The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition)

by Bittner, Rosanne

  Much as Marybeth disliked New York, she liked even less the idea of going into the “wilderness,” as her father-in-law called it. At least in the cities in the east, there was help—doctors, food, housing. She strived to envision the sheer nothingness Murray “Mac” MacKinder had told them about just that morning. William Stone, a friend Murray had met at the ironworks where both men worked, was the one who had planted the idea in Murray’s head to go west. He was the one who had been as far as a place called St. Louis and had told Marybeth’s father-in-law about the opportunity that lay farther west.

  “California has filled up fast,” the man had told Mac, “what with all the fools who went rushing out there looking for gold. All the attention has been drawn away from Oregon over the last couple of years, and there is still some prime land left there for the pickings, I’m told. After taking what we got from Mexico, and the northwest territory from Great Britain, there can be nothing but good things in store for all the west, Mac. Manifest Destiny, they call it. We Americans are destined to own all the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific. A man would be crazy not to get in on the ground floor.”

  Stone had spoken with a great deal of authority, as he was prone to do. Marybeth doubted he always knew what he was talking about. He liked to sound important, but Marybeth suspected he had no idea what really lay out west and was just in it for the adventure, as a lot of men probably were. But now, with her husband dead, Mac needed to get away from things that reminded him of his oldest son.

  “You’re a farmer at heart, Mac, you’ve told me that,” Stone had badgered. “You hate the stink and dirt of the city, and now that your son is dead, what’s the use? To stay here means an early death, like Daniel, and continued ridicule from the Protestant bastards who are always insulting you. Religion makes no difference to me, mind you, and out in Oregon the air is clean and a man can own all the land he wants; and people are too busy getting settled and surviving to care about your religion.”

  Marybeth’s eyes misted at the reference to Dan’s early death. Her husband had died in a horrible accident at the ironworks, burned to death when he fell into a vat of hot metal. That had been just a little over three months ago, in December of 1850; baby Danny was only two months old at the time.

  Marybeth felt sorry for the way her husband had died, but she could not help the relief she secretly felt at realizing the man could no longer abuse her. She could only pray God would forgive her for marrying a man she didn’t love in the beginning, and learned to hate over the four and a half years they were married.

  The MacKinder family had owned the land on which Marybeth’s family worked, and Dan MacKinder and his brother John both had an eye for Marybeth from the time she was twelve years old. Both young men had frightened Marybeth with their big, brawny size and loud voices. They were blustery, bragging, drinking men who believed every woman had her place and that every woman they met desired them.

  If it were not for the sudden death of Marybeth’s father from a heart attack, Marybeth reasoned she would never have married Dan. But she and her mother had been left penniless and dependent, unable to pay the rent on their cottage and unable to put out enough work on the MacKinder farm to pay their way. It was then Dan had taken advantage of the situation, speaking words of love Marybeth had allowed herself to believe, telling her that if she married him, she would be a part of the family and her mother would be taken care of. It was for that reason alone Marybeth, only fifteen years old at the time, had married Dan in the spring of 1846, choosing Dan over John simply because he was at least slightly less frightening than his younger brother. She had convinced herself that for survival she could tolerate Dan MacKinder, and perhaps after a while she would learn to love him.

  A lump rose in her throat as she watched a gentle rain begin to fall. It had rained nearly every day for the past two weeks, a cold rain that made one’s joints ache. Now Marybeth wondered what it might be like to truly love a man. She had quickly learned it was impossible to love one like Dan MacKinder. He had wasted no time in taking advantage of his husbandly rights on their wedding night, and Marybeth had never since given herself to him openly and joyfully, had never felt loved nor known a moment’s peace with the man. The only good thing that had come of their marriage was little baby Danny, all she had left now, her most precious possession.

  How she wished her mother could see the baby. But her mother had been buried before they left Ireland, a victim of the horrible potato famine that had killed so many thousands. The MacKinders had lost everything, and had used what little money they had left to come to America, landing in New York, the men taking jobs right away at the ironworks to build up a savings.

  Life had been hard here, the pay at the ironworks minimal. The MacKinders had lived in near poverty, a startling contrast to the comfortable life they had once lived in Ireland. The worst part had been the ridicule and mud-slinging they had all suffered at the hands of prejudiced Protestants. Marybeth could not help wondering that if Mac and her brother-in-law, John, were more civil toward people themselves, perhaps they would have been better accepted. Their threatening size and bragging personalities only seemed to aggravate the situation.

  The move to America had ultimately cost Dan MacKinder his life, and losing a son had brought bitter disillusionment to Murray MacKinder, making him even more belligerent. He was a farmer at heart. When Bill Stone began talking about Oregon and the wonderful climate and soil he had heard that land boasted, Mac decided that Oregon was the place to settle.

  They would leave New York soon. Bill Stone would accompany them, since he “knew the way” to St. Louis. At St. Louis they would take a riverboat across a place called Missouri and at a place called Independence they planned to join a wagon train headed west. According to Stone, hundreds, perhaps thousands, would go west again this year. Marybeth wondered if some day there would be no one left in the east. In 1849, just two years after they arrived in New York, the ironworks had lost over half its employees because so many had run off to California to find gold. There had been a steady migration west ever since, but to Marybeth “the west” sounded like some mythical place that didn’t really exist, a place where people went, only to disappear forever, and a place that would put her even farther away from her beloved Ireland, which she knew with an aching heart she would never see again.

  Little Danny started to cry, interrupting Marybeth’s thoughts. She walked over to her son and picked him up from the cradle, walking with him and patting his bottom. Her feelings over his father’s death were mixed. She was sorry little Danny did not have a father, yet she would not have wanted her son to grow up with Dan MacKinder as a role model. Dan had been a loud, demanding, impatient man, who would have been a harsh father, and would have raised little Danny to be just like him, just as Mac had done with his sons. Marybeth wanted her son to be strong and brave and sure, but she wanted him to have compassion; to be quietly strong, not a braggart; to smile and know joy.

  “Have you finished packing yet?”

  Marybeth turned to see her mother-in-law, Ella MacKinder, standing in the doorway. She wished Ella could be like her own mother, who Marybeth missed more deeply every day. Ella’s own marriage to Murray MacKinder had been arranged, and Marybeth wondered at how unhappy the woman had to be deep inside. It was that unhappiness that made it easier for Marybeth to forgive the woman’s cool, stern attitude.

  “Not yet,” Marybeth answered the woman, cradling Danny in her arms. “Danny started fussing.”

  Ella marched into the room, her red hair graying, her lips seeming to be set permanently in a hard frown. Marybeth noticed two distinct wrinkles embedded above the woman’s nose from always knitting her eyebrows together in displeasure and quiet acceptance of her fate.

  “It won’t hurt to let the boy cry once in a while,” Ella said aloud to Marybeth. “He’s five months old and knows how to get your attention. You’re spoiling him. You know we need to finish packing. In two days we’ll be in a house on
wheels headed into God knows what. I’m sorry you have to trudge into the wilderness with us, Marybeth, but you certainly can’t stay here, and little Danny belongs with us.” The woman was folding blankets as she spoke. She faced Marybeth then. “You certainly can’t be going out to try to find work with a baby to care for. We’re taking good care of you and Danny, aren’t we?”

  Marybeth met the woman’s icy blue eyes. “I never said anything about going out to find work or not going with you, Ella. You and Mac have continued to give me and Danny shelter. I’m very grateful.”

  The woman sniffed, opening a dresser drawer and sorting out some clothes. “I should hope so. When we came over here, we never dreamed something would happen to Dan and we’d be left with a daughter-in-law and grandchild to support, let alone the filth of this city and the meager wages poor Mac and John bring home.”

  Marybeth’s heart fell at the words. Ella MacKinder always had a talent for making her feel in the way, a bother and a burden, and it angered her. “You just said yourself I don’t have much choice for now,” she answered, laying Danny back in the cradle. “But as soon as I can find a way to be out from under your feet, you can be sure I will take advantage of it.” She reasoned that the “meager” wages would go a lot farther if Mac and John didn’t drink half of them away in the saloons on payday.

  Ella felt a sudden fear at Marybeth’s words, wondering why she always managed to say something cutting to Marybeth when she didn’t really mean to. She wondered just when the bitterness had taken such a firm hold in her soul. She turned to look at her daughter-in-law.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said, an unfamiliar pleading in her voice. “I…enjoy having Danny with us. He’s all that’s left of my son.”

  “But look how your son turned out,” Marybeth wanted to shout at her. “I don’t want my baby to be like him. I don’t want him to grow up under the influence of Mac and John.”

  “I understand,” Marybeth said aloud. There was no sense in telling the woman she did indeed intend to fend for herself some day. Somehow she would find a way. She was free of Dan now—free of his demanding rules, free from being his household and sexual slave, free from his shouting, free of his big fists. Her father-in-law and John were no different, but she didn’t belong to them and they couldn’t touch her. She was well aware that she had to get away from this family somehow, some day. She simply had to find the right time, and she had to be able to take care of herself and Danny when it happened.

  She heard John come into the apartment then, yelling for supper.

  “It will be ready in a bit,” Ella called to her only remaining son.

  The sound of John’s voice made Marybeth’s heart tighten with dread. John MacKinder had become her most pressing reason for being free of the MacKinder family. John was twenty-eight, and like Dan, he was a big man, standing six feet four inches, big-boned and hard-muscled, with very dark hair and eyes. At first glance most women would think him extremely handsome, just as Dan had been; but Marybeth had quickly learned to think of Dan as almost ugly because of his temper and egotistical manly pride. She felt the same way about John.

  Since Dan’s death, John had been watching her, declaring that because she had been his brother’s wife, it was his responsibility to look out for her now. Marybeth didn’t want him looking out for her. She knew what he really wanted. Now that Dan was dead, John had been giving sly hints that because of baby Danny Marybeth had a responsibility to stay in the family. Marybeth knew exactly what he meant. He wanted to take Dan’s place. She knew that both Ella and Mac would whole-heartedly approve of such an arrangement and would encourage John, who would not be an easy man to deal with or to turn away.

  Her only saving grace for the time being was that Dan had been dead only three months. It was far too soon for any man, even her husband’s own brother, to make advances. Whenever John MacKinder even hinted at such a thing, Marybeth always reminded him to remember his brother was still practically fresh in his grave.

  “Aren’t you afraid to go to Oregon?” Marybeth asked her mother-in-law.

  Ella shrugged. “There are a lot of things I’ve been afraid to do, but I did them anyway because it was expected of me. That’s the way it is for a woman. She remembers her place and does what’s expected. You remember that. I’ve seen a haughty streak in you sometimes, Marybeth MacKinder, a look of independence. That isn’t good in a woman. It’s sinful and unbecoming.”

  The woman held out an empty carpetbag. “You’re a MacKinder, Marybeth, and where the MacKinder men go, their women follow. I’m not afraid because Mac and John will take care of us, and Bill Stone knows what he’s about. Mac says once we get to Oregon, we’ll have the biggest farm west of the Mississippi River, wherever that is. Knowing my husband, he can probably do it. And you’ll be a part of it. It will take a lot of hard work, but we can make it. Now fill this bag with clothes—practical ones. There will be no room for fancy things. We’ve got to sort out the least important items. Bill Stone says we’ve got to keep the wagons light, especially when we cross the mountains.”

  Marybeth did not argue the issue. Trying to reason with Ella MacKinder, or to carry on a decent conversation with her, was like talking to a stone. Her way was the MacKinder way and there was no room for discussing anything different. She took the bag from the woman and set it on her bed.

  Ella watched Marybeth with irritation, both at herself and at her daughter-in-law. Ella was a short, stout, big-busted woman, who wished she could bring herself to be more open to Marybeth, but who often found herself resenting the younger woman’s delicate beauty. Ella remembered a time when she was slender, when her hair was a shining red like Marybeth’s, her figure trim, her blue eyes carrying a sparkle like Marybeth’s green ones did.

  Ella’s resentment of her faded beauty had grown worse when she lost her son. She felt only anger toward her husband for convincing his sons and the rest of the family to come to America, where Dan had died. But her hidden anger toward her husband had begun many years before her son’s death, almost from the moment they were married. She had never known a day’s kindness, and she wondered where all the gentle, loving feelings she once possessed had gone.

  Most of all Ella resented Marybeth for missing the same fate of an unhappy marriage. Dan’s death had ended what Ella suspected was a loveless marriage. Marybeth was free now, and that both irritated and frightened Ella. Her own unhappiness had been eased somewhat by knowing her daughter-in-law suffered the same marital problems as she. But now Marybeth was shed of that unhappiness. Ella’s biggest fear was that she could lose her grandson, the only sweet, happy being in the entire MacKinder family. If Marybeth found another man, she would take little Danny away.

  The MacKinders were determined Marybeth should go to Oregon with them and stay within the MacKinder family. After all, she was Dan’s wife, and her baby was a MacKinder. Ella worked hard at making sure Marybeth remembered that, since Marybeth had always had an air of independence about her, something that had irritated Dan and had brought her beatings she could have avoided.

  Now that she was free of Dan, Ella was going to make sure Marybeth didn’t get any ideas about leaving the family. She saw that Marybeth suffered proper feelings of obligation. Without the MacKinder family, Marybeth would be lost in this new land. After all, what was there here in New York for an Irish Catholic widow woman with a small baby? Marybeth’s world had been this small apartment and this street and just a few streets beyond. She had not worked outside the home since arriving in America, and she and Dan had lived with the family ever since they married five years ago. They were points Ella harped on nearly every day.

  The best insurance that Marybeth would stay with them was if the young woman would marry Danny’s brother John, who the whole family, including Marybeth, knew had wanted to marry her clear back when Danny won the honors. John had remained angry for a long time after the marriage, not even speaking to his brother that first year.

 
“Do you think the mountains are like the ones in Ireland,” Marybeth was asking.

  “Much bigger, Bill says. Of course he hasn’t even seen them himself. He’s just going on what others have told him. I’m inclined to believe the man likes to exaggerate. But we’ll see. We’ll see.”

  Marybeth closed her eyes against the thought of the journey: wild Indians, disease, gigantic mountains to cross, mountains so high, that sometimes the snow never melted at their tops. She took some petticoats and underwear from her drawer and put them into the carpetbag, wondering how she was going to separate fancy from practical when she didn’t own anything fancy in the first place.

  “I just hope Danny doesn’t get sick out there,” she said to Ella. “There are no doctors like here in New York.”

  “There’s no sense questioning or complaining,” came the reply. “It’s been decided and that’s that. Danny is a healthy baby and you’re a healthy mother. You’ll both be just fine. When you’re old and full of pains like I am, you’ll have something to complain about, but even then you’ll keep it to yourself because that’s the proper way.”

  “Is it really?” Marybeth wanted to ask. “Or is that just Murray MacKinder talking? Did you ever used to smile, Ella? Did you ever want to sing, long for some genuine affection? Have you ever known a day of tenderness from Murray MacKinder?”

  “I wasn’t complaining,” she told Ella aloud. “I was stating a simple fact. But I will say that I won’t miss this city and its filthy air. Maybe at least when we get away from here the air will smell clean and sweet like Ireland. Do you ever miss it, Ella?”

  The woman stopped her packing and straightened, staring at a wall. “Of course I miss it,” she answered. “But we had to come here to survive. Lord knows we didn’t know it would be this miserable. Maybe things will be better in Oregon.” She cleared her throat, and Marybeth detected the woman was suddenly struggling not to cry. “I only wish Dan could have lived to go with us. We should have gone as soon as we got here.” She sighed deeply. “They say Oregon is a lot like Ireland—lots of rolling, green hills. Do you suppose they’re right, Marybeth?”