Their Frontier Family

“We will write,” his bride said, offering her hand. “I will try to be a good wife to your brother.”

Noah turned away and faced the final few well-wishers, suddenly unable to look at Sunny. I promise I’ll take care of thee, Sunny, and thy little one. Thee will never want and thee will never be scorned. But I have no love of any kind to give. Four long years of war burned it out of me. I am an empty well.

* * *

It was done. Sunny had become a wife. And now in the deep twilight with Noah riding his horse nearby, she rode in the Gabriel’s wagon on the way home to their house. The wedding night loomed over her. How did a wife behave in the marriage bed? Nausea threatened her.

Oh, Heavenly Father, help me not shame myself.

She wished her mind wouldn’t dip back into the past, bringing up images from long sordid nights above the saloon. Why couldn’t the Lord just wipe her mind clean, like he’d taken away her sins?

That’s what she’d been told he’d done, but Sunny often felt like her sins were still very much with her, defining her every step of the way.

After arriving at the Gabriel home, she managed to walk upstairs to the bedroom she usually shared with the youngest Gabriel sister. She now noted that fresh white sheets had been put on the bed for tonight, her last night in this house. She stood in the room, unable to move.

Constance entered. “Thee will want to nurse Dawn before bed.”

Sunny accepted her child, sat in the rocking chair and settled the child to her.

Constance sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “We are very happy that thee has found a good husband.”

Sunny didn’t trust her voice. She smiled as much as she could and nodded.

“Each man and woman must learn how to be married on their own. It cannot be taught. I have known Noah from his birth. He was a sweet child and is an honest man. Adam and I had no hesitation in letting thee marry him.”

Sunny heard the good words but couldn’t hold on to them. She was quaking inside.

“The only advice I will give thee is what is given in God’s word. ‘Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.’ And ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’”

Sunny nodded, still unable to speak, unable to make sense of the words. Then the sweet woman carried Dawn away to spend the night in their room. Before Constance left she said, “When thee is ready, open the door for thy husband.”

As Sunny went through the motions of dressing for bed, she experienced the same penned-in feeling that had overwhelmed her at fourteen when her mother had died. A week later, penniless and with no friends in the world other than her mother’s, Sunny had taken her mother’s place upstairs in the saloon. At this memory Sunny’s stomach turned. That horrible first night poured through her mind and she fought the memories back with all her strength.

That was the past. Living away from the saloon, surrounded by the Gabriels’ kindness, had begun softening her, stripping away the hard shell that had protected her from the pain, rejection and coarse treatment she’d endured.

It won’t be like that. This is Noah, who called me sweet and kind and who has married me. Being with him will feel different. But how could he want her after she’d been with so many others?

From across the hall, Sunny heard Dawn whimper. She quieted, waiting to see if her child needed her.

Dawn made no further sound and Sunny took a deep breath. A new image appeared in her mind—her little girl in a spotless pinafore running toward a white schoolhouse, calling to her friends who were smiling and waving hello.

Marrying Noah Whitmore had given her daughter the chance to escape both the saloon and the stain of illegitimacy. And they would be moving to Wisconsin, far from anybody who knew of Sunny’s past. Dawn would be free. Hope glimmered within her. I’ve done right.

She slipped on her flannel nightgown and then opened the door. Before Noah could enter, she slid between the sheets, to the far side of the bed. Waiting.

A long while later Noah entered and without a word undressed in the shadows beyond the flickering candlelight.

Sunny’s heart thrummed in her temples. Harsh images from her past bombarded her mind but she tried to shut them out.

Noah blew out the candle in the wall sconce.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the rope bed to dip as Noah slid in beside her.

“Sunny, I don’t feel right about sharing a bed with you tonight. We’re nearly strangers.”

I used to lie down with strangers all the time. She clamped her lips tight, holding back the words, afraid that he would realize he’d made a terrible mistake in marrying her.

“I’ll bunk here on the floor. Just go to sleep. We’ve a long day tomorrow. Good night, Sunny.” He lifted off the top quilt and rolled up in it on the floor.

“Wh-why did you marry me?” she asked as confusion overwhelmed her.

He turned to face her, scant moonlight etching his outline. “It was time to take a wife.”

“You know what I was.”

“Yes, I know. You lay with men who paid you. Did you ever kill anyone?”

The question shocked her. “No. Of course not.”

“Well, I have. Which is worse—lying with a stranger for money, or shooting a man and leaving him to bleed to death?”

Stunned at his bleak tone, she fell silent for a long moment, not knowing what to say.

In the dark she moved to the edge of the bed and slipped to the floor. In the dim light she reached for his hand but stopped just short of taking it. “That was war. You were supposed to kill the enemy.”

He made a gruff sound, and rolled away from her. “Good night, Sunny.”

Her heart hurt for him. She longed to comfort him, but he’d turned his back to her.

Late into the night she stared at the ceiling, thinking about his question, about how he’d sounded when he’d spoken of war. Would they ever be truly close, or had too much happened to both of them? Was it her past that had made him sleep on the floor? Or was it...him? Oh, Lord, can I be the wife he so clearly needs?

* * *

“It’s not much farther!” Noah called out, walking beside the Conestoga wagon, leading his horse.

Sunny, who was taking her turn at driving the wagon behind the oxen, waved to show him she had heard his first words to her in hours. Dawn crawled by her feet under the bench. Boards blocked the opening to the side and rear. She hoped her idea of “not much farther” matched his.

Beyond the line of trees with spring-green leaves the wide Mississippi River meandered along beside them, sunlight glinting on the rushing water, high with spring rain and snowmelt. Frogs croaked incessantly. After several weeks of traveling all she wanted was to stop living out of a wagon and arrive home, wherever that was.

The unusually warm April sun, now past noon, beat down on Sunny’s bonnet. She’d unbuttoned her top two collar buttons to cool. The air along the river hung languid, humid, making perspiration trickle down her back. A large ungainly gray bird lifted from the water, squawking, raucous.

“I’m eager for you to see our homestead,” Noah said, riding closer to her.

“I am, too.” And scared silly.

Too late to draw back now.

Several weeks had passed since they’d wakened the morning after their wedding and set off by horseback to the Ohio River to travel west by riverboat. In Cairo, Illinois, Noah had purchased their wagon, oxen and supplies. Then they’d headed north, following the trail on the east side of the Mississippi. Noah pointed out that the trail was well-worn by many other travelers, and told her that French fur trappers had been the first, over two hundred years ago. She’d tried to appear interested in this since it seemed important to him. She’d known trappers herself. They weren’t very special.