THE HONEYMOON by Cheryl McGuire
Two Moose Camp, Alaska,1990.
No sooner had Gomer’s first wife died than he attended another funeral. After stepping to the casket to observe the manicured body of the deceased, Gomer sat down in the front row of the chapel to wait for the service to begin. Beatrice, the deceased man’s daughter, stepped in front of him, bending forward to view her father’s corpse. Gomer took notice and liked what he saw.
After all, he figured, two months was long enough to mourn any woman. Since his wife’s death, he’d found himself lost and lonely and sleeplessly flopping around his king-sized bed. A man with an eye to his own comfort and disinclined toward hussies, Gomer needed a wife.
Surveying the reception hall of guests milling about, eating, and chatting, he spotted Beatrice, a rather hefty girl, but never mind. He piled a plate with food and beelined to her side, presenting her with the generous offering of cheese, salami, and potato salad. She accepted.
A man on fire, Gomer courted Beatrice with an intense and meticulous focus. She looked as if she could accommodate most anything—she liked to cook and hunt and seemed willing to do everything but chew leather. What a wonderful bride she would make.
Her family cheered his swift courtship, happy as bugs in a bakery to unload her. Beatrice was not all that she appeared, but Gomer seemed just the man to take her on.
“I’m partial to tomboys,” he told a wedding guest, explaining the upcoming moose-hunting trip as their honeymoon getaway. After the wedding reception ended, the newlyweds heaved sleeping bags, food supplies, guns, and a tent onto their backs and crossed Funny River Road by foot towards their campsite, a hike of two miles.
Cowboy Roy, wrangling two horses laden with moose kill was headed out and passed them on the trail as they headed in. “I’ve left a canvas tarp strung between two trees to mark your campsite,” he said. Tipping his hat, he bade them congratulations and moved on.
Gomer and Beatrice reached the site just before dark, unloaded their cargo beneath the tarp, and by the light of a single lantern pitched their pup tent on hardscrabble earth. It had been a long day. With little ado, they hit the hay, making quick work of lovemaking—even if did hold a smidge more romance than usual. Soon, both were snoring.
A wild sound woke Beatrice, who grabbed her rifle. She peered into the darkness of the tent and strained to identify the savage wail. Gomer’s burly snore filled the tent and obscured the pandemonium. She chopped Gomer in the ribs with the butt of her gun. “Sssshhh,” she said. “There’s something out there!”
“Ow!” Gomer whimpered. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Beatrice laid down but remained restless and slept with one eye cocked toward the door flap, her rifle across her chest. Her new husband slumbered serenely, snuggled into the folds of his wife’s robust body, a pleased smile on his face. He was safe and happy and willing to pass all responsibility to his capable bride.
Morning arrived. The tent still stood and the food stores were intact. Beatrice leaped from the tent invigorated by the fresh air and the crisp morning dew. She stretched her arms into the air. The dawn light bouncing on her diamond ring caught her eye. Examining it, she counted her blessings, even if her husband was a tad puny. A sizable girl of Viking and Russian stock with a hint of Mongolian blood mixed in, she never imagined herself a bride. She pounded her chest and yodeled.
Still wrapped in his sleeping bag inside the tent, her petite husband stretched the full length of his body and smiled a self-congratulatory grin. Always the strategist aimed at his own pleasure, Gomer recognized the great windfall in his new bride. His life had taken on a distinct sense of ease.
Indeed, the first year of marriage was all he could have wished. His brawny bride was a ball of productivity. She did the cooking, the washing up, and the housekeeping. She wash-boarded and beat the laundry and hung it on lines to dry. She hunted and skinned supper and set out a garden. She put up canned fruits and vegetables. She did the financial books and hauled in firewood to keep the cabin fires burning. Gomer’s life was good.
After a year passed, Gomer began to notice subtle changes in his wife’s behavior. A family member divulged in passing that on occasions in the past his wife had had violent meltdowns and had to be institutionalized. Gomer frowned.
One morning as Gomer sat in the sunlight of his bay window, sipping black coffee and reading the news at breakfast, Beatrice charged through her bedroom door with an inhuman howl, a pair of sewing shears raised above her head. She slashed at Gomer with a fierce aim and a rabid look in her eye. Leaping from his chair, he threw his cup into the air. Black coffee rained down upon his starched white shirt, but he had missed the blade. He stayed on the move, circling the house like a trapped rodent until the squad car and ambulance arrived.
The sheriff and two colossal men from the local mental hospital knocked at the door. They knew of Beatrice and were prepared. It took some doing, but they got her laced into a straightjacket, hauling her out—roaring with rage—to the waiting ambulance. Her mental history required extreme measures this time. They flew her north to a larger, more sophisticated sanatorium—half hoosegow, half hospital.
Gomer was beside himself. For weeks, he flopped around loose in his king-sized bed. Stubble appeared on his face. Dishes piled up. The fires dimmed. What was he to do? He needed his bride by his side but wasn’t quite sure now who his bride was. He stared out the window, looking for answers in the frozen tundra. Time passed but answers failed to surface.
Three months later, the day arrived. The hour had come to fetch his bride home. Gomer shaved, cleaned the house, and loaded his car. All he knew—all he’d been able to determine for the past many months—was that he needed Beatrice by his side. He knew his life, perhaps his very survival, banked on his wife’s well-built shoulders.
Gomer switched on the ignition of his car to warm it up and returned to the cabin to inspect that all was in order. He failed to comprehend the freshly purchased flowers on the table would be dead by the time they arrived home. He locked the door.
The day was icy and gray. Mixed with the frost in the air was a chilly trace of hope in Gomer’s heart. He climbed into his bruised Ford Pinto, straightened his tie, and stiffened his posture. He took the wheel and lifted his head, pushing his chin toward the windshield with an air of quivering confidence. Vapor roiled from the tailpipe as he chugged away from the cabin toward his uncertain future.
