A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events Read online

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  It occurred to Harriet Greyson that, though the group admitted being “prepared” for travel, there was a distinct difference in preparation of commodity and preparation to leave. It was the very break of dawn, where the birds chirped proudly in the Missouri sky, fluttering from oak to hickory in the lumber town they prepared to depart from. The wind was cool and fresh, more soothing in the chest than the past winter nip. Floyd Greyson, Harriet’s husband and one of the local doctors in the small community, spoke of plans and intents with some of the other men from the travelling company.

  The group was a small one for Western travel, but they were as prepared as any, weakened solely by their size. Each wagon was thoroughly outfitted with foodstuffs and accompanied by cattle to maintain the caravan along the dangerous (albeit somewhat routine) travel across the continent to Oregon, and for the Greyson’s, more specifically Fort Deposit.

  Fort Deposit was less popular than other Forts in the Oregon region, but it had an important purpose: to restock and aid travelling groups moving through the interior of Oregon, headed to the coast. While many travelers often believed they were prepared for the long haul through some of the world’s most desiccated lands, the truth of the matter often reared its head at Fort Deposit, in the form of sickly, starving caravans, the bodies of fallen family members, pestilence and rescue parties trying to prevent it all. Floyd’s ambitions were two part. He knew that Fort Deposit was lacking a steady medical professional, one that could help those that find themselves in the worst of positions. Second, Floyd was a man of gentle nature and an intellectual, hardly a man’s man, but all the while excited by the prospect of change and adventure. To make up for his lack of skill in many important trades associated with such distanced and rigorous travel, Floyd had hired three hands. The cattle hand and butcher was known as Jim Bleckley. Jim was an astoundingly short man, often with a foul temper and equally foul interest in hard alcohol. As was the case, the commodities came stocked with such fuels for Jim, to be saved for the early evenings and for promise of early sleep. Hank Paulson was a carpenter’s assistant. Finding someone to fashion something out of wood in the town wasn’t difficult with its business in lumber, but Hank knew a thing or two about maintaining the travelling wagons through varying terrains. He also was responsible for the several oxen required for towing the heavy cart and those within it. The last of the three was Grant Vickers, a small-time cartographer responsible for mapping a good portion of settled Missouri and an excellent guide, hoping to map the West and make a name for himself in the distant region. Everyone involved with the travelling party had something to gain from the challenge; everyone except for Harriet. She was a woman in a time that demanded she did as her husband did.

  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.