When Comes Forever

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Chapter 1

Rebecca Donnelly struggled to keep her hand from trembling as she dipped the pen into the inkwell. Alone and pregnant, she had little reassurance of safety from the rifle cradled across her lap. Sitting at the rough-hewn table in front of the stone fireplace, she leaned toward the open journal.

I pray God forgive me for being a coward. Yet I must confess, I am truly afraid. Where is Frank? I expected him to arrive with the doctor a week ago. I fear he has abandoned me, or worse is lying dead somewhere on the prairie.

Drawing the heavy woolen shawl closer around her shoulders, she dreaded the nights when the wind moaned like an unseen specter around the outside of the two-room cabin. She shivered against the chill that invaded the small room. Riveting her gaze on the sturdy crossbar that solidly braced the planked door against intruders, she rose to place a single log on the fire. With the rifle’s barrel in one hand, she used the other to grip the iron poker and stoked more life into the embers.

A new worry filled Rebecca when she eyed the dwindling stack of wood. Frank had warned her not to leave the cabin. I’ve laid in enough kindling and logs to last you until I get back with the doctor, he’d said. There’s no need for you to go outside while I’m gone. It’s dangerous, Rebecca. Heed what I say.

She fought down the hysteria building inside her. Taking stock of the furniture, if worse came to worst, she would burn the table, then the chairs. No, no, she reasoned. That wouldn’t do. How dangerous could it be outside and in the broad daylight?

Placing the rifle within easy reach, and then standing on tiptoes, she removed the tin of tea leaves from a shelf and spooned enough for one mugful. Careful not to burn her hands, she used the hem of her skirt to lift the kettle from the iron crane and poured hot water into a green ceramic teapot—her only wedding gift from her new husband.

She knew her actions were measured and deliberate. Fifty miles from town and only God knew how many miles from another woman, what else did she have to do besides measuring time?

For a long moment she lost herself to meandering thoughts while savoring sips of hot tea. She closed her eyes and cocked her head to one side to daydream about the laughter she had shared with her two sisters as they sat in front of the fireplace in the upstairs parlor adjacent to their bedrooms. They had shared secrets, hopes, and dreams. Foolish dreams that only young girls imagined. Her thoughts turned sour. Her sisters had married men of substance and each lived in grand houses within a few blocks of her parents. While she—

The baby inside her womb kicked, interrupting her musings. Rebecca smiled as she gently massaged the tiny protrusion that seemed to stretch and press against the area beneath her ribs. The smile faded, and she was left with a profound sadness.

The youngest, she had been dubbed by her father as the most intelligent of his three daughters. But then, the day before her sixteenth birthday, Frank H. Donnelly, Esquire, had bumped into her, nearly knocking her off the boardwalk and causing her to dump all her parcels into the street. She’d looked into a face more handsome than any of the characters in her favorite dime novels. He’d had an angel’s smile and the devil’s eyes, and his touch had made her shiver with a yearning she had been too young to understand. Her father had warned her about Frank’s "idealistic nonsense." He had also denied Frank’s request to formally court her.

My God, man, you are twenty years my daughter’s senior. Her father had shaken his fist at Frank. Get off my porch before I grab you by the scruff of your scrawny neck and throw you into the street.

Recalling the argument that had ensued between her father and herself, Rebecca now swiped the tears threatening to spill from her lashes as she released a despondent sigh. She had spent a thousand lonely nights since haughtily announcing she was her own woman and would accept Frank’s calls and no one could stop her.

There was no fancy wedding. No beautiful gown. No father to walk her down the aisle. Frank had convinced her to elope, and they had spent their honeymoon in a passenger car on a train bound for Oklahoma Territory. And, of course, there was the little matter of the five thousand dollars he had convinced her to take from her father’s safe. The money was rightfully hers. Well, almost. A gift from her grandmother, she was expected to wait until her eighteenth birthday to claim the money, and then it was to be partially used for a coming-out trip to Europe, with the rest set aside for her attendance at Mrs. Dubois’ Finishing School for Young Ladies.

Her mother had always said that once you chose your bed, no matter how uncomfortable, it was yours to lie in—forever.

With that thought in mind, another tear dripped from Rebecca’s chin, landing on the wet ink and causing it to spread in a macabre shape across the page. She quickly blew on it to dry the spot before it widened and ruined the rest of her writing. Lifting a corner of the shawl, she wiped her eyes, and as she reread her entry she asked herself the same question she’d asked a hundred times since coming to this piece of dirt that Frank called a ranch—did she love her husband, or had she been in love with a fantasy?

The wind rattled the door. Her heart pattered wildly against her chest. Even her whisper sounded overly loud in the forlorn room. Look where my stubbornness got me. How could Father ever think I was smarter than Melinda and Beth? As she drew a breath against fresh tears, her lower lip quivered anew.

As if it gave her comfort, she once again dipped the pen and, careful not to mar the page of her journal with ink splatters, continued to write.

The wind claws at the door and rattles the shutters as if it were a monster wanting to get inside. And when all is quiet, I hear them snuffling outside, see their sharp toenails as they scratch between the floor and the bottom of the door. I dare not cook for fear the scent of food will drive the wolves mad and somehow they will figure a way to get inside the cabin. Who would rescue me?

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since noon. Reaching across the table, she pulled a plate of day-old cornbread toward her. It would suit her just fine if she had a glass of fresh milk to wash down the meager meal. Instead, she finished the tea that had grown tepid.

She rubbed the small of her back as she pushed from the cane-ribbed chair and walked to the basin. Leaning forward and balancing on her tiptoes, she peered through the peephole in the shutter that covered the window and closed out the world. Darkness stared back at her. She longed for the noise of Chicago’s streets, the comfort of her parents’ home, and the inane chatter of her two sisters.

The baby stirred again. Rebecca walked back to the chair and sat. Before closing the journal, she penned a last line.

Christmas draws near, and the baby grows anxious to make its grand entrance into the world. I am afraid. I am alone.

She whispered a silent prayer. Please, send Frank home soon. She placed her hands against her face and wept. Drawing a breath between sobs, she laid another log in the fireplace and then snuffing out the candle, she used the moonlight to trundle to the bedroom. Not bothering to undress, she unlaced her high-top boots. Setting them neatly aside, she climbed beneath the quilts. While lying in the dark, she thought of all the ultimatums she would present to her husband—give up this foolish notion of his and return to Chicago, or…or what? And what was his plan? She wasn’t certain he had made it clear.

She thumbed an imaginary gold band. Though she hadn’t spoken the words, her thoughts seemed to echo in the small two-room cabin: or I’ll go back to Chicago without him.

There. She’d said it. Let him have his dream. I’d rather die than continue to live out here, miles from nowhere, with no one to talk to except tumbleweeds.

She wrapped her hands around her extended abdomen. Don’t worry, baby. I won’t have you growing up in a heathen land.

The realization that Frank had wooed her for the money was a bitter pill. It hadn’t taken long for him to treat her like a child, even like a nuisance sometimes. It had been as if the blissful dreams she had sustained turned into a hellish nightmare. The exact opposite of the romantic novels she had surreptitiously read.

He’d said she was like a lovely rosebud and that he wanted to be the lucky man who helped her blossom into a beautiful flower. It had all sounded so poetic.

She chastised herself for falling victim to her husband’s infectious enthusiasm, and to her own whimsical, immature daydreams of moonlit rides under skies littered with stars. She’d imagined Frank as a gentle lover lifting her to soaring heights of climatic ecstasy. Instead he was a rutting animal, taking his pleasure and leaving her unfulfilled while he finished the night snoring.

As if in protest at being hugged too tightly, the baby gave another round of solid kicks. Unable to find a comfortable position, Rebecca clumsily rolled from the bed, and padding in stocking feet, returned to the main room. Lifting the lid to her sewing basket, she removed the white christening gown and set her embroidery needle to stitching tiny rosebuds on the collar.

She worked until her eyes grew tired. Setting the sewing aside, she yawned and stretched. This time she would sleep.

****

Rebecca awoke with sharp pains in the small of her back. A persistent ache tugged at her girth. Rolling to her side, she used a pillow to support her belly.

Closing her eyes, she drifted back to sleep. Her dream was interrupted by the pains in her abdomen as they grew sharper, causing her to suck in a deep breath in order to keep from crying out when the discomfort intensified. She counted on her fingers. It wasn’t time for the baby to be born. By her calculations she still had two weeks.

Not yet. Please, baby. Don’t come. Not yet. Be patient. Wait until your daddy arrives with the doctor.

She shifted against the mattress, seeking a more comfortable position. Instinctively she rubbed her burgeoning middle as she recalled her father’s harsh words.

Not one cent of inheritance will you receive if you insist on marrying this…this fiddle-footed no-account. And once you come to your senses and see Frank Donnelly for the shiftless wastrel he is, don’t think you can come running home. You’ll not be welcomed.

He’d ordered her to her room and had ordered Frank out of the house with a threat of having him arrested if ever stepping foot on the premises again.

Without his knowing, her father had fueled her romantic fire that night, and Frank had fanned the embers into full-blown flames when, hours later, he had tossed pebbles at her window. Slipping from her room, she had sneaked down the backstairs, and together she and Frank had planned their elopement.

The ache in her back grew more intense. Oh, Mother, you were right. I’ve made my bed and now I must lie in it. Thorns and all.

Knowing her father was a man of his word caused her melancholy to intensify. She could never go home again.

Rebecca woke before dawn. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Sun flooded through the crack between the shutters, revealing an area much different from her bedroom in Chicago. This room consisted of a bed with a mattress thin enough for the rope slats to cause discomfort, her brown leather valise, a cracked mirror, and several pegs on the door to serve as an armoire. A crude shelf nailed on the wall housed the stack of dime novels she’d packed as an afterthought on the night of her elopement. Beyond what she saw, the room was void of the creature comforts she longed for. Definitely a man’s room—sterile, impersonal, and cold enough to cause chills to ripple through her body.

She crawled from the bed and, wrapping the natty quilt around her shoulders, walked to the main room, ladled water into the kettle, and set it on the iron crane.

The baby moved, and whether from motherly instincts or from loneliness, Rebecca smoothed her hand over the area as she spoke to the child. I never realized how spoiled I was until not having the comforts of a modern kitchen with a stove and a baking oven. Not that I cooked all that much. And a tub. Oh, how I yearn for a true bath, with lilac soap and rosewater.

She leaned toward the fireplace and blew tiny breaths, hoping to find a few live embers, while using the poker to sift through the ash. When several timid red sparks appeared, she stacked pieces of kindling the way Frank had taught her. Once the small sticks of wood ignited, she carefully laid a log and then another until lively flames danced in the hearth.

Busying herself, she cut a thin slice from the diminishing side of bacon. She longed for eggs to complete her breakfast. Unfortunately, the wire pen Frank built had proved no match for the varmints that killed the chickens. He’d promised to buy a dog the next time he went to town.

Frank promised a lot of things. She harrumphed aloud at the thought. Finishing her meager meal of bacon, stale cornbread, and weak tea, she washed the dishes and set them to drain. Staring at the stack of cordwood, she counted.

Ten.

Ten pieces of wood to last until Frank could chop more. Removing the quilt, she slipped the woolen shawl around her shoulders, then draped the quilt over the shawl. She was cold. The cabin was cold.

He’ll be home today. He wouldn’t dare miss Christmas. The thought of her favorite holiday cheered her. Ignoring her husband’s warning to keep the shutters barred, she walked to the window over the kitchen’s basin stand, and removed the bar. When she folded the shutters against the wall, the dimly lit room flooded with sunlight. Outside, the world was bright and blanketed in white.

Laying another log on the fire, she decided to treat herself to one more cup of tea. This time she’d brew it a little stronger. She rubbed her hands over her midsection. He’s coming home, baby. You’ll see. Christmas is only fifteen days away. We’ll have a fine celebration. Yes, I’ll go to the root cellar and see if there’s a bottle of jam. I’ll bring up enough flour and sugar to bake a cake. She tapped a finger against her cheek. Maybe there are a few apples left.

And then a thought struck. She’d have to venture outside to get to the root cellar. Frank had warned her about not leaving the cabin. He’d said there were enough supplies inside to last until he returned. Except that was ten days ago.

Pouring hot water over the tea leaves inside her small green ceramic teapot, she decided to write while the leaves steeped. She opened her journal and dipped the pen into the inkwell.

December 10, 1881

I am seventeen years old. A woman about to bear a child. I don’t feel fully grown, and

becoming a mother frightens me. I’ve never held a baby. I don’t know what to do

if it cries. Christmas is fifteen days off. If I close my eyes, I can see the beautifully

decorated tree in our salon, its top reaching to the ceiling. Father always admired a tall

tree. I wonder if my sisters think of me. I wonder if Mother thinks of me. I miss them sorely.

She stopped long enough to sip her tea and let the liquid warm her insides. She dipped the pen again, careful to wipe the excess ink against the lip of the bottle.

If I am to be a woman, then I must act like one. I am here, alone, in this wasteland

of white. The water bucket needs filling, and the slops need emptying. I am reviled

by the odor. The kindling box is near empty, and though I have never swung an

axe, surely chopping wood isn’t that difficult. I will bundle against the cold

and brave my way to the root cellar. While I must remind myself that I am the size

of a fatted calf, it is with great care that I will climb down the ladder and back

up again. Perhaps I will find a ham and a few potatoes. Frank will be surprised

when he comes home. I’ll prepare a Christmas dinner fit for a king. I wonder if Frank found a suitable dog? A puppy for the baby would be nice.

She glanced around the stark room and bent once more to the lined pages.

What is Christmas without a decorated tree and gifts underneath wrapped in colorful paper? I hope Frank remembers that it is Christmas. I fear he has squandered my money.

Rebecca placed her hands against her cheeks. It was depressing to think about her future and the future of her child.

I have come to the painful realization that I allowed myself to be played for a fool.

Chapter 2

Home.

The word appealed to him. Jesse Starr vaguely remembered being pulled from his sobbing mother’s arms. He’d been two years old when his father had left the Kiowa village and returned to England, taking Jesse with him. He’d never expected to travel this way again, except now that he was headed toward the village of his mother’s people, he was damned anxious to get there.

Was his mother alive? Would she remember the son she’d borne to an Englishman who’d come to hunt buffalo and stayed for two winters? Her Kiowa name was Leotie, Rose of the Prairie, but Viscount Addison Starr Fitzroy had called her Starr’s Woman.

The bay gelding huffed a grunt as if warning Jesse. I see it, Chief. Puffs of white vapor formed from his breath when he spoke to the horse.

Jesse fisted his gloved hands and blew, his breath doing little to warm his numbed fingers. He was used to seeing horses on the prairie, just not one with a saddle hanging from its side. He stood in the stirrups and scanned the wide snowy expanse. Seeing no breaks in the drifts, he nudged the bay forward.

Reckon some pilgrim’s gone and got himself into a peck of trouble. Snow scrunched beneath the horse’s hooves. Slow and easy, Chief. Don’t want to spook him. The animal flicked its ears as if understanding the man’s words.

Being a man who’d experienced his share of trouble, Jesse had a gut instinct that told him to ride on—to mind his own business. By nature, he prided himself on needing no one. His only purpose was to locate the Kiowa village and hopefully find the woman who’d given birth to him.

He rode the few hundred yards to where the roan gelding stood pawing the snow. Jesse reached down and grabbed the dangling reins before the animal decided to spook and take flight. Dismounting, he ground-tied his own horse. Then, crooning soft words, Jesse ran a hand over the roan’s withers. He spoke reassuring words to the animal who had now tensed its muscles.

Ain’t no call in getting yourself all riled up, horse. We Kiowa value a good pony, and you look like a keeper. Where’s your master? Jesse rubbed his hand down the animal’s neck and shoulders.

Shoving the saddle into place on top of the horse’s back, he unbuckled the saddlebag and reached inside, hoping to find a clue to the missing owner. He removed a leather secretary wallet. Humph. Pilgrim’s flat broke. Instead of money, Jesse found a slip of paper. He read aloud. Franklin Horatio Donnelly, Esquire, owes Ralph Wittier a sum of no less than five thousand dollars due and payable in full on December 25, 1881. Scrawled across the bottom, and in a different handwriting, Pay up or die and the initials RW.

Jesse folded the paper and slipped it back into the case. He’d emitted a low whistle when he read the amount. Then he spoke the name aloud. Franklin Horatio Donnelly, Esquire. Mighty fancy moniker for a greenhorn. Returning the case to the saddlebag, he gathered the reins to his horse and in a single fluid motion swung into the saddle.

Well, Chief, reckon we’re obligated to find out if the pilgrim has gone and got himself killed or is laying somewhere all busted up.

Gathering the stray horse’s reins, Jesse kneed the gelding beneath him, and gave a violent jerk to signal the reluctant roan to follow. Using his skills as a tracker, Jesse searched for signs that would lead him to the missing rider. He figured the horse hadn’t traveled far. He was wrong.

An hour later, he hauled up on the reins and unwound the canteen’s strap from the saddle horn. Removing the cap, Jesse lifted the container to his lips. It didn’t surprise him that the water inside had frozen solid. He sighed, his breath creating vapor in the frigid air that stung when drawn into his lungs. Damn, sure wanted to wet my whistle.

While looking skyward, he squinted to bring the dipping and soaring black dots into focus. Buzzards. Unless I miss my guess, Chief, reckon we found our pilgrim.

He replaced the canteen and urged the horses forward, riding slow and allowing the gelding to pick its way until reaching the precipice of Devil’s Canyon. In a world where white meets white, the sharp drop off was misleading. Jesse figured the stranger, being unfamiliar with the territory, galloped right up to the ledge; the horse must have balked and sent his unsuspecting rider head over heels out of the saddle and fifty feet below.

Dismounting, he tied the roan’s reins around his own saddle horn. Careful