“Probably.”
By 1888, people began expecting Caleb and Elena to marry.
Neither had discussed it.
That did not stop anyone else.
Henry Moss asked first.
Caleb nearly punched him.
Rose asked Elena more carefully.
Elena told her to mind her own business.
Rose reportedly laughed for an hour.
Joseph simply began referring to Caleb’s ranch as “Elena’s second house.”
Caleb objected.
Elena did not.
That was how he discovered she thought about the possibility before he did.
One evening they sat on the porch after rain.
Rare.
The desert smelled new.
Caleb asked:
“Do you want this?”
Elena looked at him.
“Rain?”
He gestured between them.
She became very still.
“You propose badly.”
“I’m not proposing.”
“Good.”
Caleb frowned.
“That sounded insulting.”
“Yes.”
He looked out over the wet corral.
“I mean us.”
Elena waited.
“We keep acting as though something is going to happen later.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe later is stupid.”
“Maybe.”
Caleb took a breath.
“Do you love me?”
Elena stared.
He regretted everything instantly.
“That was direct.”
“I panicked.”
She looked toward the yard.
“Yes.”
Caleb stopped.
“Yes what?”
“Do not become stupid.”
“Too late.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
Caleb exhaled.
“I love you too.”
Elena nodded.
“That seemed obvious.”
“Cruel woman.”
They did not marry that year.
Elena was not ready to live permanently on his ranch.
Caleb was not ready to pretend marriage would solve the differences between their worlds.
Joseph warned him:
“If marry, people talk.”
Caleb said:
“People already talk.”
“More.”
“I have met people.”
Joseph laughed.
Rose’s concern was different.
“Will Elena become your wife or disappear into your house?”
Caleb thought about that for weeks.
When he answered, Rose listened.
“I don’t want her smaller.”
“Want is not enough.”
“I know.”
“What will you do?”
Caleb looked toward Elena teaching children beside the trading post.
“Ask when I don’t know.”
Rose nodded.
“Better.”
Elena’s question to Caleb was equally difficult.
“If your neighbors reject me, do you leave them or make me fight each time?”
Caleb remembered the reporters.
The town.
His instinct to defend.
“I ask what you want.”
“Every time?”
“Yes.”
“You will forget.”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Better.”
They married in 1890.
Small ceremony.
No newspaper.
Caleb insisted.
Elena agreed enthusiastically.
Henry Moss attended and complained because he believed it would have sold papers.
Nobody cared.
Joseph stood beside Elena.
Rose cried once and denied it.
Marshal Reeves traveled from New Mexico.
Captain Pierce, now a major, sent a silver coffee pot with a note:
Perhaps this will help.
It did not.
Caleb’s coffee remained terrible.
Elena kept her own name.
Some people found that strange.