Between a Rock and a Hard Place

"Let's unhitch these mules and let them graze. After we do that, I'll tell you why."

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After Daniel hobbled the mules and tied Bill to a wagon wheel, he found Julia sitting on the ground on a blanket in the shade of the wagon. She patted the blanket and said, "Come sit down".

Her first words caused a chill to run down Daniel's spine.

"I know you're not Isaac Jacobsen like you told me and the store clerk. You're name is Daniel Jacobs and you lived on a farm outside of Chadwick. I know that because my husband told me.

"I lied to you about my name too because I didn't think you'd let me come with you if you knew who I really am. I'm Charlotte Williams. You knew my husband, Abraham Williams, though you probably called him Abe. You were both in the Bald Knobbers in Christian County. My husband was one of the two Bald Knobbers who were killed when you killed Mr. Edens and his brother in law.

The man who told me my husband was dead said there was talk among the Anti-Bald Knobbers that the families of the men who were part of the raid should be run out of the area or worse. The day after I buried my husband, I sold our farm and took the train to Granby to live with my Aunt Grace.

"We've never met, but I saw you that day you came to our farm to talk with my husband. He said you were one of the Bald Knobbers and said the meeting was to talk about ending the group. He said you both agreed that couldn't be as long as there were saloons and whores in Chadwick. He told me about what was going to happen that night. That's how I know you were there when the killings happened.

"I didn't know you'd left Christian County until I saw you buying food at the general store in Granby. I was going to introduce myself until the store clerk called you Isaac. When you asked him if he'd heard that the government was going to open up Oklahoma Territory to settlers, I knew why you were buying so much food. I also figured you were going to Oklahoma Territory so the government in Christian County couldn't find you.

"The reason I told you that night that I wanted to get away from Harrington's Saloon wasn't because I worked there. I was the housekeeper for the Mayor and his wife before she died. It was because after she died, the Mayor told me he wanted me to be his mistress. He said if I told him I wouldn't do it, he'd tell everybody in town that I'd asked him to be his mistress and the only place I'd be able to find work was as a whore at Harrington's Saloon.

"I thought if I hid in your wagon, I might get away from Granby. If you didn't find me, you'd take me to Oklahoma Territory and I could start over. That's why I did it."

Charlotte looked at the ground then.

"What I didn't think would happen is that I'd end up liking you. You're so much like my husband it's almost like I was still married to him. I know you'd never consider anything like that, me being a widow and all, but...well...I don't want to leave you."

Daniel had listened without interrupting her. Her story sounded like the truth. He had known Abe Taylor and he had been to his farm the day before the killings. He couldn't think of any other way she'd have known who he was.

In Granby, he'd also heard customers talk about the Mayor when they thought nobody was listening. He knew the Mayor's wife had died and some of the men said they thought he was looking for another woman, but he probably wouldn't want to marry her because she'd inherit his estate and he wanted that to go to his brother. It made sense that the Mayor would ask the woman who was his housekeeper. He already knew her and Charlotte was a good looking woman.

Daniel reached over and lifted Charlotte's chin.

"You could have told me all this the night I caught you in my blanket chest."

Charlotte shook her head.

"No, I couldn't have. I thought you might think I was blaming you for Abe getting killed and just leave me there with nothing."

Daniel chuckled.

"You asked me to let you leave, remember?"

"Yes, but that was just so you'd take pity on me and let me stay with you. They way Abe talked about you, I thought you would do that."

Daniel smiled.

"Well, after hearing all this, I need to tell you some things too.

"I knew Abe Williams and it was me who came to talk with him that day. We'd decided to just threaten Edens with a beating if he didn't stop trying to turn people against us. I didn't shoot anybody during that raid and neither did Abe. As soon as the shooting started I ran away and walked back home. I didn't like what Edens was doing, but I'd never have killed him for doing it.

"I didn't know Abe had been killed until you just told me. He was a good man and we thought a lot the same about things. When I didn't see that he was one of the Bald Knobbers who'd been sent to prison, I figured he got away.

"You're right about why I left Christian County though. I figured they'd hunt down every man who'd been a Bald Knobber and hang them. They only hung three, but I'd at least have gone to prison. You're right about why I let you stay too. I couldn't send a woman out by herself in the middle of the night. You'd have died and I'd have had to live with that for the rest of my life."

Daniel chuckled again.

"I guess we're back at that spot between a rock and a hard place, aren't we? You don't want to leave and I can't let you stay unless we're married. I can't marry you because I can't provide for you like a husband should."

Charlotte smiled a little, though Daniel saw a tear stream down her cheek.

"Couldn't we just keep on doing what we've been doing? I don't know anybody here except you and I wouldn't feel safe unless I do. Nobody would know we aren't married unless we tell them."

Daniel shook his head.

"I'd know...and so would you."

"Yes, I would, but I'd feel safe with you even if we just lived here and weren't married."

Daniel had to think about that for a few seconds. Did he really want Charlotte to leave? Everything she'd said was true. It would be a lot easier if she stayed, and he'd grown to like having her with him. He knew he'd miss her once she was gone.

Could he trust her? She'd lied to him about who she was and why she wanted to come with him. Then Daniel remembered that he'd lied to her too and she knew he had, but she still seemed to want to stay. Her reasons for lying to him were the same as his reasons for lying to her. His reasons seemed justified, and if they were, weren't her reasons also justified?

Could he do that -- live in the same house with a woman who wasn't his wife? Doing that would be against everything he'd been taught about men and women. When he thought some more though, he realized that he couldn't think of any verse in the Bible that said what marriage was except that it was a man and a woman living together, sharing in life, and having children to make sure there would always be people in the world.

There were no verses that said a preacher had to marry that man and that woman. There were no preachers when Adam took Eve for his wife because there were no other people around. God had just made Eve and then told Adam they were to join and become as one.

The Bible just said that a man should take care of his wife and she should take care of him. Wasn't that what they'd been doing since he found Charlotte in his wagon?

Daniel was shaken from those thoughts by Charlotte's voice.

"Daniel, it looks like you're thinking real hard about something. Are you thinking about us?"

Daniel nodded.

"Yes."

"Well, what were you thinking?"

When Daniel didn't answer, Charlotte sighed.

"I guess you can't decide. You go register your claim while I stay here. When you come back, you can take me to where that claims office is. Maybe they'll have somewhere I can stay until I find work."

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Daniel had gotten on his horse and started back to the claims office because he still hadn't resolved the chaos of thoughts in his mind. To him, it was like a war going on inside his head, a war between what he'd been taught was good and what was evil, and what those two things had become in his life.

Saloons and whores were evil, so he'd worked to make them leave Christian County, but that had turned into the murder of four men, two Anti-Bald Knobbers and two Bald Knobbers, so what he'd done was evil too even though he hadn't done any of the killing.

Men who went to church every Sunday were "good" in his eyes, but it was those same men who had done the killing on both sides.

He'd been taught that a man and a woman didn't live together until they were married, and if they did, that was evil. Daniel had been telling himself that he was just helping a woman who needed help so that was good...but it was also evil because he'd had lusting thoughts about her.

Now, that same woman wanted to stay with him. She said it would be just until she could find work after a town was built, but Daniel couldn't see that happening very fast. If he let her stay with him, even built a bigger cabin so she'd have a place to be by herself, was that being good or was it still evil?

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Daniel registered his claim and then started back to his plot of land. He still hadn't decided what to do. Back in Granby, the decision would have been easy. He'd just have told Charlotte he couldn't do that. Back in Granby there would have been people who talked about him and Charlotte if they were living together. He might even have lost his job at the livery stable.

Charlotte wouldn't have needed anybody to help her either. She could have stayed with her Aunt Grace in Granby. Yes, the Mayor might have told people a lie about her, but in his experience, people tended to judge others by their actions and not by what they heard about them. He didn't think the Mayor was particularly liked by most people in Granby either.

Here in Oklahoma Territory, it was different or at least it seemed like it was different. There were few people here to look down on him if he and Charlotte were living together. There was no place for Charlotte to go either. Here in Oklahoma Territory there were no hotels or general stores or anywhere else she could find work and support herself.

When Daniel weighed both sides of the argument going on in his head, he decided that Oklahoma Territory was a different place that needed different rules. He was riding up to his wagon before he'd figured out what those rules would be as far as he and Charlotte were concerned. He was surprised to see Jake and Bob harnessed and hitched to the wagon.

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When Daniel stopped beside the wagon, Charlotte asked if he'd gotten his claim registered. When Daniel said he had, she climbed up onto the wagon seat and sat down, then waved her hand at Daniel.

"I harnessed the mules and hitched them to the wagon for you. Now take me back to that claims office."

Daniel got off Bill and walked up to the wagon.

"You still want me to do that?"

Charlotte shook her head.

"No, but it's what you want."

Daniel smiled.

"Come down off that wagon and start fixing our supper while I put those mules and Bill out to graze. After we eat, we need to talk some more."

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After Daniel finished his slice of ham and three corn cakes, he sat the plate on the ground beside him. Charlotte stood up to take it, but he asked her to sit down instead.

"Jul...I mean, Charlotte, what I need to tell you is more important than washing up the plate and the frying pan. Just sit here and listen. It took me all the way to the claims office and back to figure this out. I'm not sure it'll work, but it's the only way I can see for both of us.

"It's a lot like when I found you hiding in my blanket chest. I can't take you back to a place where there's no place for you to live or provide for yourself. I can't let you stay since we're not married. It's that same place between a rock and a hard place.

"A lot of what I was taught doesn't seem to make much sense anymore, not after what you and I have been through. What I was taught was good and what was evil don't seem quite as clear anymore. What I did back in Christian County I thought was good, but it turned out to be evil. What I thought was evil, that being you staying with me, turned out to be good for both of us. I had you to cook for me and to keep me company, and you had me to keep you safe.

"What I decided is that being married doesn't mean having a preacher say some words that say you're married. What being married means is the same way Adam and Eve were married. The Bible doesn't say they ever said anything to a preacher. They just started life together, shared everything both good and bad, and had children.

"I think we're in kind of the same situation here. There are more people, but still not that many and this is new territory, just like The Garden of Eden was new. I decided the rules that worked back in Missouri don't work very well here. What we need are rules that work for this place and this time.

"What I mean by that is that I want you to stay, but we do have to be married. The Bible is pretty clear about that. A man and a woman shouldn't live together unless they're married. It's how they get married that I've changed my mind about.

"What I decided is if we live together and do what married folks do, we're married as far as God is concerned. That means you'll take care of me, just like you have been, and I'll take care of you, just like I have been. As far as what anybody else thinks, they can think what they want as long as they don't try to stop us. If someday there's a church with a preacher in a town and you want to, we can get that preacher to marry us, but I don't see that happening for a while yet.

"Well, that's what I figured out. I know it's not what you expected to hear, but it's what I figured out. What do you think?"

Charlotte wiped the tears from her eyes.

"You're right. I didn't expect you to tell me anything like that, but I'm so happy you did. Just one thing though...I'm a widow and I thought men wanted a virgin for a wife."

Daniel smiled.

"Well, that's what I thought back in Christian County, but this is Oklahoma Territory and like I said, it's different here."

He grinned.

"Besides, I don't think any young girl is going to make corn cakes as good as you can."

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Daniel built the cabin that spring, still just one room, but big enough for a large bed he made. He needed a barn too, but decided he couldn't do that until the next year so he built a rail fence that ran down to the river to hold Jake, Bob, and Bill.

He didn't try to plow a field that year because he was too busy building the cabin, but he did take time out to plow up a small garden for Charlotte. Once he'd leveled out the soil, they needed seeds, so they made one trip back to what had been marked on the map as a town location, and found that things had happened a lot faster than Daniel had thought possible.

In just a month after the opening of Oklahoma Territory, the plot of land reserved for a town had become the town of Guthrie. There were streets laid out and businesses were being built. One of those businesses was a general store. The store was operating out of a tent and didn't have much to sell, but Charlotte used some of her money to buy seeds for green beans, seed potatoes, and pumpkins. Daniel bought enough corn seeds to have a little corn meal for the winter with enough saved back to plant a crop the next spring.

Charlotte also bought materials for another dress. When Daniel said now she'd have three dresses, she smiled.

"I told you before that my other dress is a special dress."

When Daniel asked what was special about it, Charlotte smiled an embarrassed smile.

"It's for when I'm going to have a baby. I made it so I'd be ready, but Abe was killed before that happened. It's too big for me now, but I'll wear it as soon as you give me a reason to wear it."

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That first year was pretty hard on both Daniel and Charlotte. By the time the leaves started falling from the trees down by the river, Daniel had the cabin built and enough furniture made that they slept on a bed and had a small table and two chairs. The fireplace he built was big enough to heat the cabin and let Charlotte cook their meals.

Charlotte had helped Daniel with the cabin and the fence. She wasn't strong enough to do much lifting, but she drove the mules to pull logs from the river to the site of the cabin. When the cabin was finished, she packed the spaces between the logs with mud and prairie grass to keep out the drafts that would blow through the cabin when the winds of winter arrived.

Charlotte had raised and dried enough green beans to hold them over the winter as well as three dozen pumpkins and about twenty pounds of potatoes. The garden had also yielded about a bushel of corn. Daniel hung half the ears from the ceiling beams of the cabin to dry for next year's corn crop, and he helped Charlotte grind the rest into corn meal with his mother's grain mill.

For meat, Daniel shot rabbits and quail until the weather turned cold enough to freeze water left outside overnight. Then he shot a deer every month or so and hung the carcass from a tree limb some ways from the cabin. When he saw geese and ducks sitting in the river as they migrated South, he shot those too.

They went to bed tired every night, but that didn't mean they were too tired for what Charlotte wanted more than she wanted anything else. It was the last of October when Charlotte told Daniel he was going to be a father.

"I'm going to have to start wearing my special dress. This one doesn't fit very well anymore."

Daniel asked how she'd gotten bigger when she'd been working so hard. Charlotte smiled that embarrassed smile again.

"Well, those green beans, pumpkins, and corn aren't the only seeds we planted. I'm going to have a baby...about April, I think."

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Little Abraham Rush Jacobs was born on April 22, 1890, exactly one year after the Oklahoma Land Rush. They agreed that his first name would be Abraham to honor Charlotte's first husband. His middle name -- Rush -- was for the Oklahoma Land Rush that had brought them both together.

Charlotte was helped to deliver Abraham by the wife of the family who'd taken Daniel's first choice of land. That family were called by some "Sooners" because they'd slipped past the Cavalry troops guarding the borders of the soon to be opened land and hidden until after the rush started.

Daniel couldn't hold that against William Denby or his family because they'd lived much the same life as he had. They sharecropped a farm in Kansas that wasn't very big and with one baby boy, they needed more land in order to survive.

William and Daniel became friends as did his wife Eleanor and Charlotte. Eleanor helped Charlotte when she had two more sons and two daughters, and Charlotte helped Eleanor when she had a daughter and two more sons.

The second year, Daniel and William started plowing the fields that would yield food for them and their livestock with maybe a little left over to sell in Guthrie. When one of William's draft horses turned up with Monday Morning Sickness, Daniel took Jake and Bob and finished William's plowing.

During the winter, Daniel had made a spike-toothed harrow from small logs and spikes made from split oak. After he used it to level out what he'd plowed, he lent it to William so he could level his.

They also raised a barn on both farms once the planting and cultivating was done. They worked together during the growing and harvest seasons. The work went faster if they worked together and it was easier if they could talk while they worked. Daniel had learned to farm in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. William had learned to farm on the open prairie. They shared their knowledge and that made them better farmers.

Things were better that second year. Daniel raised enough corn to have seeds to expand his corn crop the next year with more than enough to grind into corn meal. He drove his wagon into Guthrie and sold the extra to the general store. He didn't make a lot of money, but he did make enough to buy some wheat seeds. He wanted to raise some wheat because flour at the general store was expensive and he could raise wheat if he had the seeds.