The Widow's Ferry Page 2
He tossed her hand aside, going back to his food. She picked up the wad of bread with her other hand while working the blood to circulate again in her fingers. Stuffing the ball of bread into her mouth, she stumbled to the door. She had to get out, get outside, get out into fresh, cool, wet, and cleansing air, where she could breathe.
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Standing on the stoop in the dark, Anora gave her eyes time to adjust to the blackness. She had to think. Run, run, she wanted to run into the darkness and never stop running, but she couldn’t imagine where she’d go.
She couldn’t go down the hill to the water…the water held death and panic. Oh, the tormentor knew that, used that to keep her in check. To take off up the road would be foolhardy. She’d tried it once on a plow horse, and suffered a beating for her trouble. From that time on, he kept all his horses stabled on the other side of the river. If she tried to go to a neighboring farm, they’d send for him. He’d convinced everyone, and anyone who would listen, she wasn’t right in the head.
His story—she’d suffered a tumble from a wagon. He loved his young bride, he claimed. He’d nursed her through the ordeal of the head trauma. But his sweetheart had left him. Now, he had her body, but not her mind. Being a dutiful, God-fearing husband, he now felt duty bound to care for her, protect her. He prayed every day for his beautiful Norie to awaken.
Her memory was extremely faulty, but she had no memory of falling from a wagon. She’d suffered many a blow to the head delivered by his hammer fists. He’d tripped her and kicked her, but she’d never fallen accidentally. Shoved, yes, tossed, yes, and thrown, yes. She had scars aplenty, scars on her ankles and wrists, her back, her legs, her arms but no scars on her face. Bruises yes, but he was careful not to leave gashes, they were too hard to explain. She knew better than to argue with him or anyone. No one cared. No one noticed, no one would believe her. They believed him. They believed every lie he fed them. They believed his explanations for her bruises, her silences—her dullness. She didn’t dare speak to anyone or look anyone in the eye, her shame, her disgrace too great. And he would punish, punish severely, if he caught her responding in any way.
But maybe he was right. Maybe she wasn’t right in the head. Better to stay numb. It didn’t matter who she was or who she’d been before, not anymore. She couldn’t go back, and there was nothing ahead of her but more of the same. She had no way out of purgatory. No way.
She stepped into the muddy yard, rain coming down on her head like watery arrows. Going up a small rise, she passed under the arm of the big Douglas fir that stood aside the farm track. Walking by the stock cribs, big splats of water bombarded her, dripping off the low hanging boughs. It felt so cool and refreshing, she stopped to scrub her face with the moisture, hoping to scrub away some of the cobwebs from her brain.
The stock cribs were on both sides of the lane. They stood empty, but come tomorrow afternoon, they’d be full of waiting cows, sheep, and pigs to be sent down river to Oregon City, and maybe on to California ports.
The price of the ferry ride across the river doubled during these bustling times. The farmers knew it, but aside from a little grumbling and grousing, they usually paid to get home out of the weather. Her job, as he’d said, was to make their fleecing a little less painful by keeping their bellies warm and full.
She walked in the dark up the lane; she could walk it in her sleep. Once to the barn, she opened the wide, creaking, slatted wooden doors and stepped up the ramp, then reached to the side of the door, on the left, for the lantern. She found the flint box on the nail barrel below the lantern, and struck the flint on the steel, sparking a light to the oily wick before replacing the glass chimney over the flame.
The light didn’t reach a circumference of more than four feet, but she knew Rosco and Pete stood together in profile in their stall to her right. She could see their white faces. The big white oxen chewed their cuds, switched their long tails, not at all disturbed by her intrusion.
Moving down the center aisle, she detected the soft rustle and scurry of unseen critters, the jostling of the bats in the loft, the cackle of the chickens protesting the lantern’s light. Rather than give her unease, these sounds brought her comfort. Even the sound of the rats that lived under the feed troughs didn’t frighten her.
In the dark, with two galvanized pails and lantern in hand, she went down to the far end of the barn. She heard the clunk and thud of Rosebud and Lillybell jumping down from their feed boxes. Homer, the ram, continued undisturbed, eating out of the trough. The goats began to bleat their anticipation of the release of milk from their full udders. The milch cow barely acknowledge her presence. Each of the goats bumped her from behind when she closed the wire and wood gate of their stall.
She always serviced Rosebud first, then Lillybell, then the cow. She set down her little three-legged stool and drew the goat into position, resting her head against the goat’s woolly, black and white belly. Tugging on the teats, the milk sprit, sprit, sprit into the empty pail. Eyes closed, she tried to remember back. These goats, these oxen, the cow, were they the same animals that had come with her across country to Oregon? She wished they could tell her what had happened. She needed so desperately to know. She didn’t even know what year it was.
The barn smelled of hay and grain, wood and dung, and she found the quiet comforting. The animals liked her, trusted her. Rosebud and Lillybell expected a sweet apple for their cooperation. Homer pushed his horned head into her side, demanding his share. Rosco and Pete were her pets; they wanted her to scratch their heads between their great long horns, and the cow bellowed her approval.
About to leave the barn, she felt the weight of the journal on her thigh. It wasn’t safe to keep it in the house. She considered it a miracle he hadn’t discovered it before this.
Setting the milk pails down, she took the lantern back to the far end of the barn. The goat’s feed barrel sat outside the goat stall. He never fed the goats or emptied feed into the barrel. He didn’t like them.
Opening the wooden lid, she held the lantern up over the contents to be sure there weren’t any rats in residence, then jammed the book down deep into the mash of corn and barley.
Not wasting time, she replaced the lid, leaving the lantern in the barn. Hurriedly, she retraced her steps to the house, carrying the sloshing pails of milk to the front stoop. It was a cold night, just above freezing. The milk would have to wait in their metal milk cans until morning.
She heard him stomping around inside the cabin. She couldn’t keep him waiting; he would take it out on her if he were made to wait.
Once inside, his plate, the kettle of food, and the bread and butter waited to be cleared away. He sat on the edge of the bed, barefoot, in his threadbare, red long johns. Chewing on a slice of bread, she began to clean off the table. He opened the watchcase, then impatiently snapped it shut, the sound causing her to wince, urging her to work faster.
Chapter Two
Morning came with a quick, swift kick to Anora’s backside, and an order to get up, get the coffee on. Rolling over, pulling all the blankets with him, his face turning toward the wall, her tormentor said, “Best start to cookin’, girl. Folks will be here come sunup.”
She rose from the bed and stood teetering forward and back. Shoulders hunched, she reached down and pulled her mackinaw around her body. To numb the pain, she escaped into the unconscious sleepwalker. Her movements jerky and slow, she donned her dress, stockings, shoes—name discarded, her past, irrelevant.
She poked the embers in the fireplace, threw in some pitch and kindling, building it up to a welcome blaze with the addition of two chunks of green oak.
By the time he rolled out of bed, she had the coffee ready. Hot biscuits, sausage with gravy, awaited his pleasure, his plate and fork in place on the table before his chair.
Dressing, he tossed her a look over his shoulder. “Hells bells, you look like somethin’ the dog puked up. Can’t you wash that damned hair of yours? Get into your oth
er dress. That thing’s dirty as ditch water. Looks like you been sleepin’ with them goats of yours. Wash yer face. You’re the ugliest thing I ever set eyes on. You’ll have to keep that homely bonnet of yours pulled down over your sorry-lookin’ face. You ain’t decent. You’re gonna scare everybody off.”
He came to the table and sat. She poured his coffee. He started to butter a biscuit, then looked up at her. “Get out of my sight. You’re makin’ me sick with that mug of yours. I got to eat breakfast and get out there to get set up.” Standing aside the table, out of reach, she waited for his next order. “You don’t have time to be standin’ around, you got work to do.” Obeying his command, she seasoned the pot of beans in the pot over the hearth.
He’d eaten most of his breakfast, all but half a biscuit smothered in gravy. He slammed his fork down onto his plate. “Your cookin’ for the folks better taste better than this swill, or I won’t get no money out’a nobody.”
He shoved his plate off the table; food splattered her skirt, shoes, and the floor. Pushing his chair back, he stood and downed another cup of coffee. He stuffed a biscuit, dripping with butter, down his throat. He donned his rain slicker, jammed his bowler hat on his head, and slammed the door behind him.
Trembling, fingers clenching and unclenching, she’d wadded up her dress at her sides. Blinking, taking a shuddering breath, she stared into the quiet of the room—the storm had passed. Untying her apron, she wiped up the spilled food off the floor and then shook the scraps over the fire. The biscuit caught fire; she inhaled the smell of the gravy as it smoked and hissed in the flames.
She poured the sausage gravy into a slop pail under the counter where she washed the dishes. Using the top of a biscuit, she mopped out the inside of the skillet and brought the food to her bruised lips. Teeth loose from the abuse they’d taken during the night, she couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to accept it. Tearing off a little bite, she parted her lips and pushed the gravy-soaked biscuit between barely opened teeth. Her tongue felt twice its size, but she managed to swallow. Pouring herself some fresh goat’s milk, she sipped from a cup. In this fashion, she ate an entire biscuit.
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Anora wouldn’t give her tormentor credit for very many things, but he did know how to barter. If a farmer didn’t have cash, he’d exchange goods for the fee of passage. In this fashion, he kept their larder in fresh coffee beans, flour, sugar, honey, rice, and even fresh fruit.
She had potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, peas, and beans, and chicken left over from the chicken and dumplings to add to her soup pot. Alone in the cabin, she mixed up flour, soda, sugar, eggs, and butter in a large mixing bowl for soda bread.
Once she had that taken care of, she went outside and brought back into the house a pail of cold water. She lowered her head over the dented, galvanized bucket, poured water over her head with a cup and scrubbed hard. Undoing her dress, she scrubbed her bruised and clawed neck, arms, torso, her abdomen, and legs. Eyes closed, jaw clenched, she frantically tried to scrub away the filth that filled her soul.
Exhausted, she rinsed off. Dripping and cold, she found her denim dress. Turning it inside out, she wiped the water off her skin. In the wardrobe, hanging on a metal hook behind his good suit and boiled white shirt, hung a dress. It had once been the color of a fresh red rose, now faded to a dusty hue, the little bluebells in the fabric nothing more than discolored dots. Hanging on the hook beneath the dress, she found a drab cotton petticoat and a pair of black cotton stockings, mended and patched at the knees and across the toes.
Dressed, she sat on the bed to comb her hair. She didn’t allow herself to use the fine, sacred, vanity set on top of the bureau. She had a pine needle brush kept under the mattress for her humble head. She brushed and brushed her long, straight hair, then wound it up in a chignon on the back of her head, as always.
Donning her mackinaw, she went outside to start a fire in the rock pit where she made her soap and washed clothes. The fog had thickened in the predawn. She wrestled an iron tripod within the rock circle of the pit and hung the huge iron cauldron from the iron hook in the center over her fire.
Soon a wagon came around the horseshoe bend beside the barn. One wagon followed another until by sunup there were half a dozen on the hill above the landing. With the wagons had come drovers with three flocks of sheep that filled the pens with bleating, pushing, shoving rams and ewes. A half dozen milk cows and a team of mules headed back to Linnton, across the falls from Oregon City, stood quietly in the pens closest to the barn.
After milking the goats and cow, Anora checked the loaves of soda bread in the Dutch oven, stirred the kettle of soup, and moved the coffeepot to the side of the fire. By noon, she’d shed the mackinaw, swapping it for a woolen cardigan. Keeping her bonnet pulled down low over her forehead, she tied the ribbons close around her jowls. She worked quickly and silently, filling coffee cups while the men and boys talked of rain, plowing, timber, and flood. She floated like a shadow around them.
She pounded the lid of the cast-iron kettle with her metal spoon to announce the food was already, the soda bread hot, waiting on the kitchen table she’d dragged into the yard.
Anora knew he’d be coming up the hill soon. Everyone sounded satisfied with the soup, the bread—she’d heard no complaints.
Laughing and joking, he walked among the men, calling them by name if he could, asking after their families, even if he didn’t know them, a big friendly smile on his unshaven, leathery-complexioned face.
Anora filled a cup with soup and then handed it to him. Turning around, reaching out to the table, he took a piece of her bread. He ate and talked. He laughed and gossiped, blending in with the men around him.
No one would believe her. No one would believe him to be the monster she knew all too well. She refilled the coffeepot with cold water and put it over the fire with fresh ground coffee. He held out his cup for her to fill. He drank, still talking, still smiling.
A stream of black coffee sprayed over her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swore. Snatching the coffeepot from her, he threw it and its contents beyond the fire pit, missing her head by inches.
“Damn, Norie. You gotta be more careful. What if these folks had drunk that piss? Now you get in the house and make a good cup of coffee for these men.”
Turning back, he apologized to the gathering, shaking his head, “Sorry, boys. Norie’s a little off her usual today. She had one of her spells last night. She pretty near did herself in again. Found her out here trying to eat them rocks over there in the lane. Had a devil of a time g’tting them rocks out of her mouth. She liked to bite my fingers off. I don’t know what gets into her head sometimes.
“I don’t like to leave her alone…a man’s got to make a living. Sometimes I think it would be better if she did…could find a way out of her misery.” He bowed his head. “You know…well… I don’t like to think on it.”
The men patted him on the back, consoling him. Anora retrieved the pot and went inside. The men stood silently by, heads shaking, staring at her as she passed. She kept her head down, looking at her treasured red dress now spotted with coffee and coffee grounds.
Inside, she refilled the pot with cold water from the water barrel under her kitchen counter, the same way she’d been doing it all morning. She measured out the exact amount of freshly ground coffee into the pot, and placed the pot over the fire, bringing it almost to a boil, then took it off, allowing the grounds to settle.
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Coming from Marysville to the south, the flat-bottom boat, the Willa Jane, waddled in under the carriage line, anchoring in at the west bank docks called Takenah Landing at 2:45 p.m.
Anora ducked her head. Making no eye contact, she gathered up cups and spoons, giving no indication she had any interest in the comings and goings of the ferry traffic.
Risking a furtive glance, she saw Captain Jameson wave from across the river to the crowd gathered at the water’s edge where the ferry wait
ed to haul more wagons, drovers, and livestock.
The Willa Jane’s passengers started to disembark. All turned to mayhem, the lane leading up to the little settlement of Takenah congested with livestock, wagons, and pedestrians.
Anora didn’t have to see, to know once the Willa Jane unloaded her freight, he’d start the ferry across, never mind the chaos.
The ferry, sitting low in the water, sounded its bell. Up on the bank under the bare branches of a big oak, Roscoe and Pete let out the cable, going around and around within their turnstiles. A large, iron ring hung from the carriage above the ferry in a loop of cable spanning the river to the opposite bank, secured to an oak tree on the Takenah side. A line of cable from the carriage ring separated and forked, attaching fore and aft on the ferryboat to keep it from drifting away in the strongest current at mid-point in the river.
Anora kept the coffee coming and made more soda bread. The rains held off for the day. A weak sun sent down beams of light to dance upon the ripples in the river current.
Near sundown, the traffic slowed. The Willa Jane sat abandoned, moored fast at the Takenah landing, her crew gone to partake of Takenah’s entertainment. Next to the bow of the Willa Jane sat the idle ferry. Her tormentor, arms folded across his chest, sat with his back against the rudder, hat pulled down over his face. Anora could hear him snoring from across the river where she stood on the porch.
A cowboy, dressed in a heavy, black canvas duster that hung to the tops of his boots, came down the bank from Takenah, leading two pack mules and his buckskin horse. Glancing up, she watched her tormentor rise slowly to his feet to crank up the ramp before he rang the bell twice. The cable lines started moving, and the ferry started across the river. Anora hung back in the shadows of the doorway, holding a bucket of goat’s milk to her chest.
The cowboy stood at the low rail to the side, watching the current pass under the raft. He had to shout to be heard, his voice echoing up and down the river. She’d heard that voice before. But where and when?