The Drifter's Promise Read online

  The Drifter's Promise

  Book Twenty of Brides of the West

  By Rita Hestand

  Copyright © 2019 by: Rita Hestand

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN#: 9780463552926

  Cover Design: Sheri McGathy

  License Note

  This book The Drifter's Promise is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be copied or reproduced in any manner without express written permission of the author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy or copies. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The Drifter's Promise is a work of fiction. Though some of the cities and towns actually exist they are used in a fictitious manner for purposes of this work. All characters are works of fiction and any names or characteristics similar to any person past, present or future are coincidental.

  Dedication

  The Drifter's Promise is dedicated to all the abused women of this world, who went from dreams to horrors. This books means to give you hope and comfort that Mr. Right is out there. Just keep your faith.

  Blessings

  Rita Hestand

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About the Author

  Rita's Other Books

  Far East Texas

  1885

  Chapter One

  Kate Marley stared through the pouring rain as they lowered her husband into the ground. She wondered why there was nothing inside her to give him now.

  Although she wore a slicker, and a hat, the rain was quickly soaking her clothes. It didn't matter, the aloneness she felt was closing in on her now. Tears wouldn't come just yet. She was too numb to realize the gravity of the situation. She was still in shock.

  One day her husband was alive, the next day he wasn't. It struck her that a life could change that quickly.

  She suddenly realized she should be crying. Most young wives would mourn their husband. Problem was that Kate wasn't sure how she felt about it.

  The rain made a sad music all its own. The constant patter of it dulling her senses. She watched silently as the rain pelted the casket.

  The reverend said pretty words over him, his voice was calming, and patient, as his gaze lingered on the casket. So when the grave diggers sloshed the mud on top of the cheap wooden casket, Kate jumped. It was the constant slosh of mud that roused her attention, and she reached up to feel one solitary tear slip down her cheek, and blend with the rain. There were only four of them there, the Reverend, her and the two men who dug the grave. The undertaker had already gone home. There should have been more people to mourn him, she thought dully.

  The Reverend spoke to her in soothing tones, but she was unaware of what he said. She barely knew the man. That was the problem, she didn't know anyone around here. She'd lived here a year, and yet she barely knew what her neighbor's names were.

  But she knew Jim well enough. He was only thirty-two when a Cougar jumped him on the property as he was checking fence lines. He'd been ripped up badly and had bled to death before Kate could even get him back to the house the next day. What an insane struggle she'd had, trying to get him back to the house. Her dress had been soaked with his blood from trying to lift him, but the mule was big, and she wasn't. the blood smelled strangely, gagging her.

  She didn't want to think of it now. That harrowing moment was over. She had no time to dwell on self-pity, there was work to be done, and only her to do it.

  All her hopes and dreams were buried with him, and she hadn't a clue what she would do now. She couldn't think on it. Things seemed so hopeless.

  She thanked the Reverend and turned to walk back to the house. Everything was an obligation, a responsibility, but where was the feelings?

  "What are you gonna do, ma'am?" The Reverend asked her as she was walking back to the house.

  "About what, sir?" She asked looking at him over her shoulder.

  "About the farm ma'am. You can't work it alone."

  She looked over her shoulder and shook her head, "I don't know. I'll think about that later."

  "Yes ma'am." The Reverend nodded.

  She had a sizeable farm, and no one to harvest it for her. But she was more concerned about the lack of sorrow she felt at this moment.

  It wasn't as though she didn't care for Jim, she had. But their marriage wasn't based on wild and passionate love. So what was it based on? Had she ever really considered that?

  They'd only married a year ago. They'd moved here in a remote area of far east Texas, not far from the Louisiana and Texas border. The tall pines formed a border around her property.

  It was good land, but isolated from towns and many people. Jim had cleared every stump himself. He'd worked like a dog to make something of this place. It was pretty here, not like the open prairies of the west, where water was scarce in the summer and the land was hard.

  But Jim had never once asked for help. He had too much pride, and he was too cheap to hire help. That's the way Jim preferred it. Her nearest neighbor was fifteen miles away to the west of her, and she didn't much care for them as there was one old man and four unruly sons working a broken-down farm. Frank Smith and his boys drank all the time and were very lazy.

  Jim had no use for them, considering them no-accounts. But then Jim didn't have much regard for anyone.

  Their marriage was built on knowing each other so well they didn't have to talk or even have relations. It bordered on a strange kind of friendship, not love. Jim was ten years older than Kate. When Jim had proposed to Kate it wasn't as though she were giddy with all kinds of plans for the future. She knew something was lacking, but at the time she didn't know what.

  She'd married him out of loneliness, she recognized that now. But had she done herself any favors?

  Could a couple know each other too long, too well? Or had she known him at all?

  The moment they married Jim seemed to change, though. Gone was the sweet, flirty man who adored her, replaced by a man that brutally took her without regard.

  There were no kisses, no sweet words between them. But he nearly ripped her wedding dress from her, threw her on the bed and took her hard and rough. They'd slept then in the middle of the night he'd done it again, the same way.

  Was that how a marriage was supposed to be?

  What had happened to the gentle man she had liked so much?

  She'd been way too naïve since her mother died early on.

  But she'd lost her temper by mourning and swore she would not let him touch her again. And because she was so adamant, Jim lost all interest in her.

  Had she expected too much? Did all women feel this the first time? He'd been so brutal, hammering himself into her and not a word of love or caring. It was a brutal awakening. She expected more of him, but she should have known. His family were pretty backward people, except they bragged about his fine work all the time. And he w
as a great farmer.

  It was the one and only time she'd been afraid of him, on her wedding night. Granted she didn't know what to expect, but she was so disappointed that there was nothing to get her in the mood for his lovemaking. If she could call it that.

  Thank God, he'd never touched her again.

  Thinking about it, it probably was the liquor he had begun to drink when they moved.

  But that night, after they'd wed, he'd bit, and slapped her around, then thrust himself inside her like a rutting pig. She'd cried all night, and he never touched her again after that next morning. He'd had too much to drink, and she hadn't allowed for that.

  He'd told her she was cold and unfeeling, that she shirked her womanly duty to her husband, but she stood strong. He would not touch her again.

  After that, things changed between them. The man she knew and married was a different man and it felt like she was living with a stranger.

  Kate was thankful that he was no longer interested.

  Jim Marley worked twelve hours a day rather than ask for help from a neighbor. Moving away from his family because they saw no need in him marrying her, after all couldn't he get what he wanted without it. They needed him on their farm. Jim insisted it was time he got out on his own.

  Kate wasn't afraid to voice her opinion of them either, she'd called them pigs upon occasion and Jim had taken offense to that.

  Moving out here, was supposed to be a new start for them. Only nothing changed and after the wedding night things just got worse. They were two people living in the same house, but there was no love, and no prospect of it.

  Kate had made her bed, as her daddy used to say, and she'd have to lie in it.

  Her only enjoyment was watching the riverboats pass on the Mississippi River on the edge of their property. Once a week she'd go down and watch it roll down the river, waving to the people as they would gather on the decks. The people were all dressed in their finery. Watching the big boats floating down the Mississippi calmed her and made her dream for better things.

  That first night after the funeral, as Kate heated the beans, she'd made earlier that day and warmed her coffee she sat reflecting on the strange marriage. It wasn't much like the marriages her friends had. Most of her friends had gushed with dreams and hopes after marriage. Some of them were very happy.

  She sat down to eat, but she wasn't hungry. The cornbread was cold, and she didn't bother warming it. She didn’t taste it.

  How could she feel so lost and alone when Jim had barely spoke to her for the past few months? It was as though he wasn't a real husband to her. But then, she couldn't blame him, after all it was her choice.

  Jim Marley had been a solitary man, not making friends here as he worked hard to make the place pay for itself the first year. She gave him his due, he was a good worker. But she knew that much from the start. He'd done most of the work himself on his folk's farm. That's why they objected to their marriage. They lost their best farm hand.

  But later she began to realize just how much work there was, and she helped him, as he wouldn't spend money to hire a man to help him. He was more than a little thrifty, he was cheap. She knew he needed help, and without help, he'd struggled to take his crops to market. Now there were fields of corn and hay and she was the only one to take it to market.

  Truth be known she was scared, lonely and forlorn. She was a farmer's daughter, not a farmer, but she learned in that year. Oh how she had learned.

  Fighting nature to get the crops in, they worked in the rain, and mud, they worked whether they felt like it or not.

  Not that she was lazy, the place was a shack when they first came. She made curtains for it, she'd cleaned it until it was spotless and cooked big meals for her husband as he worked in the hot sun all day. She made a quilt for their bed, and she'd do little things around the house to make it look homey. Jim didn't appreciate her in the house all the time and they began to argue, until she finally got out and helped him try to get the crops in. But he'd bite her head off because she didn't move fast enough. She was too slow to suit him. Still she tried to help.

  After a year of struggling with his ill humor, she finally got to be a decent hand. But by then he was bitter and angry with her all the time and not just for the crops either. In the back of her mind, she felt a tad guilty for not allowing him to touch her again, but he had hurt her so bad that night, she just couldn't.

  Still, she did miss him now. It was lonely in the house and she felt very alone now.

  Truth be told, she'd married Jim out of sheer loneliness.

  She'd been a virgin when he married her, and he'd not taken that into consideration when he callously bed her. But Kate had expected him to kiss her and make love, he didn't. He took her and that was all.

  Later she began to figure it out. He'd had nothing but saloon girls for years and obviously he hadn't treated them any better. There was no talking or understanding anything.

  He hadn't taken into consideration that she'd never had a man before. And she quickly realized that Jim had no idea what love was about. Neither did she, for she felt nothing when he'd taken her.

  She'd flirted with him because she was lonely, and he was the only person that came around much. But again they misunderstood one another, as she knew nothing about making love either.

  His sex play had been a horror to her. When she cried, he spanked her, hard. Scared out of her wits, she sank into a corner of the bedroom and cried the rest of the night. He never touched her again. He told her repeatedly that she didn't know a thing about pleasing a man. He called her a no-good wife. And he let everyone in town know it too.

  People would stare at her when she went to town.

  So Kate quit going to town.

  But now that Jim was gone, she would have to go. She hadn't realized that by living Jim's way she too had become a recluse. In some ways they were a lot alike. She knew nothing about making love either.

  It didn't take but six months to realize she'd married the wrong man. Nothing pleased him.

  Still, she wanted to be a good wife in other ways. She'd made the cabin look so nice, and he hadn't appreciated that either. She'd cook him big meals, things she knew he liked, and he never complimented her on her cooking, and she was a right fair cook. She tried to look nice for him, but he didn't seem to notice. Then finally he'd began frequenting the saloons on the weekends. He'd leave on Friday night and she wouldn’t see him until Monday.

  The one thing she could depend on was his faithfulness to his work. Five days a week he worked all day and half the night, but on the weekends, he'd go into town and she wouldn't see him until Monday. She didn't mind, she decided quickly she didn't need his love, but she did desire some amount of companionship. Just talking pleasantly to each other would have been a nice reprieve from their odd relationship.

  Love, just hadn't been a part of her marriage to Jim?

  During their courting he'd been nice to her, even gave her a compliment or two. He'd been a perfect gentleman too, never overstepping his bounds with her.

  She should have known something was wrong when he didn't kiss her. He'd pecked her cheek when they got married. She'd thought him just a tad shy about it.

  "Why do I miss him, he was rarely here," she told Moby. "I've been such a fool. But now it's up to me. Now I can make a new life for myself. I can do this! I have to do this!"

  She looked around the cabin, it was big enough for a small family. A family she'd never have now. It had two bedrooms and a good-sized kitchen, with a front room for company. Company she never had.

  When a friend had asked her if she was crazy in love with him just before they married, she'd shrugged and smiled, "I guess so."

  That answer should have told her something. Funny, you had to do something wrong to learn anything.

  Perhaps she was spoiled. When her mother died, she learned to clean house, and cook, and her father had always encouraged her and said nice things about how well she did.

  Jim could h
ave cared less about the house.

  She'd clean the floor spotless, and he'd come in with muddy shoes and dirty it up, and never notice her hard work.

  She'd learned, the hard way.

  In reflection now, she wondered. She should have loved him more. She knew that. She felt guilty about it too. He probably wouldn't have paid her a bit of mind if she hadn't flirted with him.

  When her father died at fifteen it left her terribly alone. But Jim knew her folks and came to check on her regular. For that she learned to care for him. Still, there were problems. His folks resented her, so after he proposed they moved away and married. But as time passed Jim began to resent her for not trying to get along with his folks, for not being a better farmer, for not being a better wife. He knew after six months here; he'd bitten off more than he could chew. Even though he had money to pay someone to help gather the crops, he wouldn't hire anyone. He'd expected her to get out there an help him. As his wife she obeyed him.

  It was reasonable, and she finally agreed to help.

  But the marriage wasn't all his fault, and she knew it. She married a man and didn't have the slightest idea what marriage was about. She'd talked to her friends, but she was too embarrassed to ask personal questions. Pride had always been her downfall. How could she tell her friends she knew nothing about love or marriage, but because they sought it, so did she.

  Oh, how she had learned.

  She glanced around the place, her hound dog, Moby came into the room, whined, and laid down by her feet. She'd named him after the big whale in the story book she'd read, Moby Dick. Her love of reading had often been her only escape from her life.

  Jim thought reading was a waste of time. But Kate had found solace in her lonely life here, and she'd read and reread all the books she brought from home. Her folks had encouraged her to read and write and she had learned quickly as a child. Jim never went to school, and when she offered to teach him, he scoffed at it. He told her he knew everything he needed to farm and that was enough.