Part II The Spirit of the Wind.

Jake and I tied the knot. We had ourselves a proper church wedding during harvest time. He'd planted his love in my heart, and as a young widow of only twenty, we took our vows with a wide-eyed view. My son took front and center. It was as much a vow, that Jake promised to help raise him in way that would honor my former husband. Such was the hard life on a prairie homestead of 1863. But the winds of change seemed to be in our favor.

The Baptist church was a freshly painted dove-tail white, and the building with a spire into a sapphire sky of blue. It was planted on a knoll overlooking the town where it was meant to be seen far and wide. Even the timber smelled of freshly cut pine.

The preacher was a short stub of a man, with a shiny bald head, but what he lacked in looks, he made up for in handsome words. We stood at the altar with my boy between us.

The preacher sweated from his forehead, as the sunshine bathed a full house of witnesses. He swiped his forehead just before the ultimate decree. "With the power vested in me by God and the territory of Nebraska, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Jake held up my boy who stood between us, so I could give my son a kiss on his plum cheek. Then Jake kissed me and held it long enough make the spirited witnesses on either side erupt with cheers. It seemed the whole town wanted to be a part of it. And some waited outside for a glimpse of the wealthy rancher and the poor homesteader.

As we started down the aisle, I thanked my maid of honor, Skye. She helped make my dress of silky pearl and white lace. When we were in our private corner near the entrance I had whispered in her ear, "This dress will be worn by you one day."

I couldn't tell if she had blushed, because of her copper-colored skin. She looked deeply into my eyes with her stark blue ones. "I know one day I will live the life meant for me."

"How could you know your purpose would not include this dress?" I'd asked.

We bounded down the aisle into the sun-splashed world where our horse drawn carriage waited. Someone shouted from the throng, as we put my son between us on the buckboard. "Don't forget to throw the bouquet!"

Girls were lined and waiting. I stood on the buckboard and tossed it behind me. The wind caught it, as the girls all tumbled for it. But it landed smack in the hands of Skye, who looked as surprised as me. I nodded. "You'll be next, Skye." If only I had known those words would come back to haunt me like the echo of a pebble to a dank, dark well.

Skye looked lost. Those poor maidens gave her a cross-eyed look. It wasn't her fault she'd been stuck between two worlds. She was still trying find where she belonged.

The wedding reception was a blended celebration and harvest time at our homestead. A hired man from town played the fiddle from a wagon and the crowd herded and danced in circles. Tables were lined in rows where we had roasted pig, pumpkin pies, and Mr. Greeley's famous corn whiskey.

Our honeymoon would have to wait a spell. The homestead needed us to be sure our goods were bought to the market and storehouses filled. In addition, homesteads were vulnerable to the Sioux, too far from town and too far from the army. If the Sioux visited your home, you were at their mercy, and often the only homesteaders defense was kindness and the prayer they would not take everything you owned. But in the Indian's eye, you were on their land where the buffalo roamed. There'd be no sleep without a repeating rifle in our bed, even on our honeymoon night.

After the fiddle played out and the crowds left, we held each other until the midnight oil of our lamps flickered and flamed away. The music and the noise of others still danced in my head. My son was fast asleep. Skye retired to her room, and Mr. Greeley had his loft in the barn. We finally found ourselves alone, as silhouettes in the dark, until we touched each other with a static alarm of warm skin to insure we were alive, and all was not a dream.

That night we both looked at each other, having shed our clothes and left nothing to the imagination under the vow of heaven. There was no burden of shame, no doubt left to linger. Our vows freed us. As we held each other naked between the sheets, words were no longer enough to hold us. We consumed each other.

In the early morning hours when the winds howled and pressed against the wall of our bedroom. It only deepened our resolve to hold each other under our thick patchwork of quilt. It was a strange but true comfort to hear the winds and lashing rain when hidden under the cover of darkness, as if nothing else in the world could touch us.