Read Online Prairie Widow by Harold Bakst - Free Book Online Page A

resolute. He often stormed out of the house rather than listen. Still, Jennifer didn’t give up hope. She had faith in her father’s persuasive efforts—until, that is, one terrible, rainy night.
    It was late, past midnight, and Jennifer had gone to bed, leaving the two men in the parlor before a fire to discuss the move, which was only one week away at that point. But Jennifer couldn’t sleep, and she tiptoed down the creaky stairs to listen to her father and husband talking in the parlor, just as she used to tiptoe down to listen to her parents talk when her mother was alive.
    The two men spoke quietly so as not awaken anyone, and Jennifer had to press her head close to the glass-paned doors.
    â€œLook, Walter, won’t you reconsider?”
    â€œFred, I’ve told you a million times that there’s nothing to reconsider. I’m going.”
    â€œBut she’s my only daughter, my only child. I don’t think I can bear the thought of her out there in the wilds of Kansas. I don’t care what you say about the Indians. They like white women.”
    â€œLook, do you think I would do anything to hurt her? I tell you, this is all for the best. I’ve got to make something of my life. People talk.”
    â€œIs that the reason you’re going? Hell, let them talk. What do you care, suddenly?”
    â€œI care because they’re right. Fred, my children are getting older and smarter, and I don’t want them to grow up thinking their father’s a no-account.”
    There was a pause.
    â€œYou’re a strange man, Walt. I never knew you felt such things.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œStill, isn’t there any way to dissuade you?”
    â€œNo, I’m afraid not.”
    Another pause.
    â€œWell, you should’ve come right out and told me all this sooner. I can understand how you feel—mind you, I still don’t like the idea—but I can understand.”
    â€œThat’s good enough.”
    â€œHell, I guess even, well, I guess even I’m a little proud of you.”
    â€œThanks, Fred. That means a lot to me.”
    There was a long silence. “Then go, Walt. God be with you.”
    Jennifer still shuddered when she recalled those words, “God be with you.” A wave of fury came over her as she sat before Walter’s grave. She had always counted on her father to protect her, to speak out for her—but just when she needed him most…
    The sun was now slipping into the grass on the western horizon. The sky, however, was flat and grey and didn’t blush with the usual color. Jennifer rose to her feet and brushed her skirt. It was best to go before it got too dark to see. She looked toward the wagon and ox. Beyond was the inviting East. She closed her eyes a moment and followed the wagon wheel ruts back over the eastern horizon…
    Dipping here, rising there, crinkling, flattening out, treeless but for those rare clefts of sheltered streambeds lined with willows, the prairie she had crossed in her bone-jarring wagon journey rolled back before her shut lids like a magic lantern show. Once more she saw that miserable highway, posted with the grave markers of would-be settlers and strewn with the discarded relics of civilization: a table here, a chair there, even a harmonium at one spot. She remembered painfully how some of her own furniture—her embroidered ottoman, her dresser, porch chairs—had to be jettisoned during a heavy rain so that the oxen, led by Walter, who often went on foot to further lighten the beasts’ burden, could haul the wagon through the mud.
    Once more she came to the spot where Walter, again on foot, led the oxen and wagon off the path to let by a creaky and dilapidated prairie schooner returning eastward. The driver, unshaven and drawn, didn’t stop to talk, but nodded blankly as he passed. When the wagons had cleared each other, Jennifer, sitting alone on the seat, looked back into