“So, Norie girl, you sold me out,” he said, his thick hands going for her throat, the rudder digging into her hipbones. “Oh yeah, I been watchin’ and listenin’ to you wheelin’ and dealin’. Thought you’d get away with it, didn’t yah? You thought to keep them pretty coins to yourself. Now, you know women is too stupid to handle money, that’s man’s doing. Hand ’em over, Nori. That money’s mine.”
Blood in his eye, mean rotten to the core, she remembered that snarl, the curl to his sneering lips, the way his cheek twitched, a warning to his victims he meant business.
“What coins?” she heard herself say, her voice strong, full of bravado.
He howled, his laughter echoing into the treetops. “Oh, that’s a good one, Norie. You regrowed your spunk. This is even better than I thought it would be. Not only do I get some coin, you’re gonna put up a struggle. I do love a woman to struggle a bit. But you know I’m gonna win, Norie. You’re gonna lose, ain’t no other way about it. You got your sass back, but you’re stupid. I’ll have to set you straight. You know what that means.”
Before Anora could brace herself for the blow, he slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand.
The ferry had started to drift into the swifter current. Roscoe and Pete hadn’t received their signal. Anora, eyes open, face turned toward the ferry landing across river, could make out the shoreline through the blur of fog and stars that filled her head.
“You lookin’ for that big fella? He ain’t there. Seen him go inside the cabin with his bright little penny. He can’t see you. And the Hayes fella, he’s gone home. He don’t give a shit about you. He’s got what he wants, or he thinks he’s got what he wants.”
His hot, putrid breath washed across her face. “It’s just you and me. Just you, and me. Where you got the pouch of money hid? I seen him give it to you. I know you got it on you. I guess I’ll have to strip you down.” He started to claw at her legs, his hands digging into the flesh between her thighs.
Screaming and kicking, Anora threw the pouch in his face. “Take the money. Go.”
Ruben laughed, his lips inches from her nose. The smell of him, familiar and horrifying, petrified her. She couldn’t move or scream—she simply froze.
“I come for more than money,” he said, his voice a purr, taking the pouch from her and stuffing it into a front trouser pocket. “You know I got to have more, Nori,” he said.
“You’ve rounded out some,” he said, his hand underneath her rain slicker, crawling up her belly, headed for her breasts.
In her rush to get back to Hank and Isabell, she hadn’t put her gloves on after signing the papers. Coming alive, her instinct for survival kicking in, Anora clawed at his face. He caught her hand.
Yanking on her arm, spotting the gold ring on her finger, he gave it a twist. “I’ll have this trinket…won’t need it no more where you’re goin’. Gold is gold.”
He stuffed her finger in his warm, slippery, stinky mouth, his filthy teeth working the ring over her knuckle, but it wouldn’t budge, and his teeth dug into her flesh.
Raising her knee, she gave him a good kick to the gut. He opened his mouth freeing her finger.
Woof! “You little bitch, just like your mama, ain’t you. She didn’t want to let go of that ring either, even a layin’ there so poorly, so sick, she fought like a wildcat. But I got that ring offin’ her finger. And I had a bit of fun with her afore she went. Dead, that there ring just slid right off.” He laughed in her face.
Anora closed her eyes. The vision of her mother, lying on the narrow wooden bench inside the wagon, pale and weak, and Ruben doing the unspeakable.
“Mama,” she screamed, afraid of passing out, she rolled her head from side to side to dislodge the image. Clinging to sanity by a thread, the truth held her back from going over the edge. “The ring is my mother’s. The ring is Mother’s.”
Ruben barked another wicked laugh, grabbing her by the ears. “You’re dumb…dumb as chicken shit. Bet you thought we was married all this time, didn’t ‘cha?” Head shaking, laughing he said, “Never married you. Never married your Aunt Carrie, never Minna. Never married no woman.
“You never took that ring off, not once? Had you scared to take it off, didn’t I? I used it like I’d use a chain to tame a mare. Women is easy to train when they think they’s married. I could do it again, break you in half.
“Nah! Got no use for women. Not Minna, not you. Not now, anyways. You was good once, but you’re gettin’ old and ugly. Minna turned out to be a stingy nag. I set her on fire. I like’s ’em young and pliable. I’m gonna drown you like I did you’re precious, prissy Aunt Carrie.”
Grabbing her tit, pinching her hard, he said, “You know, you’re gettin’ fat. I hates fat women.”
She imagined the rudder fishtailing back and forth beneath the raft, being used by the whim of the river.
The black water all around, over the rail, the river waited for her imminent arrival.
Above her head, to the left, the signal bell hung still and quiet. She had to reach that cord. With all the fight left in her, the self that stood aside of the terror, Anora summoned the courage, the power to reach up, pull on the cord and ring, ring and ring the bell until the end.
Ruben, drooling, exhilarated, the struggle of inflicting pain working as an aphrodisiac, paid no attention to the clang, clang of the bell, until the ferry lurched sideways. Startled, his fingers loosened from around her neck for a split second. A second was all she needed.
Roscoe and Pete, confused by the signal call, uncertain if they should stay or stop, jerked and pulled against each other, and the cable lines. The ferry, bobbing out in the current, went forward, and back, then whipped side to side. The unmanned rudder slammed into Ruben’s middle, pushing the air out of his lungs.
»»•««
Hank, upon hearing the frantic clanging of the ferry bell, dropped the tin plate he’d been washing and yelled at Isabell, “You stay here,” and dashed out the door.
He heard Isabell running after him. “Papa.”
On the run, he shouted, “Stay, Isabell.”
He arrived at the top of the rise in time to see Anora snake out of her rain slicker and fall into the water. And, to see the man get hit in the gut with the force of the rudder.
Above his head and to the left, the cable line, at the splice, twanged and snapped. Hitting the ground, lying flat on his stomach, Hank covered his head, as the cable whipped across the track, lashing the ground, flying out into the river and disappearing.
Leaping to his feet, he charged down the hill and ran into the river, arms swimming before the water reached his waist.
Feet kicking, arms cutting through the water, head above the water, he searched for Anora and saw Paxton on Big Red, charge down the hill and into the water. The ferry lurched, swung a full turn and twisted in a slow circle, straining the remaining cable lines until it finally broke free fore and aft. Paxton’s horse reared up out of the water.
Arms coming up out of the middle of the river, Hank caught sight of Anora. Her face turned up to the sky, coughing and sputtering, she fought against the current that carried her downstream.
On what remained of the ferry, the man came to his knees. He tried to stand. The rudder flashed again, striking him in the teeth. Hank could see the blood gushing from his mouth. He heard the man scream an oath, then he fell back to the floor of the ferry.
The ferry, pulled into the swift rapid that moved the river around the gravel bar, folded in two like a sandwich. Rounding the big hairpin curve of the river, caught between the two halves, the ferry and the man on it plowed into nature’s dam of rocks, logs, and debris cast aside by previous floods. The ferry splintered apart, reduced to a heap of rubble, with now and then a piece of rail breaking lose to float downstream.
∙•∙
Anora, fighting her way to the light and the surface of the river, kicked off her boots and shed her petticoat. The water, cold, sucked the breath out of her, but at last getting her head above water, she caught a glimpse of land, and Hank coming for her. The promise of safety inspired her to flail her arms and kick. Going with the current, making progress toward shore, she heard Hank call her name. She heard the splintering sounds of the ferry breaking up, and Ruben screaming oaths.
Focusing on Hank, she kicked and moved her arms until they were only a few yards apart. The sound of his voice had her pushing herself, kicking, reaching, stretching to reach him.
“Take…hold…of my…waist,” Hank shouted, winded, coming within an arm’s length of her. She clutched at his hips, finding his waist. Kicking, she held on, using her other arm to move with him. They drifted farther down, moving closer to shore, out of the current. In the armpit of the gravel bar, where it jutted out from shore, she tried to find her footing.
Dragging her with him, Hank grabbed hold of the willows that hung out over the water. With Anora attached like a barnacle to the hull of a ship, Hank half walked and swam his way back to the ferry landing.
∙•∙
Crawling up the bank, he gathered Anora into his arms. They both lay, working hard to catch their breath.
Across the river, Hank heard Paxton calling. “God almighty. Hank? Hank, are you all right? Are you all right over there?”
With superhuman strength, Hank raised his arm to wave, but found he didn’t have enough breath to make a sound.
“I’ll get Gregson’s boat,” Paxton shouted.
“Right,” Hank shouted back, shivering with cold.
“Papa. Papa,” he heard Isabell cry from the top of the rise.
“Isabell? Isabell…get blankets.” Turning his head in Isabell’s direction, he could see she hadn’t moved. “Isabell, blankets, get blankets.”
Seeing her tear off for the cabin, he flopped back down, his face turned to the sky, unable to move.
He’d closed his eyes for only a few minutes when Isabell, tripping over the blankets, sobbing, slid down the bank and landed on top of him.
The three of them, Anora tucked in at his side and Isabell on his lap, sat on the riverbank, swaddled, bound together in the warmth of the wool blankets, waiting for what they couldn’t have said.
Anora started to shake. Shake so violently Hank had to remove his arms from Isabell to hold her.
∙•∙
From deep within, a tearing cry of pain coursed up out of the center of Anora’s being, welling up, moving an unstoppable outpouring of rage, grief and, yes, gratitude to find herself alive and breathing in Hank’s arms.
Sobbing, wailing, Isabell and Hank wrapped themselves about her. Anora thought she would turn completely inside out, the sobs were so great. She couldn’t stop herself. All the ugliness gushed like a geyser, a force of nature she could not control.
She didn’t know how long they sat there before Theodore Gregson, Paxton, and Percy Price rowed across the river. “You all right, Hank?” Paxton asked. He jumped out of the boat. “Thought we should go down and see…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Yeah.” Hank got to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
Paxton shook his head at him. “Maybe you should go on up to the cabin, get Anora some dry clothes.”
Anora reached up and took Hank’s hand. “You go. I’ll wait here until you come back.”
Hank put his hand on Paxton’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
»»•««
At the gravel bar, Hank, Paxton, Percy, and Theodore lifted away the fractured, puncheon logs of the ferry. They found a crushed torso, legs, and arms of what used to be a human being. The man’s head was gone, severed they supposed by the force of the rudder under the ferry slicing into the folding ferry bottom.
Hank helped to lift the remains onto a waxed tarp. They all stood over the lump of waste. Theodore broke the silence and asked the question, “What do we do with it? And who the hell is it?”
A powerful rage leaped to life within Hank’s breast. He had to fight against his urge to haul Gregson up off his feet and fling him into the river. “That is Ben Talbot, Ruben Tillery. He came back to finish Anora off. He murdered her parents, and her aunt, took her captive, tortured her for years, while you people stood around and let him do it. Well, he’s dead now. I don’t care what you do with what’s left of him. Throw him into the kiln at the mill. Burn the son-of-a-bitch.” He turned his back, then thought of something and turned back. “Wait, I want to search his pockets.”
“The reverend ain’t gonna like this. It ain’t Christian,” said Percy, as Hank tugged a pouch full of coins out one of the carcass’ trouser pockets.
Hank held up the pouch for all to see. Paxton nodded, and kicked the tarp with the toe of his boot. “This trash isn’t worth a burial. God doesn’t want to have any more to do with him. I’m with Hank, we burn what’s left, like he’s going to burn eternally in hell.”
Hank had nothing more to say to any of them. He walked back to Anora, stomping through the brush, slapping aside the branches that tore at his face and arms.
He found Anora, with Isabell at her side, waiting for him. “Come on, Anora,” he said, reaching for her hand to help her to her feet. “You need to get into some dry clothes.”
Her hands went to his chest, her eyes searching his face. “The ring is Mama’s wedding ring, Hank. I’m not…I never was, married to him. I couldn’t take it off or look at it because it’s Mama’s. He used it to keep me under his control. Help me take it off. I have to take it off, Hank.”
Hank very carefully and easily, slid the ring off her finger, leaving at a pale shadow in its place. “Throw it into the river, Hank.”
“You throw it, Anora. Let it go. Let the river take it.”
Closing her eyes, she tossed the ring out into the deep channel and swift current.
Hank pressed his lips to her wet hair, closing his eyes, hot tears rolling down his face. “Shhh, it’s over now, Anora. All over, shhh.”
“Will it ever be over? Ruben? Is he…is he dead?
“What’s left of him is going into the kiln at the mill. He’s gone, gone for good, Anora. Burn the memories along with his remains.”
“The money, Hank, the money, it’s gone.”
“Smiling into her eyes, he put the pouch of coins in her hand. “The river and I thought the least we could do is give you back a little of what you’ve lost.”
She took the pouch and held it to her heart. “Thank you.”
He folded her into his chest. She wrapped her arms around his middle and laid her head against his breast. Closing his eyes, Hank felt his pulse pounding in his neck and could hearher Anora’s heart beating strong and alive. They were in step, beating as one.
“Now that you’re a woman of means, answer me this, Anora Claire Sennett, could you consent to marry a poor, lowly orchard farmer like me? I can’t promise you a life of luxury, or abundance. But I love you more than a thousand, a million, pouches of gold, is that enough?”
Coming up on her toes, she kissed his lips, her hands going to his jowls, her gaze locked with his. “It will be an honor to marry you. You are the finest man…person, I’ve ever known—a miracle. You’re the love I never hoped to win. If I have your love, I have everything I will ever need.”