“No, I had fallen in love with him, only he was an Indian and I was a white girl. We just couldn’t agree on which the other would become in order to remain together.”
“You all seem to be friends now,” Josiah said, looking over at the group laughing together about something.
“Yes. We have ironed out our differences. Raven will be coming to visit his son in the future. I think it will all work out for the best.”
“Mary and I are staying in a house in Oregon City. Once we get our house built, we will move out to it. Guess I am going to have to buy all the furniture for our new house,” he chuckled. “That’s something you won’t have to do. You still have your piano?”
“I sure do,” Marcel laughed.
“I’ve missed your playing,” he said, as he followed her down to where everyone else was.
“When we finish up for the day I will play for everyone if you like.”
“Yes, I think I would like that,” he smiled. “I heard all sorts of stories about you from the people in town. Seems you held off some wild Indians with that piano of yours.”
“They are making it out to be more than it really was,” Marcel laughed.
Marcel introduced Josiah to Ben and Blossom. Mary sat down with Willow and Blossom, all of them comparing babies with each other. Blossom was so proud to be caring for Marcel’s baby, that she almost thought of it as her own.
“Doesn’t Doctor Baldwin need your help anymore?” Marcel had asked her after Ben returned.
“I told him I would rather remain with you, if you would let me,” Blossom said, looking fearful that Marcel might send her away now that she was marrying Ben.
“I would love to have you stay,” Marcel smiled. “When we finish building the house you could stay in the little house if you wish. It would be all your own, and if you ever find yourself a man, he could stay there with you, unless he has a place of his own.” Blossom giggled. “You know, Ben has some younger brothers. If we could just get them to forget about the difference between you and them, it might go a long way to making them all accept us. But then maybe you would want to have a man from your Indian tribe.”
“I hadn’t thought about it. I was just happy to be here with you,” Blossom blushed.
“Well, you will have to think about it sometimes. I am sure you would like babies of your own to take care of instead of taking care of my children. What do you think, Ben? Do you think any of your brothers might be interested in Blossom?”
Ben grinned. “Maybe I could arrange an accidental meeting,” he winked.
Within a few months, the house was finished. Marcel would be sad to see Trapper Dan and Raven, along with his wife go. Josiah and his family had come to help move Marcel’s furniture into the house. The women were exclaiming over the beauty of the furniture, as they helped put the pieces in place.
“I suppose it was worth it to cart all this furniture out here,” Josiah said when they had everything place. “It is like we are back home in Grandmother’s townhouse,” he sighed.
“Ben designed the house so all my furniture would fit,” Marcel told him.
“Now that your piano has a permanent home, you should play it for us,” Josiah said.
“The group gathered around, and for the first time in almost a year, Marcel played the song that Raven had first heard her play a lifetime ago, in St. Louis.
When she finished playing, Marcel stood up and took her grandmother’s music box off of the top of the piano. She went up to Raven and handed it to him.
“I want you to have this,” she said. “It plays the same song. When you listen to it, I hope it will bring back happy memories.”
“It is your Sagebrush Serenade,” Raven murmured.
“It is really called Moonlight Sonata,” Marcel told him.
“It will always be Sagebrush Serenade to me,” he smiled.
“Tomorrow, Ben and I are going to get married. We wanted you all to be able to attend our wedding before you headed back,” she said.
“We wouldn’t want ta miss it,” Trapper Dan smiled.
As Marcel stood, looking over at Ben, with the minister waiting to read the rites, she felt her life could begin again. She looked around the room filled with all her new friends. Even the doctor had come and she was surprised that Ben’s family consented to come as well. They all sat in the living room of her new house, with her grandmother’s furniture embellishing the room. She was sure her grandmother was looking down on her, smiling because Marcel had saved all those heirlooms, so she could pass them down to her own grandchildren someday.
Sara, who could actually play the piano almost as well as Marcel, played a hymn on Marcel’s piano before the wedding was performed. Josiah gave her away, and Raven agreed to be the best man while Blossom was Marcel’s bride’s maid.
Marcel looked into Ben’s green eyes and remembered the first time she had looked into his green eyes when he had made her that proposition almost a year before. It was supposed to be a way to comfort the both of them. Now she felt a different kind of comfort. It was a comfort that went completely through her, and she knew it would last her a lifetime.
She glanced briefly over at Raven, and he gave her a sad smile. She wondered if he was happy with his new wife, but it didn’t matter. She knew she would be happy with her new husband, even if Raven did hold a special place in her heart, and probably always would. She was glad they were going to remain friends. Their children would grow up learning about their different customs, and weave their friendship tighter, she thought. Bennie would know his father and learn about the Sioux.
Marcel knew that the life of the Indian would become harder to hold onto as more and more emigrants moved out west. She wondered if there would be enough room in America for the white man and the red man to exist peacefully together? It was yet to be discovered. For now, though, she was happy to have met Raven, and even to have his son.
When the ceremony was over, the group mingled together, laughing and eating cake while learning to become friends. She noticed one of Ben’s brothers talking to Blossom, and she smiled. There would be a whole new chapter to unfold, she thought as life continues on. Her grandmother lived her life collecting all her treasured belongings, and then she grew old and died, leaving it all to Marcel who would live her life, carrying on the tradition of love and marriage, raising a family, finding some sort of joy in life amid the sorrows, and then it would start all over again, to become a story that someone tells their grandchildren about the woman who crossed the plains with a wagon full of furniture, she wouldn’t leave behind.
HE ND
Sagebrush Serenade Page 17
