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“It will take work to make our claim into a home,” Noah said.
She gave him a heartening smile and ignored her misgivings. This was her husband, this was her fresh new start—she would have to make it work no matter her own failings. “I’ll do my best.”
He nodded. “I know that.”
Sunny blotted her forehead with the back of her hand. Then she saw a town appear around the bend, a street of rough buildings perched on the river’s edge.
“That’s Pepin,” Noah called out.
“Thank Heaven,” Sunny responded, her spirit lifting.
Dawn tried to stand and fell, crying out. Sunny kept one hand on the reins and with the other helped Dawn crawl up onto her lap.
“Is she all right?” Noah asked.
“Fine. Just trying to stand up.”
“She’s a quick one.”
Usually silent Noah was almost chatting with her. He must be happy, too.
Noah always slept in the wagon bed at the end near the opening, evidently protecting her but always away from her. But just last night he called out, “Help, help!” She’d nearly crawled to him. But he’d sat up and left the wagon and began pacing. She hadn’t known what to do. Sunny was beginning to believe he slept away because of his nightmares. Because of the war perhaps?
She wondered if his lack of sleep made him silent. Whenever she spoke, he replied readily and courteously. Yet he rarely initiated conversation, so today must be a good day.
Soon she pulled up to a drinking trough along the huddle of rough log buildings facing the river—a general store, a blacksmith, a tiny government land office and a wharf area where a few barges were tethered.
And a saloon at the far end of the one street.
Buttoning her collar buttons, Sunny averted her face from the saloon, deeply grateful she would not be entering its swinging doors. Ever.
A man bustled out of the general store. “Welcome to Pepin!” he shouted. “I’m Ned Ashford, the storekeeper.”
Noah approached the wagon and helped her put the brake on. Then he solicitously assisted her descent. Only then did he turn to the storekeeper. He shook the man’s hand. “Noah Whitmore. This is my wife, Sunny, and our daughter, Dawn.”
He was always careful to show her every courtesy, and every time Noah introduced her and her baby this way, gratitude swamped her. For this she forgave him his tendency to pass a whole day exchanging only a sentence or two with her.
Maybe it wasn’t the sleepless nights. Some men just didn’t talk much—she knew that.
But she could tell that he was keeping a distance between them. Their marriage had yet to be consummated.
She didn’t blame him for not wanting her. Sudden shame over her past suddenly lit Sunny’s face red-hot.
“You just stopping or staying?” the friendly storekeeper in the white apron asked.
“I have our homestead east of here claimed and staked.” Noah sounded proud.
Our homestead—Sunny savored the words, her face cooling.
“I thought you looked familiar. You were here a few months ago. But alone.”
“Right.” Dismissing the man’s curiosity, Noah turned to her. “Sunny, why don’t you go inside and see if there’s anything you need before we head to our homestead. It will be a while before we get to town again.”
The farther they traveled, the more Noah dropped his use of “thee” in favor of “you.” Noah appeared to be changing his identity. I am, too. And the sheer distance they’d come from more populated places heartened her. The farther north they went the fewer people there were. That meant the chances of her running into anyone who’d met her in a saloon were slimmer. A blessing, but now, Noah was saying they would be living far from this town?
Trying to quell her worries, she smiled and walked toward the store’s shady entrance. The storekeeper beamed at her and opened wide the door.
A memory flashed through her of the storekeeper in Pennsylvania who had wanted her out of his establishment. She missed a beat and then proceeded inside, assuring herself that no one here would ever call her a harlot or touch her in a way that made her cringe.
Only Noah knew the truth about her past, about Dawn’s illegitimacy. Wisconsin was far from Idaho Territory where Dawn had been born and she couldn’t imagine meeting anyone from her old life.
Yes, only Noah could ruin her here.
But he’d never do that. Surely he would never betray her, now that she was his wife...would he?
She took a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I need anything, Mr. Ashford. But it is good to get out of the sun and see what your fine establishment has to offer.”
Mr. Ashford beamed at her. “Pepin County is growing every day, now that the war is over and men are looking for a place to settle their families. Of course in the 1600s the Pepin brothers first arrived—Frenchmen, you know. The river made it easy to get to.”
As Sunny scanned the large store, Mr. Ashford’s seemingly inexhaustible flow continued. “Now you go just a few miles east and you’ll be in the forest and not much in the way of settlers. Your man was smart to homestead here in Wisconsin.” The words your man warmed her to her toes. She’d always had men, not one who’d claimed her as his own.
“No soddy house for you. With all the trees hereabouts, he can build you a nice snug cabin and have firewood aplenty. ’Course that makes it harder to clear land for a crop. But...” The man shrugged.
Sunny suddenly sensed Noah and turned to see him just inside, leaning against the doorjamb, silently urging her to come away. This wasn’t the first time that he’d let her know he wanted to keep his distance from others.
Today she could understand his urgency. It was time to go see their land. “Your store is very neat and well-stocked,” she said as she reluctantly made her way toward Noah.
Mr. Ashford beamed at her again.
“Does thee...” Noah stopped and began again. “Do you see anything you need, Sunny? I want to get to our homestead with plenty of time left to set up camp for the night.”
Still hesitant to leave this cool, shady place, Sunny considered once more. “No, thank you, Noah. I don’t need anything.”
Noah peeled himself from the doorjamb. “Storekeeper, I’ll need a bag of peppermints.”
Sunny turned to him, her lips parted in surprise.
“My wife has a sweet tooth.” One corner of Noah’s mouth almost lifted.
He’d noticed her buying peppermint drops in Cairo, and savoring one a day till she’d run out.
The storekeeper chuckled as he bagged peppermint drops and then accepted three pennies from Noah.
“Shall we go, wife?”
She smiled, stirred by Noah’s thoughtfulness. “Yes. Good day, Mr. Ashford.”
“Good day and again, welcome to Pepin!”
Noah helped her back onto the wagon bench and lifted Dawn up to her. Then he handed her the bag of candy, which she slipped into her pocket as she felt a blush creep over her cheeks.
Noah led them down the main street and then to a bare rocky track, heading east away from the river, away from town.
Just before turning onto the track, Sunny glanced back and saw a woman dressed in red satin come out of the saloon and lean wearily against the hitching rail. Sunny averted her eyes, her heart beating faster. But she couldn’t afford to show any pity or sympathy with this woman.
I must remember which side of the line I belong on now.
She’d studied how decent women behaved and hoped her masquerade would hold up well. The happy image of Dawn in her white pinafore running toward school and friends bobbed up in her mind again.
She wouldn’t fail Dawn, no matter what.
* * *
Because of the roughness of the track, they progressed slowly, cautiously, through the thick forest of maple, oak and fir. This forest had probably never felt the blade of an ax. Noah marveled at the huge trees and with each landmark, his excitement gained momentum. All those nights when he’d lain alone, sometimes in a tent, sometimes under the open sky, listening to the sounds of war playing in his mind. How long had he dreamed of having a place of his own? How long had he dreamed of having a wife to bring to it?
Longer than he could say.
Why did he continue to leave his wife alone at night? His lovely wife, with her soft voice and shy smiles. The truth was, he could not bring himself to touch her. What right did he have? The faces of men he’d killed continued to plague his nights, waking them both. His lungs tightened painfully. How could he touch her when he felt that he belonged with the damned?
This marriage was out of practical necessity for both of them, nothing more, he reminded himself.
Finally the big pine, nearly three feet in diameter, loomed ahead of him, the rag he’d tied to a low branch fluttering in the breeze. In the distance he heard the creek rushing with melted snow runoff. He turned to Sunny, feeling the closest thing to joy that he could remember in years. “Our land starts here.”
Sunny reined in the oxen and looked around at the dense forest. “The storekeeper wasn’t joking when he said there’d be a lot of trees.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “Enough for all our needs. Let’s head closer to the creek, to our homesite. We’ll make camp there.”
Sunny glanced at the sun, now hovering just above the horizon, pink-orange clouds shimmering in the tiny slits between the dark wide tree trunks. “We’ll need to hurry to get ready before sundown.”
He tried not to take her lack of enthusiasm personally. But he couldn’t help noticing that she’d sounded much happier in town.
“I already cleared a place for our house. And I can get started felling more trees for our cabin first thing in the morning.”
She nodded. “I want to see it.”
He led the oxen with his hand at their heads, enduring their slow progress as they shuffled their way through the undergrowth of the forest. Then the clearing opened before them. “Here it is.”
Her watchful silence followed. He tried to see the clearing through her eyes but couldn’t. “We want to be near the creek, but not so near that we get the mosquitoes that hang close there. And the house will be on the rise, so no spring flooding.” He couldn’t stop himself as he explained how he had chosen the site.
Sunny tied up the reins.
He hurried to help her down. She always seemed so frail, and he’d been surprised when she’d asked to learn how to drive the oxen, even though they were docile creatures. When she set her feet on their land, she gazed around assessing it. Then she looked to him. “You chose well.”
He tried to stop his smile but couldn’t, so he turned away. “I’ll go draw us some fresh water and lead the oxen to the creek. They can drink their fill, and there’s grass there for them to graze on. There’s a spring here, too. We’ll have a spring house—soon.” The dam that held back his words had burst. He tried to stop before he revealed just how glad he was to finally be home.
“I’ll gather some wood for a fire.” She lifted Dawn, who was just beginning to fuss.
“You sit down and nurse her,” he said as he unyoked the oxen. He saw her sitting on the step up to the wagon bench, settling Dawn to nurse, and he had to turn his head from the cozy picture they made.
Other men came back from the war and went on with their lives. What kept him from being a real husband to her? Why did he resist any attempt by her to get closer? There was a chasm between them he was responsible for and could not bridge. Was he truly protecting her from himself, from the horrible things that lived on inside him?
Or was he simply incapable of anything even resembling...love?
Chapter Three
In the morning Sunny awoke to Dawn’s hungry whimpering. She stared up at the cloth covering of the Conestoga wagon, illuminated with sunlight, and stifled a sigh. She touched the rumpled blanket at her feet that Noah had slept upon—when he wasn’t tossing with another awful nightmare. She heard him already outside, stirring up the cook fire. Lassitude gripped her.
Dawn began to cry and that moved Sunny. Noah had crafted a kind of hammock just inside the front opening of the canvas top. Sunny lifted her child down, changed her soaked diaper and then put her to nurse. The breeze blew warm and gentle.
Tears slipped down Sunny’s cheeks. She clamped her eyes closed. Loneliness was stripping away her peace. Weeks had passed since she’d had a simple conversation with another woman. The faces of her mother’s friends, her only friends in the world except for the Gabriels, came to mind. She’d left them all behind. How would she handle this loneliness, keep it from destroying her peace?
“Good morning, wife.” Noah looked in from the rear opening.
Sunny blinked rapidly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tears. “Good morning,” she replied, forcing a smile.
“I’ve got the coffee boiling.” His words revealed little but the mundane. Didn’t he ever long to sit with another man and talk of men things? Men came to saloons to do that, just to jaw and laugh. Not that she wanted Noah to go to the saloon in town.
But, Noah, why don’t you want to talk with other men?
She patted Dawn, who wore the seraphic smile she always had when nursing. When Sunny looked up, she glimpsed a look on Noah’s face that she hadn’t seen before.
He looked away quickly.
She sensed such a deep loneliness and hidden pain in him. But she also keenly felt the wall he kept between them. “I’ll be out soon.”
“No rush. We have a good day. Perfect for felling trees.”
Sunny tried to look happy at this news. He turned away and she heard him unloading tools from the storage area under the wagon.
This won’t last forever. We’ll go to town from time to time. I’ll meet local women, become part of this community. Again she pictured Dawn dressed in a fresh white pinafore, running toward a little white schoolhouse, calling to her friends. And they were calling back to her, happy to see her.
I can do this. This is Dawn’s future, not just mine.
* * *
After breakfast Noah picked up his ax and headed toward the edge of the clearing.
“Please be careful, Noah,” his wife said.
Her concern made him feel...something. He couldn’t put a name to it, but it wasn’t bad, whatever it was. “I’m always careful with an ax in my hand.”
She didn’t look convinced, but in time she would be. He looked at her for a moment, at the way her lush blond hair flowed down her back as she brushed it, getting ready to pin it up for the day.
His wife was beautiful.
Turning away to shut this out, he studied the trees at the edge of the clearing and chose which one would be the first for their future cabin. He selected an elm thrice as tall and wide as he. He gauged where he wanted it to fall and took his position. He swung and felt the blade bite the bark and wood, the impact echoing through his whole body. He set his pace and kept a steady rhythm.
Finally at the right moment he swung and the tree creaked, trembled and fell with a swish of leaves. It bounced once, twice and shivered to a halt. Wiping his brow with a handkerchief, Noah grinned.
