by Jocelyn Cross
Miss Elizabeth Semple, soon to be Mrs. Jeremiah Pickens, was outraged! She was in the most ignominious position imaginable: laying across the lap of Mr. Jeremiah Pickens, a man she had met in person only a few scant hours earlier. She struggled, but not enough to extricate herself from this position. In fact, she wasn't so sure that she could escape her predicament. Mr. Pickens was a brawny man of uncommon height, and at 30 years of age with years of living and working on a ranch was ... what was it the sheriff in town called him? "One tough sumbitch."
Adding to her concern had been the look of utter disdain that had creased Mr. Pickens' face just prior to his upending Elizabeth as he sat down on one of the crude chairs in his home. Worse still, Elizabeth could feel her skirts being lifted by Mr. Pickens. "Don't you dare!" she seethed. "Don't you dare do this to me!"
Her words had no effect as Jeremiah Pickens went methodically about his business. And that business right then was to give Miss Elizabeth Semple a taste of what she should expect if she dared to ignore the warnings of her husband, or what she should expect if her sassy, 'back-East' mouth should run off as it had just done.
Her bloomers were quickly parted in back by the man holding her in place and she struggled harder to no avail. Though it was still summer, the air was cool and felt especially cold against her now bared bottom. Elizabeth had told Jeremiah she wouldn't stand for a spanking and he had replied it was not her choice.
Both were correct. She had no choice and she wasn't standing; she was lying across her soon to be husband's lap as he bared the target area. Elizabeth was also about to discover one of the side effects of ranch life: it calloused your hands and made them very tough. Jeremiah's hands were both calloused and tough, and they were spanking hands to be respected. His hands were large, but in proportion to the bulging biceps and shoulders that led up to a very broad and brawny chest.
SMACK!! His calloused hand swatted her alabaster white bottom and Elizabeth yelped shrilly.
SMACK! SPANK! SWAT!
With casual, but purposeful, intent, Jeremiah walloped the bare backside of his betrothed and each spank resulted in a high pitched shriek that would have bothered the neighbors back east, but with the nearest ranch several miles away, Elizabeth could yelp and scream all she wanted. Even the echoes of her cries would die out before reaching any human ear other than the ones attached to the big man who was inflicting this pain.
Her pristine white bottom soon turned pink and then red. She began to plead her apologies and offered excuses such as "I had no idea" or "I didn't know!" Jeremiah stopped, but laid his right hand on the warm surface of Elizabeth's bare bottom.
"You need to understand something, young lady," he drawled. "If you misbehave, disobey or sass me in any way, you will be punished. And if I think it is necessary, I won't just use my hand. There is plenty of harness leather on this ranch and I have my belt handy all the time. If you really get out of line, I'll march you right out to the woodshed and you can have a discussion with the business end of a switch. I guarantee you won't like any of those one bit." He paused and for a moment his punishing intent was broken. My goodness, he thought to himself, she is so much prettier than her picture.
"Yes, yes," readily agreed Elizabeth. "I understand and I'm sorry!" At that point she understood the consequences of displeasing Jeremiah, but what she suddenly did not understand was how she got into this situation.
How, indeed!
Baltimore, Maryland
In 1870, all across America, there was an imbalance in the population. The terrible results of the Civil War had killed millions of men, maimed millions more, and left a female population disproportionately larger than the male population. It was bad across the States, but as one went further west and into the various Western Territories, the disproportion was ridiculously lopsided. In many locations it was as much as 50 men to a single woman.
It was tough along the Eastern Seaboard for women to snare a man into marriage. The competition for eligible men was fierce and given the mores of the time, women were forced to be reliant on their husbands. This was still true out West, but at least a gal had a fighting chance to choose her own man rather than settling for leftovers. Or so, 18 year-old Elizabeth Semple had thought.
Elizabeth's father and only brother had both died early in the war at the Battle of Antietam, repulsing the Confederate traitors' first incursion into the Union. Her mother had died shortly after and Elizabeth would always say that her mother had died of a broken heart from the death of the men in her family. The Battle of Antietam had therefore taken three of the Semple family and it caused a hatred in Elizabeth's heart that burned caustically. Oh, how she hated Johnny Reb and the southern slave owners her family had fought against!
Even though the hated rebels had been defeated nearly five years earlier, she despised them all even more than during the war. Elizabeth had been able to struggle and survive on the small amount of savings her family had left to her and by selling off bits and pieces of furniture, their piano, and other items. At first she had been able to live with her mother's sister, but her Aunt's husband had returned from the war with terrible wounds that had taken both his right arm and right leg. Three years earlier, when Elizabeth was 15 years-old, her aunt and uncle perished in a house fire while Elizabeth was waiting tables at a local tavern. Since then, she lived where she could, maintained several jobs at the same time and barely subsisted on her own.
Feeling particularly despondent one evening, Elizabeth went into the Third Methodist Church. From experience, she knew that it was likely she would be alone. She sat in a pew as the light faded from outside and prayed to God in her own way. Had anyone been able to hear her prayers they would have gasped, as Elizabeth did little recognizable praying. Instead, she lectured God for his intransigence. How could a merciful God have dealt such death and destruction to her family?
She sobbed in the pew for a few minutes, having lifted her grief momentarily with her silent rant. Gathering herself, she finally stood and walked down the aisle and toward the door. It was there that she noticed the Announcement Board. There was something about the crude handwriting on the rough paper that called to her and Elizabeth stopped to read the letter that had been posted on the Board.
After reading the letter through, Elizabeth impulsively pulled the letter from the Announcement Board and walked to her tiny, rundown apartment on McHenry Street. There she reread the letter several times as a train rumbled past the ramshackle apartment building. Perhaps it was the despair she felt with her life, or perhaps it was the romanticism of the simple language on the paper as she read it in the light of a single candle, or perhaps it was God's answer to her prayer and rant. Regardless, Elizabeth was moved.
Taking pen to paper, Elizabeth wrote back to the man who had penned the correspondence that so moved her. And thus began a series of letters between a lonely and bitter young lady and an equally lonely and desperate man.
Greybull, Wyoming
The man who had written the letter to which Elizabeth had responded was Jeremiah Pickens. Jeremiah had been a rancher from his earliest memories on his family's ranch in Kansas. But the Civil War was looming and even before the official outbreak of hostilities, the family ranch was torched by Anti-Slavery sympathizers and Jeremiah's family had been wiped out. At the time, 20 year-old Jeremiah had been in town on some errands and when he returned to the ranch, he found the house and barn burned to the ground. The cattle had all been rounded up and taken, but his parents and two sisters were dead on the ground in front of the smoldering main house. They had been lined up and shot.
It is no wonder that Jeremiah joined Quantrill's Raiders and spent the war years terrorizing Union troops and cities. Jeremiah was an excellent shot and a better rider and his heart had hardened, making him the consummate killer.
But something changed in Jeremiah when William Quantrill was killed in a battle in Kentucky. The loss of his inspirational leader and friend was the last straw of the war for Jeremiah Pickens. Saying nothing to anyone in the Raiders, he simply rode west and away from the conflict.
Jeremiah slowly worked his way further west and north. He would take odd jobs along the way, stay for a few months working at different ranches and finally stopped wandering when he found himself on the western side of the Bighorn Mountains in the Wyoming Territory. He was permitted to claim 140 acres at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains as long as he built a homestead within the year. This he did and with a small loan he started a herd of cattle.
The first winter was rough, but he managed to keep the bulk of his small herd intact. When spring came, they fattened up on the lush prairie grass and Jeremiah sold the steers for a nice profit and kept one solid bull and all the cows to be bred. Soon, new calves populated the ranch and it looked like things would take off.
He had a wonderful location a day's ride north of Greybull. His ranch abutted the Bighorn River on the west with the Bighorn Mountains looming just to the east. His herd was growing, neighbors came and helped him raise a barn and he even discovered an underground spring that allowed him to sink a pipe with a hand operated pump in his kitchen. Growing up, he never had enjoyed water indoors!
But something was missing. There was no-one to share this life with and Jeremiah realized that he needed a wife to help round off his rough edges. He knew he had some very rough edges that had served him well, but the war was over and times were different now. Besides, he had a yearning for some children, too.
A friend had found some matchmaking newspaper and advertised for a woman to come out and be his wife. It seemed to work out for his friend, but advertising for a woman seemed to be too much like hiring a prostitute to Jeremiah. The pastor at the little church in Greybull suggested Jeremiah write a heart-felt letter about his needs and the pastor would see that it was posted in a church back East. Indeed, the pastor knew the minister of the Third Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, having been friends at the seminary together. So, eventually, Jeremiah's letter was posted and Elizabeth responded.
Jeremiah had all but forgotten about the letter he had given to the pastor in Greybull and was somewhat shocked when the Sheriff called him over to his office to give him an envelope. "I was planning on dropping by your place a little later in the week, but since you're here I won't need to ride out there."
"You're welcome to stop by anytime, Sheriff," Jeremiah told him as he held the envelope up to inspect it. "I could use an excuse to stop whatever I'm working on to make a pot of coffee."
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