The Outlaw’s Bride (Mail Order Bride Adventures) Read online

  But Bill couldn’t do any of it over. Instead, he was forced to live with the regret of what he had squandered: the days he had returned home empty-handed, the kisses he had taken for granted, and the fields of wildflowers that had gone unplucked all spring and summer long, left to wither and die in the sun rather than sitting proudly in a vase for Laura to admire.

  All Bill could do was turn regret into resolution, resolution that he would do everything in his power to honor his wife’s memory.

  He reached the shade tree. The soft grass fluttered in the breeze, and he fell down to his knees in front of the small wooden cross that marked the place where he had laid Laura’s body to rest in the earth.

  He gently propped the bouquet against the thick trunk of the tree, then he rested on the earth and laced his fingers through the grass.

  “My darling,” he whispered, his voice disappearing in the breeze. “Do you know what today is?”

  Silence answered him, and he closed his eyes, imagining that the soft blades of grass were the loose curls of his wife’s hair. How he longed to feel her presence again…

  “It’s the twenty-third day of April,” he said softly. “We were married on this day, thirteen years ago.”

  Even though they were fastened shut, his eyes clouded again with the memory.

  “Do you remember it?” he asked aloud. “Your parents had been horrified when you told them of your intent to marry me. They thought I was a terrible man, and Laura… they were right. I hadn’t known redemption until you showed it to me. My faith in the Lord was born from the faith you had in me, a trust you had when no one else did.

  “We were the only two people on earth who celebrated our wedding,” he continued. “Do you remember how the pastor refused to marry us in the church?”

  Bill opened his eyes. He swallowed heavily, looking down at the wooden cross.

  “He said the church was no place for a man like me,” he continued. “I was ready to admit defeat, and I thought that you were, too. We were about to leave, but you turned to ask the pastor for one last favor. You told him you had forgotten a passage, and you needed his help remembering it. He said, ‘Of course,’ and assured you that he had a vast knowledge of scripture and could readily recite almost any verse. He asked what passage you were trying to remember, and you told him, ‘Romans 15:7.’”

  Bill smiled at the memory and locked his fingers into the grass.

  “The pastor’s face drained of color,” he said. “He had no choice but to fulfill his promise to recite the words, ‘Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.’”

  Bill let go of the grass and closed his eyes. That day in the church had just been one example of Laura’s fearless spirit and resilience. She had never backed down from any challenge, even the biggest challenge of all, marrying an outlaw and leading him down the path to redemption.

  It hadn’t been easy, but Laura had never given up. The fact that they were married in the church was proof of her steadfast determination. Even though there wasn’t a single attendant to fill the church pews, they had been married. And even though they celebrated alone, they were happy. They were together, and for the first time in his life, Bill had been touched by the power of goodness.

  “Thirteen years,” Bill said sadly, blinking down at the cross. “On this day, we would have been married for thirteen years.”

  Bill felt a sinful bitterness clutch his heart, and he did his best to quickly extinguish the feeling. He knew it wasn’t right to question the Lord’s will, nor was it right to feel bitter. Still, he couldn’t help but feel an agonizing sadness that his time with Laura had been cut short so soon. When they were married thirteen years prior, he had every intention of spending the rest of his life with Laura. Instead, he had only gotten ten years before illness had claimed her.

  He sighed heavily and stood up from the graveside. The sun would be setting soon, and he knew the children would be expecting him in the kitchen. In the three years following their mother’s passing, the children had made a great effort to compensate for her absence.

  Little Bess, now eight, and William Jr., now twelve, worked together to look after the house. Bess took on the smaller tasks of tidying up, while William handled the larger efforts—stoking the fire or placing the stew pot on the stove before he’d let his sister stir its boiling contents.

  Bill had done his best to take over with lessons, but he feared that he wasn’t nearly as competent a teacher as Laura had been. He had never been one for reading or writing anyhow, and his old eyes didn’t make matters any easier. Thankfully Laura had instilled a good bit of knowledge on William Jr., and his tenacity for reading had continued to flourish in her absence. He was now an avid reader, and he readily helped with teaching Bess her lessons.

  Though the children did all they could to make the log cabin a happy home, there were still some circumstances that couldn’t be helped. The autumn after Laura’s passing, an overturned lantern had spread a fierce fire over the crops. Bill was able to get the fire under control, but not in time to salvage the harvest. It was a total loss, and that winter was the first time the Wiley children learned the feeling of hunger.

  Bill had prayed that the next year’s harvest would make up for his losses, but when the next autumn’s yield was just as scarce, he began to question whether he could afford another long winter.

  After the second failed harvest, Bill had been faced with a tough decision. He could invest the dwindling savings he had left into a third crop and pray that autumn would bring a better outcome than the two years prior, or he could take that money and invest in something else, something that could reverse his bad luck and turn it into good fortune.

  He had gone with the latter, taking every last penny he had and using it to buy a breeding sow that was guaranteed to yield an impressive litter by year’s end. Bill saw that pig as his last chance to reverse his bad luck. If he could get a strong litter of piglets by winter, then surely his children wouldn’t starve.

  Bill was optimistic. He reckoned the sow would deliver her litter by September, which meant the drove would have plenty of time to wean before the first frost.

  He had to be optimistic. Everything was riding on this. If anything went wrong now… well, he didn’t like to think that way.

  Bill saw smoke puff from the log cabin’s chimney in the distance, and he knew that the children would be preparing supper and awaiting for his return. He quickened his pace as he walked back towards the house, and he had nearly made it halfway across the clearing when he heard a voice call to him.

  “Sir! Pardon me, sir!”

  Bill turned and saw the dirt-stained face of a young man. Really, he was little more than a boy, a pair of limp shoulders and gangly limbs outfitted in the stained work uniform of a miner.

  “You must be lost, boy,” Bill called back. “Mines are thataway.” He pointed towards the distance with his finger.

  “I came from the mines,” the boy said. “I’m looking for Livingston.”

  “Then you’re most certainly lost,” Bill said. “You’ve traveled a couple miles in the wrong direction, I’m afraid.”

  “Are you sure?” The boy looked devastated.

  “Unless they’ve gone and moved the town when I wasn’t looking, I’m positive,” Bill said. “Livingston’s three miles north of here. Same place it was when they incorporated the town a year ago.”

  “I’m not from around here,” the boy admitted sheepishly.

  “Well you didn’t need to tell me that,” Bill smiled. “If you were from around here, you’d know that you can always follow the river up to the town.”

  For good measure, Bill pointed in the direction of the river in the distance.

  “Thank you,” the boy said, and he started to trudge in the direction that Bill was pointing. Then Bill felt a pang in his heart.

  “Now you wait just a second,” he said.

  The boy turned.

  “The sun’s fixi
ng to set, and when it does, you ain’t getting nowhere quick,” Bill said. Then, under his breath, he added, “Especially with your sense of direction.”

  The boy blinked silently.

  “Tell you what,” Bill said. “There’s a loft over the milk barn. It ain’t much, but it’ll put a roof over your head until morning. You can stay there, on the condition that you don’t upset the cows… or me, for that matter.”

  “Really?” The boy’s face lit up beneath the thick layer of dirt. “You’d let me stay here for the night? But you don’t know me…”

  “Listen, boy,” Bill said. “There ain’t a man in this world who hasn’t relied on the kindness of a stranger at some point in his life. You remember that, because someday there’ll be someone who needs your help. When that happens, I want you to remember this day and remember that you’re never too important to show mercy on a man in need. You hear?”

  The boy nodded, and Bill pointed to the dairy barn.

  “Barn’s thataway,” he said. “You need me to walk you there so you don’t get lost?”

  “I’ll manage,” the boy smiled, then he scurried in the direction of the dairy barn.

  Bill had meant what he said. He remembered the night that Doctor Farriday had shown him mercy. That act of kindness might not have saved Laura’s life, but Bill had no doubt in his mind that the vaccine had spared his children. And for that, Bill was eternally grateful.

  He trudged the rest of the way to the log cabin, where Bessie and William had prepared a humble dinner of barley stew. They ate together and talked, and soon Bill had forgotten all about the stranger in the dairy barn loft.

  He didn’t remember his guest until the following morning, when he looked out at the morning mist that hung low over the fields. Even for spring, it had been a chilly night, and Bill hoped that the boy had managed to keep warm in the barn.

  Feeling a renewed sense of sympathy, he scraped a ration of breakfast porridge into a bowl and carried it towards the barn. When he threw open the barn door and climbed to the loft, however, he found that the boy had already left.

  There was hardly any trace of a visitor. The only thing the boy had left behind was a soft indent in the loose bedding of hay, and a carefully folded newspaper.

  Bill reached for the newspaper—it would be a welcome treat for Bessie and William, who had already exhausted the small selection of books in the cabin. But when Bill got his hands on the paper, he realized this was no ordinary publication.

  “Matrimonial Times,” he read the paper’s name aloud, inspecting the front page. At first he was confused, but as his eyes scanned the paper, he understood exactly what he was looking at.

  Maybe it was his own reluctance to let a good paper go to waste, or maybe it was the nagging memory of his wife’s dying wish, whatever the reasoning was, Bill felt suddenly compelled to roll up the paper and tuck it safely in his pocket.

  THREE

  September 19, 1883 | Boston, Massachusetts

  Maddie Henson had a secret, a secret that put a spring into each step she took and kept a smile tugging at the corners of her lips all day long. And even though that secret came in direct defiance of every value and principle that been instilled in Maddie since childhood, she had already made up her mind that the secret was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  The only child of an affluent shipping magnate, Maddie had grown up in a life of privilege and wealth. But with great fortune had come great discipline. From as early as infancy, her life had been planned out, controlled, regimented… every move pre-determined, and every outcome pre-selected.

  She had never understood the term “free will,” and that wasn’t to say that she lacked the vocabulary. In fact, if you had asked her to, she could readily provide a definition for the term, and even posit on the etymology of the words—free, derived from the Germanic word frei, meaning “exempt from bondage” and will, Old English, meaning “determination, purpose, wish.”

  Maddie Henson had been afforded the best education that money could buy, and she could certainly explain the meaning of “free will.” She could not, however, understand the implications or effects of the term in practice. And that was because, for as long as Maddie Henson could remember, she hadn’t once been granted an opportunity to exercise free will.

  Everything from the meals she ate, the gowns she wore, the books she read, and the company she kept had been carefully curated by her overbearing parents. Sometimes Maddie even wondered if she was breathing of her own free will. She was willing to wager that, should she attempt to stop breathing, her lungs would override her attempt at autonomy and continue the process of inhaling and exhaling on their own.

  As a child, Maddie had hoped that her parents would lessen their ironclad grip on her once she crossed the threshold of adulthood. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case, and she supposed that she only had herself to blame for that.

  One day she had been sitting in the garden behind her family’s home. She had been alone, and she had found herself captivated by the beauty that surrounded her: the green grass, the flowers, the misty sky, the dew of raindrops that sparkled in the dim sunlight. She had started to sing softly at first, under her breath. But as she had gotten more transfixed by her surroundings, she had grown more confident.

  Soon, the sound of her voice had filled the small garden. It was the closest thing she had felt to being free, the closest thing she had felt to happiness.

  She should have known better than to think that she could enjoy the gift of song. Her father had happened to step into the garden, and when he heard his daughter singing freely, he abruptly made up his mind… his daughter had been blessed with the gift of song, and she was to be begin training immediately to perfect her voice and vocal range.

  When Maddie was told that she would be sent away to a music conservatory to undergo private opera training, she was both devastated and relieved. She was devastated that her private joy—singing—had been exploited and turned into another opportunity for her parents to control her. At the same time, she was relieved that she would finally be out of their home, and out on her own.

  Maddie’s relief was short-lived. Upon arriving at the institution, she quickly realized that it was even more strict and regimented than life at the Henson home had been. Soon, something that Maddie enjoyed so much—singing—became a labor of pain and resentment. The rigorous exercises and practices were taking a great toll on her vocal chords, and her voice was starting to fade.

  She resented the conservatory, she hated the lessons, and she longed for escape. But then, one day, her luck all changed.

  It all started when a fellow student smuggled in a copy of the Matrimonial Times. She had purchased the newspaper as a means of amusement, and indeed the women’s dormitory had all taken turns scoffing and giggling at the desperation of the men who had placed advertisements in the paper.

  Maddie had tried her best to ignore them—she thought that any pastime that derived pleasure at the expense of others was cruel and unnecessary—but she couldn’t help but overhear as the women took turns reciting each advertisement aloud. Though they chortled and laughed, Maddie was struck by the hopefulness and charm of each listing.

  By the time they had finished, she made up her mind about what she had to do. And later that evening, when she found herself alone in the dormitory, she had found the newspaper and tucked it safely inside her wardrobe.

  Over the next few weeks, she used every free moment she had to read through the listings. For a while, just reading the words was enough. She found a strange sense of fellowship sharing in the loneliness of others. She didn’t intend to actually write to any of the suitors. At least, she hadn’t planned to… until she found him.

  Maddie Henson’s secret had a name, William Wiley. Actually, he preferred “Bill.” That’s what he had told her when he responded to her first letter.

  He also told her about his late wife, Laura. She had been his angel, and it had been her dying wish
that he would remarry so that their children wouldn’t grow up without a mother. Bill admitted that he had struggled to keep the promise he had made to Laura, but when he happened upon a copy of the Matrimonial Times, he had taken it as a sign from God that it was time to make good on his word.

  Maddie’s heart had warmed when Bill wrote about his children, Bessie and William. Though Bill had struggled to fill a written page when talking about himself, he easily filled several pages detailing the strengths and characteristics of his children.

  Bess and William were the only thing Bill spoke about with pride. He didn’t brag of himself or his accomplishments, nor did he boast of wealth or success. Maddie couldn’t tell if this was due to the man’s humility, or simply due to a lack of material things. Either way, she decided that it didn’t matter. Maddie had spent a lifetime around people who were rich in assets, but poor in substance. She had grown up in one of the wealthiest families on the east coast, but as far as she was concerned, she had never met a man with the wealth that Bill had. And she wasn’t talking about a wealth that was measured in gold bars or money, either.

  Rather, Bill had a wealth that no man could steal, a wealth that was secured in his heart, rather than a bank. Bill’s wealth was his character, and every letter that he sent Maddie just confirmed that he was rich in the only thing that mattered—goodness.

  So when Bill proposed that Maddie leave the conservatory and travel west to Livingston, Montana, to become his bride and become a mother to Bessie and William, she had readily accepted. She hadn’t bothered telling her parents. She knew that they wouldn’t understand.

  Besides, it was time that she took control of her own life. It was time she made decisions for herself, and it was time that she learned the true meaning of free will.

  And just like that, Maddie’s life of rules and obligations had been flooded with the hope and promise of escape. She had a secret, a secret that made every day feel easier than the last. Because every day that passed meant she was one day closer to making the journey out west, the journey to her new life and her new husband.