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Published by The Hartwood Publishing Group, LLC,
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The Widow’s Ferry
Copyright © 2019 by Dorothy A. Bell
Digital Release: March 2019
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The Widow’s Ferry by Dorothy A. Bell
Anora Claire Sennet, her parents, her Aunt Carrie, and her husband, Ruben Tillery, start out from Iowa in 1841, headed for the Oregon Territory. Her parents’ dream, to build a ferry-crossing in the verdant Oregon territory known as the Willamette Valley.
But Anora finds herself alone with Ruben, who uses her as his personal slave, abusing her and breaking her spirit until there is hardly anything left of her former bright and beautiful self. Ruben is working the ferry of her parents’ dream under the name of Ben Talbot in Tekenah, Oregon. She remembers very little of how she got to be in this situation. She only knows her parents and aunt are dead. Tiring of the hard work of the ferry, and seeking new victims to conquer, Ruben/Ben abandons her and leaves Anora with no pleasant choices for survival.
Neither Whit Comstock, the handsome drifter cowboy from her past, who brings with him his optimism, nor the ambitious, up and coming Paxton Hayes with his vision of a fruitful, prosperous partnership, nor Paxton’s brother-in-law, Hank Reason, can erase or expunge from Anora’s memory the nightmares of her past, or the fear of what Ruben will do to her when he returns and finds her still breathing.
Hank’s wife, Lydia, close to delivering her second child, requests Anora come help with the Reason’s ailing little girl, Isabell. Lydia delivers a stillborn son and dies of a broken heart. Now, living in a home with two bachelors, Anora’s presence in Paxton Hayes’ home creates a swirl of nasty gossip among the citizens of the fledgling frontier town.
Her place is across the river, working the ferry on her own and to hell with those who claim they only want to help her. Deathly afraid of the river, working the ferry day in and day out is a living purgatory.
The days and months pass, and there is no sign of Ruben. Anora’s friendship with Hank Reason grows, but where will it lead? Where is Ruben and when will he return? What about the ferry? What should she do with it? Anora is faced with gut-wrenching decisions, and the fear of Ruben’s eventual return haunts her. Can she put Hank and his daughter in danger? Will she ever find the peace and love she desires?
Chapter One
The sight of the stains on her clothes, proof of her toils—flour, grease, blood, grime, bits of bark, repulsed her. Stomach churning, she sat kneading her aching thighs through the thin, faded blue fabric of her chambray skirt. A few lank coils of dull, dusty blonde hair held haphazardly in place in a chignon on the back of her head straggled over her brow.
Shivering, seated at the rough, plank-board table, she stared into the smudgy fire of green oak, sobbing into the grate. Struggling flames released gray ghosts of smoke that wafted around the room. The soft, monotonous patter of rain penetrated through the split logs of the cabin walls. Damp seeped into the corners, the food, the body.
Coming to her feet, her chair tipped backward onto the puncheon floor. Startled out of her stupor, she paced from one side of her cage to the other. She stopped, eyes focusing on the bureau drawers beside the bed. She stumbled across the room. Head bowed over the chipped and cracked porcelain wash basin on top of the bureau, the image in the murky water brought her to a standstill.
Leaning closer, staring hard at the pale, dim, unrecognizable visage looking up at her through the water, she watched trembling fingers find the strands of hair veiling her cheek. The grimy, cold fingers tucked the strands behind her ears.
Reaching out with trembling fingers, she lovingly fondled the tortoise-shell toilet set of brush, comb, and mirror to the side of the basin. Her hand hovered over the mirror laying on a white lace handkerchief. Her heart ached to touch it, hold it to her bosom. Permission refused, her arms dangled limp at her side. She closed her eyes.
Folding her arms tight across her chest, she staggered back to the fire. Ribs aching, bruises tender and raw, she sucked in the moist air and clung to the mantel-shelf, head down between her shaking arms.
Too late; the gates holding back the storm had blown wide open. Behind those portholes raged a deluge of thoughts…faces…scenes of violent death. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, she willed herself to hold back the rush of memories and visions assaulting her mind.
None of this could be true. Nightmare…a long, long horrible nightmare. Awake now. Awake but lost.
Punishing herself, cringing, she opened her eyes and caught the gleam of gold encircling her third finger, left hand. She shook her head, refusing to accept the ring’s existence, but the wedding band was real. The cabin was real. The cold, the rain outside, the darkness, the loneliness…all real.
Mouthing the question, she asked, “How much time? Who am I? Where is this place?”
The ring on her hand and the double bed in the corner declared there was a lord and master—the tormentor. Sick…her empty stomach lurched, and she doubled over and gaged on her sob of terror.
The bed—the wedding ring quilt. It belonged to her—her mother. Her mother’s quilt…it was here…in this place…this hell. Overriding the joy of recognition, came the knowledge that beneath the quilt lay the dingy sheets, and underneath them a lumpy mattress of musty straw. She shivered. On the bed, two feather pillows ominously waited. Shuddering, foreboding consumed her, and she turned away.
Peering into the pitch-black night through the only window in the cabin, she could see nothing outside. Glancing to her left, she knew the barn, and the animals were there. Pivoting her head, peering into the darkness, straining to see the river and the ferry landing, she saw no lights. But he was out there. He’d be coming in soon.
The kettle of chicken and dumplings sat simmering on the wood cookstove, bread, and butter on the table. His plate and fork lay ready for him. The tormentor would expect his supper the minute he stepped over the threshold.
I have time. I have time to search. The missing could surface. Awake, I can find it—proof of my before life. Mustn’t get caught, he mustn’t suspect I’ve begun to remember.
Every drawer sorted, meager belongings refolded and carefully replaced, she found nothing. Nothing spoke to her. Shoulders slumped, slipping to the cold floor, she folded in, retreating into her other self, her numb self, the self that didn’t feel or think. Doubled up into her protective ball between the dresser and bed she could escape the ugly truth.
Arms limp, one hand slipped under the dresser. Caressing the cool, carved wooden leg of the bureau, wayward fingers slid up and under on a mission of their own. Tucked up behind the ornate carving at the front of the dresser, a leather-bound book wrapped in a chamois brought her searching digits to a halt. Slowly, heart thudding, she coaxed the pouch out
of its hiding place and returned to lucidity. Setting the fallen chair upright, she pulled it closer to the fire and sat to open the book.
In a graceful, delicate hand, she read, My Journal. Anora Claire Sennett.
Anora Claire Sennett? Me? That’s me. My name. The name I had before…before he dragged me into hell. Anora Claire, he doesn’t call me that. I don’t want him to use my name. I don’t want to hear it on his lips. I’m not her, I’m not anyone. I’m no one. Nothing. I’m an object, an animal of little use and of no consequence.
The danger of learning, recapturing herself lay in the journal. She slapped it shut. A face, a woman’s pale face, at first out of focus, now took shape behind her closed eyelids. The woman had fine blond hair, a sweet smile, and laughing blue eyes. Afraid to read more, but more afraid of the faces she saw behind her closed eyes, Anora reopened the book.
Warm liquid spilled down her cheek. She wiped away the liquid with one finger and looked at it, surprised to find it, amazed she’d manufactured it. She had no more tears, no more emotions, a dull emptiness served as a wall against the bleakness, the pain. Her eyes burned, produced more tears, and she read the first entry in her book.
March 10, 1846. Mama started to keep this journal on our journey. Now it’s up to me.
Faded and water stained, she found the words difficult to read, written in the lead pencil still tucked safely inside the binding.
We have come sixty-five miles, less than a full week, and we have, today, buried Mama and Papa on the banks of the Des Moines River. Uncle Ruben says it was influenza. I am left under his protection and Aunt Carrie’s loving arms.
Aunt Carrie is prostrate with grief. She misses her sister and hasn’t risen from her bed for two days. The weather is foul. A bitter wind blows with now and then a skiff of snow. Uncle Ruben and I have spoken to Aunt Carrie, and we are agreed, we will continue on to the Oregon Territory. Papa wanted to start a ferry service on the Willamette; I don’t know our final destination…it hardly matters. To turn back to Burlington would diminish their sacrifice.
In my mind, I see green forests and mountains. I will be glad to leave the flat farmlands and open prairies of Iowa. I will try to keep my mind on the end of our journey.
Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, Anora wiped her damp cheeks. Impatient, no time to waste, she had to read more, learn more, remember everything.
April 5, 1846. Uncle Ruben has taken the extra wagon, and some of its contents, across the Missouri to St. Joseph to trade for goods and supplies. I am certain he has taken Papa’s money and valuables. I can’t find Papa’s watch, his diamond stickpin, or cufflinks. I know there was at least eight hundred dollars stuffed inside a jar of dried beans. I looked for the money a few days after we crossed the Des Moines River.
I salvaged Mama’s sewing basket, her hairbrush, comb, and mirror of tortoise-shell. I didn’t want to keep her dresses, but Uncle Ruben says we may have use for them either as clothes for ourselves or to trade with the Indians.
I have Papa’s rain slicker of rubberized canvas and his mackinaw. They are too big for me. I’m cutting off the sleeves and hemming them up. We have saved the extra fabric to patch the wagon cover if need be.
Aunt Carrie and I are camped here, with at least a hundred wagons, waiting to join with a hundred or more wagons that we can see on the bank of the river on the other side. Every day the ferry takes twenty, thirty, wagons across, along with cattle, women, and children.
It has rained for three days. Mr. Comstock, an old, funny little man, says he is going to Oregon to die, once he sees the Pacific Ocean. He says the sun is going to come out tomorrow, and it will begin to warm up.
His grandson, Whitcombe, is at our campfire almost every evening. He plays the harmonica beautifully, and the old man has a fiddle. Aunt Carrie says Whit is sweet on me. Whit says he’s going west to become a cowboy. He’s the handsomest boy I have ever met. He smiles all the time with his blue eyes. I love to dance with him.
April 7th. We are the only wagon left on this side of the Missouri. There is no sign of Uncle Ruben. Whit and his grandfather crossed this morning. I fear Uncle Ruben has abandoned us here.
April 9. Uncle Ruben returned this evening. He reeks of gin. He grabbed me and kissed me, then Aunt Carrie. He slapped our behinds and told us to get a good night’s rest because tomorrow we are off to Oregon with Captain McClain to guide us.
Uncle Ruben told us there are three nanny goats and a ram waiting for us on the other side of the river to supply us with fresh milk. If this is true, and not the gin talking, I am astonished at his shrewdness.
He says we also have an extra cart with buckets of tar and axle grease waiting across river. As soon as he was done with his bragging, he fell down on the ground sound asleep. Aunt Carrie and I put him under the wagon with a blanket. We packed the wagon. We shall see what we find tomorrow.
All of this leaves me to conclude that perhaps not all of Papa’s money went for gin and whoring. I don’t doubt Uncle Ruben’s favorite pastime to be the pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh.
April 13. We have made eighteen miles today. The weather remains calm and dry. We have made good time since leaving St. Joseph. We had to chip ice off the water pail this morning, and sleeping in my little tent is cold.
April 15. After playing least-in-sight throughout the day, Uncle Ruben came into my tent. I awoke when he started to crawl on top of me. I kicked him out. Aunt Carrie heard him yell. He picked himself up and climbed into their wagon. They are shouting at each other. I try to keep their voices out of my head by putting my fingers in my ears.
April 16. Aunt Carrie offered me a place to sleep inside the wagon. Uncle Ruben is consigned to the tent. I am grateful to her, although negotiations cost her a black eye and a chipped tooth. I think her ribs are sore, she is unable to bend over this morning to put the kettle over the fire.
»»•««
“Hey. You got my supper cooked?”
His bellow blew in before he stepped over the threshold. Rain swept in behind him. The draft from opening and closing the door lifted the fire in the grate up into the flu. A swirl of blue smoke escaped, rushing into the room, stinging the eyes.
Springing out of her chair, Anora stealthily concealed the journal in the dress pocket under her apron. Using her skirt as a hot pad, she swung the iron arm away from the fire into the room. After removing the cast-iron kettle, she set it down in the middle of the table. The man took off his rain-slicker and soiled, water stained, leather fedora, and hung them on the wooden pegs to the side of the door. Head down, she stirred the contents of the kettle.
Her tormentor, built close to the ground, had a torso thick and round, hard as an oak. His face, florid and puffy, took on a purple hue when in a rage, and he was always in a rage. His dark brown eyes, ringed with bruised circles of dissipation, were set beneath heavy, black brows. Thinning, lank, coffee-brown hair lay like oily corn silk across his weathered dome. His once flat stomach, sacrificed for food and drink, slopped over the top of his trousers.
She ladled a generous portion of the chicken and dumplings onto his plate, a savory vapor rising to tantalize the senses. Salivating, her stomach growling with hunger, remembering her place, she stepped back into the shadows of the room.
“You’re nothing to look at, Norie girl. Dumb as a rock, but you can cook.” He took a forkful and shoved it between his lips, chewing, the gravy oozed out the sides of his ugly mouth. “It’s hot, anyway,” he said, smacking his lips.
With his head down, he said, “You’ve got tender thighs to keep me warm. You’ll do for now. Mind…I can be rid of you whenever I take a notion. That water out there is moving fast and cold. I reckon a body wouldn’t be found in there till way after summer?”
His laughter released fumes of the beer he’d been imbibing at the saloon across the river, in Takenah.
He reached into the darkness, found her skirt, and pulled her into the light. Cupping his hand over her backside, he pinched her ten
der bottom, then slapped it hard with his big hand. He laughed again and went back to buttering himself a thick slice of bread.
She took down a plate from the sideboard, and pulled a chair up to the table, intending to sit across from him. His rough words stopped her. “The cow and them goats been waitin’ for you. My guess is they ain’t been milked since this mornin’. I could see that when I put Roscoe and Pete away. What you been doin’ with yourself in here? Sittin’ on your dumb ass like you always does. You eat when you get your chores done.”
Anora wanted to rage against him; leap across the table, and wrap her hands around his thick, hairy neck. Instead, gaze averted, head down, she reached for a crusty slice of bread to take with her to the barn.
Her fingers were crushed, the slice of bread squeezed into a doughy ball by his meaty hand. Fingers growing numb and bloodless within his grasp, his cool, grimy, sausage-size middle finger made lazy, seductive circles on her wrenched arm,
Keeping her eyes downcast, watching her fingers turn purple and swell around the circle of gold on her third finger left hand, he spoke, his voice low, silky smooth, “You hurry up now. It’s a cold, wet night; you got to keep me warm. You ain’t good for much else.
“Remember, the Willa Jane is comin’ back down river from Marysville tomorrow, bringing livestock and winter stores. You got to be up early gettin’ vittles for the folks. Make ’em happy so’s they don’t think twice about the price.”
He pulled a watch out of his vest pocket, its silver case catching her eye. He flicked it open to look at the time. It took everything she had not to snatch it away from him.
Papa’s watch.
Compressing her lips together, she held her tongue and swallowed back the tears that would surely give her away—he must not see any spark. No spark…stay dull. Stay dead, hide.
“Shouldn’t take more than a half hour for the milkin’,” he said, and snapped the watch case shut, tucking it back in his pocket.
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