He let his pent-up breath out in a sigh of uneasy relief. There! It was said and dammit it needed to be said. By the time he had finished the last part, he noticed Jess was blushing clear to the roots of her hair. God, she was so innocent!
Jessica was so quiet that he did not know what to think. He was starting to feel like it was hopeless when she finally turned and looked at him again. He could tell she was thinking about it. It was there on her face. Maybe there would be a chance for them after all maybe it was not as hopeless as he had thought.
“You are right. I mean about Papa. He hardly ever leaves the bedroom now. I have tried everything I know of to get him back out here and in the midst of things. Back into life, I have even tried to get him to take walks, at least get into the fresh, air. I thought it might get him interested in the farm again. Nothing has worked. Now you want us to all go west. How would we get him out of here for that if we haven't been able to get him out for any other reason? I don't know if we can ever get him away from here. Away from this house, from what was their bedroom, everything that is Mama to him. How could it be done, and who could do it?”
“Do you want to go out west Jessie?”
“I've always had a yearning for mountains. Isn't that strange? I've never seen any, but I always felt like they were in my heart. Mama used to talk about the mountains a lot when I was little. The great Rocky Mountains she would say, that had been her dream and Papa's too, before we settled here. The past few years I don't remember her talking so much about them, but oh, how she used to. She had always envisioned living on a beautiful lake high up in the rocky mountains!” Jessica was still for a moment, those thoughts lingering in her mind and then said, “Yes, I would like to go west, maybe Mama's dream is what has always put the mountains in my mind, but still it’s something I would really like, for myself. How we would manage to get Papa to leave the farm? That is the part I just don't know about.”
“Oh, dammit, Jessica! I mean, well, excuse me, but I just didn't want to have to tell you about the other things I've heard, but maybe you should know. I hate to worry you more, but I guess if you have to hear it from anyone, I'd rather it be me. Your farm is up for sale right now. In fact, you probably have very little money, especially after you have the overdue accounts deducted from the sale of the place. They are all overdue, the feed and seed accounts, the dry goods accounts, nothing, absolutely nothing have been paid since your Ma died.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath and the look of disbelieve on her face as she stared at him. “Last year, when your Ma died, it was at harvest, and I guess with all the misery and grief your Papa was in, he didn’t harvest, or make any arrangements for anyone else to do anything about it. We were so busy with our own that I never gave it a thought either. There isn't anything left, nothing. A lot of it simply went to seed or rotted in the fields. Well, you know what I am talking about; there is no harvest, not to pay the debts. No money for provisions, or to put food on your table, it’s gone. Anyway, Mr. Mitchell, at the feed and seed put a lien on the place for his bill. Then one thing leads to another, and with nobody thinking your Pa is going to come out of it, well, they don't want to wait.”
He saw the look of horror on her face and took a deep breath and hurriedly went on, “No, I sure didn't want to be the one to have to tell you all this, but there it is. If we don't get your Papa out of here, sooner, or later he'll be put out, and then you'll have no place to go. I don't see we have any choice but to sign on for this wagon train, and go on West and start over again.”
Her hands were numb. She had been gripping the porch rail so tightly during the time he had been telling her all this. She had been fearful for their affairs, knowing that someone be tending to them, but every time she tried to talk to Papa about them it had been useless. He would just stare blankly at her, and tell her it had been taken care of and several times he even told her it just didn't matter. That had made her furious. She had screamed at him about how Mama would hate this, how Mama would be horrified to know that he wasn't taking care of her and the boys. What would Mama think if she knew he was sitting in this bedroom day, after day? She had railed at him. It was all to no avail though, he had just ignored her, if he had ever really heard her in the first place. Now they were ruined. Oh, dear God, don't let this be happening, she prayed silently. She knew even as they went through her mind that her prayers were too late. Yes, they apparently must leave the valley and begin life in another place. Yet why would Thomas want to leave? He had so much to keep him here.
"What about you, Thomas? Why would you want to leave the valley? I know what my reasons are, and you are right about all that you have said in respect to our situation. It’s different for you though. Thomas, you have a reason to stay here! Your folks have always planned for you to take over the farm. I know they have because I have heard you talk about it. No, it might be the only answer for Papa and the boys, and me, but it wouldn't be fair for you to pull up and go west. You have a future and you have it here.”
“Now Jessica, I wouldn't be suggesting this if I hadn't been of a mind to want to go myself. I want to do it, do you understand? I want to.” He had turned to her and had moved to hold her arms and was so earnest that she didn't doubt what he was saying. He could see that she accepted that he wanted to do this, and was mightily relieved about that. He couldn't tell her about the rest of his reasons for wanting to leave here. If he did she might not want to go with him at all. She was too innocent to understand. She couldn't and wouldn't accept what he had done. Hell, she would probably throw him off the porch right now! Dammit! It wouldn't matter to her that it was really her fault. Hers and that crazy old man of hers. If he had been able to take Lilly's death like a man, well, then Thomas wouldn't have had to wait to have Jessica and none of this would have happened. No, it was not his fault at all.
Now, all that mattered was getting out of this valley, doing it fast, and taking Jessica with him! He was just lucky that the half-witted Carpenter girl couldn't talk. He was sure that if she could talk, she would have told everyone by now she was going to have a kid, his kid. It was just because he wanted Jess so bad that it happened, he told himself. Jessica interrupted his thought when she started talking.
“Thomas, there is just one more thing I don't want to get married for a while.”
He swung around to look at her, startled. What the hell? This wasn't what he had in mind at all! What was she thinking now, for Christ's sake?
“But Jessica, we can't travel together without being married! I was going to get the Circuit Preacher to marry us before we left, marry us next week! We don't have any time to waste you know. No, not with the train leaving and us having to get rid of all this stuff we can't take and getting the wagons ready. We have to get married, and do it right away!”
“No, Thomas, I can't do that.” She turned to him again, and looked at him intensely. He could see she was determined about this, but why?
“Just listen to me for a moment. I can see we have to leave here, oh, not just for Papa, but because of what has happened to everything. But don't you see that there is no guarantee that Papa will improve just because we do this? Then what? I can't expect you to take on the responsibility for Papa and the boys too. It wouldn't be right!”
She took a shaky breath and with a determined set to her face said, “No, it just wouldn't be fair to you at all! We need to wait and see what this does for Papa. If he comes to his senses, then there is no reason to wait, and we can be married. Doesn't that sound reasonable to you, I mean, really?”
“Oh Jess, I don't see any sense in this at all! We will be traveling together, and I will more or less be responsible for you all anyway. Besides what if he doesn't get any better? What would you do then? You can't just go west only to end up there in the same fix you are in here!”
“No!” She said more sharply than she had intended. She calmed herself