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Pioneer Woman
Pioneer Woman
Pioneer Woman
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Pioneer Woman

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Rebecca looked out across her surroundings angry and alone—held captive in a Sioux camp. Her body ached from long hours of work. She knew if she would ever be free it would be up to her. Her husband, Bart Lee, would not search for her. His handsome looks and polite manners were enough to beguile her from her home in Pennsylvania, but his love was for money

Her marriage had become one of servitude. Rebecca’s new home isolated in mountains of Western Maryland, surrounded by endless forest, made her life vulnerable to an Indian attack. Bart’s frequent trips left her with Ginny and Sam, a black couple Bart had purchased at an Annapolis slave auction.

Travelers had begun stopping at Bart’s tavern for food and lodging. Most were trappers but one man was Paul Melville, an engineer seeking to find iron ore in the mountains for Eastern investors. On one trip he had brought her yarn, and Ginny and Sam presents from Baltimore.

Why did she think of him now? It was only a matter of time when she could no longer delay her Sioux captor’s lust. She preferred death to the life she faced. Rebecca had no way to know one man still searched for her.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 25, 2016
ISBN9781311361356
Pioneer Woman
Author

Vernon E. Beall

Vernon E. Beall entertained grade school classmates with harrowing tales of air duels with the Red Baron, wrote short plays for radio broadcast in high school, was an Army correspondent for the 29th Division, and wrote original musical productions in college. His stories are somewhat different today, but he still enjoys the thrill of bringing new characters to life. Mr. Beall served with the 3rd Army in Germany during WWII, created the credit department for a national bank, and served as the bank’s vice president. He also served as credit manager for Westinghouse Credit Corporation and Motorola in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a graduate of Potomac State College, University of West Virginia, and University of Virginia. He resides with his wife on a lake in Wisconsin where he continues to write.

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    Book preview

    Pioneer Woman - Vernon E. Beall

    Rebecca looked out across her surroundings angry and alone—held captive in a Sioux camp. Her body ached from long hours of work.

    She knew if she would ever be free it would be up to her. Her husband, Bart Lee, would not search for her. His handsome looks and polite manners were enough to beguile her from her home in Pennsylvania, but his love was for money. She missed children’s laughter in the school where she taught.

    Her marriage had become one of servitude. Rebecca’s new home isolated in mountains of Western Maryland, surrounded by endless forest, made her life vulnerable to an Indian attack.

    Bart’s frequent trips left her with Ginny and Sam, a black couple Bart had purchased at an Annapolis Slave Auction.

    Travelers had begun stopping at Bart’s tavern for food and lodging. Most were trappers but one man was Paul Melville, an engineer seeking to find iron ore in the mountains for Eastern investors. On one trip he had brought her yarn, and Ginny and Sam presents from Baltimore. Why did she think of him now? It was only a matter of time when she could no longer delay her Sioux captor’s lust. She preferred death to the life she faced. Rebecca had no way to know one man still searched for her.

    Pioneer Woman

    By

    Vernon E. Beall

    She knew it was a failure. She had not been swept off her feet like a schoolgirl. No, the courtship lasted for almost a year. She accepted the blame. Not many single girls could resist Bart’s charm. He was the most handsome man she had ever met and he promised a wonderful future. At twenty-four she had started her third year teaching first grade near Harrisburg. She missed her former life in Pennsylvania.

    Now she was as much a slave as Ginny and Sam, the Negroes Bart had purchased at an auction in Annapolis.

    Rebecca Lee paused in her thoughts to view the Potomac’s gentle flowing water. The river was deep, and more than one hundred yards wide at the place where she stood. It was smaller than the Susquehanna that flowed near her home in Pennsylvania. Still the Potomac provided fresh fish for the table, but more importantly it gave her quiet, private moments.

    Rebecca stood alone by the river’ bank. Shoulder-length hair, color of hazelnuts, framed her attractive face. When sunlight shined on her hair it looked like strands of gold. a wool muffler’s bright orange color highlighted her peach complexion.

    Full-figured, with narrow waist, Rebecca stood with straight posture on shapely legs, braced against a cold March wind. A woodpecker’s drumming shattered the stillness, sending chills through her. Her alert eyes quickly swept a blanket of fresh snow, which had fallen during the night. Seeing the lack of moccasin footprints, Rebecca pulled a muffler tighter feeling safe from Indians for the moment.

    Rebecca’s eyes swept the western horizon where slate colored mountains reached upwards to touch a canopy of blue sky dotted with puffs of white cotton-ball clouds.

    Rebecca came to this remote, isolated place eight, months ago after her wedding to Bart Lee, owner of the only tavern in the desolate and dangerous frontier region.

    Thoughts lately had begun to confuse her. She was uncertain what troubled her and a hectic schedule did not allow time to dwell on her problems. In this quiet place she stole time for herself and to think more clearly.

    Twenty-four years had firmed lines around her lips indicating determination, but it was her warm and sensitive eyes, which drew attention of guests stopping at the inn.

    Rebecca! Do you need help?

    The serenity of the moment shattered, she took one final look at the river before calling, No. I’m coming.

    Rebecca picked up a basket filled with raw potatoes and turnips. She walked briskly towards a two-story log tavern, situated three hundred feet from the river. Her footsteps made soft, crunching sounds in the three inches of fresh snow. Two small sheds and a large barn rested on two acres of land hacked out of the forest. Her husband waited in the yard outside the tavern.

    As she came closer he called, Guests will be wanting to eat, and some want to be moving on.

    She was still trying to accustom herself to his most recent display of impatience, and replied, There is plenty of time, Bart. I already have food cooking.

    Well, you might pay closer attention before it burns.

    Reaching Bart her eyes leveled on him. I told you early this morning I needed potatoes.

    Her words put him on defense. I had to feed guests’ horses and pack animals. A load of hay needed to be brought in from the field.

    He walked quickly to where snow had been removed from a two-foot square of frozen ground. Bart lifted a board covering a thick layer of straw. Vegetables lay buried under the protective cover. After taking an apple, Bart carefully replaced the cover.

    She moved past him, having said her say, and disappeared into a kitchen. Rebecca was greeted by sounds of food bubbling on a wood-burning stove. After checking several pots, she opened a stove’s firebox, and added a split chunk of dry oak, but her thoughts returned to when she first met Bart.

    Their meeting in her cousin’s general store in Lancaster was still vivid in her memory. The man who came to buy supplies was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was broad-shouldered, and black hair curled from under a wide-brim hat. His nose was thin and straight, and when he smiled, white teeth showed personal care. The dark shadow of a beard lay below the surface of his smoothly shaved face.

    Bart explained he had been a widower thirteen months. He began coming more often on pretense of buying goods for his tavern.

    He soon turned full attention to making Rebecca his wife. She remembered his pleadings, telling how he was forced to work long hours caring for guests, repairing buildings, planting crops, and tending animals for travelers. His words painted a sturdy home among trees and a river abundant with fish. It was all waiting for a wife who would appreciate its beauty.

    The courtship lasted five months, until she resigned her teaching job at end of the year, and came to this place as his wife. Shortly after her arrival, she proved she was not only a strong and healthy woman who could cook, but also keep accurate business records. Marriage brought abrupt change to her living style. The worst for her was its isolated setting, beyond English civilization. Uncharted wilderness began outside the cabin’s door. Rebecca missed the laughter of children.

    Rebecca learned Indian raids were a constant threat against the few white settlers in the region. Attacks did not normally come from local tribes, but from wandering war parties of Sioux, Shawnee, and western tribes beyond the Ohio.

    Bart Lee was built as solid as a small log cabin he had built four years ago for his first wife. She died a year later in childbirth. Bart stood two inches short of six feet, but few men could match his physical power. He could toss fifty-pound hay bales into a hayloft ten feet above the barn’s dirt floor.

    The cabin’s strategically location happened by luck more than planning, and was built originally as home for Lee and his first wife. Bart chose this location because game and fish were plentiful; land bordering the river was flat and fertile. It was also free for taking.

    Travel increased on a single dirt lane in front of the cabin, as seasonal trappers and random travelers, passed heading into the western wilderness. At first, travelers stopped on chance of obtaining shelter for the night, or a hot meal. Chance of a lucrative future inspired Bart to add larger additions to the modest cabin two years in a row. The latest addition was a large room used as a combined tavern and dining room. A bar made of split logs commanded one full end of the room. Two hand-made tables, ten feet long, were used for serving guests. Large stone fireplaces were situated at opposite walls to protect against frigid western Maryland winters. Travel westward beyond the tavern meant one was surrounded by a hostile wilderness and un-charted mountains three thousand feet high. Dark forbidding forest, as sinister as any she had read in German folklore, gave Rebecca concern. She knew her fear was not fantasy. Indians could attack at any time!

    Only one time Bart had escorted her a few miles beyond their home to search for herbs and wild onions. Rebecca had feared a savage would jump from behind a tree any second.

    Rebecca admitted she had regrets, but her Quaker training forced her to be a dutiful wife.

    She knew Bart saw profits increase as word of the tavern’s fine cooking and clean beds, quickly passed by word of mouth among travelers. Rebecca was aware travelers were her only source of news. With Bart making more frequent trips for supplies, she spent evenings alone, reading the few books she had brought from home.

    Bart entered the kitchen and watched Rebecca move purposefully around a large stove preparing lunch. She hurried into the dining room carrying plates and silverware. Her presence meant he no longer had to hurry back from trips. He looked forward to spending time with women he chanced to meet in his travel. His handsome looks and suave manners assured absence from his wife did not deny a willing bed partner.

    His infidelity was not caused by Rebecca’s coldness in bed, but by an insatiable sexual desire for women. Rebecca’s marriage vows were means to get free labor for his business. He did not deny his true love was money. When he was rich he intended to leave this desolate place and enjoy the life he had planned. Bart smiled, pleased with his newest acquisition of a wife, thinking how his life had changed for the better with Rebecca. He kept his latent desires—and indiscretions, strictly to himself.

    Bart was constantly worried a black man and woman he had purchased at the Annapolis Slave Auction would run away. The couple, left alone with Rebecca the times he was gone, gave him added concern they would escape, perhaps killing her in the act. The black couple was needed to help in the tavern, or work the twenty acres of raw land he claimed.

    Sam, and his wife Ginny, lived in a one-room log cabin between the tavern and barn where Bart could keep close watch on them. A single door on their cabin was locked every night. Sam, he realized, matched him is physical power bringing added worry. For that reason, Bart always carried a large knife, or pistol.

    Rebecca was busy in the kitchen working with Ginny when Bart blocked out light from an open door. A cold draft of air whipped flames in the stove higher. She did not stop stirring a pot of soup.

    We’ll have six for dinner. Did you put those turnips in the potato soup?

    Yes.

    Got to make our supply of potatoes last as long as we can. His words sounded to her like a warning.

    She knew he had left when chilly winds ceased. She brushed hair and perspiration from her face. She worked long hours beside Sam and Ginny, but accepted the many hardships of a frontier wife. Sam and Ginny could be sold if Bart was so inclined, but she was married to him— and her surroundings.

    Chapter 2

    Guests seated themselves ten minutes before noon at one of the long, rough oak tables. Scrapping of boots and men’s course voices reached into the kitchen where Rebecca and Ginny worked. Without need to be told, Ginny began dipping food from cooking pots into wooden serving bowls. Sam lifted a large soup pot from the stove and carried it into a room where men waited impatiently. Rebecca followed carrying a bowl of hot food in each hand.

    Twenty-four wuz a poor year fur furs! a trapper was saying. Seventeen hudr’rt twenty-five will be good!

    A man seated across the table asked, How can you say that?

    Cause hit’l be a quarter century! Seventeen hudr’t wuz good—ain’t that right, Bart?

    I wasn’t here then.

    Failure to get collaboration from the owner did not slow the man’s enthusiasm. Gesturing with a huge arm he struck a man seated to his right, but without apology, called, Clyde, ‘memeber that bar ya’ kilt last fall?

    Clyde nodded. Five hundr’t pounds at most!

    Whal’ it wouldn’t bin nuth’n twenty-four years ago!

    The men laughed at his exaggeration as they began helping themselves in steaming bowls, and piling food on metal plates. Rebecca was about to return to the kitchen when she heard one ask, Seen any Injuns lately?

    None wear’n paint, a trapper answered.

    A shiver ran over her in spite of excessive heat from blazing fireplaces. She had seen Indians traveling in canoes on the river, and a few times, waved as she saw their dark eyes silently on her. None returned her greeting. She knew Bart kept a musket behind a door inside the dining room, but it was never primed. The flint and powder were kept hidden by Bart. His fear of Sam stealing it was greater than need against hostile Indians. His practice left her feeling unprotected. Her frequent pleadings about the useless gun fell on deft ears.

    Spring arrived early in Seventeen-hundred twenty-five. The crunching, snapping sounds of ice breaking on the river could be heard nights in a room above the tavern where she and Bart slept. At first the noises terrified her, but once Rebecca determined the cabin was safe, she enjoyed lying awake listening to sounds of a new spring coming to life.

    She thought of large blocks of ice buried in the ground, covered with layers of grass and leaves for use as summer refrigeration. Meat and perishable food were stored under ice in other holes; it was their only means of preserving food.

    Rebecca and Ginny were busy washing pots in the kitchen when Sam entered. He spoke quietly to Rebecca.

    Miss Rebecca, men in da’ room gambl’n ‘n drink’n! Git’n nasty! Spe’cal dat mean one come last eve ‘en!

    Rebecca remembered the man; he looked like he could cause trouble. She was unsure if he stopped to escape a thunderstorm or for a night’s lodging. She felt concern for Sam. His voice sounded strained, and his face showed worry.

    Where’s Bart?

    In da barn last ah’s seen!

    Would you please get him?

    Sam moved rapidly out a rear door. Shortly Bart entered carrying a heavy ax handle. Rebecca restrained him by an arm.

    Bart, be careful! There are four men!

    The scowl he wore did not change as he walked into the tavern. Sam followed.

    A quick look at the four men seated at a table told Bart all he

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