***This is purely a work of fiction. All characters depicted are over 18 years of age. Additionally, this story contains some non-consensual elements so if that is not to your liking, you may want to move on. If it is, enjoy.
Sarah had hated everything about living out west. Life hadn't been easy back east either but it was a different level of hardship when one had to start a house and home with nothing. Not that her life before she married Thomas had been easy. It certainly hadn't been. Her family was dirt poor like just about everyone else she knew living in the city. Sarah and her family lived in a small flat that could barely hold the 8 of them. Her father came and went, claiming to be looking for work but all he seemed to find was women and drink. In between his comings and goings he always made sure to leave a baby in her mother's belly and another mouth for Sarah to scuffle to feed.
Sarah met her future husband Thomas at a church social. He was older by 16 years but he was smitten. It was not a love match for Sarah but it was an opportunity. She loved her mother and her siblings but at 17 she was tired. She had been raising babies, sharing beds, and making things stretch to paper thinness her entire life. She wanted a life of her own, a place, and space that belonged to her. If she had to take on a husband for it then so be it. Her father of course okayed the marriage in exchange for a small dowry that would provide money for his extended hiatus and libations. Sarah harbored a sense of guilt about leaving her mother and her younger sisters to the responsibilities that she once held but she only had one life to live and it would not be spent in servitude due to another's bad decisions.
Sarah had gotten married thinking that all couples were like her parents. Whatever expectation she had of womanly duties was not nearly as strenuous as the sounds coming from the opposite side of the room she had shared with her parents and siblings would have her to believe. Thomas's sexual appetite was minimal at best. They would be 6 years into their marriage before Sarah would bear a daughter who she named Merida. It was a difficult birth. Sarah was warned that it would not be in her best interest to breed again. It was a diagnosis that she was 100 percent on board with. Thomas was happy with his one daughter and more than happy to lessen any obligations toward husbandly duties.
The decision to move west came as a result of the propaganda of Westward Expansion and dreams of striking it rich. Thomas, a cobbler by trade, was taken with the idea of the riches and land of the west so they along with 4 families from their church struck out, leaving Philadelphia to search out their fortune. They would find that there was very little fortune to be had by the time they made it there. What was available was backbreaking labor and hardship for which most of their fellow travelers were ill-equipped.
Thomas would be among a lucky few to find gold. The fortuitous find would allow him to buy the land in which they lived and to afford a modest home. News of the find brought the wealthy down like locusts. What they didn't make in gold they bled out of the residents by price gouging the most basic necessities of living. Thomas would still work as a cobbler in town while prospecting as a pass time. Sarah worried about him. He was getting up in age and she worried that spending so much time out panning would invite the wrong type of people. But she need not have worried. It would be a stroke that would take her husband and leave her widow at 35 with a 12 year old daughter.
Sarah would marry again almost immediately after the death of her husband. Again it wasn't a marriage based on love, but a marriage born of necessity. She had no reason to return east. Her family, whoever was left of them, was dirt poor and had nothing to offer her and a child. Here she had land, a home, and modest savings but without a man to defend it, she'd be hard pressed to keep it. So she came to Jebediah, a young man who often helped Thomas with odd jobs, with a proposition. There was an understanding between Jebediah and Sarah that she would be his wife in every sense. He would have a wife, land, and a home. For a man who had been wandering from place to place having somewhere to settle with a pretty wife seemed like a good exchange. And for a time it was. Unlike her first husband who barely had a libido, Jebediah was younger than her late husband and in fact younger than Sarah herself. He had quite a sexual appetite and knew his way around the bedroom to be sure but Sarah didn't trust him.
Sarah was taught a lesson with Jebediah. One didn't need to brag or hold a thing over another's head to breed jealousy. Jealousy came with the knowledge that she had something that he did not. He masked it well but Sarah knew better. On more than one occasion, she had noticed him snooping in her trunk. Though he never voiced it, Sarah knew it probably didn't sit well with him to be a man of 31 years and have nothing to show for his life but that which he had acquired only access through his wife but not ownership.
Sarah and Jebediah would be married 4 years when the coughing began. It started off as a bit of tiredness, night sweats and weight loss that Sarah attributed initially to a woman's change of life. Those minor inconveniences morphed into an unrelenting blood tinged cough that left Sarah weak and gasping for every breath. Sarah knew even before the doctor's visit that the news wouldn't be good. She didn't know how long she had but she knew that she must protect her daughter Merida at all costs.
Merida was a pretty young woman, all the prettier because she wasn't aware of it. Where her mother was fair with long golden hair, Merida was dark with an olive complexion like her father's and thick hair that fell in mahogany waves down her back. Her figure was soft and lush. Sarah trusted Jebediah even less now that Merida's womanly figure had emerged, especially now that she could not perform her wifely duties. Sarah's concerns were not born of jealousy. From her bed she would often pretend to be sleeping and she had seen the blatant lust as he watched Merida carry out her chores. Merida was a good girl, a sheltered girl, and quite naive to the workings of the world and the motivations of men. She would not be able to physically stand in the gap for her too much longer, but she would make sure she was prepared.
Living out in the ruggedness of the Frontier, Merida should have been married off more than a year ago but her mother Sarah's illness prevented it. Sarah fell ill in late autumn of 1846. The illness started two years prior with her feeling tired and becoming winded easily. On those days, Merida would bid her to rest while she carried out household chores. In the months that followed Sarah's symptoms worsened. She became racked by an unrelenting, hacking cough which realized their worst fears: Tuberculosis. The cold didn't help. Even with a roaring fire it was difficult to stifle the chill of the cabin. Neither Merida nor Sarah complained. As far as lodgings went they were among the lucky ones. Most families lived in sod homes that could barely withstand the most benign weather conditions let alone the constant fight with mice, snakes, and other critters barely made them better than sleeping outdoors.
Their cabin was a solid wooden structure that consisted of one large room with a kitchen area with a solid oak table and chairs. Sarah and her husband, Jebediah shared a bed located in one corner of the room along with two rocking chairs and a large fire. There were large leather hides on the floor to block the worst drafts. Merida's cot was located upstairs above the kitchen in a tiny loft. There was no room to stand, but it did afford her a modicum of privacy and some heat from the wood burning stove below. Again Merida considered herself lucky. As an only child she had her small space to herself though like others who grew up in these rugged, inhospitable conditions she too knew more of marital goings on than she would care to admit.
Every morning Merida woke up early before the sun could come up in the sky. She was not an early bird as the saying went. She would get up early because her stepfather Jebediah did and with her mother being ill the duties of running a household fell to her. Merida sat up on her cot reaching over to grab her dress to pull over her head; her body was stiff from the cold and lying in a cramped space. She made her way down to the main living area to check on her mother while Jebediah went out to collect water and wood so breakfast could be prepared.
"Merida," Sarah rasped out her name.
"Mama, don't try to talk, Merida answered. It only makes you more tired."
"Listen, I have to tell you this. Go in my chest," Sarah said raggedly pointing to the chest at the foot of her bed. "There is a pouch, find it." Merida followed her mother's instructions and found a modest sized leather pouch hidden under some fancy dresses Sarah no longer wore. Life here did not afford opportunities for dancing and social gatherings amongst the genteel ladies. "Take it. Hide it amongst your things. Every morning add one teaspoon to your tea. When you bleed you may stop. When your courses cease, begin again."
"What is it mama," Merida asked?
