Quickly, without thinking, I walked around the bed to where she was standing, not realizing I had accidentally cornered her, whereupon she only cried harder. Once I saw this might have been interpreted as threatening, I apologized profusely and backed off slowly, as though she were a wild animal; I did not make it within four feet of her during that entire time.

She clawed at the flocked wallpaper in total anguish; she had yet to say a word to me.

"Please, Catherine, what can I do?"

My intention had been to hold my new wife, but here I was, terrified to even touch her.

"Please, Catherine, tell me and I shall do it."

She ceased crying—somewhat—and turning to me, straightened herself and said, "Pray with me."

And so I did.

I spent my first wedding night kneeling side by side with my former sister-in-law, praying for the soul of my dead brother.

[He drinks. Deeply.]

The following evening, she apologized—somewhat. We passed the night in similar fashion, but with a little less sobbing. She slept in bed, while I took the love seat alone.

We returned to Mount Vernon, where everyone whom I had known my entire life wished me well in my marriage in the same breath with which they expressed their deepest condolences. I moved into my brother's former house and it was in my brother's former bed that I finally consummated my marriage to my brother's widow.

It was the dead of night, but there was moon enough to see that more than remaining fully clothed and covered, Catherine had turned her head entirely to the side, to avert even the risk of recognizing her former brother-in-law's face above her. On the nights that she managed not to cry during our "relations," she would surely sob after, though she would never let me hold her. Yet, during the day, when she found it in her to smile somewhat weakly, she insisted, certainly without the slightest provocation from me, that we carry on as man and wife—she insisted it was what Joe would have wanted, though I, as his own flesh and blood, honestly had no idea if that was true.

Beyond that, Catherine never let me know what she thought about my dead brother and never let me comfort her when she grieved. I understood her purpose was to have a new life with me, but as this did not start on schedule, her strangely manifested resolve only served to push me away. Like any married couple, we had our ups and downs in our first 18 months of marriage, but we had started far lower than most.

By the time I began to seriously entertain thoughts of Oregon, we had mostly ceased to have the nights that we would spend exactly like those of our honeymoon—which, in our bizarre and lonely case, meant praying at the foot of the bed for hours.

[He pauses for a little while.]

I could tell you more about Catherine's mourning pin than I could tell you about her eyes.

† September 1, 1846

During the day, a number of the Reeds' oxen became crazed from thirst and bolted into the desert unharnessed, never to be heard from again.

They stood now bereft of the animals that had carried them safely for nearly 1,500 miles. Fifteen hundred again.