Page 18 of The Frozen River

Thursday, October 1—Clear except some showers. We had company this afternoon. Mr. Savage here, informs us that Mrs. Foster has sworn a rape on a number of men, among whom is Joseph North. Shocking indeed! I have been at home.

I tap the entry with the pad of one finger. Contrary to my choice of wording, it wasn’t the news itself that shocked me—I had attended Rebecca in the middle of August after the assault happened—rather that she had gone public with the accusation without first consulting me. Rape is a capital offense in the States, punishable by hanging. But in all my five decades, I have seen only one man dangle at the end of a rope for that crime. It is nearly impossible to prove, and, until lately, most men caught doing so were dispatched before the courts could be involved. The recent War of Independence and the subsequent ratification of the Constitution has put a basic framework of laws in place to deal with such transgressions. There is more of a deterrent now to keep an aggrieved father or brother from taking justice into his own hands.

I run my finger up the column to an entry from the day before, looking for insight into Rebecca’s motives for speaking publicly.

Wednesday, September 30—Clear except a light shower in the afternoon. I was called to Mr. Foster’s door and asked some questions. Later, Colonel North interrogated me concerning what conversation Mrs. Foster had with me regarding his conduct.

So perhaps not such strange timing after all? Rumor of the attack had begun to spread through the community, and North had likely gotten wind that people were talking. I flip the pages again, farther back, to August when all of this began.

Wednesday, August 19—Clear. Called at Mrs. Foster’s. She complained to me that on August tenth she had received great abuses from Joseph North and Joshua Burgess. After relating those abuses, she said that they could have done nothing worse unless they had killed her. She also said that North had abused her worse than any other person in the world had, but she believed it best to keep her troubles to herself as much as she could until her husband returned which she had hoped would be soon. Came home at 1:00 p.m. Feel fatigued.

Rebecca had kept her troubles to herself for almost two months after the attack, confiding only in me. It seemed wise at the time. I wanted Rebecca to have protection when she stepped forward with her allegation, so she told no one else until Isaac returned from Boston. The accused were respected men, and Rebecca might have found herself victimized further if she went forward on her own. In hindsight, however, the best evidence Rebecca had of the attack was the damage done to her body. Had she filed a complaint the day I found her, looking like a battered wreck, no one would have doubted her claims. And good God, it had been awful. For nine days Rebecca was so ill and sore that she could barely care for her own children. She couldn’t bathe, was hardly able to eat. That is the woman that I found huddled in her home on August nineteenth. Yet, by waiting all those weeks until Isaac returned, her outward injuries healed, and doubt was given time to grow roots.

If I could do it differently, I would have taken Rebecca by wagon straight to the magistrates in Vassalboro the day I found her. My own lack of action makes me feel complicit in the way things have transpired. And now I fear that nothing can be done for the wounds Rebecca carries on the inside.

Things have only gotten worse for my friend. Given what I learned this morning, I suspect that Rebecca feared a pregnancy in August.

Saturday, August 22—Clear. I was at Mrs. Foster’s. Left her as well as could be expected. Indians there.

Tuesday, August 25—Clear. I went to see Mrs. Foster…

I went to see Rebecca three times that week. I’d dressed her wounds, cooked her meals, and tended her children. And all the while, I tried to figure out what to do about the assault. Isaac was in Boston, seeking an intervention from the head of his congregation after being dismissed as minister in Hallowell over a series of theological differences.

Sally Pierce, as it turns out, could not serve as a witness for Rebecca. During the month of August she was tending her older sister and newborn niece at Fort Western. Husband gone, help gone, Rebecca was alone and vulnerable. Easy prey. But why? That is the thing I haven’t yet been able to figure out. Why had North and Burgess committed such an egregious, violent crime? They couldn’t have believed she would keep it to herself. Or that they would get away with it.

I flip back to September 30, when I’d been called to the parsonage by Isaac to answer that round of brooding questions concerning what happened to his wife. And then, later that afternoon, to my conversation with North in which he asked for an accounting of every conversation I’d had with Isaac and Rebecca since August. I’d refused, of course. It was none of his business, and I wasn’t obligated to tell him anything. But now Joshua Burgess is dead, and though Rebecca seemed relieved to hear the news, it came without any kind of real justice. I can’t help but think of Isaac, locked away in his study, writing letters. Has he been plotting revenge as well as professional vindication? And should I expect less from a man whose wife was so horribly violated?

I set down my pen. Push the journal away. Fretting over these questions will do no good. It is time to speak with my husband.

In summer, the path down to the mill is worn and wide from years of Ballard feet walking back and forth. But in winter it is little more than a channel between snowbanks, packed hard by heavy-soled boots. It winds through the pasture, into the woods, and toward the creek. Pine and sumac grow along its sides, along with patches of pennyroyal. But the dark, mint-shaped leaves have long since dried and fallen, which is a pity because I nearly ran through my supply delivering the last Prescott girl. Concoction of pennyroyal helps calm excited nerves, and I find it useful when delivering a Prescott. Screamers every one of them. Two of the three girls are expecting in the spring, and I dread attending the births. They learned such hysterics from their mother.

The woods are quiet today, and I miss the melodic, tinkling sound of the waterwheel outside the mill. Locked in the ice, the wheel won’t turn again until the thaw, and that makes Ephraim’s job more difficult. The wheel helps power the long saws, but now it will be Ephraim and our sons heaving their way through every log. Now that the river has frozen, he and the boys will have to make their deliveries by land instead, an arduous, time-consuming task that will leave them all exhausted and testy.

Lucky me.

I run a fingertip over a bright red burst of sumac berries, reminded how I love this path in winter. The combination of verdant pine boughs and blazing berries is striking against the snow, a well-earned bit of showmanship for outlasting all the other plants and shrubs. I make a mental note to come back later and harvest the sumac. When ripe, the berries make an excellent lemon-tinged spice for meats and vegetables, and I think Dolly might like to add some to the roast we’ll be having for dinner tonight. But I won’t collect them all as the berries are also a favorite source of winter food for rabbits and foxes.

I pause mid-step on the path. The fox. I mustn’t forget to tell Ephraim about our unnerving visitor. Was it only a few hours ago? I feel as though a month of Sundays has passed since I arrived home.

This is what it means to age, I think. The days are long, but the years are short.

The oddness of my encounter with the fox still feels like a portent of some kind, a lingering in the air, like a fog that doesn’t burn away with the midday sun. Ephraim will neither laugh at me nor be alarmed. He will simply nod and think on it, the way he does with most things. If I give him enough time, he might even have an explanation. Some men think in a straight line, like an arrow off the string. They go to logic, to the easy conclusion, and avoid the waterways of the mind. But not Ephraim. His head is all rivers and streams, and with a mind like that a thought could run anywhere.

He will have an answer. He always does.

Our lumber mill is set into the bank of Mill Creek, on stone foundations right where the current is strongest. It is large. Larger than our barn, in fact. The first floor has ample space to store and dry a great deal of cut timber, plus additional workspace for Ephraim. The second floor comprises a loft that runs the length of the mill and looks over the space below. Ephraim has even built a convenient staircase to access it for when we host a large gathering. There are few things more awkward, after all, than sending ladies up a ladder in their skirts.

Several years ago, Ephraim counterbalanced a wide, sturdy deck against the building so that it stretches over the water. No more dragging the boards down to the creek and standing knee-deep in mud while they are bound. Now he sends them straight off the pier and into the current below. They make a terrible splash, but they right easily and begin their journey toward the Kennebec, and then on to Hallowell, Farmingdale, and farther south, through Bath, and on to the shipyards in Boston, then to parts unknown. I like to think that there are vessels sailing the Atlantic made of boards sawn by my husband and sons. I like to think that we have contributed something to the wider world.

On the other side of the mill, out of sight, is a large wooden mews, attached to the exterior wall and accessible only by an inside door. Ephraim built it to house Percy, a peregrine falcon he found as a fledgling five years ago, and I can hear the bird now, calling for his lunch.

My husband looks up and smiles when I slip through the door.

“Hello, love,” he says.

Ephraim crosses the floor in three long strides and places a warm kiss in the dip between my eyebrows. In his youth he’d had black hair and eyes the color of a summer sky. A straight Welsh nose. Square jaw. His eyes and jaw are still as strong as the day I first met him. But his hair is streaked with silver, and his nose slightly crooked thanks to a dirty punch he received fourteen years ago.

After a momentary glance in which he inspects me for soundness of life and limb, he asks, “Have you finally come to tell me what in blazes happened this morning?”