Letty Schultz and her four young children are physically and verbally abused by husband, Rudolf Schultz. When Letty finally fights back, she thinks she has killed him by hitting him on the head with an iron skillet. Letty flees with the children so she won’t go to prison and leave the children with Rudolf. They go down the Rock River and across Lake Koshkonong. She wonders what lies beyond the Rock River, on her way to her brother in Colorado.

Widower David Whitfield loses interest in his law practice in Wisconsin. He would rather raise horses. He agrees to help a deputy take a prisoner to Omaha. He decides to continue on to Colorado to visit his best friend, Letty's brother, Ed Winthrop.

Letty and David remember a time in their youth when they had planned a life together, and now they looked forward to doing that. And when irate husband Rudolf arrives in Colorado, Letty is prepared both mentally and physically. She also has divorce papers.

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EXCERPT:

June 1886

Run, Danny, Run!” Letitia Schultz pushed her young son behind her before his father hit him again. She warily watched her irate forty-year-old husband, Rudolf, as she and Danny backed slowly around the kitchen’s heavy oak table toward the outside door and safety.

All it had taken was for Mother Schultz to innocently an-nounce how nice it was that David Whitfield returned to Fort Atkinson from New York, to move into his deceased father’s house. Since his high society wife had become something of an invalid, he had decided to return home so she could enjoy a quiet existence that country living afforded her. When he did, he’d taken over his father’s law practice.

That news had sent Letty’s husband into a viciously jeal-ous tirade about her former beau. Rudy’s sister, Marta, hur-ried upstairs. A frightened Mother Schultz quickly retired to her room. Their three younger children scampered to bed like small mice to their holes. Rudolf angrily snapped his wide sus-penders, then stomped off to the nearest tavern.

Now he had returned, drunk, and angrier than ever. His shouts rattled the window panes. “You will not take up with Whitfield! You will not talk to Whitfield! I forbid it! You hear me now!”

Once Letty saw her sturdy nine-year-old run to safety she tossed her heavy brown braid out of the way and faced her fu-rious husband. Determination surged through every vein. She slapped a hand down on the table. The lamp flame bounced in-side the glass chimney. She hastily moved the lamp to safety on a shelf, not taking her eyes from his temper-mottled face.

“I have no intention of taking up with David Whitfield. You have destroyed any interest I would ever have in any man, Rudolf Schultz! You’re drunk! This cannot go on the rest of our lives!” She faced him, her small chin firmly set.

He grabbed the leather belt from the nail by the kitchen door, swinging it as he upended the heavy table and lunged at her. Letty dodged the belt but his other fist caught the side of her face. The rank smell of the special German beer he or-dered at the tavern gagged her. His heavy body odor and foul words swirled around her dazed senses as he lurched at her, big hands ready to violently shake her, or choke her, she knew not which. She stumbled backward against the big wood stove. As she jumped to keep from being burned she snatched the handle of the recently cleaned iron skillet set to dry at the cooler end of the stove.

He lunged at her, ready to hit her again. Letty swung the skillet, striking the side of his head! Blood gushed from the wound! His body fell to the floor with a hard thump.

She dropped the skillet. Both hands covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Only a whimper escaped. “Oh God, I’ve killed him!” She stared down at him in horror. “They’ll throw me in prison. What will become of my children?”

* * *

“Ma! Ma, is Pa gone to bed?” Danny’s whisper came from the outside door.

“Danny, go up to bed by the back stairs.” Letty forced strength into her wobbly knees. She hurried toward the wash room to shield him from the sight of his bloody father lying prone on the floor. She waited by the doorway until Danny passed by her. “Do you hurt an awful lot, Danny? Do you need chipped ice on your eye?”

“I’ll be okay, Ma. It’s no worse than last time.” He tried to look brave, while holding one sturdy hand over a rapidly swelling eye. He disappeared toward the stairs.

Letty returned to the kitchen. Blood was everywhere! She hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. Rudolf didn’t move. She blotted blood from his face and dun-colored hair with a cloth. He still didn’t move. Her hands clutched each other in des-peration. What should she do? He looked dead. Her knees threatened to buckle. What if his mother awoke and saw him what she had done? She snatched a big dish towel and covered his head and shoulders. She backed cautiously out the kitchen door into the wash room. Both hands went to her trembling lips. What should she do?

Danny poked his head around her full gray gingham skirt. “Ma, is he hurt? You shoulda done that before.”

“Danny, you should not have come back!” Danny’s candor amazed and appalled her. “You were to go upstairs like I told you.”

“But we gotta run now. He’ll probably kill us all. Me and Siggy got ready to run away last week, ‘cause school’s out, ‘til you stopped us again. You told us not to go without you. Will they put you in jail?”

“Danny!” Letty’s hand flew to her chest. Her heart pounded so hard it thumped in her ears. Could a twenty-six-year-old woman have a heart attack? They really did have to escape. The law would take her children. This could-n’t...shouldn’t be happening.

“We got the raft built bigger, only it won’t hold to-gether.” Worry creased his young brow, under a swatch of dark blond hair. “We can go by train. I’ll wake Siggy and the girls.”

“Wait! We can’t go by train. Sheriff Bullock would arrest me at the depot. They’ll put me in prison.” She kneaded her hands and wrung her apron by turns.

“Mr. Whitfield’s got a big, flat-bottomed boat. He’d let us borrow it.”

“We can’t tell David. Danny, please, let me think. This isn’t a big adventure, you know.

It’s very serious.”

“Yeah, it’s serious.” The scowl came between his blue eyes as he peered up at her. “What if Aunt Marta comes down for tea ’cause she can’t sleep?”

“Oh. Oh, my. Quick. Run up the back stairs. Have Siggy pack underwear and socks and...and get the girls.”

“Ma, I told you, me an’ Siggy are all packed from last week. I’ll tell the girls. We just waited. You didn’t want us to go. You said not to go without you.”

“Hurry. I’ll pack food. Bring the girls down the back stairs so they don’t see him.”

Twice before she’d tried to flee Rudolf. There were lists and a packed valise. Rudolf’s friend Herman had kept her off the train with her first two children. Then Elsa had been born and next Julie, who was a small babe when she’d packed again and loaded the buggy. Rudolf had broken her wrist that time.

Letty packed the picnic basket swiftly, including cook-ware. Each child could help carry. Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped off her nose. She hoisted her long gray skirt above her knees and ran up the front stairs. Whispers and stealthy sounds of movement came from the children’s’ rooms. The boys lugged out bulging old satchels. Dark-haired Siggy had his sling shot. A sleepy, sober-faced Elsa appeared in the doorway of the girls’ room, tugging a filled pillow case.

“That’s a good girl.” Letty gave her a hug. “Help Julie, please.” Three-year-old Julie had a thumb in her mouth. Her pale blue eyes were huge in her small face under a tangle of ash blonde hair. Letty sent them down the back stairway

She entered her and Rudolf’s room, and shuddered at the memories. Quickly she packed clothing necessities in a valise from the closet. She searched the chambray shirt pile for hid-den money he kept for his drinking. A sob escaped her. What had she done?

Praying Rudolf’s sister, Marta, would not awake and come to see what went on, Letty removed her shoes and crept down the wide wooden stairs. At the bottom she quickly put on the shoes, hooked the buttons, slipped the button hook in the valise and hurried across the end of the dining room to the kitchen. Carrying the valise and the heavy picnic basket she crossed the wash room off the kitchen and stepped outside.

Four children stood in a row on the porch. In the dim light from the wash room lamp they stared up at her from round blue eyes.

“You have your good shoes packed?”

Four solemn nods.

“Your coats?’

Four nods.

Letty drew a deep breath of despair that life had come to this.

“We’ll go to Mr. Whitfield’s boat,” Danny said. “Hurry, Ma. C’mon, you guys. Pa can’t track us on the river. He won’t know where we went.”

“But...” Letty stared into the darkness in dismay. Thank goodness Danny didn’t realize his father could be dead. The children disappeared from sight. What had she done? Murder! Stealing a boat! She clutched her handbag with the egg and garden seed money in it. Inside the wash room Rudolf kept bull purchase money in a leather pouch. She thrust that money into her handbag. She blew out the lamp, closed the wash room door quietly behind her, and hurried into the early moonlight, up the river path, struggling with her heavy load.

The early June air seemed so much colder than expected. She shivered as the cool breeze came off the River.

Only three children occupied the two middle seats in the wide fishing boat at David Whitfield’s nearby dock. “Where’s Danny?” Letty asked.

“He’s after the barn lantern so we can see,” said Siggy.

“Have you got matches, Ma? Danny said to ask,” Elsa said.

“Yes. And Grandma Schultz’s extra chamber pot is tied to my belt.”

“We found fish poles and stuff in the boat. Do we keep them?” Siggy asked.

“We’re already stealing his boat.” It horrified her to be us-ing theft.

“I’m here.” Danny handed a lantern and a can of kerosene with a potato sealing off its spout into the boat. He jumped aboard.

“Siggy and Elsa, move up front so I can row from the middle,” Letty told them. “Danny, hold down the back. Julie, you sit real still and hang onto the seat. Siggy, is the anchor there?”

“Yeah.”

“Unwrap the rope and bring it aboard. The river current will take us down stream in a hurry.”

“Pull in at our dock, Ma. We got that real old trunk of stuff in the barn.” Danny made ready to throw the rope around the dock post, avoiding their own small boat with the hole in it. “David give us a worn out tent to play with.”

“Gave, Danny, gave,” Letty corrected automatically. “Julie, keep your rag doll from falling in the water.” She patted her pocket to reassure herself of the soft rattle of the paper with the directions to her brother Edward’s place in Colorado.

Once the small trunk was loaded and they again moved downstream, Letty began to feel in charge of her own life. No Rudolf to forbid her. No Rudolf to order this and order that on things she already thought of long before he had. No Marta with petty disagreements and sulks.

Letty looked back once as they drifted swiftly past their own orchard. It was her family farm being left to the preda-tory Rudolf. Early in their eleven-year marriage she’d realized he married her for the farm. Now he had it. She was also leav-ing physical and verbal abuse, the jealousies and hates, and be-ing told she was stupid and scrawny. She trembled. It fright-ened her to think that he would be standing on the bank shout-ing at them to return, instead of lying prone on the kitchen floor.

Letty looked forward. Ahead began their new life. Be-yond the Rock River. Who knew what would develop once they were beyond the Rock? It could not be worse than what they left behind.

Freedom! Wonderful freedom!

The swift current caught the boat and carried it down the river. Letty frantically worked the oars to keep the prow going the right direction and away from rocks she knew were along the shoreline. She wondered how soon David would miss his boat and report they had stolen it.

* * *

David Whitfield remembered he’d been proud of getting so much done that first day of the startling news. He steepled long fingers under his chin, a pen sticking out between the fin-gers of his right hand. So, Letitia Dunham Schultz and four children were missing, and Rudolf Schultz had over twenty stitches in his head. Did Letty think she’d killed him? Did she fear he would kill her? Had he killed them all in a fit of rage?

Five days earlier he’d seen Letty, Rudolf and Marta in town. He remembered well Letty’s excitement when he’d pulled her aside to ask how her brother, Edward, was. He’d seen a letter from him in the mail Marta got from the Fort At-kinson Post Office. Edward Dunham had been his closest friend in their early years, so he’d recognized the unusually large handwriting even though Marta sought to hide it.

Throwing his pen down, he leaned back in the swivel chair. Had Rudy burned Letty’s letter from Edward, as it was rumored he usually did?

Counting the days back, four days ago he’d run into Letty’s two boys, Danny and seven-year-old Siggy. It was very early, along the river, as he took a morning stroll. They’d asked a lot of questions about camping when he went on a fish-ing trip. It would do no good for them to hint going on a fish-ing trip with him. He felt sure they already knew their father would never allow it. So what were the questions all about? What else had they asked?

What had they asked about rafts? Oh, yes. They discussed needing a rudder and poles to push the raft along if the water was shallow like the small bay behind their barn, or oars if the water was deep. He hoped they didn’t plan to try the river.

Three days ago, he didn’t recall seeing any of them. He’d been in court all day in Jefferson.

David went outside and leaned against the outer office wall in the shade, again counting back. Two days ago, in the grocery store, Letty had waited for the clerk. She had carefully not turned, though he knew she felt his presence. Just as he could always feel her presence and catch the scent of lilacs when she came near. Since the death of his father bringing him back to Fort Atkinson, he had been overly conscious of the re-turn of his feelings for Letty, but very careful not to show it.

“It’s nice your brother wrote you again so soon. I hope nothing is wrong and he’s doing well.” He’d wanted desper-ately to touch her thin shoulder.

Unable to conceal her surprise Letty quickly turned. “A letter? So soon? What do you mean?” Light blue eyes were large in her small pointed face, beneath the stiff brim of her blue sunbonnet.

“Just now I saw Marta pick one up at the post office. You know how big Edward writes. I couldn’t help but see it, like I did the one three-four days ago.”

Much agitated, Letty grabbed the grocer’s package, murmured “Thank you,” to David and fled out the door.

Quietly he’d followed, in case the sour Marta denied re-ceiving such a letter, which she must have done before.

“Marta, where is my letter?” Letty climbed into the sur-rey. “Rudy shan’t have this one. Give it to me right now!”

David had watched as Letty snatched the envelope from Marta’s hand and avidly read and reread the short letter. Com-ing up beside the buggy he had quietly inquired about her brother.

“He broke his leg, which gives him time to write. He’s well otherwise. He invites us to visit him,” was all she’d said to him. Now he wondered, did she plan to go to Edward?

Only this morning had there been time for him to wander to the river dock and check his boat for a day of anticipated fishing. Organizing his father’s law practice had taken much time since he’d returned home from his own eastern practice.

To his surprise the boat was gone, and the rope with the anchor, along with his fishing gear. Had it been missing with-out his realizing it? He didn’t think it could have come loose on its own. Should he tell the sheriff his boat disappeared? What had happened during those next two days besides Rudolf showing up with a need for twenty-some stitches in his head? Where were Letty and her children now?

* * *

Letty remembered repeating and repeating her brother’s directions to his home in her mind, already sure her irate hus-band would not allow her to keep the letter. How many oth-ers had he destroyed? From the corner of her eye she’d seen Attorney David Whitfield turn and go into his office, after his inquiry about his friend, Ed. Her thought then, and now, was how lucky a woman would be to have a nice handsome hus-band like David. Now she’d stolen his fishing boat. Would he report it missing and likely stolen, right away?

Luckily she’d written down the directions and address in the letter. Letty patted her pocket. The soft rattle of paper again reassured her. Even without reading the words she knew they said, ‘West of Denver, to Glenwood Springs, and south sixty miles into the mountains’. Those directions would start them out. It would take weeks to get that far.

If only they got there safely. She’d never seen mountains. Were they headed in the right direction? She dipped one oar to straighten the boat’s progress down river.

“We gotta git goin’, Ma,” Danny urged. “It will take a long time to get far away and find a place before it gets cold again. Where are we goin’?”

“We’ve no place to go but Uncle Edward’s ranch in Colo-rado. I wish...well, I just wish...” Tears gathered in her eyes and clung to her lower lashes.

She gazed back in the darkness to where the apple orchard would have sheep already grazing. In her mind she saw the fenced garden where she and the children tended long rows of vegetables in the summer. She even pictured the grass grown bank where they’d all caught fish on happier days with Rudolf. The fine stone house her parents built was only a small black silhouette in the sky. The oak beamed barn with all the stan-chions for cows and the horse barn where the big draft horses were kept all blurred in the darkness as they’d floated by.

The river swiftly carried them. The little hoard of egg money seemed pitifully small, even when adding the Christ-mas money from Aunt Felicia in Milwaukee, and the bull money.

“I’ll miss my friends in school, but we gotta go. We just gotta.” Danny’s voice quavered from behind her. Letty turned and patted his husky shoulder as he helped guide the boat.

Letty, too, agreed they must go quickly. Two nights ago Rudolf had caught little Julie up in his big hands, probably to dandle her on his knee, though he rarely did. The frightened little girl had promptly wet herself down his leg. Just as promptly he’d spanked her so hard she fainted in terror. Her bottom still showed purple hand marks. That must not...could not, happen again.

Elsa and Siggy slid down into the boat bottom and fell asleep. Letty felt Julie asleep against her knees as she used the oars.

Behind her Danny said, “Jeremy Carter says you gotta go down river when the water is high so’s you don’t hit all the rocks. We’re going at the right time now, aren’t we?”

“It looks like we are. How does Jeremy know?”

“Him and Ab ran away to go fishing once.” Danny shoved his makeshift rudder to stop the boat’s turn into the bank.

“How far is the lake, Ma?”

“I heard once it is five miles from our farm, then the lake is another nine miles long before we get to the river part again.”

“We won’t ever see the farm again, will we, Ma?”

“Likely not.” A sob caught in her throat. Did she give up more than she would gain? Would they really succeed in get-ting away this time? Rudy could not stop them if he was really dead. She shuddered from the memory of his prone body amid all the blood. Her mouth dried and she clamped her jaws tight to keep from crying out.

What if David came after his boat? Letty’s heart lurched, then thudded. Would it be pleasure or pain if he did? How could she think like this? What type of woman had she be-come? One man should have soured her for a lifetime on any thoughts of men. But David had never been like Rudolf.

“Ma! Watch out! A tree!”

Letty used an oar to push away from the tree. They must not damage David’s boat. They would find a place to leave it for him when they reached a railroad town.

* * *

David briskly walked the half mile along the river bank from his small white home to the first Fort Atkinson street and then on the sidewalk to his office. Rain had cleared the muggy air. Sunshine popped out between scudding clouds that fast disappeared to the east. He waved to people he knew, glad of the drier air. Had Letty and the children kept dry last night?

As he walked he recalled a much earlier week, back in his youth. He remembered when

Letty wore soft rose colored gowns and blue plaid gowns with little gathered bustles behind that emphasized the cute way she walked. Her hair, too, had been different in those days, piled high with small curls around her face. Now she wore her dark brown hair pulled severely back into a tight braid. Now her blue eyes were always serious. The sparkle had gone. He had the feeling she had few friends that Rudolf hadn’t driven away.
He too easily remembered a much earlier walk, with Letty. He still felt her soft pink lips beneath his own. They were children then, barely halfway into their teens. They waltzed at the local parties their parents took them to. At the Burnham’s and the Hoard’s. Or they sat close in the orchard, reading the Jefferson County Union together.

What a wonderful, carefree summer that had been. Then he’d gone off to college and everything changed. What could have been different if he’d never gone away to school and Letty’s father hadn’t had his fatal accident?

Had she really taken his boat? How far could she get in a day? The old tent he’d given the boys last summer would hardly shelter five people, even with some of them very small. If they had taken the boat they’d find his better tent folded tightly under one seat. Would they get safely away from the brutal Rudolf, this time?