Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide. Please note that the character of Amanda in this story draws its inspiration from the short story written by SuLu of the same name.
She had been seventeen years old when she married him.
She had not much choice in the matter, really. Her father had passed away leaving her mother with three others mouths to feed. In his death, he left them virtually penniless and they had been faced with destitution if a solution was not found. For a time, she tried to find work, taking in sewing after she had given up any hope of an education, which was an expense her mother could not afford. School had become too much of a luxury and she was made increasingly aware of the burden she posed to her struggling family by wishing to remain. To some extent, her attempts to produce revenue after abandoning her education had been partially successful. She generated enough of an income to help her mother, but the struggle was soon taking a toll on her.
She did not know whether he had been aware of her circumstances when he first approached her, and later she would wonder whether or not he had chosen her because he knew she could not blithely refuse him or because he actually liked her. All she knew for certain was that in the beginning, she had not liked him very much upon sighting him for the first time. For starters, he that was to be her husband was much older than she, with almost a twenty years difference in age. He smelled strongly of tobacco and liquor, and her first instinct was to run and never stop running. However, in his proposal, he had promised to take care of her, that she would never want for anything and he would help her family. Wishing to share the burden of responsibility with someone whose shoulder was broader and more up to the task than she, she had accepted his offer of marriage.
They married early in the spring, the season that people often associate with hope. Certainly, when she married him, she had felt all those things and more. She resolved herself to the knowledge that though she did not love this man with the passion spoken of in the romance books she used to indulge herself with when Pa was still alive, she would be a good wife and learn to love him as time went by. After all, he had accepted her with the burden of her family following closely behind and promised that he would cherish them all as his own kin.
He had not lied about that when he had made that promise, but there was much that he had omitted to tell her about himself that might have had a bearing on her decision to marry him had she known about it. She learnt that he had spent much of his life chasing gold and had come away from a lifetime of dedication and dreaming with nothing more than a paltry sum that allowed him to buy a farm in the outskirts of town. Until her, his contact with the opposite sex had been limited to the working girls that frequented the gold rush towns, whom he had paid for. He expected the same from his wife and was disappointed when she was not so accommodating or as sure of herself in what he required from her in their marriage bed.
Her wedding night had been the stuff of nightmares.
After it was all said and done, she had lain broken and bleeding with wounds so deep that they did not leave marks on the skin but instead upon the soul. She had fled home, hoping that she would be offered solace and comfort from her ordeal. Begging sanctuary in the home which she had known all her life, she was soon made aware of the reality of her new situation. There was no room for her at home and the money provided by her husband for their expenditure was too valuable to refuse or to lose by offering shelter to his estranged wife. As she heard the words from her mother's lips, a part of her felt betrayed and they had not spoken since that day, even though her mother had tried to make conciliatory gestures. She had gone home seeking compassion and discovered that it was far easier for her family to see her prostituted then to offer her the help she had so desperately needed.
She returned to her new home with nowhere else to go, aware in her desolation that she had willingly placed herself in a hell from which there was no escape. As she trudged back in broken silence, her mother's voice resonated in her head as she made her way back to the farm house. It was not a wife's place to question her husband, her mother had quoted before telling her to go home. With no choice left to her, she returned to the husband who had not been pleased at her departure and decided that a disciplining was required. The cycle of violence would become familiar to her for the rest of her marriage.
She bore it all stoically, weeping into her pillow after he was done with her, lamenting her fate even though she was not brave enough to escape it. Her tears always came in the dark, when she was certain he could not hear her because that was one dignity she would keep for herself. He in turn, showed little remorse, believing a wife was property, as livestock was something to be owned, except a wife had far more use as a beast of burden than cattle or sheep. After a time, it became almost second nature the life she led, until the pain and the abuse became so common place that she accepted it with almost no question.
Of course, the situation was not improved with the lack of children a decade after their marriage. She was not entirely certain that the fault lay with her, although it served his ego to have her believe that. In truth, she was pleased that offspring had not been forthcoming for she firmly believed that a man who would use his fists on his wife would have little restraint in doing so with children and she would allow no child of hers to suffer such abuse. He was a bitter man and he attributed the failures of his life to everyone else, never where it had always been, himself. He blamed her for their lack of children and although she could not be saddled with the guilt of his failed aspirations as a prospector, she could certainly bear the brunt of his anger and disillusionment.
Ten years after that first night, she had eased into a begrudging acceptance of her existence and was content that it could get no worse. Although he still blamed her for everything that went wrong in his life, his enmity had dwindled into a sour dislike that would on occasion surface when he was drunk or simply needed a reason to get mean. The beatings and the degradations were so much a part of her now that she merely accepted the punishment, then waited for the storm to pass before cleaning up the next day and moving on.
On occasion she had momentary flights of fancy where she dreamed she would escape him and disappear without a trace. To that effect she had even accumulated a stipend by saving up a tiny portion of the money she earned from taking in sewing. Still it was never quite enough to make good her departure but she felt comforted knowing it was there, even though it was likely that she would never make use of it.
The last year in the decade of their marriage, brought new troubles that had little to do with children or his failed dreams. This time, their problems became more tangible and steeped in reality. The farm upon which he made his livelihood had never been produced the kind of prosperity he had dreamed of finding for himself in a gold mine but as parcels of land went, it was quite capable of supporting both arable and pastoral farming to moderate success. Much of this had to do with the waterway that ran through the property and was much coveted by their neighbors who were required to deal with him before they could to irrigate their crops or water their animals.
It did not take him long to find that there was a way to cultivate a tidy profit from being the sole owner of this water way and very soon, those wishing to make use of it were required to pay for the privilege. Though most did not mind at first, with his increasing demands, resentment was soon fuelled, particularly from a rancher named Caleb Patterson. Patterson whose extensive spread was brought to a stranglehold by the wells drying up on his own property, was forced to rely on the plentiful waters of their farm to provide water for his livestock. He disliked the idea of buying permission and attempted to buy the place outright for quite a handsome amount.
Of course her husband liked the power he wielded over his friends and neighbors and refused most strenuously, almost with a measure of sadistic pleasure. His attitude infuriated Patterson who saw his entire livelihood on the brink of destruction because of one lone farmer. It was not long after that the attacks started to take place. Animals were killed, the well was poisoned, someone had burned down the barn and through all this, Patterson continued to press for the sale of the property.
She offered no opinion on the matter because ten years of marriage had taught her that her opinion was neither warranted nor required by her husband. She allowed him to continue his battles with Patterson, once again accepting things as being out of her control, remaining in the background as always. To him, her spirit was well and truly broken and that brought some measure of satisfaction, knowing that she was the one thing over which he had absolute control. He liked that feeling a great deal. With everything else slipping out of his sphere of influence, it gave him great pleasure to know that there was one realm in which he reigned supreme.
The harassment by Patterson continued for months until one night a stranger arrived on their doorstep. His horse had thrown a shoe and he needed a place for the night. At first, her husband had been cautious about allowing any stranger a roof for the night, particularly after what they had been subject to under the ministrations of Patterson's attempts to get them to vacate their land. However, the stranger had offered to pay and did not sound as if he was native to these parts, assuaging whatever suspicions her husband had felt that he might have been Patterson's agent. Once again, she had no opinion on the matter even though the stranger intrigued her somewhat with his steely gaze and his kind words during supper and the evening that followed. He seemed to be something of a drifter and she noticed that he carried a gun no matter what he did. He was armed even as he sat at the dinner table.
The next morning, he had bid her farewell as she made preparation to go to town to do run some errands. Although he was not an attractive man, she had found that he had his good qualities and wished him well on his journey, for he was to be gone by the time she returned. Before she had departed, he had remarked that he would see her again.
She sincerely hoped not.
She spent most of the day shopping for household items, taking some measure of enjoyment in the fleeting moment of being away from the oppressive thumb of her husband. She kept thinking how wonderful it would be when he was finally gone and she would be free to enjoy more than just a few hours of respite. The sun was beginning its descent into evening when she was finally ready to return home, when the town became alive with news of a bounty hunter that had come to town bringing with him the dead body of a notorious outlaw by the name of Ely Joe. While she had never heard of Ely Joe, she knew instantly that he was the stranger that they had given shelter the night before and immediately went to the jailhouse in order to inform the sheriff of this fact.
The moment she arrived at the jailhouse, she knew something was wrong. The bounty hunter named Vin Tanner had been taken into custody and Sheriff Ritter was hesitant to meet her gaze when she walked into the premises. Reluctantly, she was told that her husband had been murdered by Tanner who had attempted to claim the reward for Ely Joe's head by substituting his body for that of the outlaw. Ritter was more than surprised when she asked to view the body and upon being allowed to do so, had confirmation that her husband Jesse Kincaid was really dead. She did not reveal that the clothes worn by him at the time of the death were the same as those worn by the stranger who visited the farm house the night before, nor did she make any mention that she even knew Ely Joe at all.
A number of days after Jesse's death, Tanner had managed to escape his cell and disappeared for parts unknown. A posse had been sent in pursuit but she was to learn through the grapevine that the man had been an expert tracker and knew how to vanish without a trace. Although the warrant for the murder was outstanding, no one had attempted to claim it and finally Sheriff Ritter was forced to turn the matter over the purview of the Federal authorities.
For Amanda Kincaid, it mattered little whether or not Tanner was caught. The only thing that mattered to her was the fact that after ten years of marriage, she was finally free of his abuse and humiliation. She sold the farm promptly to Caleb Patterson, who was good enough to give her a generous price for the place. Buying herself a small house in town, Amanda began life a new, supporting herself by taking up dress making and trying to forget she had even been married to Jesse Kincaid.
She heard later on that Ely Joe had been killed in a small New Mexican town called Four Corners and felt some measure of sorrow at his passing, not knowing why because their encounter had been fleeting, even though they had left profound marks upon each other's existence. Tanner was still at large and Ritter was determined not to let the tracker get away with his crime. As far as Sheriff Ritter was concerned, Tanner had killed an innocent man and should be made to see justice.
Only Amanda knew that Jesse was far from innocent but those were her secrets and she had many.