Winter's Torment (2 page)

“It will take them a few minutes to unload luggage,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the train. “Would you like to get something to eat at the hotel? Then we can come back for your luggage later.”

Winter nodded. “Whatever you think is best, Mister… Henry,” she said.

He grinned down at her, extended his arm, elbow bent. She tentatively lifted her hand to place it on his forearm. It was so big she doubted she could span her fingers around it. As they walked down the dirt covered street into the city proper, Winter could only hope and pray… or
hope
at least, that Henry was a good man who would treat her well and provide for her. Anything other than that… well, she just wouldn’t get her hopes up.

As they walked, Henry told her little bit about Dodge City. To date, it was home to approximately one thousand residents, he told her proudly. It sported two mercantile stores, numerous feed stores, two blacksmith shops, a number of stables that served the needs of the community, along with seventeen saloons. Winter gaped up at Henry in shock when he told her that, appalled. She felt a niggling of concern, and he saw it.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he assured her. “As soon as we’re married, I’ll get you settled on the ranch. I mostly split my time between the ranch and the blacksmith shop. I don’t work weekends though. I come to town on Saturdays for supplies and on Sundays for church. Sometimes I stay over, but that was before…” He paused a moment and then laughed. “Of course, I’ll be giving church an extra bit of my time this week due to the wedding tomorrow morning.”

Winter glanced up at him, smiled shyly, and then wondered if he sensed her fear and hesitance. Then again,
she
had made this decision, and now it was up to her to see it through.

Straightening her shoulders and stiffening her back, she followed her fiancé as they wound their way through the dusty and surprisingly busy streets of Dodge City toward the Dodge House.

“You want me to sleep in the barn?” Henry asked, his expression wary. “On our wedding night?”

Winter nodded. “Or the tack shed,” she replied. “Whichever you believe would be most comfortable.”

“But Winter, we’re married,” he commented. He kept a safe distance from her, not wanting to crowd her or make her feel uncomfortable or pressured. “As of this morning, it’s okay if we sleep under the same roof.”

Winter didn’t want to hurt Henry’s feelings, really she didn’t, but how could she explain to him that she wasn’t ready yet? Especially not to share the same bed?

She knew that she didn’t want any more children. It was too painful to even contemplate. For him, she already knew it was different. They had talked a bit on the way to the ranch after the brief marriage ceremony this morning. He talked about how he wanted to find a life mate, a woman that he could love, to have and to hold his own. Her heart had sank when he also mentioned that he wanted a family.

How could she express to him the terrible grief that she had held inside? Not only because of her former husband’s attitude, but because she knew that if she let those emotions out, she was afraid she would shatter into a thousand pieces and never find her way back to herself again.

“We don’t have to share the same bed, at least not until you’re ready,” he assured her. “But I think the sooner you talk about… your history, the sooner you could put it behind you and move forward. With me.”

She stared up at him in surprise. “How can I ever put it behind me? I buried my
child
!” Her voice cracked with emotion.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Winter,” he said, striving to keep his voice low and calm. “What I mean is that you have to let the grief out. If you don’t, you might tend to push away the very people that want to provide you with comfort.”

“My past—”

“Your past is in the past,” he said. “I gather your former husband didn’t treat you so well. I understand that, and I’m sorry for it. But I’m not going to abuse you, beat you, or anything of the sort. As my wife, I expect you to stand up for yourself, even if your former husband didn’t. I don’t want you to be someone who acts like they don’t have a mind of their own.”

He paused, searching for words to make her understand.

“Winter, I want you to be able to speak your mind, regardless of how you think I’ll take it.” He slowly shook his head. “After all, Winter, we’re starting a new future. We need to start it the right way from the very beginning. That means that we always be honest with each other, okay?”

Winter knew that what he said made sense, but she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She didn’t want disagreements, and she didn’t want to argue. With Gunter, it had been easier to just let him have his way rather than risk a shouting match that ended with nothing but hurt feelings and an upset stomach, for her at least.

She looked over at him, sitting across from the small wood kitchen table they shared. She had managed to prepare a cold supper of cheese, bread, and dried beef. She saw a slight flush in his cheeks, which assured her that the topic of conversation was a little embarrassing for him too.

But he didn’t understand. He couldn’t. How could any man understand what she was going through? She could sense some disappointment from him, which made her sad, but she didn’t feel as if there was anything she could do about it right now.

“I… I think you’re a good man, Henry,” she started, “and I can only pray that you’ll have patience with me. It’s just that, everything is so different here, and…” She glanced down at her plate of a half nibbled piece of cheese lying next to the piece of dried beef. She picked it up, knowing that she needed to eat, but her stomach roiled with anxiety. “I can’t talk about it right now,” she finished at last.

He frowned slightly, not so much an intimidating frown, but one of confusion or frustration.

“I’m your husband now, Winter,” he said. He glanced down at his own plate, snatched up the last piece of dried beef, and then pushed his chair back from the table. “Most of all, you need to learn to trust me.”

“I’ll try, Henry. I will,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel as if I’m floating in a dream. I… I—” She surged back a bubbling surge of grief as she thought of her little son. “I left everything near and dear to me back home—”

“Winter,
this
is your home now,” he said gently. “I know you’re grieving, but just be careful that your grief doesn’t consume you. It has the power to do that you know.”

She glanced up at him, wondering. Had he experienced such grief? Had he ever known the depth of regret, sadness, and loneliness that she felt at the absence of her son? Could he possibly understand what it was like not to feel her toddler bouncing in her lap anymore, tucking her child into bed at night and kissing his soft plump cheeks, singing lullabies, or any of the other things that she had taken for granted before her son had died so tragically?

Winter watched as he stepped toward the front door. He paused before he reached for the knob and glanced back over his shoulder at her.

“I’ll sleep out in the barn for a night or two, but then we have some talking to do. Cold weather’s coming, and I don’t plan on spending the winter in the barn.”

With that, he opened the door and quietly closed it behind him.

Winter’s heart sank. What a way to start a marriage. She knew it wasn’t really fair for her to expect him to sleep in the barn, after all, they were newlyweds. Church law stated that, as a married woman, she was expected to acquiesce to certain duties for her husband. But the plain truth of the matter was they were still strangers, or at least as far as she was concerned. In the eyes of God they were married, and the Good Book of the law might say they were married, but as far she was concerned she had to get to know him better first. She needed time to deal with her own emotions and deep-seated grief before she could even begin to think of Henry Olson as her husband… her
new
husband.

She wondered what Gunter was doing. Was he was happy that he had divorced her and turned his back on her? If she didn’t do the right thing or behave the right way with Henry, would he do the same? Would she end up abandoned again? The thought sent a frisson of fear through her.

With a sigh, she rose from the table, took the plates to the washtub, and dumped them inside. She stared down at them for a moment before deciding she didn’t even have the energy to clean them. She felt so lonely, so unsettled, and so frozen with grief that she found even the simplest of tasks difficult.

As tears began to burn behind her eyelids, she slowly walked toward the only bedroom in Henry’s house, through a door that separated the main living room of the cabin from a small bedroom.

She stared at the bed a moment, knowing that she had no right to keep the bedroom to herself. As she sat down on the mattress and heard the springs underneath squeak softly, she realized that she could at least feel fortunate that he had not pressed the issue, at least not tonight, and on their very wedding night to boot.

That night, as she lay in the bed, nice and warm and comfortable, she wondered how Henry fared out in the barn. She felt guilty sleeping inside the small, warm house, the fireplace in the main room banked and still admitting a dull, red glow from the firewood while Henry was out in the barn without any source of heat. Still, he had straw, and several blankets that she had taken out to him. She had frowned when she hadn’t seen him in the barn, and figured that he was out feeding the cattle.

Still, as she lay awake long into the night, the wind began to blow. She touched her hand to wall of the house behind the bed over her head. The walls felt cold. Even though the house was still warm, she imagined that the cold wind was making its way through the chinks in the barn walls.

Perhaps she should go out to the barn and tell Henry that he could come sleep in the house. Maybe he could make himself a nice warm palette in front of the fire. She wished she had thought about that sooner. It was better than having him be upset, and possibly even regret marrying her.

Winter never did get out to the barn the previous evening. She had hesitated, uncertain. She knew he had been right about what he’d said at the dinner table though. She
did
have to learn to start standing up for herself. She knew that in some ways she did have to put big parts of her past behind her: her emotionally abusive husband, the blame she carried for the death of her child, and the shame of being a divorced woman. With Henry though, maybe she had a chance to start over. Time would tell.

By the time she rose in the morning and got dressed before going out to the barn to fetch him for breakfast, he was already gone. One of the horses was gone too, so she could only surmise that he had either gone into town to work in his blacksmith shop, or he was out in the fields feeding the Longhorns. But he would’ve taken a wagon for that, wouldn’t he? Therefore, she decided he’d probably gone into town.

She sighed, spent some time exploring the barn, the yard, the outbuildings, and then returned to the house, assessing what she might do to it to make it homier. It was a perfectly fine house, well constructed, solid, and would keep out the worst of winter, but it lacked… personality.

By noon, Henry still wasn’t back. She was sure that he had gone into town to work, and there was still one horse in the barn. She didn’t know how to hook up one horse to the double harness for the wagon, but perhaps she could manage to get a saddle, if she could find one, onto the other horse and ride it into town. Perhaps she could even take Henry some lunch.

She nodded and felt the inklings of a smile lift her lips. That’s what she would do. Yes, that might please him and help make up for making him sleep in the barn the previous evening. She hurried into the house and made a cheese sandwich for him, packed an apple and a few pieces of dried jerky, wrapped them into a square of cheesecloth, and then into the red neckerchief she found in the bedroom.

By the time she stepped outside, she hissed in dismay as a surprisingly cold breeze coming from the north swept through her. Why, it had been perfectly pleasant just a little while ago! She looked up into the sky, noticed that it was now overcast, but she didn’t smell rain, nor did she get the impression that the clouds would bring snow. It was just frigid cold!

She returned to the house, quickly made her way into the bedroom, and retrieved her heavy sweater, a pair of white cotton gloves she had brought for church services, and a stiff winter bonnet that would suffice to keep the cold at bay at least for the hour or so that it would take to ride into town.

She headed into the barn and spoke quietly to the horse, who eyed her with curiosity as she looked around for a spare saddle. She didn’t see one. She felt an inkling of disappointment. She really was looking forward to riding into town and surprising Henry.

On the spur of the moment, Winter decided to be daring. Excitement burgeoned inside her at the thought. When was the last time she had been adventurous or daring? It’d been so long that she couldn’t remember. With a giggle of excitement, she moved toward the horse, deciding that she could very well ride bareback. After all, she had done so as a child, and it was something you didn’t tend to forget how to do.

She put a bridle on the horse, then led the mare over toward a stump outside the barn door that Henry used to chop wood. Grasping the red kerchief with Henry’s lunch in one hand, she reached up for the horse’s mane, bundled the reins in her hands, and then stepped up onto the stump. After a brief struggle, she managed to sit astride the horse. The mare wiggled her ears as Winter urged her forward, giving her a light tap against her flanks with her heels.

The horse took off at a trot, causing Winter to gasp, and then laugh, the first laugh she had allowed herself for more months than she cared to remember. Her sweater didn’t do much to stave off the cold wind, but she figured she’d arrived in town soon enough and would be able to warm herself in Henry’s blacksmith shop while he ate the lunch she brought him.

She followed the track that Henry had taken the day before, knowing that it would wind its way back to Dodge within a couple of miles. The problem was that as the miles passed, or so it seemed, Winter saw no sign of Dodge City. The wind grew harsher, and the temperature continued to drop. A few snowflakes began to sift down from the sky, not so many that she couldn’t see, but enough. She brought the mare to a halt while she studied the landscape.