Goodman's Bride

By Jillayne Reitzel

Her daddy sold her to a snake of a man for twenty acres of black dirt.

Didn't matter that she was only sixteen and her heart belonged to someone else.

Medusa Lawless struggled with the hardships of life in the Appalachians in 1900. Her family were dirt poor, outcast in the small holler of Copperhead Creek. Her daddy, with his raging temper and bent towards violence, showed her and her sister no love or kindness and ruled his family with harsh words and swift, harsh punishment while her mother defended his actions.

She had never been beyond the mountains surrounding Copperhead Creek. All she knew was harsh words and back breaking work. She never imagined it could get worse. Then her daddy sold her to a man that made her skin crawl and it got a whole lot worse.

Her dreams of marrying the young Cherokee man that held her heart were gone.

Life with her new husband was harder, more brutal, than she could have ever imagined.

In a twist of events, she was left alone, eaten by guilt for killing a man, pregnant and fearing the moment her husband would return.

Like the trees growing out of the side of a rocky mountain, Medusa grows and thrives. She learns her true value to those who know her. Discovers secrets that formed her life before she was born and finds love, grief and the strength to fight and be heard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jillayne Reitzel
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215841112

Jillayne Reitzel

Jillayne loves the written word and loves to tell stories. She has been writing and telling stories since she was in elemantary school. She has four grown children, three sons and a daughter, and four grandchildren. Her family traveled the hillbilly highway to find work and settled in Detroit, MI.  She might still live there but her heart is in West Virgina. She will always call Long Branch home.

Book preview

Chapter One

It was cold. Snot freeze in your head, cold. Too cold and too early to get out of bed.  There was no smell of coffee a brewing or bacon a frying. No quiet movements from the other parts of the small five room cabin. It's rough hewn logs creaked as it was buffeted by November's cold winds as it whistled through cracks in the mortar between them.

The house was cold and still as a graveyard at midnight. The danged rooster wasn't even crowing yet. He was huddled up with his head under his wing, among a bunch of fat hens that were doing the same.

The damp chill of an early fall morning kissed her nose. Her sisters were curled up like kittens sleeping beside her. Warm and cozy. Just a few more minutes and she would drag her sorry butt out of her warm bed and into the cold house to start her  day.

Medusa Lawless hunkered down deeper in the pile of faded block and string quilts covering the bed she shared with the three younger girls. Just a little bit longer, she thought with a sigh. She'd get up when she heard her mommy moving around in the kitchen. 

It was Sunday.  Wasn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

If you wasn't supposed to cut your hair, or go looking for a lost cow on Sunday, why was it alright to haul water, coal and firewood?  Wasn't  feeding the chickens, slopping hogs and emptying chamber pots considered work in God's eyes? She'd never understand the way God thought. Or her daddy. Both or them were a mystery to her.

The fifteen year old girl laid in bed pondering the wrongness of having to get up and work before church on Sunday morning, any morning really, while most of the house slept on. It just wasn't fair.  The bed felt so nice and cozy. The rest of the house wasn't. Her cold nose proved it. Just a few more minutes under the covers, she told herself again, and she'd get up. She promised. 

A warm stream flowed between her and the sister sleeping soundly next to her, creating a warm puddle that was getting real cold, real quick and soaking them both. Tipsy peed the bed again.  The three year old must like laying in it, because she was dead to the world and not moving a muscle.

That's what I git fer thinking God wasn't right in having me up before the danged rooster, Medusa thought. He made sure I had to get up whether I want to or not.

Medusa crawled out of bed with a heavy sigh. She was careful not to wake her sisters up. That's all she needed. Getting her chores done while keeping that little flock of magpies quiet was impossible.  They'd all end up getting a  whipping from Daddy if they woke  him up before he was read to get up.    Medusa knew first hand that sitting on a hard church pew with a scorched bottom was torture. If you squirmed in your seat while Preacher Belcher was giving his sermon you'd get called out from the pulpit, and  another whipping from your daddy. You'd be standing up until next the Sunday service.

She stripped out of her faded pink flannel nightgown, and pulled on a thick brown skirt over a pair of her daddy's old britches and one of his wool shirts.  She tugged on three pairs of heavy socks and a pair of his hand me down boots. They were way to big, but they were all she had.  If it wasn't for the skirt and the thick blonde braid that hung down her back, almost to her hips, people would think she was a boy.  She wished she was a boy. 

Her twin brothers, only ten months younger than her, didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to work their butts off. They didn't have half the chores she did. The only chores they had to do was chop wood, plow and plant their small garden. Sometimes they helped their daddy repair their tired little house.

Her and her sisters had to do everything else. They didn't have time for fun. They were too tired.

The twins got to go fishing and hunting and swimming in the swimming hole.  She wanted to do all that too. But most of all, they got to go to school. The lucky dogs. They got to learn stuff about the world outside the little holler they lived in while she had to stay home, tend the youngins and do chores until her mind was numb and her hands were raw.

Medusa was pulled out of school when she was ten. She could read some, write a little and do simple math but that was it. Her spelling and handwriting was pitiful. She never got a chance to use them skills. Oh, to be able to read the big words in the Bible and know what they meant. To be able to write as pretty as Miss Walls, the school teacher. Wouldn't that be something?

Medusa sighed. She could wish in one hand and poop in the other.  She knew which one would fill up fastest. Daddy was never gonna let her go back to school. School was for boys, he told her. They needed the education to provide for their families. To make it in life.

Not girls. Girls just needed a man to take care of them. They would clean up after their man, raise his babies and work themselves to death for that care. Choking down the bitterness, she went into the kitchen where Mommy was starting to roll out biscuits to be cut.

Mornin' Doose. Her mother didn't bother looking up. She knew who it was. Nobody else would be up so early.

Mornin', Mommy. Medusa shuffled past her to gather water, coal and wood. She brought in two buckets of water from the well, three buckets of coal from the coal shed and enough fire wood to last for a day or two. She started a fire in the cook stove, and stoked up the coals in the potbelly heating stove while Mommy finished putting the biscuits in a pan.

Tipsy pissed the bed again.  Medusa sat down next to her mother and started helping her peel the taters. 

Sunday meals were always big. 'Cause it was Sunday.  Somebody might come to visit unexpected. It was a waste of time and food. Nobody in the holler would want to visit them. People were afraid of Lloyd Lawless' drunken tirades and legendary temper. They looked down on the Lawless family like they were dog poop on their boots.  But her mother and her still cooked big dinners on Sunday.  Just in case.

Better git the girls up 'n strip th' bed.  Mommy sighed and stretched, showing her swollen belly. Ruby Lawless was always pregnant, about to be pregnant, or just getting done being pregnant.  Baby number seven was either gonna be a whopper or twins again.  It looked to be sucking the life right out of her. Poor Mommy was too tired to even smile most of the time.

Medusa went into the tiny room she shared with her sisters. It was barely big enough for the bed they slept in. Leaning over she shook them awake.

Why's the bed wet? Tipsy sat up and asked. Her blonde curls were a tangled halo around her heart shaped face.

Why d' ye think? Medusa asked her as she lifted two year old Flori out of bed. The dark haired little girl smiled sleepily and gave her a wet kiss. 

You peed agin, nine year old Mexi gave her sister a dirty look as she pulled her own wet nightgown away from her slender body. 

Youins need to move so I can get these wet sheets off the bed, Medusa pulled Flori's nightgown off of her and sat her on her feet. Tipsy stripped out of her wet clothes while Mexi tried to dry herself off with the corner of her nightgown. 

Git dressed. Medusa gathered their wet clothes up and threw then in a pile. We got church.

Not goin', Tipsy giggled and started jumping on the bed. Flori pulled herself up there so she could jump too.  Mexi, who was normally as quiet and shy as a mouse, couldn't resist and joined them.

Medusa was trying to strip the soggy bedding off of their well worn mattress while her half naked sisters hopped up and down on it, squealing like three little piglets. 

What the hell's goin' on in here? Her daddy's voice sent chills of dread down her back.  Git them little split tails under control. My head's a bustin' and they ain't helpin' it none.

Mexi had enough sense to stop. She, like Medusa,  had  learned a healthy fear of their father. The other little grass hoppers didn't seem to care about the danger they were in. Medusa rushed to put a stop to their fun before their daddy lost his temper.  In her haste, she tripped over the pile of bedding at her feet.

She would have landed on the bed, face first in a ice cold puddle of pee, and got bounced on by her sisters dirty little feet if it wasn't for her thick blonde braid being caught in her daddy's heavy fist.   He yanked her back so hard skull connected with his knuckles, bringing tears to her eyes.

I said. Make. Them. Stop. he hissed in her ear.

I will, Daddy.  Medusa could smell the liquor on his breath and seeping from his pores. It surrounded her in a foul haze that made her want to gag.  He was hung over for sure. That meant nothing good for her and the girls. Their daddy would be angrier than usual and looking for a reason to whip 'em. 

They'd have to be extra good at church. He wouldn't have them embarrassing him in front of the whole holler. It didn't matter that his hangover would be an embarrassment to them.

The boys would escape his wrath of course. They were boys. Gifts from God as Preacher Belcher liked to say.  Sons were a gift. A joy. Girls weren't. That was another reason she wished she could read better. Preacher Belcher could be lying like dog on a rug and she had to take his word on it.

The boys usually slipped out of the house after supper was over while Medusa and Mexi washed the dishes and their parents rested for the rest of the day.

Lloyd Lawless showed little patience, or love, for his daughters.  He never said it outright, but it sure seemed like he saw them as useless mouths to feed, bodies that had to be clothed. He was strict and harsh with them, showing them little love or kindness.

Medusa was thankful he didn't stuff them in a sack and toss them in the river like unwanted kittens the day they were born.

With one more quick jerk her daddy thumped her head again, not so hard this time, before releasing her braid with a shove that sent her flying forward. This time she did land on the bed, face first in that ice cold puddle of piss.

Thank the Good Lord the girls had stopped their jumping.  She didn't think her poor head could handle a stomping on top of a thumping.

Medusa changed the bedding and got her sisters dressed as quickly as she could. Her mother would be needing help finishing breakfast and cleaning up afterwards. It wasn't a short walk to the church house. They lived at the very head of Mason's holler, a smaller branch that ran from the main holler, Copperhead Creek. 

Peter and Paul arrived at the breakfast just as it was being set on the table. They were looking well rested and pleased with themselves. At fourteen the twins were already images of their daddy; tall, and brawny with beautiful green gold eyes and curly dark brown hair. That was another reason to resent them. They were boys and almost too pretty to be boys. They knew it too, the cocky little hound dogs.

Medusa wasn't pretty or cocky. She'd gotten used to the fact that she'd never be called pretty or beautiful. Sturdy, strong, hard working; that's what people in Copperhead Creek called her and she was alright with that. She was all of them things and then some. There wasn't nothing wrong with that.   Not being pretty meant she wouldn't have to get married any time soon and have to deal with a man pawing at her and getting her pregnant every year while he ran around the holler getting drunk and chasing strange tail. She might live a good distance from most, but she still heard stories.

She didn't want, or need, a husband. She was already raising youngins and keeping house and doing whatever else was expect of her. She could do all that right there with her family and not have to deal with having babies of her own.

Whether it was her plain looks, or fear of her daddy, the boys in Copperhead Creek didn't pay her much attention. That suited her just fine. There was only one boy, young man, that she was interested in. Charlie Morgan.

Her daddy would never let her marry a man like him. Charlie was Black Irish and though his mama and him owned a lot of  land at the top of Copperhead Mountain, it didn't change the fact that they were Cherokee.  According to her daddy, Indians were the only thing lower than a Lawless.

It didn't matter that most everybody they knew had a little bit of Indian in them. Even Mommy did and she had blonde hair and dark blue eyes. But it was there. You could see it in her high cheekbones and the way she carried herself. Stoic and proud.

Miss Walls taught her that word, stoic. It was the only fancy word she knew. She could even spell it. S-T-O-I-C; stoic. That was before she had to quit going to school. Imagine all the fancy words she'd know if she got to keep going. 

Daddy simply wouldn't accept the Morgans and kept himself, and his family, away from the widow Morgan and her son. Even more than he did the rest of the holler. There was no doubt about them being Indian. All you had to do was look at them.

Besides, everyone in the holler knew that Alexander Morgan met his wife while he was an officer in the cavalry somewhere. When he came back home after a thirty year career in the Army and the War Between the States, he had Maggie with him. She was twenty years younger and pregnant.

The older folks said that he'd fallen in love with the much younger, very beautiful squaw and stole her off of that reservation they'd herded all them poor natives to back in the eighteen thirties. Said that place, and others like it, were more a prison than anything else.

A lot of them died before they even got there.  The Army wasn't prepared for that many mouths to feed, or how long it would take to get there. Many were on foot. Many died of starvation or froze to death. The elderly simply couldn't keep up and were left behind to die. What happened to them people was horrible.

Preacher Belcher's daddy, Silas, married them two months after they arrived and died the very next day. Some gossipy, mean spirited hypocrites said it was 'cause he went against God's plan and joined the two, her being a heathen and pregnant out of wedlock and all. The Bible said you shouldn't be unequally yoked, whatever that meant, and getting a baby in your belly before you were married was the sin of fornication.

India Belcher, Silas' wife and having Indian blood herself, told them to hush their nonsense and think about the blood flowing in their own veins and the babies she'd delivered a month or two early. That shut them up real quick.

India took Maggie under her wing and taught her the art of being a midwife and healer before she died. She knew folks couldn't completely shun her then. Still, the people in the holler might let Maggie deliver their babies, fix their hurts and buy her goat cheese, but her and her boy were just as much outsiders as Medusa's family. Why couldn't her daddy see that? Why did her daddy have to judge them like the rest of the holler?

Medusa thought that was just plain stupid thinking on her daddy's part. As far as she was concerned Charlie Morgan was both handsome and good.  He was one of the very few men she knew that she could honestly say that about. She liked him, and lately she'd caught him watching her with those dark lashed, dark eyes of his.  She'd even smiled at him once and he smiled back. 

Maybe she could talk her Daddy into letting Charlie come sparking if he asked.  She sighed and grabbed a biscuit from the plate being passed around the breakfast table. It was a nice thought, but the  Devil's demons would be shoveling snow around the time that happened. 

The idea of being married to Charlie Morgan didn't make her nearly as queasy as it did when she considered it with anyone else in the holler. It made her feel a little warm and tingly.

As usual, Medusa and her family got to the little clapbboard church just in the nick of time. They took a pew in the back while the rest of the congregation was singing about being washed in The Blood. The church was crowded and gray from the soot of the pot belly coal stove in the back of the building.

It didn't matter if they were late, on time, or early. They always sat in the back.  Daddy liked it back there. He could lean his head back against a dingy wall and take a little nap when he was hung over, which was most Sundays. Preacher Belcher didn't dare call him out from the pulpit.

Medusa liked it because it was harder for the local girls and their mama to stare and snicker at her in her daddy's drab hand me downs. That didn't mean that they didn't. It was just harder for them to do it. She suspected her mother liked it too. She could pretend that she was a part of the congregation. That her old friends and neighbors weren't whispering about her dirt poor family and her bad choice in husbands. Mommy was a proud woman. For her younger siblings, it was just where they sat. Tipsy called it their bench.

Not one member of the congregation was paying them a bit of mind on this fine Sunday morning. For the first time in a long time, the Lloyd Lawless and his family wasn't the object of  everybody's attention. Someone else was.

A slender man, with dark red hair, sat a few rows from the front all by himself.  He was a stranger for sure, but that wasn't what made him so different from the rest. It was his clothes. They were new. Fancy.  Store bought, not hand made. The kind of clothes no one in the holler even thought of wearing.  His suit coat was dark green and his shirt was white as snow.

He wasn't from around there. That was for sure.

From the whispers bouncing around the small wooden church house, the man was Grover Goodman's only nephew, from Raleigh, North Carolina. He had inherited the old man's farm on the other side of Copperhead Mountain. He'd come to collect his inheritance and he was looking for a wife.

Medusa doubted that anyone in the church would remember Preacher Belcher's sermon.  Especially the girls who were looking for a husband, and their mamas. Husbands were slim pickings in those parts. Especially husbands who had land and money.