When Ella was fifteen years old, life seemed a grand and glorious thing. She was a budding young beauty from a wealthy Philadelphia family. But when, suddenly, her father died, their family fortunes began to plummet. One after another, the business deals Ella’s father had made before his death turned sour. It was clear to Ella’s desperate mother that without proper management their wealth would soon be gone. Afraid of poverty, afraid that she and her daughter would soon become nothing more than well-dressed paupers, and with nothing to look forward to but ever more disastrous business reversals, Ella’s mother rushed into a new marriage with a man she hoped could salvage the wealth and prestige of her family.
His name was Clayton R. Scofield, a big bear of a man with broad shoulders, a loud, booming voice, and a piercing, penetrating gaze that surely helped to establish his early reputation as a tough, shrewd businessman. Scofield, however, had one glaring fault ... he always wanted more. More money, more power, more of anything that he could put his hands on and hold.
Working, as he was, in the midst of well-to-do Philadelphia society, Scofield, of course, had to be subtle and clever. At this he was completely successful, acting always as a perfect gentleman, neatly concealing his dirty dealings through dummy corporations and by hiring men to silence anyone who might publicly speak against him.
Elizabeth Phillips, Ella’s mother, knew nothing of this. All she saw was a big, forceful man, a man well-connected, and most importantly, a man intent upon winning her heart.
It was a heart that was easily won.
Elizabeth was still a statuesque, handsome woman when Clay Scofield married her. She put the years she spent with Ella’s father behind her and tried to make a fresh beginning with her new husband.
Though she saw relatively little of Scofield that first year because of his business dealings, Elizabeth was delighted to discover that he had, indeed, done miracles in saving her money. She was a good deal less than delighted, however, when later she learned her money was, in fact, no longer hers. All of it, by then, was controlled by Scofield himself.
Their relationship cooled. Elizabeth performed the duties of a wife with little pleasure and less passion. But through it all, she tried to protect her daughter from the truth. Whenever Ella was in attendance, Elizabeth pretended that all was well in the Scofield household. She never gave a hint to her daughter that she was unhappy. And Ella never guessed. The young girl went blithely on, growing into womanhood, going to parties, balls and cotillions, always dressed in the finest gowns of satin and lace.
Clayton Scofield did his part in the charade as well. He was the doting stepfather, giving her money and little gifts, and always asking about her admiring beaus.
When Ella turned sixteen, the blossom gave way to the flower. In every way she was a woman. With big green eyes, shimmering brown hair, and a figure that made men’s pulses quicken, Scofield’s stepdaughter had become the most beautiful, alluring creature in all of Philadelphia. And Scofield, who saw Ella far more often than did other men, found his own pulse beating faster, too.
One evening in late winter, with a light rain falling and the raw March wind making the house drafty, Ella sat snugly in bed, dressed only in a cotton dressing gown, writing a thank you note to a young boy who had given her a book of poems by Longfellow.
There was a light tap at the door.
“Come in,” she said absently.
Her stepfather entered, closed the door behind him, and walked toward the fireplace.
“Is mother still awake?” she asked.
“No,” he answered quietly. “She wasn’t feeling well and decided to retire early.”
“What was the matter?” Ella asked with concern.
“Nothing serious. Just fatigue, I think.”
“Oh.”
“Are you warm enough?” he asked. “Would you like me to put more coal on the fire?”
“No, thank you,” she replied. “I’ll be going to sleep soon.”
He moved closer to her. Ella, meanwhile, put the finishing touches to her letter.
“What are you writing?” he asked, casually sitting down on the edge of her bed.
“A note to Michael Lenox.”
He sidled up close to her, putting his arms around her waist. “May I see it?” he asked innocently.
“I suppose so,” she said, feeling faintly uneasy. Scofield quickly scanned the note, then reached across her to place it down on the night table. His hard, raw-boned face was only inches away from Ella. Her smooth, pale skin turned a bright crimson as he paused there and stared at her, his body looming over her.
Ella didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but it seemed too incredible to believe ... until the moment her stepfather grabbed the front on her nightgown with one of his huge hands and, with a sharp yank of his wrist, tore the delicate garment off her shoulders, baring her to the waist. Helpless under the bulk of him, she felt his mouth and his hands all over her fresh young body but could do nothing to stop him.
On that raw, windblown night in March of 1851, there was no War Hunter to come to her rescue. Clayton R. Scofield got what he wanted. There was no retribution, no trial, no hanging ... just blood on the sheets and the bitter tears of a weeping, broken young girl.
He ripped the sheets off the bed and threw them into the fireplace. As they burned, he returned to the bed, and with a twisted smile of delight on his face, he said, “We’ll do this again tomorrow night—lots of nights.”
Ella cowered, hating the feel of his hands as he reached out to stroke her naked thighs, afraid of those hands and the hurt they caused her.
Scofield knew that Ella was too terrified and ashamed to tell anyone about what had happened. And in time, he was sure, she wouldn’t want to say anything. He was certain that Ella would soon come to eagerly await his late night visits. For Scofield, besides his greed, was a man of supreme self-confidence.
He was half-right. She was far too ashamed to tell her mother what Scofield had done to her. But he was wrong about the rest. Ella, despite her youth and innocence, was defiant. She would not, could not, allow her stepfather ever to defile her again. There was only one course open to her, and that was to run. So, when Scofield confidently walked out of her bedroom, Ella washed herself thoroughly, put on warm clothes, packed a light suitcase, and, with only twenty-two dollars in her purse, left home before dawn, never to return.
Before she left, Ella wrote a note which she hid in her mother’s knitting box. In time, her mother would surely find it.
What she said was this:
Dearest Mother,
I am so very sorry for the pain my leaving must have caused you, but I had to run away. I promise that someday I’ll explain it to you. But I cannot do it now. I will miss you ... I love you ... forgive me.
Your loving daughter, Ella
Five days after her daughter’s disappearance, Mrs. Scofield found the note. It helped to dispel the fear that her child had been either kidnapped or murdered, but otherwise brought little solace to the distraught mother. She pleaded with her husband to use all of his resources, all of his money, all of his connections in high places to get the police out on the streets, looking for Ella.
Scofield agreed to do all Elizabeth wanted done, but agreeing was as far as it went. Nothing was actually done to try and find the missing girl. Scofield, secretly, blocked much of the police effort, for he was well aware that if Ella was found, questions would be asked and answers would have to be given. Better, he thought, that the girl never be found.
To Scofield’s mind, a sixteen-year-old society girl, out on her own, would meet a harsh and violent fate in Philadelphia’s rough and tumble underworld. And that was fine with him ... just so long as she was never heard from again.
Six-and-a-half years later, in the early autumn of 1857, a letter arrived at the home of Clayton R. Scofield. It was addressed to his wife, Elizabeth, who had died four years earlier. Wondering who might not know, after all these years, that his wife was dead, Scofield opened the letter with considerable curiosity.
The salutation of “Dearest Mother” was enough to shake Clayton Scofield to his very soul.
Sure that Ella had died years ago, he had long since forgotten her. But now, reading the letter, memories of his stepdaughter came flooding back to him—particularly the memory of that last night in her bedroom.
She had promised in her note, seven years before, that someday she would tell her mother why she left. Ella had finally fulfilled the promise, recounting the sordid facts of her stepfather’s attack ... only her mother never lived long enough to learn the truth.
From her letter, sent during the summer from Soda Springs, the well-known separation point of the California and Oregon Trails, Scofield learned, in addition, that she had some sort of liaison with a man named Warfield Hunter. He quickly glossed over that information, however, to concentrate on the following words: “I would like to come back some day to see you, mother. I’ve missed you more than I could ever say.”
Scofield mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. He was running for Congress next year. His seat in Washington was all but assured by the Philadelphia political machine. But all his efforts, all the money spent to grease his way to even greater power and respectability, would be lost if there was any scandal now. Ella, if she ever came back, could destroy him.
Counting himself lucky he had chanced to open Ella’s letter rather than simply throwing it away, or worse, leaving it for his secretary, Scofield sat down in an overstuffed armchair and, sipping from a glass of brandy, considered his options ...
One thing was certain. Ella was no longer a sixteen-year-old girl that Scofield would easily manipulate. She was a twenty-three-year-old woman, who, somehow, had been tough enough and resourceful enough to survive not only the brutal Philadelphia underworld, but the hard life of the frontier as well.
That she had lived, thought Scofield, was a remarkable achievement. That she had written this letter was, for her, a remarkable mistake. He could not let her live, let her come back someday to Philadelphia and bring him down. She had to die—out there on the frontier. And when all was said and done, who would ever link him with the death of a woman twenty-five-hundred miles away, a woman going by the all-but-forgotten last name of Phillips?
Later that day, Harry Stowe and Frank Pobe, two thugs whom Scofield had often employed in the past, were sent on a mission to track down Ella Phillips. They were to start in Soda Springs and keep searching until they found her. And when, finally, they did find her ... she was to die.