Mail Order Annie - A Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Novel (Mail Order Romance - Book 1 - Benjamin and Annie) (9 page)

             
As she busied herself with her chores, she heard the far-off clop of a horse entering the valley and, panicking at the thought of Forsythe’s return, she hid behind the door as the rider approached the house. Moran heard the horse, as well, from inside the barn, and came out to meet the rider in the yard. Anne stole a peek at the two men from behind the doorpost, but she did not recognize the stranger as Moran seemed to. The rider did not dismount, but conversed with Moran at his horse’s shoulder. Then he abruptly reined his horse around and rode off. Moran strode to the door of the cabin, where he spotted Anne.

             
“Who is that?” she inquired.

             
“The sheriff,” he growled. “There’s been some trouble. I’ll saddle up and ride out with him. I should be home for dinner. Stay put. I’ll be back in a little while.” He grabbed his rifle and his gun belt and stalked away. The next moment, his horse galloped off up the trail after the sheriff. Anne closed the door on the outside world, and insulated herself in the work of the house.

             
As he promised, Moran returned at dusk, his horse lathered. He rode directly to the barn to put the horse away, and by the time he entered the cabin to supper, full dark occluded the land outside the cabin. Anne put his steaming plate on the table, then served herself one, and sat opposite him, waiting for him to tell her what was going on.

             
“There’s been a murder,” he broke the silence at last.

             
Anne gasped in horror. “What?! Where?! Who was it?” A million questions poured out of her at once.

             
“It was Tom and Maureen Iverson, over in the next valley to the west of us,” Moran revealed. “There’s no way to be certain who did it. Nothing has been stolen. All their stock are still there, and even Maureen’s jewelry hasn’t been touched. Whoever it was took advantage of her, and then killed them both. The only thing missing is a hunting knife that Tom made for himself. The killer must have taken it as a trophy to celebrate his deeds.” Moran shook his head into his plate.

             
“But who would do such a thing?” Anne wailed.

             
“I think I have an idea, but I wouldn’t want to say,” Moran mumbled.

             
“But what will they do about it?” she demanded.

             
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” Moran declared. “There’s not enough evidence to make a definite determination of who did it. There’s nothing anyone can do. They didn’t have any family, so I guess their house and their land and their stock will all be coming up for sale soon.”

             
“But that just can’t be!” Anne cried. “How can someone commit such a horrible crime and just get away with it? That just isn’t right!”

             
“I feel the same way, but that’s the way it is,” Moran confirmed. “Unless something happens that sheds some light on who did it, no one will ever know the truth, and the killer will just carry his guilt for the rest of his life. But you never know. Sometimes that sort of thing has a way of working it out on its own. You could almost say that God works his own justice in cases like this. Sometimes we can see it and sometimes we can’t.”

             
Anne gaped at him. “I’m surprised to hear you talking like that.”

             
Moran blushed. “Okay. Forget it. You just watch and see. That sort of thing never goes completely unpunished. I’m convinced of that.”

             
This line of reasoning made an enormous impression on Anne. The awful injustice of a murder going unsolved and unpunished seemed somehow less calamitous when cast as part of God’s grand scheme. She let the matter rest, and when they returned to their chairs by the fire, she initiated the conversation with Moran again. “Your shirt is torn,” she pointed out. “Give it to me and let me fix it.”

             
Moran rose, reached down a different shirt from the shelf, changed quickly, and handed her the torn one. He assumed his chair once more, while she bent over the shirt with her needle. “This shirt was sewn by hand,” she stated. “Who made it?”

             
“Someone,” Moran muttered.

             
Anne stiffened, but persisted, determined not to be put off. “Was it that other woman, the one who came to live here?”

             
“Yes,” Moran grunted.

             
Anne continued without any hesitation. “Is there any truth to the story that Webster Forsythe told me, about her coming to live here and you not marrying her?”

             
“Yes,” Moran admitted. “That much is true. She came to live here, and she stayed for two years, and I did not marry her. All of that is true.”

             
“And she made you this shirt?” Anne surmised. “She must have cared for you.”

             
“Yes, she cared for me,” Moran confirmed simply. “She made a lot of things here. She made the shirt I’m wearing now, and she made the quilt on the bed over there.”

             
“Did she not like it here?” Anne postulated. “Is that why she left you?”

             
“No,” Moran replied. “She loved it here. She wanted to stay here for the rest of her life. She fell in love with the landscape, and with the simplicity of life out here. She was never happier in her life than when she lived here.” Moran cocked his head to the side. “She was a Christian woman, like you. And beautiful. Come to think of it, you remind me a lot of her, in a lot of different ways. She saw God in everything around her, and she wanted me to see Him, too. She got distressed if I didn’t, or disagreed with her about it. To her, God was obvious in everything. She hoped to bring me around to her way of seeing things.”

             
“And did you?” Anne inquired. “I mean, come around to her way of seeing things?”

             
“Certainly, she made quite a lot of progress while she was here,” he related. “She convinced me to look more closely, and to be more open to the possibility. I’ll give her that much.”

             
“What happened to her?” Anne asked.

             
“She died,” he answered flatly.

             
“How did she die?” Anne persevered.

             
“You’ll find out soon enough, if you spend any amount of time out here,” Moran shifted in his chair. “Don’t be in a hurry to break your own heart by finding out.” Anne noticed a wistful, misty expression in his eyes, and let the matter drop, no wiser for her investigation.

             
Moran stood up and prepared to leave to go sleep in the barn, until she stopped him at the door with a hand on his arm, “Stay,” she implored. “I’d like you to stay. If you want to.”

             
“Are you sure?” he peered at her.

             
“Yes,” she nodded her head. “I’m sure. I want you to stay. I want you here with me.”

             
“I wouldn’t want you to do anything that would make you feel uncomfortable,” he persisted.

             
She indicated their chairs by the fire. “Please, sit down again,” she insisted. “I don’t want you to leave.”

             
He took his chair again, and she dragged her own chair over next to his. She sat at his side and took his hand, then she leaned over and kissed him longingly and sweetly. When their faces separated, she peered into his face earnestly. “Let’s get married,” she suddenly blurted out.

             
“Are you sure about that?” he questioned. “Do you really think that you have thought about it enough to make a decision? You’ve only been here a few days. You should take a little longer to think about it, don’t you think?”

             
“Yes, I’m sure,” she asserted. “I feel I can be happy here, especially after today. I want to put the uncertainty behind me and get on with the rest of our lives. I find myself making all kinds of plans for a life here, and then I question whether I really want to marry you or if I want to go away, which makes me sad and upset. Then when I finally get myself calmed down, the whole thing starts all over again. I can’t keep doubting myself. I need to just do it and get it done. Then I won’t be able to go back on my decision and I can concentrate on living my life.”

             
“It sounds like you still have some thinking to do about it,” he glanced sideways at her.

             
“No,” she affirmed. “I can’t think about it anymore. Thinking about it just upsets me.”

             
“Alright,” he consented. “We can get married anytime you want to. I’m ready when you are.”

             
“Is there someone at the Post Office that can do it?” she considered.

             
“Post Office?” he barked. “You mean, in Eckville? No, we won’t go to Eckville. I don’t know if there is anyone there that can do it, but I wouldn’t want to go there anyway. In the morning, I’ll hitch up the wagon and we’ll drive down to Patterson and visit the judge. If you’re certain.”

             
“I’m certain,” she asserted.

             
They kissed again, their synchronized breathing mingling with the popping and hissing of the fire to produce the only sounds and their hands clasped in his lap.

             
“There are so many things I want to talk to you about,” she revealed, when she leaned back again.

             
“Like what?” he scrutinized her face.

             
“Like planting a kitchen garden by the south wall of the cabin,” she began, pointing to the wall behind their heads. “And getting a milk cow. I could milk her and make butter and cheese. And I was thinking about getting a few sheep, if you think it’s a good idea. I could get a spinning wheel and spin and knit their wool into clothes for us. You wouldn’t have to buy those cheap socks, and they would be a lot warmer.” She trailed off, unsure of his reaction to her sudden flow of ideas. “I’m sorry. I should have asked your permission first. I know it’s a lot to think about all of a sudden. We can talk about it later, if you want.”

             
But Moran smiled at her appreciatively. “You don’t have to apologize. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the drive down to town. We’ll have to spend the night down there and come home the next day. It’s too far to make the trip there and back in one day. And spending the night will have to serve as a sort of honeymoon for us. We can look around in town for a spinning wheel for you while we’re there, too.”

             
“And I want to talk to you all about your business,” she chattered. “I want to talk to you all about how many head of stock you have, and where you sell them, and how much you get for them. I want to be able to do everything in case something happens to you and I need to take over your work. Just in case, you understand.”

             
“Okay, slow down, now,” Moran chuckled. “There will be plenty of time for all that. Let’s not go rushing off all of a sudden. It’s only our first night together. Let’s relax and enjoy it. We’ve got a lot of years ahead of us. Let’s go slow and do it right.”

             
“Okay,” she agreed.

             
“Will you let me say a prayer for us?” she ventured delicately. “I know you aren’t big on religion, but it would mean a lot to me to ask God’s blessing on our union. I feel like He has been leading me to this moment for a long time, and that I am carrying his blessing by joining myself to you. You don’t have to join in, but I feel like I ought to say a prayer right now.”

             
He shrugged one of his shoulders blandly. “Go ahead, if you want to. I won’t try to stop you.”

             
She hesitated for a moment, trying to choose her words to avoid embarrassing him. Eventually, she gave up the fight, closed her eyes, and spoke the words that rose in her heart. “Dear Lord, grant the peace of your blessing on the marriage of your children, Anne and Benjamin, and give us both the strength and faith to walk in your ways throughout our lives. May this house be a haven of Godly peace and a light to the world. May all our endeavors bring glory to Your Name and an example to all we meet. Grant that we always live to glorify You, in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

             
She opened her eyes to see Moran scrutinizing her critically. He did not comment on her prayer, and she fidgeted self-consciously. Then she asked, “Do you think you would ever find your way back to God?”

             
He considered her question carefully before answering. “I used to pray and go to church and all of that when I was younger. I used to think about becoming a priest. It didn’t happen, somehow. Life happened, I guess. Somehow I just drifted away from it.”

             
“So do you still believe?” she pried.

             
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” he hedged. “It’s hard to say, just right off the bat, like that. I would have to think about it some. It’s like you said the other day. When I look around me at the world, especially this valley, and watching the stars falling the way we did the other night, I can believe that God is out there, watching us and praying for us the same way we pray to Him, and I feel that my heart wants to sing a song of praise to Him. But then I go to a place like Eckville or Patterson, and I see the kind of people that live there and the kind of things they spend their time and money on, and the things they do to themselves, and the way they treat their animals and their children, and that sort of thing, and I think that there can be no God anywhere that would create a world like this or people like this to live in it. Then I’m happy to live out here alone and not think about God anymore.”