“She’s my wife.”
“Yes.”
“So where we live is our concern.”
Marcus smiled.
“For five hundred dollars, I hoped for cooperation.”
Caleb’s expression hardened.
“You purchased cancellation of a debt.”
He stepped closer.
“You did not purchase my obedience.”
Marcus held his gaze.
Then nodded.
“Safe journey.”
They left Ridge Creek before noon.
For the first hour, Caleb and Beatrice barely spoke.
The road climbed south toward the San Juan Mountains, trading dry valley grass for pine, granite, and cooler air.
Beatrice watched the town disappear behind them.
She did not cry.
Caleb noticed.
Most brides cried leaving family.
At least that was what he had heard.
He had attended three weddings in his life and left two before supper.
He knew more about elk tracks than marriages.
Beatrice looked straight ahead.
Finally Caleb said, “Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“For food?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“I’m fine.”
He nodded.
Another mile passed.
Beatrice spoke without looking at him.
“You regret it.”
Caleb turned.
“What?”
“The marriage.”
He tightened the reins slightly.
“Do you?”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He almost smiled.
“You speak like an attorney.”
“My grandfather said the same.”
Caleb looked toward the road.
“I don’t regret standing in the church.”
“That is carefully worded.”
“Yes.”
“So you regret the reason.”
Caleb was silent for several seconds.
“I don’t like being bought.”
“Neither do I.”
That answer landed.
He looked at her.
Beatrice’s expression remained calm.
“Marcus told you I wanted this.”
“Yes.”
“He told me you needed the debt erased.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“Before you agreed?”
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
“Then why agree?”
Beatrice looked toward the mountains.
“You first.”
Caleb thought.
Honesty seemed like the only sensible foundation available to a marriage already built on a bargain.
“I was going to lose the cabin.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Five hundred dollars buys lumber and land, not a wife.”
Caleb exhaled.
“No.”
“Then why agree to marry me instead of selling?”
He looked at his hands.
“Because I was tired of coming home to an empty cabin.”
The admission embarrassed him more than debt.
Beatrice turned slightly.
Caleb continued.
“I thought perhaps two people could make something useful out of a bad arrangement.”
“Useful.”
He winced.
“Poor word.”
“Very.”
Caleb glanced at her.
“I did not mean you were useful.”
“You don’t know me well enough to mean anything else.”
Fair.
“I meant the arrangement.”
Beatrice looked forward again.
“And if you’d seen me before agreeing?”
Caleb immediately understood.
There it was.
The question no one asked directly.
Would you have agreed if you knew how large I was?
Marcus had said she was “sturdy.”
That had been all.
Caleb considered lying.
Then did not.
“I don’t know.”
Beatrice’s face closed.
He continued quickly.
“That is not because I’m ashamed of you.”
She said nothing.
“I agreed to marry a stranger. If I had seen any woman first, maybe I would have found an excuse to be afraid.”
That made her look at him.
Caleb’s eyes stayed on the road.
“Your size doesn’t frighten me.”
“People always say that as though it should.”