gossiping about their new lives, and their new husbands - so he took the chance to draw a bath, in private. He pulled his jacket and shirt off gently, averting his eyes away from the scar tissue.
Once the water had boiled on the stove, he brought the pan over to the bathtub and filled it up, along with the cold water, right to the brim, sinking down into it so that he was completely covered. He wondered how long he could keep doing this though, how long he could keep the truth secret from Susan.
A long day lay ahead of him, and as he lay his head back in the tub he tried not to let the stress and worry intrude. Tried to relax, let the water wash over him. But he groaned as he thought of the twelve hour day ahead: six hours spent helping Kit chop wood, then another out on the hunt, gathering furs for Thomas to sell.
