Brides of Grasshopper Creek

by Faith-Ann Smith

  "Are you sure that this is what you want to do, Charlotte? You do not have to."

  "I am sure. I like the idea of being a wife, and you deserve to be able to live your own life now."

  As I looked into his eyes and saw the sadness and worry there, I thought of how strange it was that I had started so angry with him for planning to travel to Bannack without letting me know, and now I was the one who was putting plans into place and comforting him.

  I hugged Victor and started into my room to write back to Joseph Coffey, the baker in Bannack who would soon be my husband. As I went, I whispered a prayer in my heart that the Lord would give me the strength to be what Mr. Coffey needed so that Victor and I may find a better life.

  Chapter 7

  April, 1863

  Dear Diary,

  We begin our journey in the morning. We are not going to be leaving immediately for Montana, but traveling to pick up a woman named Emily. She lives in a town a few hours away and is also traveling to Bannack to marry. A mutual friend of our families found out that we were both planning on traveling to the same destination and asked if we would permit Emily to travel with us as the wagon trains do not allow single women to travel alone.

  There is comfort is knowing that there will be another woman traveling with us. I only hope that she is friendly and that we get along well. I cannot imagine how unpleasant it would be to have to travel for months with someone who I dislike.

  It is hard to believe that this day has already come, and yet I feel that I have been waiting for it my entire life. Victor has been so consumed with the preparations that I have not had much opportunity to talk to him about how he is feeling about the trip, or what he plans on doing when we arrive. He has long expressed his interest in blacksmithing, so perhaps that is what he will pursue in our new home.

  As I write that it forces me to remember that we will not actually be sharing a home when we get to Bannack. That may be the most difficult thing for me to really wrap my mind around. We have never been apart, and now we will suddenly live in different homes and separate lives. What will it be like to not have him to talk with at the end of the day?

  Charlotte

  Chapter 8

  The journey had started off as nothing like I thought it would be. When we picked up Emily, I was immediately intimidated by her. I expected her to come from a family similar to mine, but she had the air of someone far more sophisticated and worldly than I could ever have imagined being. My life had been fairly sheltered up until that point and when she stepped up to the wagon it was almost like I was looking into the eyes of every woman that I would never be: a woman younger, prettier, and with knowledge that I didn’t possess.

  I didn't dislike Emily. In fact, I often tried to come up with ways to talk with her, but she seemed far more interested in her journal than in talking with me or Victor. She often jumped down from the wagon and spent her days walking along the edge of the path on her own rather than staying with the rest of us. I didn't follow suit. The thought of facing all of the different kinds of people that had joined the wagon train made me too nervous, so I spent most of my time in the back of the wagon. It was uncomfortable, but at least there I didn't have to talk with anyone.

  We were a little more than two months into our journey when I just didn't feel like I could take sitting back there in that stuffy wagon by myself any longer. I climbed out and looked around for Victor, but he had wandered away from the camp. He hadn't been feeling well for a few days and I prayed that it was not one of the horrible fevers I had heard stories about. It was only a couple of weeks before that we had come across a man riding alone through the prairie who told of a wagon train just ahead of us that had already lost nearly half of its number. I shuddered just thinking about it.

  I heard Emily's voice from across the camp and walked toward it. As she had been doing since shortly after the journey started, she was sitting with the little ones of the train, teaching them. I was impressed by the way that they seemed enraptured by her, willing to listen to anything that she had to say to them and so eager to please her.

  "You sure do seem to have a way with the little ones," I said as I watched one of the little boys stick his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he focused intently on drawing an upper-case B in the dirt.

  "Thank you," she said, gazing at them with soft softness and adoration in their eyes I wondered if there were young ones in her life that she had had to leave behind for this journey, "I hope that my students in Bannack are as receptive as these children."

  "I admire your courage," I told her.

  It was absolutely true. I couldn't imagine taking on a challenge so daunting as to create an entire school. The thought of going into an unknown town and telling them that she wanted to start up something that big, and then taking on the task of actually teaching the children seemed almost unimaginable to me. She looked at me with a strange expression on her face and I immediately worried that I had said something wrong.

  "My courage?"

  "There isn't even a school there, but you are so sure that you will be able to get one started and teach the children. You are extremely courageous for trying something like that. I could never do that," I told her, my hands absently brushing at the dirt on the front of my dress.

  "You are going out to Bannack, aren't you?" she asked.

  Now it was my turn to look at her strangely. I nodded.

  "But only to marry, and I am traveling with my brother."

  I couldn't imagine anything about that that would seem even remotely comparable to what she was planning. I was traveling under the protection and guidance of my older brother and would be promptly handed over to my husband. It was the same role that I would have played at home should I have found a suitable gentleman, just completed at a distance.

  "Only to marry?" she asked with a smile, "I am far more nervous about meeting my future husband than I am to try to start a school. You are going to a place where you have never been, to meet a man who you have never met, and to create his home for him. You are transforming a man who knows nothing but living on his own into a husband. That is quite a feat. You are doing something very, very brave, and you should not forget that."

  Her words touched me deeply and I felt myself smile the first true, genuine smile that I had expressed since we started on the journey to Bannack. I realized then that Emily was not really so different from me. She had simply seen the world in a different way. We thought, felt, and feared so many of the same things. I knew then that the rest of the journey would be different, and that my life in Bannack would not be at all the lonely experience I was beginning to worry that it would be.

  Chapter 9

  "Miss Marshall?"

  I heard my name before I was even all the way out of the wagon. It startled me slightly and I gripped Victor's hand more firmly as he helped me down from the lip at the back. I turned toward the voice and saw a gentleman standing at the edge of an elevated wooden platform several feet away. He appeared several years older than me and was handsome in a rugged sort of way even though he wasn't smiling.

  "Yes?" I replied.

  "I'm Joseph Coffey."

  I didn't know how he recognized me, but having him standing there waiting for me provided some sense of comfort. At least I would not be standing alone at the general store or following Victor wherever he went because my intended decided to change his mind.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw another man approach Emily and relay a message. She nodded and turned to me.

  "We will see each other soon," she said and opened her arms to me.

  "Of course. Thank you for traveling with us," I replied, hugging her for a long moment.

  As Emily walked away in the direction of the large hotel I could see further down the street, I took hold of Victor's elbow and guided him toward Mr. Coffey.

  "Mr. Coffey, this is my brother Victor Marshall," I said, gesturing between the two men, "Victor, this is Joseph Coffey."

 
; I wasn't sure how to describe him. To call him my fiancé seemed too personal, especially as he had never actually proposed through our letters, but I had no other word for him, so I simply left the introduction at that, allowing the men to come to their own understandings.

  "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Victor said, holding out his hand to shake Mr. Coffey's.

  Mr. Coffey shook his in return, but responded with only a low sound that was somewhere between a grunt and words. Victor stared at him for a moment and I was briefly worried that my protective older brother would make some remark, but he stayed silent. Releasing Mr. Coffey's hand, he turned to me and gathered me in a hug.

  I felt like we were balanced in time for that second, hovering just between the journey that we had just taken together from our home in Philadelphia and the journey that still lay ahead of us now that we were here in Bannack. It was as if I could keep my eyes closed and continue to hold on to him and time wouldn't change. I could preserve that moment, keep everything as it was and not have to acknowledge everything that we had left behind, because until we parted, we were still in that life.

  All too soon, Victor stepped back and gave me a final smile.

  "Be happy, Charlotte," he said, "I will see you soon."

  With those last words, he released my hand that he had been holding and walked away, disappearing into the mayor's office and leaving me locked in tense silence with Mr. Coffey.

  "Where are your belongings?" he said after a few moments.

  "In the wagon," I told him, gesturing to the wagon I had just left.

  "We will ask your brother to bring them to my house after we are married."

  The statement took me aback and I found myself unable to move even as he started walking down the platform. Finally, he turned around to look at me.

  "Is there a problem?" he asked.

  "Married?"

  It was the only word that I could manage and he looked at me through narrowed eyes.

  "That is why you came here, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes," I stammered.

  "I have already made arrangements to have it done now. Are you having second thoughts?"

  I shook my head. It all seemed so incredibly sudden, but I realized as I watched him turn around and start walking again that it was not actually sudden at all. This had been the agreement since I chose to reply to his advertisement. There hadn't needed to be a formal proposal, because it was already assumed that by beginning our correspondence, I was giving him my consent to marry as soon as I arrived in Bannack. There really was no reason to wait.

  Chapter 10

  August, 1863

  Dear Diary,

  I have a new last name.

  That may seem strange to say, but that is really the only way that I have been able to process the events of today. It does not yet seem right to think of myself as married. Of course, I have known plenty of people who have married after only knowing each other for a short time, or who have married because their families planned it when they were just children, but to climb out of a wagon and go from seeing a man for the first time and being his wife ten minutes later seems all too overwhelming.

  I am now sitting at his house, our house I suppose, in the bedroom he set aside for me. I found it very kind of him that he ensured separate sleeping quarters for us. Of course, this is never something that I would have talked to Victor about, but it had been weighing heavily on my mind since we left Philadelphia.

  The home is lovely. Small, but certainly adequate. It is not actually a house so much as an apartment set above his bakery. I am sure that is very convenient for him, but I worry about the heat from the ovens. It will be pleasant in the winter months, but it is so hot right now that I cannot imagine how miserable it will be with the heat from his baking rising up into the living space.

  The apartment consists of one large room that has the kitchen and living area, and then the two bedrooms. He apologized for its simplicity when we arrived, but the words came out in a tone that was almost defensive, as if he were waiting for me to say something critical about the space. Instead, I assured him that it would be very comfortable, while in my mind I was thinking of having to go to the pumps to get water for cooking, washing, and laundry.

  So, that is it, Diary. I am here now. Bannack is my new home and I am, at long last as many back home would probably mutter under their breaths, a married woman. I somehow thought that it would be different, as if marrying would somehow change me, but so far, I feel the same. I miss Victor. He met us after the wedding to congratulate us and said that he will bring my trunks to the apartment tomorrow morning. I look forward to hearing what he plans to do here.

  At least in those moments he looked happy.

  Charlotte

  Chapter 11

  I awoke early my first morning in Bannack expecting to be the first in the household awake as I always was. When I stepped out of my bedroom into the open area of the rest of the apartment, however, I noticed that Joseph, for he had insisted that only his father was ever called Mr. Coffey, was already gone out of his room and that his bed was neatly made.

  The apartment was hot and I could smell the hint of fresh bread, telling me that he was already hard at work down in the bakery. The sun was barely even making the horizon blue and I was still carrying a candle to light my way through the apartment. I could not imagine the darkness and loneliness with which Joseph must start each of his days.

  I rinsed my face and dressed in the flicker of the candle, smoothing my hair into a bun on top of my head just as the sun filled my room with the earliest of rays. I made my way down the narrow back stairs that led into the bakery and found Joseph kneading a massive ball of dough on a worn wooden table illuminated by several oil lamps positioned around the room.

  "Good morning," I said to announce my presence.

  "Good morning," he said, not looking up from his task.

  He spoke in the same gruff, uncomfortable tone as he had the day before and it was as if I could feel the distance he had created between us. It was not that he was overtly unwelcoming or unkind; more that he seemed unaccustomed to talking with anyone, much less a woman who was now his wife.

  "I was planning on doing some cleaning today, and perhaps a bit of sewing."

  "Alright."

  "Is there anything that I can do for you before I leave? I don't know if the stores are open this early."

  I had meant it as a gently chide, but he didn't seem to understand. He simply shook his head and went to work tearing off large sections of the dough and forming them into loaves that he lined up along the back of the table and covered with a cloth to rise. I left him to his work and went back upstairs to get my gloves and my purse. As I was walking out of my bedroom again I saw Joseph come up the stairs and cross to the stove on the far wall. He picked up the coffee pot from the top and filled the large mug in his hand before crossing the room again and going back down the stairs.

  Something about the action upset me, as if he had purposely avoided telling me that he would like another cup of coffee when I asked if there was something I could do for him. Feeling hurt but not entirely understanding why, I left by way of the stairs that led into the alley between the bakery and the butcher to its side, turned onto the wooden platform in front of the buildings along the main street, and took my first steps into a day of living as a wife in Bannack.

  Chapter 12

  September, 1863

  I have been in Bannack for a week now and I feel that I have exchanged no more than ten words with my husband. I know that I did not come here with hopes of falling in love the moment I saw him, but I did hope that we would at least be cordial. I understand that he wanted someone who would take care of his home and help him in the bakery, but so far, I have spent perhaps two hours each day cleaning the apartment, washing dishes, and another hour in the evening mending, and he has not once asked for my assistance in the bakery.

  The time that we are together in the apartment, he says
nothing to me. He has not eaten a single meal that I have prepared, telling me that he is accustomed to eating in the bakery and the restaurant across the street. He goes to sleep sometimes before the sun is even fully out of the sky and I am left alone to sit on the balcony and watch as the life fades from the street below and all goes quiet.

  Could this really be what the Lord intended for me? Could this be the path that I was meant to take? I have heard so much about the Frontier being our Manifest Destiny, and that this is the place where all of us can fulfill the lives that we were created to achieve. Is it really possible that this is my destiny?

  I understand that Joseph is comfortable in his life and used to the way that he has been living it, but if he did not want things to change, if he did not want a companion, why did he advertise for a wife?

  Charlotte

  Chapter 13

  "I just wish that he would talk to me."

  I accepted the cup of coffee that Hannah, the woman who lived and worked at the hotel, placed in front of me and looked up at Emily. She sat across from me, her eyes showing how concerned she was for me.

  "You mean that he spends no time with you?"

  I shook my head.

  "Not really. I have tried to wake up before he does, but I have not been sleeping well and it seems that just as I have fallen asleep, he gets up for his day. When he comes home, he usually goes straight to bed. We do not even eat together. I am not giving up, though," I said, "I am staying strong."

  "I know you are," she said, "You are just as courageous as you were when you were traveling here and Emily told you how brave she thought you are. Even more so. God has a plan for you, Charlotte. He would not have led Victor to come out here, and you to follow, if there wasn't a reason. Sometimes, though, you have to really open yourself to him and let him work through you."