Suddenly weak in the legs, Indigo gripped the bed frame. “What have you done? The bride price is a Comanche custom.”
“I am Comanche.”
“Jake Rand isn’t! You know how white men view that practice. If they pay a bride price, they feel they’ve purchased the woman. I’m not a thing to be bought.”
“I have explained the bride price to him. He has honored you in the way of our people and will pay seven hundred dollars. It is a fine offer.”
Indigo heard the front door open and close. The tread of heavy boots came toward the bedroom. Lowering her voice, she cried, “It’s a fortune! He’ll feel he owns every hair on my head. Just draw up a bill of sale and be done with it.”
“The marriage paper will do.” Her father flashed a smile.
Indigo felt as if she had been slapped. She heard hinges creak behind her and sensed Jake’s presence as he stepped into the room. Still gripping the bed frame, she twisted to look at him. Survival instinct told her to fight for her freedom now or forever hold her peace. She wasn’t about to pull any punches.
“So . . .” Her voice trembled with rage. “Behold my new owner! You must feel proud of yourself. Slavery was outlawed over twenty years ago.”
“It isn’t like that, Indigo,” Jake said.
“Isn’t it?” She released the bed frame and turned on him, not at all certain her legs would support her. “Explain then.”
A question slid into his eyes. He glanced toward Hunter. “I agreed to pay a bride price. That is your custom, correct?”
“You bought me!” she cried. “That’s how your people look at it. I’m more than half white, and I know how you think.”
“I can withdraw the offer, if you feel so strongly about it.”
“No,” Hunter inserted. “This will be a true marriage in the eyes of both white and Comanche.”
Indigo hugged her waist. A shudder ran the length of her. Glaring up at Jake, she whispered, “If you go through with this, you’ll never know a moment’s peace for the rest of your life.”
Eyes aglitter with irritation, Jake turned toward Hunter. “I understood you to say she would agree to this once you spoke with her. If this is the way it’s going to be . . .”
“Indigo?” Her father’s voice rang like steel. She turned to look at him. “Do you defy me?” he asked evenly.
In the face of her father’s anger, her own fled. Though her every instinct urged her to rebel, that was not the way she had been taught. She would do what he asked because to do otherwise was inconceivable. “No, Father. I will never defy you.”
She heard Jake heave an exasperated sigh. “Indigo, forget your father for a minute and look at me.”
There was no such thing as forgetting her father, not even for an instant. Feeling numb, she lifted her gaze to his.
“I didn’t offer to marry you to make you miserable,” he said softly. “My aim was to spare you. If you’re going to detest me for it, I’ll not only have failed in that, but we’ll both pay dearly. I don’t want to fight you every step of the way, before and after the wedding. I can’t imagine you wanting that, either. To make life bearable, one of us must eventually win the war.”
Indigo focused on what he had left unsaid, that he would, without a doubt, be the victor. She couldn’t feel her feet.
“My father has spoken.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. She swallowed, imagining herself and Jake, married and alone. Suddenly, Jake Rand seemed to loom like a mountain. She couldn’t believe this was happening. “I will honor his wishes.”
Jake’s eyes offered her no quarter. “And mine?”
Something inside her balled into a painful knot. Just above her waist, it rested in her belly like a hot ember. Her pride, she realized. This was how it felt to swallow it. “Yes, and yours.”
Chapter 9
INDIGO FELT TRAPPED IN UNREALITY. EVENTS seemed to escalate to a frantic pace. Jake left for Jacksonville. Soon after, her mother returned from the jail, briefed them on her conversation with Marshal Hilton, and then began making a list of things that had to be done to get ready for the hurried wedding.
First on Loretta’s agenda was preparing a wedding feast. Indigo worked beside her in a haze. Not even thoughts of Brandon jerked her out of it. She didn’t care if Marshal Hilton had gone to Jacksonville to question Brandon. Nor did she care what the marshal might learn. So what if Brandon had been the man who shot Lobo? What difference did it make, at this point, if he had been behind the accidents? Only one thing mattered. In the space of a few hours, she would be married to a white man.
And not just any white man. If her father was bent on choosing a husband for her, why hadn’t he picked a native of the area, slight of build and short on brains? Jake not only towered over her but was twice as broad, every inch muscle. One of us must eventually win the war. What war? Once he became her husband, she couldn’t resist. That wasn’t the way she’d been taught.
With trembling hands, Indigo sliced potatoes into the pot, amazed that she didn’t hack off her fingers as well. Then she mixed a cake. Had she put in the baking powder? She couldn’t recall and measured it in again. How did a cake taste with a double amount of baking powder? Like her mouth tasted right now, she guessed, dry and bitter as gall.
When all in the kitchen was ready, her mother insisted they prepare Indigo’s aunt Amy’s house for occupancy. Completely furnished, it stood vacant now that Amy and Swift had gone away to the timber camp. It would make a perfect temporary residence for the newlyweds. Indigo’s brain stuck on the word temporary. Jake Rand didn’t plan to remain in Wolf’s Landing. One day soon, he’d decide to leave, and she would have to accompany him.
Indigo made her second trip of the day to the general store and gathered the items she needed to stock Aunt Amy’s kitchen. Salt, pepper, sugar, flour, rising powders, yeast, beans, honey. When Elmira learned of Indigo’s forthcoming marriage, she opened a new account under Jake’s name and assigned all the charges to him. Signing her name to the charges drove home the point to Indigo that within a few hours she’d be Mrs. Jake Rand.
When she returned home with her purchases, she piled the lot in a pillowcase for easy carrying. In another, she stowed perishables. When she went to the smokehouse for a slab of bacon, the reality of the situation hit her anew. Tomorrow morning, she’d be cooking breakfast for a husband.
Her mother didn’t give her time to worry for long. Like twin whirlwinds, they attacked the Lopez house with cloths and brooms in hand. When the basic cleaning had been accomplished, Indigo arranged her clothing in the bureau drawers and changed the linen on the bed while her mother restocked the kitchen.
As she tucked the bedspread under the pillows and smoothed out the wrinkles, Indigo tried to picture herself sleeping there with Jake tonight. As ignorant as she was about the sexual act, she did know it took place in bed. She had accidentally gone to visit Franny once when a client was in her room. The loud creak of the bed had warned Indigo not to tap on the window.
Smoothing the last wrinkle in the bedspread with trembling fingertips, Indigo recalled the saying, “You’ve made your bed. Sleep in it.” Now she knew where that old adage originated; a bride had undoubtedly come up with it.
A feeling of panic filled her. Submitting to her husband was going to be awful. She just knew it. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. Women talked freely about pleasant things. When the sun shone, everyone commented on it. When a fair was scheduled in Jacksonville, tongues buzzed for weeks in advance. When someone particularly enjoyed an activity, such as a social, she talked about it for weeks after. Such was not the case when it came to what transpired on wedding nights.
To the contrary, if and when women said anything about that aspect of marriage, they flushed scarlet, glanced around to be certain they wouldn’t be overheard, and then whispered behind cupped palms. From that, Indigo deduced that performing one’s wifely duty was horrible, so horrible that mothers didn’t want their daughters to get wind of it,
for fear they’d never get married and make grandbabies.
Babies. That was another curiosity Indigo had noticed, the long faces women wore when they heard one of their number was having difficulty conceiving a child. A few years back, when Alice Crenton couldn’t get in the family way after her marriage to Marshal Hilton, all the ladies in town had rushed to give her advice about how to cure the problem. Mrs. Love had given her a rock to put under her husband’s side of the mattress. Old Mrs. Hamstead, the herbalist, had given Alice fertility powders. Indigo’s ma had even joined in, suggesting Alice eat more fresh meat. Everyone had acted as if it would be the end of the world if Alice didn’t get pregnant, and soon.
Since Alice already had five children, which seemed plenty enough, that set Indigo to thinking. Why was it so all-fired important that Alice get in the family way? Every expectant mother Indigo had ever seen looked downright miserable, her legs spread when she walked to keep her balance, one hand clamped to the small of her back to ease the ache, her belly preceding her everywhere she went. During that endless last month, she counted the days until her nightmare would be over. If pregnancy was so awful, why were all the women so eager to see Alice suffer?
Indigo found the answer in the Bible where God commanded mankind to go forth and multiply. Right there in black and white, it said, clear as rain, that every God-fearing woman had a Christian duty to bear offspring, and that it was her husband’s duty to see she did. No wonder all the women in town had been so worried about Alice. As big a trial as pregnancy obviously was, trying to get that way must be even worse.
All in all, Indigo didn’t think wedding nights came highly recommended.
She considered running away. But to where? The farthest she had ever gone was to Jacksonville. She couldn’t fade into obscurity there. And the thought of journeying elsewhere panicked her nearly as much as the prospect of being bedded. Besides, her father would never forgive her if she did such a thing, and she had been raised to obey him without question. She loved him too dearly to disappoint him.
She had no choice but to suffer through, praying all the while that Jake didn’t turn out to be one of those men who wanted a huge family. She couldn’t imagine anything worse. What if she was like Alice Crenton and didn’t take easily? When it came to female things, she had always been slower than a fly on tack paper, the last in her age group to get her bosoms, the last to get her curse. It’d be her luck that she’d be slow to take as well, and she’d have to suffer through a dozen times before Jake got the job done. How would she bear it?
There had to be a trick to it, Indigo decided. For every other misery in life, there was some kind of remedy, laudanum for pain, peppermint for a bellyache, whiskey and lemon for a cough. She considered asking her mother, but she knew how that would end. When approached with questions about sex, her mother always stammered, blushed, and said, “Just never you mind.” Indigo couldn’t be satisfied with that answer now.
She stepped to the window and gazed up the street at the Lucky Nugget. If anyone on Earth was an authority on male-female relationships, it had to be Franny.
“I think we’re about finished.”
The unexpected sound made Indigo start. She whirled from the window and pressed her palms to her waist. Her mother had an uncanny knack for reading her thoughts sometimes. “I, um . . . Yes, I’m done in here, at any rate.”
Loretta smiled and smoothed her apron. “We’d best step fancy. I don’t want my ham to overcook.” She wrinkled her nose. “We should sprinkle some vanilla around in here. This house has been shut up for so long, it smells musty.”
“Vanilla! It wasn’t on my list. I’ll need it for baking.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow. “You, baking?”
Indigo licked her lips. “I might change now that I’m getting married.”
“Maybe. One thing’s for certain—you need a dash of vanilla in here to freshen the air. I reckon there’s time for you to go over to the general store and get some.”
Indigo could scarcely conceal her eagerness.
“Just don’t get sidetracked,” her mother warned, wagging a finger. “You’ve still got to bathe and dress. If I have things figured right, Jake should be back with Father O’Grady in a couple of hours. You can’t get married in buckskins.”
As her ma finished speaking, a wistful expression entered her eyes and she flashed a tremulous smile. From that look, Indigo knew her mother was seeing her for the first time as a woman. Love and pride shone on her face. The moment lasted only an instant, but Indigo knew it marked her passage from childhood. The realization made her feel alone, incredibly alone.
Indigo made fast work of going to the general store. Afterward, she tucked the vanilla into the waistband of her britches and ran to the north end of town to circle the buildings. A gnarled oak stood at the left rear corner of the Lucky Nugget. She shinnied up it, gained the roof, and crept to Franny’s window. After rapping on the glass, she shrank against the clapboard siding so she wouldn’t be spotted from the street.
Please, Franny, don’t be downstairs.
She heard the window open. Franny’s blond head poked out. “Indigo! I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
Indigo ducked under the sash and into Franny’s room. “I’m desperate, Franny. I need to talk to you.”
Franny’s green eyes filled with concern. “Lands, Indigo, what’s wrong?”
Winded from running, Indigo tried to pace her breaths. “Just don’t tell me never mind like my ma always does. Promise?”
“I don’t usually like to promise when I don’t know what I’m promising.” After considering Indigo for a moment, Franny finally nodded. “But you’re special. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m getting married.” Running the words together in her haste, Indigo told everything that had happened since she had seen Franny a few hours earlier. When she finally finished, she said, “Tonight’s my wedding night, Franny. I wouldn’t admit this to anyone but you. I’m so scared my knees are knocking.”
“Oh, my . . .”
The compassion Indigo read in Franny’s eyes confirmed her worst fears; wedding nights were an ordeal. Deep down, she had been hoping Franny might say the sexual act wasn’t so bad.
“I scarcely know him,” Indigo blurted. “How will I bear—well, you know. You’re the only person I can turn to.”
Franny’s mouth twisted. “Because I’m not a lady?”
Indigo had never meant to hurt Franny. “Oh, Franny, no! You’re my friend. I figured if anybody was an expert on how to bear up, it had to be you. There has to be a trick to it.”
Franny frowned and pursed her lips. Then she finally smiled. “You’re right on all counts. I am your friend, I’m also an expert on bearing up, and there is a trick to it. At least there is for me. I don’t know a whole lot about other women.” She drew Indigo toward the bed and patted a spot. “Sit down and get that horrified look off your face. It’s not a pleasant situation, but living through it won’t kill you.”
“I’d wish myself dead if I thought it’d work.”
“I’ve wished it a few times myself.”
Franny straightened the lapels of her pink wrapper, tightened the sash, and perched on the edge of the mattress. Looking at her, Indigo found it hard to believe she did what she did for a living. She had an incredibly sweet face that made a body think of an angel. Her blond hair added to the illusion, a coronet glowing like a halo. At seventeen, she was two years younger than Indigo, and her huge green eyes shone with an artless innocence. She didn’t belong in a place like this.
For several seconds, Franny studied the ceiling. A deep sadness crept across her pretty little face. At last, she said, “How to bear up? My, Indigo, when you ask a question, it’s a powerful hard one to answer.” She lowered her chin. “Do you ever make pictures in your mind and go into them?”
“Sometimes, when I’m idle, which isn’t often.”
Franny smiled. “Just as long as you know how, that’s what
counts. I learned a long time ago that a woman can live through almost anything if she goes outside of herself and into a pretty picture. It takes a little practice, but you can get so good at it that you don’t even know what’s happening.”
“Truly?”
Franny narrowed one eye. “How else could I stand to do what I do? You don’t think I like it, do you?”
“No, but pictures? It doesn’t sound like a sure solution.”
“It is.” She gestured toward the door. “With the first knock on that door of an evening, the thinking part of me leaves.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I go and sit by a sparkling stream somewhere and listen to the birds sing. Or I conjure me up a big field of daisies that dance in the breeze, and I lie on my back and watch the clouds drift by.”
A dreamy smile spread across her mouth. “It’s heavenly. And the men who visit are a blur. The same fellow could come five times in one night, and I’d never even realize. I don’t see their faces, I don’t hear their names, and I feel nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Franny’s smile suddenly vanished. “Except for twice, which isn’t a bad average. And that won’t happen to you.”
“What won’t?”
Her mouth thinned. “In my line of work, every once in a great while, a mean-natured man comes along.”
Indigo’s heart caught. “What if Jake’s mean-natured?”
Franny laughed. “He’ll come calling at the Lucky Nugget, my luck! Relax, Indigo! If you cooperate with Jake and do as he asks, why would he deal harshly with you? Just lie back in a field of daisies, and it’ll be over before you realize it.”
Indigo gulped. “Tell me true. Does it hurt?”
“The first time. After that, it doesn’t.”
“How bad?”
Franny sighed. “It depends. If your husband has a care, it won’t be bad at all.”