CHAPTER ONE
I’m not one to pass much time thinking about things before I
do them. My father shakes his head and says that’s how his
beauty Eliza got into this trouble. My mother smirks and
wonders out loud how I can think I’m so special when all I
know how to do is get into trouble.
Alone in the midnight blackness, for once I do stop and
think. I stand on the riverbank thick with cottonwood and
willow trees and stare at the water as it rushes past, brown
like the mud that nearly brought me skidding to the hard
ground as I stumbled to get here. I shiver even in all I’m
wearing, both my skirts over my drawers and corset, two
blouses, little jacket, two moth-bitten shawls, stockings
and best boots, the only ones with no hole in them. I dare
not leave anything behind. I’ll need it all, the coins,
too, tucked inside the string bag stuffed in the pocket of
my inner skirt. Even under all that, the chilly air
squeezes in on me like a too strong boy who wants what he
wants and sees no reason why he shouldn’t have it.
I push my dark hair back from my forehead. Tonight of all
nights I dare not start thinking. I should just lay hands
on John’s canoe and go.
He’ll hate me for it when he comes to. But that’s the least
of what he’ll hate me for. And what do I care anyway? For
every speck of hate he’ll have for me, I’ll have twice as
much for him.
The liar. The cheat. The brute I married. Though now I
half wonder if I really did.
I shake my head hard, as if that will clear it, and tell
myself again that tonight is no night to dwell on the past.
I can’t spare the time. Or lose my courage. If I linger
too long, the drink will wear off and John will rouse.
He’ll come looking for me even before he sees my clothes are
gone; I know it. Then what?
I shudder. Almost better that a wolf or bear find me
first. And either would be better than a ghost to rise
before me, unearthly white from the plague that got him.
Who knows how many souls are buried along this river? If
you make the mistake of dying on a steamboat, that’s your
fate: eternity under the riverbank or your corpse swept away
with the water when it changes course.
It’s the fear of creatures both alive and dead that sends me
edging again down the grassy slope, closer to the river.
It’s so dark I can’t even make out the bank on the other
side, but I know this clutch of trees and believe it’s close
by here that John lays his canoe. The water is moving
fast—faster than it looks when I see it in the day. When I
see it but have no scheme to climb inside that old boat and
let it free on the river to carry me far, far away. Now
that I can truly imagine myself on that treacherous journey,
I shudder again and my foot slips in my stupid shoe. I give
a little shriek and grab at the shrubs around me to stop
from sliding into the current.
When finally I settle again, I try not to pant but to keep
silent. What if someone heard me cry? Yet I pick up no
shuffling among the trees. I can hope it’s too cold for
anyone to be afoot. And hard as my ears strain, all I can
hear is the river. No, I hear something else, too, that
familiar screech. A panther. Distant, thank God. And
upriver, not the way I’m going.
I’m going to Hermann, I remind myself, where the Missouri
meets the Gasconade. I hear tell there’s a post office
there, and somebody once said there’s an inn, not that he’d
seen it. I could find work, and not the kind I do here,
that leaves my hands blistered and crusted with dirt and my
back bent as if I were already old.
I’m not old yet. Yes, I’m four and twenty, but if I hold my
tongue and keep my eyes downcast I can pass for younger. I
still have my looks, near fresh as ever. When my courage is
up I don’t doubt I could marry again, though I wonder why
I’d want to. I know now all that does is make a man free to
do what he wants with you and in near one year I’ve had
enough of that for two lifetimes. But if ever I changed my
mind, what’s to stop me? For if John Haycraft could amble
into this town and forget everything that went before, why
couldn’t I go to Hermann and do the same?
That thought makes me feel like a girl again, strong and
bold. I remember when I would lie in the grass and stare up
at the blue, blue sky, dreaming of being far away from here,
away from these rutted fields, away from these people who
don’t care if they never see past this stretch of river.
Even if they came from somewhere I can’t conjure, from
Kentucky or even Virginia, they don’t think about that
anymore. It’s as gone from their minds as if they woke from
a fever. Even for my father it’s that way. When I was a
girl I thought all the time about what lay beyond the curve
in the river and for a time I was fool enough to think John
Haycraft would take me there. Lately I’ve started wondering
about it again, knowing if I only dared, this coursing water
could lead me to a different life than the one I’m stuck
with now, these pitiful days that stretch out one after the
next all the very same. If I stay put here, the days won’t
change until the day I’m dead.
I’ve walked further downriver—due to the fact that’s closer
to our place and John is more likely to be lazy than
not—when I startle at a soft laugh behind me.
“Well, well. What’re you out looking for this time of
night?”
A woman’s voice and I know it in an instant. My head spins
around and I see my sister Sarah.
“You’re not looking for John’s canoe!” She says it in a
triumphant kind of way, eyes gleaming, like she’s sure
that’s what I’m after. “Why do you need that? You’re not
going anywhere. You wouldn’t go in the day,” she tells me,
“let alone in the dark.”
If somebody had to find me I wish it were our sister Visa
Ann, but she would never be out at this hour. Even our
brother Asa would be better to find me than Sarah. But it’s
Sarah who can pick up a change on the wind.
She eyes me. She’s dark-haired like I am but older and
harder of feature. People shouldn’t tell her that, but they
do. Even our father does. “You’re not going anywhere,” she
repeats. She’s sure she’s on top of me in this. “And even
if you do, he’ll come after you.”
I don’t want to tell her much because every word will make
it back to our mother’s ears, and maybe John’s, too. “This
has nothing to do with you,” I mutter. That Sarah keeps
telling me I won’t go puts even more fire in me. I spin
back around and lose my footing, which only makes her cackle
louder. I know she won’t think for a moment of helping me.
Sarah’s our mother’s daughter through and through.
“You’re wearing both your shawls, too,” she mocks me. “You
must think you’re really going. Why this time?” and in that
question I hear a curiosity she can’t hide. We all in our
family live so close, one on top of the other, which means
she knows my shame, and like our mother she enjoys it.
Look at our beautiful Eliza! So special but still getting
that from the man she begged to marry.
“Because this time was one too many,” I tell her. I wonder
if John will admit the true story once I’m gone. I doubt
it. It casts no good light on him. I doubt he’ll stay,
come to think of it. There’s nothing for him here. Like us
Harpers, John Haycraft owns no land. Couldn’t he hunt
anywhere, and trap? He’d be better off trying his game
somewhere new. He’s the sort of man you don’t mind seeing
the back of once the shine’s worn off and you have to look
straight on at what little is really there.
But despite everything, the thought of John gone, forever
gone, does pain me. I feel a sting behind my eyes and look
away to hide my face. See? It did me no good to start
thinking again.
“He woke up, you know,” Sarah says, in that same triumphant
tone. I know something you don’t. “I heard him
calling for you and not in his nice voice, either. I came
out to warn you.”
That’s a lie. Sarah doesn’t want me to get away from John.
She wants him to find me then see what he does after. I put
my back to my sister and keep moving, my eyes madly
searching.
“So where you think you’re headed?” My sister’s voice
taunts as she matches me step for step. “Hermann,” she
guesses, and I hate that my plan is so obvious it rises to
even her mind. “That’s not far enough,” she tells me.
“Haycraft will sure enough find you there.”
Then I spy the canoe, my salvation, in front of me to the
left, its paddle lying in the middle like it’s aiming to
split the boat in half. It’s always John who puts the canoe
in the current, laughing that I’m not strong enough, but
tonight I will find the strength to do it.
Sarah must see the canoe, too, because she rushes forward to
set herself between it and me. She pushes her hands into my
chest, hard, so that I stumble backward. “You’re not
leaving me to mind Mama’s brats on my own,” she tells me.
Now her voice is rough as her hands. Then she puts her
fingers in her mouth and lets loose a whistle so sharp and
loud it could wake all those ghosts under the riverbank.
I scramble past her for the canoe. And though she yanks on
my skirts and my hair and bangs on my back, somehow I push
it closer to the river. I feel as if a kind of mad force
has gripped me, as if I can do things I never could before.
Sarah whistles again, even more of a shriek this time, and
after that I hear a commotion behind us and figure it has to
be John coming this way, just my luck, scrambling fast
through the trees and the shrubs. So he was out already,
roaming and looking, just like Sarah was. They were a pair,
the two of them. My sister just found me first. And if she
was going to warn anybody tonight, it was going to be him
and not me.
She’s on his side and no wonder. This wouldn’t be the first
time she wants what I have, but this time I’m ready to give
it up. Maybe she’s drunk the potion I must’ve drunk when I
first met John Haycraft, which full wore off tonight.
I’ve got the canoe only a few feet from the river when he
finds me. I spin around to face him. My clothes are torn
from Sarah’s pulling and my hair is crazy wild, but I’m calm
inside now I can’t undo what I started. Sarah backs off a
pace as I watch John’s eyes move to the paddle I’ve taken in
my hands.
“Put that down, woman.”
I will not, but I don’t spare the breath to tell him that.
I just raise the paddle higher in the air.
He stares at me, panting, hands on hips and eyes narrowing.
People didn’t trust him when he showed up here out of
nowhere, since they didn’t know him and they didn’t know his
family. It wasn’t much more than a year ago, but I must’ve
been young and stupid then because he won me over with his
sweet talk and his stories. Then his kisses started and
that sent me over the edge. Even now, when there’s dirt on
his trousers and I can smell the drink from here, any woman
would tell you he’s a fine-looking man. I must’ve thought
that was good for something when I married him.
“What I said before doesn’t matter,” he tells me.
It does matter, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of
another go-round on the topic. “Just let me go,” I say,
though now I doubt I need his permission.
“I don’t think so.” He cocks his chin at the canoe behind
me. “Don’t start thinking that belongs to you.”
“If I’m your wife”—I keep my voice low—“I’ve as much right
to it as you.”
I hear a little whoop from Sarah. She knows John’ll take
those as fighting words and that she wants to see.
He steps closer. I can tell it’s one of those times he
doesn’t know how to handle me. “I say what you’ve a right
to. And woman, you should know by now that I’m the one
who’ll do the leaving.”
Truth to tell, by this sorry point I’m not sure he’d mind my
going. I think he’s had enough of me like I’ve had enough
of him. I just think he doesn’t want me to best him,
especially not with Sarah watching.
“She means to go to Hermann,” my sister offers. Then:
“She’s got coins in her skirts.”
John lurches forward faster than I can do anything about it
and grabs the paddle from my hands. He throws that aside
and knocks me backward, pushing fierce on my shoulders. I
fall hard, half on the canoe and half on the ground. Pain
grinds through me and I taste blood in my mouth.
He’s on top of me then and I worry he’s going to want to do
what he always wants to do, never mind Sarah’s watching.
That brings me to. I push at his hands, beneath my skirts
now, but for once it’s not my drawers he’s after.
“Her pockets!” Sarah shrieks.
He’s ripping at me, he’s tearing at me, I can smell the
drink strong in my nostrils, and when I know he’s going to
find my string bag with the coins, I stop fighting. That
really makes him mad—it always makes him mad when I pretend
I don’t care what he’s doing—and I can tell I’m right
because he doesn’t just rip the bag out of my pocket. He
rips the whole pocket off then raises himself halfway up to
hold it high above me in the air. Still astraddle, he
stares down at me for a moment then whips the bag down and
across my face.
I close my eyes tight and don’t let loose the tiniest
whimper. I know what he wants and I won’t give it to him.
So he does it again.
Behind John, Sarah makes a sound. This might be too much
even for her.
“You gonna cry, woman?” John grunts.
I will not. I don’t care how many times he does it. I
don’t care how much blood I have in my mouth. I didn’t cry
when he threw those words at me tonight and I won’t cry when
he throws his fists at me now. He hates when I go cold like
this, when I don’t react at all, because he knows he can’t
get to me then, whatever he does. I surprise him with the
strength I have. Really, I surprise myself.
He relaxes and I find that crazy strength again. I kick my
legs out at him and hit him somewhere, I don’t know where,
or care, but this time it’s him toppling backwards. I
scramble to my feet and whirl around and push the canoe
closer to the river, it’s so very close now, and then it’s
edged out over the water and I fling myself inside and the
force of my body pushes the canoe all the way into the
river.
The rushing water takes me fast, so fast. I turn around on
my hands and knees in the rocking canoe and see John and
Sarah on the bank staring after me. I don’t think I’ll ever
forget their faces, splotches of paleness in the black
night, looking like they’re seeing something they’ll never
forget, either.
I feel a stab, then, quick and sharp, for the life I’ve
lived here, for my father, for my younger sisters… I may
never see little Minerva again, or Lucinda, or Visa Ann.
The canoe takes no heed. It’s moving and I’m in it. I have
no paddle, I have no coins, I’m spitting my own blood out of
my mouth, but I’m in it.
