Water splashed like sparkling crystal in the wake of the scow as it worked its way up the Rush River, toward S
t. Louis.
Mia Collins stood on the deck with her father and the man hired to help row the scow. She was eighteen years of age, petite, with long auburn hair, and she was wearing a comfortable full-length cotton dress.
She stood back away from the men so that she wouldn’t be in the way of the long oars that moved the scow through the river.
She was enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on her pretty round face as her luminous green eyes took in the sights along the riverbank.
She loved to see the occasional deer dipping its nose into the water for a refreshing drink, or a mother opossum carrying its babies on its back.
She loved to smell the scent of the wildflowers that dotted the land, as well as the cedar aroma coming from the towering trees that intermingled with oaks and elms in the shadowy forest.
She and her mother and father had waited to wander once again along the river in their scow, until the warmer weather of spring. Her father had longed for this journey all winter when he felt cooped up either at home, or working on the ships that he helped build for a huge company in St. Louis.
But this spring, the trip downriver was not the same as before. After traveling some distance in the scow, her father had said they must turn back.
He had confided in his wife and daughter about pains that he’d been feeling in his chest. He feared a heart attack was imminent.
They had turned the scow back in the direction of St. Louis, where their home had been locked up until their return. They were in the habit of spending the later months of the summer there when it got too hot to live on the scow.
Mia looked slowly around her now, at the bargelike conveyance on which her family had lived during these past weeks. It was built of logs, lashed together to provide a deck where a little cabin had been built. Here they could take shelter if there were storms and here their provisions were stored away from the elements.
They traveled by day and spent the nights beside a campfire near the river, while her father’s assistant boatman slept aboard the scow, which was tied up near them at the embankment.
If they did leave the scow to sleep on land, on the coldest of evenings, when they needed the warmth of a campfire, they slept huddled in separate blankets beside the fire.
Mia gazed over her shoulder at a small longboat that skipped along in the water behind the scow, tied to it by a sturdy rope. It was there in case a quick escape was needed, for the larger vessel was not easily maneuvered.
Out of love and pride, Mia’s father had painted her name on both sides of the longboat.
With concern, she gazed at her father. His name was Harry. He was over six feet tall, yet seemed shorter now because he stood stooped over as though the world lay heavy on his broad shoulders.
He no longer had thick, red hair, but instead gray.
He had the same luminous green eyes as Mia, but they were filled with terrible sadness since the death of his wife.
Mia blinked back tears as she thought of how her mother had died. It had been on a day as beautiful as this one, and the scow had been leisurely making its way between tall cliffs along the river.
Mia had looked up just in time to see a lone Indian fitting his bowstring with an arrow. The flight of the arrow had been swift and deadly.
But it seemed the man had wished to kill only one person. After he had watched Mia’s mother fall, an arrow implanted in her chest, he had fled and had never been seen again.
Mia would never forget that moment. Her mother had died instantly, and the shock of seeing her struck down had caused Harry Collins to suffer a minor heart attack.
It had been up to Mia to take over. She had grabbed hold of her father’s oar, and along with the assistant boatman, had rowed the scow to dry land on the far shore.
Her father had recovered from his attack enough to say a final good-bye to his wife, his sweet Glenna, after the assistant boatman had dug a grave for her beneath a blossoming apple tree, her mother’s favorite of all trees. Mia would always remember the beautiful blossoms that had perfumed the air above her mother’s grave with their hauntingly sweet scent.
It was the very next day that they continued homeward, the loss of Mia’s mother lying heavy on everyone’s hearts except for the man who was assisting Mia’s father to row the scow.
Mia looked at him now as he stood on the side of the boat opposite her father.
His name was Tiny Brown.
He was a small, boisterous man, his sun-bronzed face speckled with freckles, his brilliant red hair brushing his shoulders.
He was an admitted card shark, and although he was skilled at helping with the scow, he persisted in annoying and teasing Mia, showing her one trick and then another with his cards.