Chapter 1 - The Wedding They Came to Laugh At
A drunken rancher slapped the pew and shouted, “Kiss the boulder, Caldwell!”
Gideon Caldwell turned from the altar with Mabel Higgins’s marriage contract clenched in his hand.
A number had been written beneath her stepfather’s signature.
$4,800.
Gideon suddenly knew this marriage had never been about family.
The laughter stopped for perhaps three seconds.
Then somebody in the back of Pine Hollow Church snorted.
Another man chuckled.
Soon the sound moved through the wooden pews like sparks racing through dry grass.
Mabel Higgins stood beneath the cross with both hands trapped inside Gideon Caldwell’s enormous palms and wished the floorboards would split open beneath her.
She had endured laughter before.
At twenty-nine, Mabel had spent most of her life learning how cruel respectable people could become when they believed cruelty was entertainment.
Children had once followed her down Main Street chanting names.
Young men had made wagers about who could convince her to dance at harvest socials.
Women who spoke loudly about Christian kindness had lowered their voices when she entered the mercantile, only to raise them again after she passed.
Her stepfather, Silas Higgins, had supplied the cruelest name.
The town boulder.
He had first said it when Mabel was sixteen.
Pine Hollow had remembered it ever since.
But today was supposed to be different.
Today she was wearing her mother's ivory wedding dress, altered with additional lace by Mrs. Bell from the sewing shop. Tiny white flowers had been woven into her auburn hair. A veil fell down her back.
And standing opposite her was the one man in Pine Hollow almost nobody dared mock to his face.
Gideon Caldwell.
He was thirty-four, broad across the shoulders and tall enough that Mabel had to lift her chin to meet his eyes. Dark hair brushed the collar of his navy coat. A scar crossed the left side of his weathered face.
He lived alone on two hundred acres north of town.
He trapped in winter.
Raised cattle in summer.
Spoke little in every season.
There were stories about Gideon.
There were always stories about solitary men.
Some said he had killed three men in Wyoming.
Others said the scar on his face came from a mountain lion.
But the story repeated most often concerned his first wife, Clara.
She had died six years earlier.
There had been no children.
According to Pine Hollow, there never could be.
“Poor Caldwell,” someone whispered loudly from a pew. “Barren man gets a barren future.”
Mabel felt Gideon’s fingers stiffen.
She expected him to release her.
He didn't.
Instead, he turned.
His brown eyes traveled across the congregation.
One by one, smiles disappeared.
“Anyone else?” Gideon asked.
Silence.
Even the preacher stopped breathing for a moment.
Then a voice came from the third row.
Silas Higgins.
Mabel’s stepfather.
“Come now, Caldwell. Folks are celebrating.”
Silas was fifty-seven, silver beginning to streak his black hair. His expensive brown coat was newer than anything Mabel owned.
He smiled.
Mabel knew that smile.
She had feared it since childhood.
Gideon stared at him.
“Then tell them to celebrate quieter.”
Silas chuckled.
“She's your problem now.”
Mabel flinched.
Gideon noticed.
Something changed behind his eyes.
Not affection.
They barely knew each other.
But perhaps anger.
Reverend Amos Whitaker cleared his throat.
“Shall we continue?”
Gideon looked back at Mabel.
She could barely breathe.
“You all right?” he whispered.
Nobody had asked her that all day.
Mabel nodded.
It was a lie.
The ceremony continued.
Three minutes later, Reverend Whitaker pronounced them husband and wife.
There was scattered applause.
There was more laughter.
Gideon did not kiss her.
Mabel was grateful.
Instead, he offered his arm.
She took it.
They walked down the aisle together.
Halfway toward the doors, Silas stepped into their path.
“Congratulations.”
Gideon stopped.
Silas extended his hand.
Gideon ignored it.
Silas's smile tightened.
“You'll find everything we discussed has been handled.”
“I expect so.”
“And Mabel understands her responsibilities.”
Gideon glanced at her.
“What responsibilities?”
Silas answered before she could.
“Being a wife.”
Something cold crawled through Mabel.
Gideon studied Silas.
Then he looked at the folded marriage agreement Reverend Whitaker had handed him after the ceremony.
Silas had insisted upon it.
Gideon unfolded the paper.
That was when he saw the figure.
$4,800.
Written lightly in pencil.
Nearly erased.
“What is this?”
Silas’s face changed.
Only for an instant.
But Mabel saw it.
“Nothing.”
Gideon raised the paper.
“Four thousand eight hundred dollars isn't nothing.”
Mabel stared at her stepfather.
Silas stepped closer.
“Business between men.”
“Mabel's name is on the document.”
“Technicality.”
Gideon’s voice became quieter.
“Then explain it.”
People nearby began watching.
Silas forced a laugh.
“Not at a wedding.”
He moved toward the doors.
Gideon caught his arm.
Not violently.
But firmly enough to stop him.
Silas looked down at Gideon’s hand.
“Careful.”
“No,” Gideon said. “You be careful.”
Mabel had never seen anyone speak to Silas that way.
Her stepfather pulled free.
“You wanted a wife. I provided one. Our agreement is finished.”
Mabel’s stomach dropped.
Gideon slowly turned toward her.
“You were part of a payment?”
She couldn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
Silas walked away.
Outside, horses stamped in the snow.
Guests began leaving.
Mabel stood beside the church door, feeling as though she had just been sold twice.
Gideon folded the contract and put it inside his coat.
“Get your things.”
“My things?”
“We're going home.”
Home.
The word frightened her more than she expected.
She had never seen Gideon's cabin.
They had spoken only four times before Silas announced the arrangement.
The first conversation had lasted twenty seconds.
The second concerned a broken wagon wheel.
The third occurred when Gideon formally asked whether she objected to marrying him.
She had almost laughed.
Object?
Silas had already informed her that if she refused, she would leave his house with nothing.
Mabel had nowhere else to go.
Her mother had been dead eleven years.
The Higgins property had belonged to her mother before the marriage, but Silas controlled everything now.
Or so Mabel had always believed.
So she had told Gideon no.
She did not object.
That had been their courtship.
Now she was his wife.
Her trunk was tied to the back of Gideon's wagon.
The ride north took nearly an hour.
For the first twenty minutes, neither spoke.
Snow-covered mountains rose ahead of them.
Mabel kept her hands folded over her lap.
Gideon drove.
Finally he said, “I didn't know about the money.”
“I believe you.”
He glanced at her.
“You do?”
“If you'd bought me, you wouldn't have asked.”
His expression hardened.
“I didn't buy you.”
“I know.”
Another silence.
Then Gideon said, “Why did you agree?”
Mabel looked toward the mountains.
“Silas said I had to leave if I refused.”
“That all?”
No.
It wasn't.
She pressed her hands together.
“Yes.”
Gideon recognized the lie.
She could tell.
But he didn't force her.
His cabin was not a cabin.
It was a large timber house built against a hillside, with a barn, smokehouse and workshop nearby.
Mabel stared.
“You live here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gideon climbed down.
“Never found anybody willing to stay.”
He offered his hand.
Mabel hesitated before taking it.
Inside, everything was clean but painfully spare.
A large stone fireplace.
Wooden table.
Iron stove.
Two chairs.
Books.
Tools.
No feminine touches remained.
Except one.
A small framed photograph stood on the mantel.
A woman with dark hair.
Clara.
Gideon saw Mabel looking.
“My first wife.”
“She was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
The answer contained no apology.
Mabel respected that.
Gideon carried her trunk upstairs.
“There are two bedrooms.”
Mabel looked at him.
He continued.
“You take the larger one.”
“And you?”
“The other.”
Relief moved through her so strongly she nearly cried.
Gideon noticed that too.
“I won't touch you unless you want me to.”
Mabel looked down.
“Thank you.”
“You shouldn't have to thank a husband for that.”
She looked at him again.
Something unfamiliar passed between them.
Respect, perhaps.
That evening, Mabel cooked stew.
Gideon ate two bowls.
“This is good.”
“You don't have to flatter me.”
“I don't.”
She almost smiled.
Then nausea struck.
Suddenly.
Violently.
Mabel dropped her spoon.
She rushed outside.
Gideon followed.
She barely reached the porch railing before becoming sick.
“Mabel?”
“I'm fine.”
“You're not.”
“Something I ate.”
“We ate the same thing.”
Her heart began pounding.
Gideon moved closer.
Mabel instinctively pressed a hand against her abdomen.
Exactly as she had in church.
His gaze dropped.
Then lifted.
“Mabel.”
She stepped backward.
“Please.”
“How long?”
She froze.
He understood.
Not everything.
But enough.
His face drained of color.
“You're with child?”
Mabel couldn't speak.
Gideon took one step backward.
The rumors about him suddenly seemed to stand between them like ghosts.
His jaw tightened.
“Whose?”
Tears filled Mabel’s eyes.
“It's not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
“I can't.”
“Can't?”
“Not yet.”
Gideon turned away.
Mabel saw hurt beneath his anger.
And she hated herself for causing it.
He walked inside without another word.
That night she lay awake.
Near midnight, something struck the downstairs window.
Mabel sat up.
Another sound.
Then hoofbeats disappeared into the darkness.
She went downstairs.
Gideon was already standing at the door with a rifle.
Something lay on the porch.
A small wooden box.
Gideon picked it up.
Inside was a baby's knitted white bonnet.
Underneath it was a folded note.
Mabel recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her blood turned cold.
Gideon opened it.
There were only six words.
TELL HIM AND THE CHILD DIES.
May you like
Gideon slowly raised his eyes toward Mabel.
Then someone knocked three times on the back door.
