by Natalie Dean
Once her feet lighted on the ground, Bess could smell the fresh air. It was different than New York. Less stuffy.
Suddenly, she noticed a man to the left waving at her. Bess was grateful she had taken the time to describe herself so carefully, right down to the dress she was going to wear when she arrived. Pushing her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of the man.
“Mr. Miller?” she asked, and he nodded as he beamed down at her.
“Yes, but please, call me Will,” he said extending his hand. To her surprise, he didn’t shake her hand, but rather lifted her fingers to his lips and gave them a light kiss. A shy smile flashed across her face, and she felt her cheeks flush red.
“Bess Brown, but of course Bess is just fine,” she said timidly.
“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Brown,” Will said, and Bess bit her tongue. She had nearly corrected him, but she reminded herself she hadn’t told him she was a widow.
“I’m sure you’re tired, but the preacher is only going to be in town for another two days – I thought we could get the formality over with tonight, then you can take your time getting settled in?” he half -asked as he looked at her. Bess paused for a moment, then realizing he was asking her to get married right then, she stumbled over her words.
“Oh, yes – of course, I suppose that would be the best way to go about things.” Bess smiled, but there was another one of those familiar pangs in her heart. Less than two weeks prior, she had been married to another man. This was all happening so fast.
A broad smile spread across Will’s face, and he took her carpetbag, then offered her his other arm.
“Don’t worry, though my house – our house – is cozy, I’ve got the bedroom set up for you to settle in with privacy. I’ll sleep in the living room until you are fully comfortable, and please, take as much time as you need.” He went on to explain how his house was decorated, but really needed a woman’s touch, as he had been a bachelor his entire life.
“I have some family, my father died when I was just a lad, but my mother remarried a man who had a son that was close to my age. My parents still live in Georgia, but my brother and I both moved. He went north to New York and well, I came West.’
“Gold is what brought me out here initially, but I fell in love with the land. I guess you could say that there’s more kinds of gold out there than just the yellow rock,” he winked at her, and Bess nodded, though she was finding it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying.
Instead, she was doing her best to look him over without him realizing that she was. He was indeed tall, though she didn’t think he was quite so tall as Jacob. He was leanly built, if not a bit muscular. It was evident from the moment she saw him that he spent a lot of time out in the weather. His hair was brown, his eyes were an even darker brown, and he had a short beard.
She could see kindness in his face, and his smile was enough to make her heart skip a beat in spite of her grief. Suddenly, Bess realized that he had asked her a question.
“Yes, my parents passed when I was very young. I don’t have any siblings or anything – just me, really. It’s been rather a lonely life for me up until now, I’ve always spent most of my time on my own.” Bess didn’t think what she had said was a complete lie, as she had spent most of her marriage wondering where Jacob was and what he was doing. There was no need to mention him.
He wasn’t part of this situation.
Will suddenly stopped, and Bess looked around in confusion, wondering why they were stopping at this old building.
“I know it’s not much, but we use what we can,” he said with a chuckle, and Bess suddenly realized they were in front of a small church. Bess thought it looked more like a shanty than a church, but she didn’t complain.
“He’s expecting us – I told him you were coming, and if you were willing to get the ceremony over with immediately, we would stop in,” Will explained as he held the door open for her. Bess once again nodded, though she couldn’t think of anything to say.
She was about to get married for the second time.
Chapter 7 – An Honest Living
Bess had to be honest. She had no idea what to expect. When she had married Jacob, there was quite a few people at their wedding. She had known enough people from the orphanage to invite, and he had an extensive list of connections. She remembered the day well – she had worn her Sunday best and felt like a queen.
But now, the only people in the room besides herself and William were the pastor and his wife. They were both old and also very kind, and though Bess was nervous, she did feel comfortable with the decision she had made.
“Just stand over here, Dear,” the old woman said as she pulled Bess in front of her husband. She turned Bess to face Will, then she brought their hands together. With a kind smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder, she then stepped aside and clasped her hands in front of her.
Bess did her best to pay attention to what the preacher was saying, but she felt almost as though she was watching herself recite the vows. They were very much the same vows she had said to Jacob, but when she had repeated the vows to him, she had meant every word. She now felt that she was merely going along with the situation. There was no feeling, no passion.
Then, all at once, it was done. She signed the marriage license where she was told to sign, and she was suddenly Mrs. Miller. Bess felt numb as she walked out of the tiny church next to her new husband, but she assured him she was alright when he asked how she was feeling.
“Just tired. It has been a very long day,” she said with a sigh. He agreed and helped her get into the wagon. They rode to his little farmhouse in silence, but Bess’s thoughts were running through her mind a hundred miles an hour.
Bess was surprised at how quickly she was able to settle into her new life. William had been correct when he said the house was cozy – she thought their house in New York City had been small, but this was even smaller still. However, he had done his best to make the bedroom as comfortable as possible for her, and she appreciated the vase of flowers he had picked and placed on the window sill.
Bess was used to spending her days primarily alone, and it was going to be an adjustment having Will there most of the time. Though it was true that he spent much of his time out in the fields or in the barn tending to the animals and the land, he was still in the house for every meal and at night.
Bess was pleased that she had taught herself to be as good of a cook as she was. She could tell from the first time she made them breakfast that he was impressed with her skills – which she credited to the years she spent as a waitress in New York.
“They did you a service, to be sure,” Will said with a large bite of pancakes in his mouth.
The days passed quickly, and soon became weeks and eventually a couple of months had passed. Bess thought the time passed quickly on the prairie, and she felt it was because she spent much more of her time actively doing things rather than sitting by the window and wondering where her husband was or what he was doing.
Every day Bess made an effort to be up and have breakfast on the table before the sun was up. Though the kitchen was close to the living room, Will assured her that she did not bother him when she was up before he was. If there was one thing she admired about this man, it was his great respect for her. Never once did she feel uncomfortable or awkward around him, and she knew that anything she asked of him, he would do for her in a heartbeat.
Companionship quickly grew between them, and before even the first month had passed, Bess thought of Will as her dear friend. She looked forward to the time they spent together, and she missed him when he was out in the fields all day. Yet, she was still careful to conceal as much of her past as she possibly could, and she took note that he didn’t speak much of his family, either. Before long, it felt that the two of them were locked in their own little world, untouchable by anyone.
The sun came up, and the sun went down, and Bess felt she was safe out on the prairie. There was no one who could
find her out here, and no one who could hurt her. No one knew who she was, where she came from, or the dark secret of her past. She felt free to forget about it all. To pretend like none of those terrible things ever happened to her.
But, even with the great respect she could feel from William, and with the blossoming love she could feel toward him, there was something about him that she didn’t trust. Bess didn’t know what it was, or why she felt the way she did, but when he said he was going into town to get supplies, she had to fight the urge to accompany him. Yes, it was true that he would come home with the very supplies he had said he was going to go get, and he was always home within a couple of hours of going into town. But no matter how hard she tried, or how much she fought her feelings, she couldn’t fully place her trust in him.
Her distrust would keep her up at night, and there had even been times when she crept to the door of her room and peered through the crack, ensuring he was still sleeping in the living room as he assured her he was going to.
She had been told before that her husband was living an honest life. She had been told that the money they had came from sales he made and that he was selling products that were genuinely useful to people. She had believed all these things when Jacob had told them to her, and she had known that man for years. Finding out that he had been lying to her made her question anything anyone told her.
After all, how did she know Will wasn’t part of some illegal operation himself? How did she know the money he brought home was from the wheat he sold, and that he hadn’t instead robbed some poor miner of the gold he had worked so hard for? How did she know he was really going into town when he said that he was?
Though Bess desperately wanted to believe him, and though she spent hours telling herself that there was no other possible explanation for what her husband was doing, she still struggled.
After all, was there even such a thing as making a good, honest living?
Chapter 8 – Dark Secrets
“I’m going to be a little longer in town than usual, I’ve got a meeting with someone who might want to buy Scout,” Will said at breakfast one morning. Scout was a three-year-old stallion Will had raised from a colt, and he was worth a lot of money. With the summer months beginning to wane, Will was thinking ahead toward winter, and he wanted to get the supplies they needed as soon as possible.
At his words, Bess felt a twinge of mistrust fill her heart. She didn’t want to feel this way towards Will, but whenever Jacob told her that he was going to be longer than usual, she knew that meant he could be gone for days.
“Can I come?” she blurted out suddenly. Will looked at her in surprise.
“I don’t think you would really enjoy it. Business talk can take a couple of hours, especially since I want to get the most for him that I can,” Will explained, looking at her with a curious look on his face as he did so. The feeling of mistrust grew.
“I’d really like to go, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten out of the house, and it can get a little stuffy in here,” she looked around the room and fanned herself with her hand as she did so. William continued to look at her with the same odd look on his face.
“Another time, Darling, I really do want to give this my full attention, and I won’t be able to do that if I am worried that you aren’t having a good time.” He smiled as he reached over and rubbed her hand, but Bess felt the distrust in her heart quickly turning to anger. She forced a smile after a moment of silence, then gave a curt nod.
“As you wish,” she said, a little too sweetly.
Will gave her another curious look, but let the subject drop. They both finished their meal in silence, and after breakfast, Bess stood watching as William saddled one of the team and placed a halter around Scout’s face. She bent her elbows and hung her hands around the back of her neck, both hating the distrust she was feeling in her heart as well as blaming Will for being the one to put it there.
The morning passed slowly, and with each passing hour, Bess dreamt up new scenarios of things Will could possibly be doing. Her logical side told her that he was doing exactly as he said – after all, he had proven to her many times that he did what he said he was going to do. However, another part of her dreamt that he was somehow involved with a band of outlaws and that they were committing some terrible crime.
It was only a three-mile walk to town. Bess knew she could get there within an hour if she wished. After pacing back and forth, she simply couldn’t take it anymore.
She was going to go find out if he was really doing what he said he was.
Bess shielded her eyes against the sun as she walked into town. It always appeared to be hotter there than it was out on the prairie, and Bess fanned herself as she stepped along the walkway. Unlike New York City, the walkways in the West were made of boards. Her shoes left a hollow sound on each one as she stepped across it, making Bess feel gaudy and awkward.
She stepped as lightly as she could, looking around the streets for her husband. Though the town was small, there were many dark alleyways between the buildings. It reminded her of New York, and how she had always been careful to avoid such places.
She had no idea where he would be meeting with this man, nor did she know where many of the businesses in town were. Though she had been living in the area for a couple of months, she spent most of her time out at the house instead of in town.
Suddenly, she saw something she recognized. Scout was tethered to a hitching post outside of the saloon. She didn’t see her husband’s other horse, and she felt suspicion immediately swell in her heart. Putting her hands in her pockets, she did her best to keep out of sight as she drew closer to the saloon. He had told her that he wasn’t a drinking man, but why else would he be in a saloon? She wanted to get a glimpse of Will – to see what he was really doing. But, he was nowhere in sight.
She lightly crept up to the saloon, trying to peer inside without anyone seeing her.
“Bess?” a voice from behind her caused her to whirl around. To her dismay, Will stood behind her, mounted on his horse.
“What are you doing here?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. Bess smoothed her skirts. There was no answer she could give that would explain why she was there. It was obvious why she was there – and she knew that he knew the answer.
“I- well, I…,” she stammered, fidgeting with her skirts.
“Did you follow me? Why would you do that? Don’t you trust me?” he asked as he looked down at her. Bess had tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. She couldn’t tell him the truth – she had hidden it this long, she simply couldn’t.
“It’s just that I’ve never really been able to trust anyone before, and I came all the way out here to marry you, and I don’t know where you go or anything. She allowed sobs to take over and buried her face in her hands. William didn’t say anything for a moment, and Bess desperately wished that he would.
At last, he sighed and rode over to her, holding his hand down to her.
“Is there some reason why you feel you can’t trust me?” he asked. His tone was a mix of hurt and anger. Bess put her hand in his and he pulled her up onto the horse behind him. As she wrapped her arms around his waist, she sighed and looked off into the distance.
“No, Will, there isn’t. And, I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” she leaned her cheek on his shoulder as she asked, but he said nothing. Bess felt her stomach tie into knots as they rode home in silence, and she desperately wanted to know what Will was thinking. When they got home, she climbed off the back of the horse, and Will turned it toward the stable.
“Will?” Bess asked, and he stopped.
“I really am sorry,” she said with emotion in her voice. He looked down at the ground, then sighed.
“Are you sure there is nothing that happened to you that makes you not trust me? I’ve done nothing but proven to you how much I care about you since the day you arrived. Why would you feel like you needed to follow me?” he looked at her with searching eyes, and Bess almost told him
the truth. But, there was something in her that told her it would be a terrible idea.
If he knew that she had a gang after her, if he knew that she had been married before him, if he knew she hadn’t told him any of these things in all these months she had lived with him – he’d throw her out of the house. She just knew he would.
She shook her head with conviction.
“No, nothing happened.”
Chapter 9 – Bad Company
“I’m going into town this afternoon, and I was wondering if you wanted to join?” Will asked with a smile. He had just come in from tending to the crops, and Bess was setting the table for lunch.
