Out of Innocence

by Adelaide McLeod

  The sun moved all the way across the vast open sky, before the fishing expedition was over and Belle and Harlow headed back down the trail.

  After that, the Pruetts went fishing often, sometimes without leaving home.

  Belle hitched Baldy to the hack and with little T.J. cuddled in the bureau drawer beside her, she headed for Gardena, about two miles down-river as the crow flies, but much farther on the dirt trail through the gullies. She had written a letter to her family in Scotland and was anxious to send it on its way. She also wanted to post her mail order to Montgomery Ward. She was sending for a bathing suit she’d seen in a catalog. Harlow had promised to take her to a hot water plunge. It was August 23, 1915, and she’d been in America a year, now. The crisp chill of morning felt good after the summer heat.

  A cloudless sky reflected in the Payette. “If my father were here, T.J., he would probably say, the Payette is the color of your eyes, Belle, the same color as the summer waters in Loch Katrine where ye were conceived. Loch Katrine,” she continued, “is the loch where Sir Walter Scott wrote his splendid poem 'The Lady of the Lake.' Some day you must visit Scotland.” She talked to Tommy a lot these days, even read Kipling’s “If’ to him. This boy would have a good education. Maybe someday, Angus Mackay’s dream of teaching at St. Andrews would come true and T. J. could study under him.

  But that was too far away: halfway around the world, almost as far away as you could go and still be on the planet. Belle thought of the day she and her brother Tommy had set out for America. How hard that must have been on her father to see them go. She was looking through new eyes, now that she had a child of her own.

  The movement of the hack rocked her little one to sleep. He looked more like her brother Tommy, every day. She’d vowed never to let Du Cartier enter her mind again; she almost hadn’t. The iron wheels hammering the rocky terrain woke the baby with a start. Belle took him in her arms and comforted him as she tied Baldy to the hitching post in front of Darnelle’s General Store.

  While Edna Darnelle posted Belle’s letter to Meg, she smiled and held up an envelope. “Good news, Belle. Here’s a letter for you from Scotland."

  “How strange that our letters should cross in the mail,” Belle thought as she discovered it was from Meg. “It is almost like our spirits are touching.” She closed her eyes and kissed the letter to sweeten the news inside before she opened it.

  My dearest Bonnie Belle, I am eager to share my good fortune with you. It is difficult to be twenty, nearing spinsterhood and not a prospect in sight. The work at Abernathy’s will soon come to an end as Mr. A. passed away and Mrs. A. is selling the home and moving to Dundee to live with her daughter and grandchildren.

  Belle, a wondrous thing has happened. A Mr. Alex McDonald of Butte, Montana, U. S. of A. advertised in the Scotsman newspaper for a wife. I have posted a response telling him of my interest and have sent him my photograph. Mr. McDonald is from the Isle of Skye and Father knows a man in Aberfeldy who knows a man in Oban who is a friend of the McDonald family in Skye and a fine family it is. There are no steamships going to America because of the war. They stopped shortly after you left, so I must wait indefinitely. Pray that the war ends soon for when it does, I am seriously considering going to Mr. Alex McDonald. In your wildest fantasies did you ever think that your sister Meg might become a mail order bride?

  I am sending you a book of Rabbie Burns’ poems. I know how you love them.

  Little sister, I may see you one sweet day, bye and bye, after all. The girls are fine and Ian and Norman are still on the front line in France, unscathed.

  By this writing, I feel sure that your baby has been born. I pray daily that all has gone well. You must write to Father as soon as you can. I can't keep your secret much longer.

  Your favorite sister,

  Meg

  Belle’s excitement for her sister was tempered with concern. To be a bride of someone she’d never met was no easy thing to think about. But the thought of seeing Meg again flooded her heart with joy.

  The top of the cottonwoods blew silvery white in the wind. On the ride back to the ranch, Belle had a lot to think about. How could she write to her father with this news? Would he be as quick to judge like Angus Doig had been? Of course not. What would she tell him? The truth. As she rounded the bend, Belle saw Cal Riemers waving to her.

  He had kept his distance since the incident in the milking shed. Why did he want her to stop? She pulled up on Baldy and braced herself for what he’d say.

  “There’s a young fella looking for you, Belle. He came this way about ten minutes ago and is headed for your ranch. His name is Ben . . . something . . . said he’s a drover and a friend of yours.”

  Belle couldn’t believe it. Ben? Here? Oh, why did it have to be Cal that he talked to? There would be more gossip now.

  “Then I’d best be getting on. Thanks for letting me know.” Belle tried hard to be civil and nonchalant.

  How could Ben know where she was, and why had he come all this way?

  She wondered how it would be to see him. She’d never considered that he might come looking for her. Flo had likely told him where she’d gone, though Flo had promised not to. What would she say to him? Why was he doing this to her? Mixed emotions scrambled her mind.

  As Belle drove into the ranch, Ben was standing there: Ben, the handsome cowboy who wanted to marry her. He was tan and more handsome than she remembered and he was still wearing that Stetson. Belle took a deep breath. “Ben, what are you doing here?” As she got down out of the hack, he took her in his arms, and kissed her. It felt so right. “Ben, oh, Ben, I’m so happy to see you,” she whispered.

  “I’ve come to get you, Belle. I hounded Flo until she finally told me where you went. Why didn’t you wait for me? It’s so good to be back together. I want you to trust me, my darling, when things go wrong.”

  Where could Belle start? How could she tell him without breaking his heart? Gently pushing away from him, she stood looking at him until bitter tears came to her eyes.

  “What is it, Belle?”

  “Ben, dear, dear Ben. I’m married.”

  “Belle.” He looked at her with his beautiful blue eyes that told her he loved her with a love greater than the world, the galaxy, the universe and she had broken his heart. She wanted to make him understand why she had married Harlow, but she wasn’t sure herself. So much had happened in a few short months. Belle tried and Ben listened, but it was as though the fire in his eyes had gone out and he wasn’t with her anymore but gone to a distant place where she couldn’t reach him.

  “It was a difficult time. I was so confused. You’ve got to understand what I was up against,” she said.

  “If you’d only waited for me, I could have helped you through it.”

  “It wasn’t your problem. Don’t you see?”

  “But I love you; you know that. I’d do anything in the world for you no matter what. I’ll love you until the day I die. Tell me . . . are you happy, Belle?”

  She was married to Harlow and beholden to him. Nothing could change that. “Yes, Ben, I’m happy,” she said wondering if it were really the truth. She was in Ben's arms again, patting him on the shoulder as she tried to comfort him.

  “Then, there’s nothing left to say.” He pushed her away, took a long look at her and before she had time to think, he mounted his horse and rode away.

  With tears streaming down her cheeks, holding little T.J. close to her bosom, Belle watched Ben ride off, taking with him the dream, that beautiful dream, they’d spun together, leaving her standing there--undone.

  On a sultry afternoon in September, resolved to get Ben out of her mind, Belle donned the new wool bathing suit with its sleeves to the elbow, its bloomers to the knee. She undressed her baby boy and took him out to the creek to cool off. Tommy splashed about while Belle sat in the creek and held him. After he’d had a good swim, she soaped him up, dribbled water from a tin cup to rinse his hair, and wrapped him in a towel. He entertaine
d himself cooing at the cottonwood leaves overhead while Belle read from Burns’s Poetical Works, the peacock-blue book etched in gold that Meg had sent her from Scotland.

  The train whistled down by the river as Belle’s thoughts drifted on the breeze of the lazy afternoon. She belonged here with Harlow--they had a good life together. She didn’t want to leave him or the ranch but then she hated to think she’d never see Ben again. Why was she so mixed-up? She loved both men, yet in her heart she knew she wasn’t “in love” with either of them. Was such a romantic idea just a poetic myth?

  “Belle, where are you?” Colleen called from the porch.

  “Round back, Colleen.” Belle yelled.

  “Well, you two look cool and comfortable. It’s a scorcher.” Colleen sighed wearily as she fanned herself with her straw hat. “I’m parched.”

  “I’ll get you some lemonade,” Belle said, as she jumped to her feet and went into the house.

  “Wonderful. I’m taking off my shoes and stockings and I’m going to wade in the creek. I can’t resist it,” Colleen hollered after her.

  Belle returned with a tray of lemonade and cookies and handed a glass to Colleen and took a sip of her own.

  “I’ve been sitting here wondering about something. What do you think--do people really fall in love?”

  “Of course they do.” Colleen was making swirls in the water with her toes. “I fell madly in love with half a dozen men before Harold came along.”

  "And you fell in love with him?”

  “Oh yes. It was savage animal magnetism at its fiercest.”

  “Colleen.” Belle gasped. Her image of being in love was more ethereal than that.

  “Well, there’s no better way to describe it. Why are you asking anyway? You’re in love with Harlow, aren’t you?”

  “I love Harlow. And I loved another. But there are no sparks, never were. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love.”

  “Oh, dear. Well, don’t worry your head about it. The fireworks don’t last long anyway. At least mine didn’t. Not to say I don’t love Harold most of the time but we’re not sizzling like sausage on a hot skillet much anymore . . . if you get my drift.”

  The more Colleen talked, the more convinced Belle was that she had really missed something.

  Chapter Ten

  Before the summer was over, Belle sharpened her shooting skills with Harlow’s Winchester. The rabbits in her garden, and the fox and weasel that invaded the henhouse were her targets. Nothing was wasted. Rabbit stew became her specialty and the cured soft furry pelts made a bunting for little Tommy.

  One September night, squawking from the chicken coop awakened the Pruett’s. Harlow bolted out of bed, grabbed his rifle, and ran out the front door ready to shoot the intruding varmint. In his haste, he hadn’t tied the drawstring on his pajama bottoms. He stood in the moonlight taking a bead on an escaping weasel. He shot. His pants fell around his ankles. He pulled them up. Shot. They fell. He pulled them up and shot again. They were up, they were down but Harlow got the weasel while Belle got hysterical watching his gyrations from the porch.

  The mine on Shafer Creek became lucrative. Harlow stashed some twenty-dollar gold pieces in a coffee can under a loose floor board in the bedroom--he didn’t trust the bank.

  As the cottonwoods turned amber, Belle saddled Horse and took T. J. to a grassy spot down by the river where she raced down a game trail while T.J. slept on a blanket. The faster she could get Horse to run, the better she liked it. The hills, peeled of their green, were laced with goldenrod and pucker brush turned flame.

  Clouds, dark, full and swollen, ready to give birth to snow, hung over the ranch as Belle dug the last of the potatoes, carrots, and turnips and carried full baskets to the root cellar. It was a quiet moment in early morning light. Fall reflected off the river--the yellowing leaves of the cottonwoods turned the Payette golden. A bald eagle balanced above the water, with its kite-like wings spread wide, hunting for fish in the river or small rodents in the wild dry grasses. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never tire of the abrupt mountains, the shelf that held the grove of locust trees sheltering the ranch house, the Payette. It was home in every sense of the word. Her spirit danced within her.

  Harlow had told her that there’d be times that they might be snowbound and it was up to her to check all of the provisions. She made a list of things Harlow would pick up in Horseshoe Bend. She decided not to take the baby that far from home in uncertain weather.

  A letter came from Flo; she wanted to come for a visit. When Belle approached Harlow about it, he was willing.

  “How long will she stay?” he asked.

  “The winter maybe. It sounds like she’s at loose ends and is trying to figure out what to do. Would that be all right?”

  “It’s another mouth to feed, but we can afford it.”

  She dragged a kitchen chair out to the garden, and tied T.J. in it with a dishtowel so she could talk to him while she worked.

  The scent on the wind sent the bears into hibernation, made the last Canadian honkers fly south, and Belle scrounged for the few remaining roots in the black earth. She had spent hours over the Majestic, canning and making preserves, trying to capture summer in a jar. She borrowed books for winter from Amy Little, the school teacher in Horseshoe Bend, who had a fine library. Belle cherished the moments she had time to read.

  As she stood at the back door, a doe timidly came to the creek for water. The sound of Harlow’s saw, cutting the fire wood for the stove, sliced through the silence. She would have Harlow’s baby come early summer.

  Harlow said she could go down to the Davis ranch and purchase a turkey for Thanksgiving and Belle was delighted with the indulgence of such extravagant living when they had chicken they could kill at home.

  The turkeys were all about the same size but she had insisted on the lightest one because she was paying for it by the pound and she could fatten it up in plenty of time for the holiday. They butchered a calf because Harlow was partial to veal. For Belle, it was a luxury unheard of. In Scotland, they let the critters grow to full size before they slaughtered them. But without a large family, it would see them through the winter.

  Belle wrote the overdue letter to her father. In gentle, discreet yet honest terms, she told him about Du Cartier. She wrote of Harlow, the kind and gentle man she had married and about the baby and how despite everything, she loved being a mother. The little laddie was definitely a Mackay. He was strong, bright-eyed, responsive and growing like a weed. He would live the life in America that her brother Tommy had dreamed of. She and Harlow were expecting a baby of their own.

  “It’s a bonnie place, Father, virgin land. Different, yet so like Scotland. In all its splendor, it is not a place for the fainthearted. I am content here.”

  And then she wrote to Flo, inviting her to come to Idaho.

  As winter winds rolled up the canyon, Belle blew her breath into her chapped hands and hopped about trying to keep warm as she hung her wash on the clothesline, wash she feared would freeze before it dried.

  “Harlow! There’s something strange going on out yonder,” Belle shouted. “It looks like the stagecoach being pulled by some runaway horses. They’re not on the road; they’re coming across the field and heading this way.”

  “Couldn’t be the stagecoach, Belle,” Harlow said as he came running out of the house half-dressed, his suspenders off his shoulders, his face lathered and his straight-edged razor in his hand. “You’re seeing things. Couldn’t be the stage--it never comes up this far. Well, I’ll be hornswoggled, it is the stagecoach.”

  The horses bolted sideways, moving in opposite directions although they were harnessed together. In a dead run, they were off the road, flying through the rocks, wildly tearing at their trappings, each horse trying to go in its own direction, skittering toward the ranch, throwing snow and dirt in a hard run. Their reins flew, their eyes went wild, their heads cocked back snorting their freedom, dragging the coach as it leaned, went airbo
rne, tipped, slid sideways, bounced from one rut to the next.

  The team stormed full bore into the Pruett ranch. If it hadn’t been for the big wooden gate at the end of the barnyard that stopped them, they might have gone right over the bank and into the Payette River far below. The horses trembled, whinnied and wheezed, frothing with sweat. Still hanging on behind them, the coach, by some miracle, was in one piece. A twig of rabbit brush, root and all, was tied to the leather strapping.

  Harlow and Belle ran from the house down to the barnyard. Everything was quiet now. It looked as if the coach were empty. Harlow steadied the team. Then as he put his hand on the stagecoach door, the handle moved and Zeth Covington, half-dressed, opened it a crack. Peeking out, Zeth was eyeball to eyeball with the Pruetts and there was Flo, right next to him, her fancy hairdo looking frazzled beyond repair.