Katie’s Decision
by Mary Mintz
“Katie-girl, would you join me in here for a moment, please?” asked Thomas Maguire of his only daughter.
“Of course, Father.” Katie set the laundry basket down in the hallway outside his study. “Do you need something?”
“Do you know Jake Braeburn?” He moved to stand behind his desk. “He’s our ranch hand in charge of breaking the mustangs, among other things.”
“Of course, I do,” said Katie, coming to stand in front of him. “Jake has been with us for three or four years, hasn’t he?”
“Well, my dear, a few minutes ago, Jake asked for my permission to, um …” He gulped and rushed on, “He wants to marry you, Katie. Tomorrow. Has he ever spoken with you about this?”
“Never!”
“Yes, that’s what he said, too. Said he’d never revealed himself, but he told me he fell in love with you the first time he laid eyes on you. He said his admiration for you has grown each and every day since then.”
“Well!” Katie laughed. “That’s completely understandable, isn’t it, Father? I’m sure all the hands are madly in love with me.” She was swaying her long skirts side to side like a ringing bell, in pure amusement. “The others are probably all lined up at the front door as we speak to plead for my hand, seeing as how today is my 18th birthday.” She gave a big, dramatic sigh. “I’ve been expecting this, actually, but I thought they’d do us the courtesy of waiting until after lunchtime.” She shook her head. “Father, if this is you pulling my leg because of the dead snake in your boot, I told you, that was Phillip!”
“You’d better sit down, Katie. This is not a jest. Jake is in the parlor waiting to speak with you after we’re finished here. Things are going to happen very quickly now—like a runaway wagon down a hill. All depending, of course, on your answer. You have a very important decision to make, but time is short.”
She dropped into a straight-backed chair, stunned. “Did you say he wants to marry me tomorrow? Tomorrow.” He nodded once. “But why has he never mentioned any of this to me before?”
“He knew he was just a ranch hand and believed that you deserve so much better.” He sank slowly into his large desk chair. “He has worked himself to exhaustion each day so that he’d be trusted with more and more responsibility, and to save as much money as he could. He said for the last year or so he has been planning to speak with you on this day to see if you would consider courting him.”
“But, why all of a sudden do we have to wed tomorrow!?”
“Because yesterday he received a letter from his sister, Lydia, in Colorado. Their parents both just died of a fever within hours of each other, and he has inherited their ranch. Jake needs to get there as soon as possible, and the next train leaves on Saturday morning. There’s all the legal issues, you see, and all the workings of the ranch to take in hand. He told me he plans to change the ranch from cattle and crops to primarily breeding horses. He will need a wife to oversee the homestead, and he told me you’re the only one his heart will let him imagine by his side.”
“Father! How can I? I barely know him!”
“Daughter, he’s a good man. You must know how I’ve come to depend on him—he’s darn near irreplaceable. Plus, he’ll have his own large ranch, so you’ll be well provided for.” He placed his palms on the desk and leaned forward. “I spoke with your mother right before you came back inside—she’s trying to resign herself to the suddenness of it. Believe me, we will both be heartbroken. But we promise to visit you as often as we can. Denver is not even two days away by train.”
Katie was looking at her hands clasped tightly in her lap, slowly shaking her head.
“Now, go hear him out, and give him a chance. I know there’s not much time to think things through, but he’ll try to explain as best he can. I’ve invited him to have supper with us this evening. Don’t keep him waiting any longer, Kathleen Marie. He has a lot to finish up before he takes his leave of the ranch.” He came around the desk and hugged her with all the emotion of a tender parent. She then released him, straightened her shoulders, and pivoted for the door.
Katie stepped down the hallway towards the parlor as if in a trance but then turned and ran into the kitchen and into her mother’s arms. “Mama, don’t let me!”
“Oh, Katie, my dearest. How can I part with you?” Bridget Maguire said as she stroked her daughter’s long, chestnut-brown locks. “But I have to trust it’s the Lord’s will. And going to a new state is not as bad as going to a new country, as I did with your father. Come, pet, dry your eyes. Good,” she said with a watery smile. “Here—take this tea tray with you.”
***
Jake stood up as she came into the parlor, one hand down at his side, clutching his hat brim. She felt him watching her as she put the tray down, tea things tinkling, and she tried to breathe deeply to calm her nerves.
“Katie,” he said when she turned to him. His thick brown hair was shiny, and his hands and face were freshly scrubbed—as if it was a Sunday.
“Mr. Braeburn.”
“I don’t know how much your father has told you.”
She stabbed her fists to her waist. “Well, there wasn’t much time for details, was there, with us needing to leave for Colorado in the next five minutes!”
“This isn’t the way I meant for it to happen,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Her hands fell. “No. Forgive me. I’m so sorry about your parents. It’s devastating, to be sure. I know I couldn’t bear it. And it has forced your hand—that I understand.”
“I knew you would. Eventually. But this is just like you—you’re always thinking of others before yourself. That’s one of the things I admire most about you.”
“You’re filling me with shame,” she said. “All I’ve done is think about myself since I walked in the back door with the sheets and pillowcases, totally oblivious to the earth about to fall out from under me.”
Jake led her to the sofa and sat beside her. He spoke to her soothingly and smiled as he recounted particular times over the years when her acts of loving kindness and compassion helped him fall deeply in love with her. It was so very flattering, she admitted to herself. But each time her thoughts veered to getting on a train and leaving her parents and brother behind, she got a huge lump in her throat and she could hardly breathe.
“You’ll just love my sister Lydia, and I have no doubt she’ll love you, too. Not nearly as much as I do, but—”
“Jake!” she said too loudly. “I don’t know if I can do this.” She looked around the room as if looking for an escape. “Maybe I could visit you in Colorado someday and get to know you better.” She was wringing her hands as she rushed on, “You could show me around your ranch, and we could go on a couple of picnics, and—”
“Katie,” he said gently, his gaze intent. Taking her trembling hands in both of his, he said, “I’ll be real good to you.”
She stiffened and pulled them back. “Sure, I’ve known you to be a good man, Jake Braeburn, but what about Becky Caldwell? She thought she had a good man, but she shows up to church every Sunday with new bruises and the saddest look on her face. She was the sweetest, kindest girl to all the other children in our schoolhouse. She married just six months ago—she looked so happy that day. Her husband George works out at the Pierson ranch.” She sighed bitterly, looking down. “He glad-hands everyone on Sunday, while Becky just shrinks inside herself. And nobody does a thing about it—myself included, to my shame. We all just turn our heads away from her black eye or split lip.” Katie looked up at him with anguished eyes. “How she must feel! Knowing that we know, but that we don’t care enough to come to her rescue. How would you like to live like that? With no hope of rescue till the Savior Himself comes again!”
Jake stood and put his hat on his head. He turned for the door, saying, “I’ll be back for supper.”
***
The blessing had been said, and the food was being passed around the table.
“I went to see George and Becky,” Jake said calmly, and all movement froze. “They’re coming to Colorado. I hired them both. He’ll work with the horses, and she’ll help with the cooking for the ranch hands—both earning good wages.”
Katie, sitting next to him, was staring at him, her blue eyes huge.
“Don’t worry. I told him—right in front of her—that things were going to change. And if he had never learned how to be a good husband because he’d never known one, the Lord would forgive him—if he turned his life over to Him and finally treated his wife with love and respect.”
Thomas Maguire was holding the meat platter like a statue, his mouth hanging open. Katie’s mother’s eyes were filling with tears, and Phillip, her younger brother, was grinning.
Jake cleared his throat. “I told them I’d be asking Becky at the end of every week if George was being kind and gentle to her. Each time she answers yes with a genuine smile, he can stay another week. Otherwise, she stays, and he comes back here—or he can go to blazes, I said.”
There was no sound but Bridget Maguire’s sniffling.
“I told George I knew he could do it,” Jake went on. “He’s a child of God. And if Saul of Tarsus could have a change of heart, so could he. As long as the Lord was on his side, George could do anything. And when he dies, instead of his wife and children being glad of it and spitting on his grave, they would rise up and call him blessed, and they’d join him in Glory one day.” He picked up a small basket and held it toward Katie. “Biscuit?”
“Yes,” she whispered as she pushed it aside, her eyes never leaving his. “Yes, Jake, I’ll marry you.”
About the Writer
Mary Mintz was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She worked as a secretary for the State Department in Washington, DC, and her assignments included São Paulo, Brazil, and Vienna, Austria. She then lived in Colorado for 35 years, moving to Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 2020. In 2022, she self-published a contemporary Christian romantic comedy, Gracie’s Heart’s Desire.
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