A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (24 page)

Harriet grew up in the
Boston, part of a family of tailors, and lived comfortably, but was
by no means wealthy. She was always a strong woman, defiant of her
proposed place of inferiority to men. Often, society reminded her
that the patriarchal establishment of the post-Puritan United
States was one that wouldn’t easily be broken, especially by a
woman with her lack of prestige. Harriet did all she could to make
herself more capable as a woman, despite the odds: she learned to
read and write, though her writing was poor. She practiced often,
learned as much as she could from the books she could manage
herself (her father was a dedicated reader, mostly of newspapers
and documents on the development of the blossoming country). It was
at the age of twenty that Harriet fell extremely sick with
pneumonia and was placed, perhaps fatefully, in the care of a
relatively young doctor, Floyd Greyson. Floyd was especially
dedicated to the well-being of the young girl, both because of his
admiration for her beauty beyond the plague and his ambition to be
known as a great doctor. The ambition of those that begin a career
is often gauged in the realm of the fantastic and impractical;
Floyd’s will was no different than that of many others beginning
their tenure in some discipline, only his made differences in life
and death.

Harriet, under Floyd’s
care, did something that few people did in their age: she recovered
from her sickness, unscathed. The connection between Floyd and the
young Harriet then was unbreakable, vowed in a manner similar to
the consummation of a sort of abstract virginity, one for a career,
one for a life, both through each other and the result was a
magnificent love for one another. Floyd taught Harriet of things
she’d never heard of, about people and sickness, about the
mannerisms of different societies and cultures inside the United
States and in the “Old World” of England. Floyd, unlike Harriet,
was much more fortunate in his financial roots. Floyd also knew a
great deal about the natives of the new American lands, coined
“Indians,” however, Floyd was certain to let Harriet know that the
dubbing of the natives as Indians was a misnomer, a result of the
ignorance of early exploration. These tales were fascinating to
Harriet through and through. Harriet should have been excited about
the prospect of travelling west, and she was in their initial
journey from Massachusetts to Missouri, where they’d settle for a
short time. It was the idea of travelling from Missouri to Oregon
that was a bit harder for Harriet to swallow.

It took Harriet some time
to settle into the small lumber town in Missouri. The area was
dominated by men, which made Harriet’s strong personality no
greater an asset than it was in the more refined and diversified
east. As result, Harriet became a bit of a homebody, happy with the
contentment of her personal privacy and her times with her very
busy husband. Floyd wasn’t as busy dealing with sickness as much as
he was dealing with traumatic injury. Harriet had become a champion
in the field of removing blood from shirts. She’d also had to turn
her home into a makeshift clinic once when one of the lumber
warehouses collapsed on a group of men just outside of the town.
Harriet could still recall the riddled and maimed men, some with
their eyes shoved deeper into their heads, penetrated by large,
splintered pieces of wood. Others had hands or arms crushed,
leaving a curdled mess of gored bones and flesh. One man was nearly
chopped in two by the falling ceiling of the warehouse. Harriet
could still recall the two men bringing him in, his eyes wide, head
covered in sweat and blood while the middle of his torso moved with
the carrying men in ways that didn’t depend on the natural pivot of
hips, but instead swayed on a spinal axis that seemed frail and
prepared to split the man in two at any time. In these times,
Harriet did all she could to comfort the men, nursing them, though
only few survived for more than a week.

The proposition of
travelling out West and the ordeal of those that often came to Fort
Deposit frightened Harriet in ways that the accidental massacre of
the men in the lumber town couldn’t. Harriet felt as though she
could handle the blood and the gore from the various accidents in
the town, often with men as victims. The tales of Fort Deposit were
much worse, as Harriet had overheard in a conversation between
Floyd and Grant Vickers.

***

“
People do desperate
things, you know?” Vickers said, tapping a rolled map against his
opposing, open palm.

“
All people do desperate
things, Grant. Typically, the things done by people when they’re
desperate for their own lives... well, at least those things are
properly warranted.” Floyd was at his desk, looking over one of
Grant’s maps, trying to figure out the very best course for the
travelling party.

“
Yes. I agree with you
mostly. However, when are those things that are done to preserve
life so terrible that death is a better response? A more human
response?” Vickers challenged.

Floyd looked up from the
map for a moment to watch Grant suspiciously. “For the sake of
life, Grant, I’d suggest just about anything is a proper
response.”

And Grant went on further.
“How about killing others to preserve one? Or killing one to
preserve many?”

Floyd leaned back in his
seat after placing his quill back into the ink jar. “Murder is a
sin, Grant. I don’t believe there’s anything that morally
constitutes murder.”

Vickers nodded, leaning
against a wall. He tapped that map again, silent for a moment.
“Funny, isn’t it? How we justify murder by our own law, yet we
regard it as sin when done outside of the law? Justice brings men
to the executioner, sometimes men that haven’t killed anything!
Yet, when lives are at stake, you suppose that killing one for the
sake of the lot... that’s a bad idea? That’s immoral?”

Floyd shook his head,
turning back to the map, becoming less interested in the
conversation. “I’m not a law man, Grant. I’m a doctor. My job is to
keep people alive, not to decide who deserves to and who
doesn’t.”

Grant smirked. “Well,
you’re fortunate enough to have not been in a situation that
demands you to make such decisions. However, the trip like we’re
planning to take? Some people have made some very...” He paused,
thinking of the correct euphemism. “...
interesting
decisions for the sake
of life and preservation.”

Floyd dabbed his quill
into the ink and marked a line that curved over the Northern side
of the Sierra Nevada. Floyd spoke somewhat distantly. “Only God
will judge what is proper of preservation and what is worthy of
condemnation.” Floyd looked up to Grant then. “And I am no God.”
And his final comment resounded within his mind as he stared down
onto the map in front of him, feeling a strange omniscience with
his bird’s eye view of the mapped continent below him, and the
black line he’d strewn over the Northern peak of the mountains,
creating the image of a black chasm that slashed through the same
geography established by the god he claimed.

***

April 17, 1847

Weve began our trip now
and its been pritty slow going. I forget how the trip was from
Boston to Missouri! Only, this trip is certin to be many times
longer than even that one! There was a suprise addision to the
help. Mister Vickers has employd two Indian fellas to come along
with us. Their names are too funny to try and write, and they are
real quiet, but they seem nice enough and not savage like you hear
bout in some of the tales.

Sincerely,

Hattie

***

“
How’re you doing in here,
Hattie?” Floyd peeked into the wagon as the group halted for a
break on the trail.

“
I’m
doing alright, Floyd. How are
you
doing?” Hattie returned with a
coy smile.

Floyd grinned and pulled
himself into the wagon to sit beside his wife. “It’s pretty warm
out there. But, while travelling, I think it’s always better for it
to be warm than to be cold. The warm kills people that aren’t
prepared for it. The cold just kills people regardless.” He
chuckled, knowing that was only partially true.

Hattie stared to the front
of the wagon. “I have plenty of books to read, Floyd, but staring
at these books with the rockin’ and shakin’ of the wagon... it
makes my stomach knot up!”

“
I could give you
something, dear, but it’ll probably put you right to sleep.
Wouldn’t be of much help. That is, of course, unless you care to
sleep through some of these early parts of the trip. The land out
there isn’t anything you haven’t seen, but I’m sure that by the
time we get out West a bit, you’re going to want to see the
country. I hear it’s beautiful. Grant and I have spoken about it
some. Some of it a bit dangerous, too.” Floyd added.

“
Dangerous?” Hattie lifted
a brow. “Well, it’s nothing we can’t handle, Floyd. We’ve been
through the worst of it, if you ask me. We’re the sort of people
that can get done whatever we put our minds to, you know. Then,
what sort of danger are you talkin’ about?”

Floyd leaned back on the
bench in the stuffed wagon, staring blankly forward himself to the
supplies stacked within. “Well, there’s a lot of things that are
dangerous. There’s the wild animals. The Indians. There’s some
areas of land that are about as dry as can be, which can make for
trouble with the cattle and oxen. However, Grant’s told me that him
and his Indian fellows will be able to keep us in line with the
best of the worst lands, dear.”

Hattie watched her husband
as he stared off distantly, seeing that he must have been
envisioning the challenges they would face in his mind. Floyd was
always a planner, but Harriet, a woman of wit herself, saw a flaw
in the whole plan, though the flaw depended on an idea a bit
negative, perhaps even macabre.

“
And what should happen,
say, in the case that something happens to Mr. Vickers? We’re
supposed to just head along and figure everything out ourselves?
Sounds like we’ve invested quite a bit in his presence and
knowledge of the land, Floyd.” Hattie said, half-curious, half
playing Devil’s advocate.

Floyd snapped out of his
daze and looked to his wife, surprised by her comments and
questions. “Something should happen to Vickers? Oh, no! That’s
preposterous. What better company to be in than of this
group?”

It was about then that the
shouts of the short-tempered Jim came bursting through wagon’s
covering. “Son of a bitch! Not even a day! Not even a day before
one of these blasted things wants to get sick! Well, I’ll say! I’ll
say, God damn it!”

Harriet looked to her
husband with a faint smile before leaning outside of the wagon to
call out to the frustrated Jim. “Mr. Bleckley!” She shouted, with a
stern look in her eyes.

Jim spun around, so short
it almost seemed as though he spun simply from the torso up, to
look toward Harriet, caught off guard by her shout. “Yes, Ma’am?”
He questioned.

“
Mr.
Bleckley, I’ll say, you have all the right to be upset about having
assumed a sub-par creature, but I
should
remind you that the creature
you shout about is as much a creature of God as is any other
creature you’ve brought along on this trip, or the creatures that
arranged for the trip, and shouting God’s name in vain, sir, isn’t
going to buy us any more of His sympathy! So, I suggest you repent
for your loose-tongue and focus your frustrations on other matters
now and for the remainder of our trip, alright?”

Jim Bleckley watched the
woman completely flabbergasted. His mouth moved as if to return
words, of apology or protest, none could say, but nothing came out.
Before he could ever find those words, Harriet ducked back into the
wagon beside her husband, with a wide smile. “Hopefully that’ll
settle him down for a little while.” Knowing the effect wouldn’t be
permanent. It was of Jim’s nature to be foul-mouthed and
easily-aggravated.

Floyd laughed, nodding
with admiration to his wife, a woman unafraid of rustling some
men’s feathers if they needed it. “Well, it would have quieted me
down, too, darling.” And he leaned over to kiss her cheek before
preparing to leave. Before he got out completely, Hattie grabbed
his hand.

“
Floyd?” She
asked.

Floyd stopped, looking
back to Hattie. “Yes?”

“
We’re going to be
alright, aren’t we?” Hattie asked, just for further
assurance.

Floyd smiled and nodded.
It was a question that couldn’t be answered. Floyd was no
fortune-teller. Still, Floyd answered with a confident “yes” and
kissed his wife’s hand before stepping out of the wagon. “Alright,
Jim, let’s do what we need to do and get moving again. Grant! Hank!
We’re moving on.” And they did just that.

***

Many nights later, the
travelling party (which was actually accompanied by many other
travelling groups, all in a similar line, but some distance away
from each other) stopped and set up a campfire. There, Floyd,
Harriet, Hank, Jim, Grant and his Indian counterparts all sat and
worked at what was carved of the questionable cow.