In Wilderness Found

Chapter 2: "I'd Be Happier If You Were Dead."

Light begins to filter in through the rickety window of the old home's one bedroom. Madison rolls over on the corn husk mattress and squeezes her eyes shut. She takes in the blissful silence around her and figures her husband must be gone to town already.

Madison rises from the unpleasant bed and heads to the stove, giving a scowl to the remnants of cornbread from last night. It was hardly tolerable and she knows Abner will insist on something more substantial this evening.

Maybe if she pretends this is a nightmare, she will suddenly wake up and be 10 years old again. She wishes she had a chance to just go back and redo everything.

If she was 10, what would she be doing today? Her father, Oliver Webb, would likely be tending to the property around her childhood home - a modest wooden home that didn't need much frill, because it was so full of warmth that you couldn't possibly even notice how simple it was.

If he was in the garden, that means she would have been bringing him water for the plants. If he was in the barn, she would have been helping him feed the horses. If he was heading out into the Kentucky woods for a hunt, she would have been following right behind him whispering all of her questions too loudly.

Madison lets out a giggle when she remembers that he usually came home empty-handed when she came along on a hunt. He had never seemed to mind, though. When she would pout, he would give her that lopsided smile and his green eyes would twinkle. "We'll get 'em next time, kid," he'd say.

Oh, how she misses him. He would be so disappointed if he could see her now. Oliver had raised her to be strong and self-sufficient, and here she was letting Abner treat her no better than trash.

As she looks at the cornbread on the stove, Madison realizes that she's failing at being a homemaker. Losing her mother at a young age left Madison with an eclectic range of talents. While other girls were baking cakes and sewing pretty dresses, Oliver was teaching her how to skin deer and tie down livestock fencing.

Now he was gone too.

With a frown on her face and her hair still a mess from sleep, Madison makes her way out to the barn where Abner had tied up the horses last night. Many of their belongings are still in leather bags and wooden crates sitting outside the barn.

Madison gives the blonde mare, Peaches, a pat before she begins rummaging through the bags to find a pot for the beans she'll cook tonight.

When her palm hits something cold and metal she thinks she's found it, until her fingers wrap around the barrel of Abner's .44 caliber pistol. With a quick glance around her, Madison pulls it out. It's no hunting rifle, which she'd grown used to holding as a kid, so the smaller size of it feels foreign in her hands.

She takes time to admire the firearm for a moment before returning it and retrieving a metal pot for the kitchen.

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Abner returns home in the early evening, frustration evident on his face. He had been positive that the property was twelve acres when he purchased it, but upon further survey and a trip to see the town land records, he found that it was only eight.

During his trip to town, Abner also realized that he's not the only blacksmith around. Daniel Williams already has the business of three quarters of the county, and it will be difficult to persuade these folk into hiring a newcomer for their metalworking.

After tying up his horse, Abner storms his way into the house. Madison knows better than to ask questions when she sees his brows furrowed together and the scowl set in stone on his thin lips.