Anna

Chapter 1

She was cold, shivering, dreading the coming season.  Even though it is early fall, the first week in October, actually, here in the northern portion of North Dakota winter weather is just around the corner.  It’s a beautiful, clear, sunny day, but the temperature isn’t exactly balmy.  The young woman hugs herself, trying to retain her body heat. She’s wearing just a light jacket, the only one she has.  ‘How did I end up like this?’, she wonders.  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m not a bad person.  I just wanted to get to Nana’s house’.

Her companion looks over at her, sneers, and backhands her across the face.  Again.  He’s driving drunk.  Against all rules nowadays, but he doesn’t seem to be worried about any consequences.  The young female passenger just wishes he would keep his eyes on the road, both for safer driving, and so he will stop hitting her.

Earlier in the ride, as they were driving through a state forest, the man had instructed her to find a small, little-traveled road on the map.  When she couldn’t locate it, he whacked her.  Then, in anger, he threw the map out the window.  Now, a short while later, he told her to start looking at the map again, obviously forgetting in his stupor that he had thrown it out the window of the vehicle.  Now he accused her of lying, and possibly hiding the map under the seat, or in her pocket.

Of course this is preposterous, but the young woman has learned not to argue.  That just offers him more reasons for prolonging the beatings.

Bleeding from at least two places on her face, she also feels her eyes swelling shut.  Vaguely, she thinks, ‘Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad.  At least I wouldn’t feel the cold or the pain’.

Abruptly, the car slows and pulls over to the side of the road.  She knows what’s coming next and is too weary to care.  Here in the Homen State Forest, there’s no one else around to see what’s happening to her.  Under other circumstances, this would be a wonderful, peaceful outing, a day spent enjoying nature.

Early in September, Elizabeth Robins had left her parents’ home in Minot, North Dakota.  The bus ride to her grandmother’s house in Church’s Ferry, just one hundred miles away, should have taken a little under three hours.  Unfortunately for her, she fell asleep shortly after she boarded the bus.  When she felt the vehicle come to a stop, she awoke and asked in a panic where she was, and how far the bus had gone since she got on.  A couple of young men who obviously thought they were extremely clever, told her she had reached her destination, the town of Church’s Ferry.  In a scramble, Elizabeth grabbed her bag and got off just before the driver closed the doors and continued on his way.

It was immediately plain to Elizabeth that she was not, in fact, in Church’s Ferry, but rather in a place called Pratt.  She could see the faces of the two men in the rear window of the bus as it pulled away.  They were having a good laugh over their prank, evidently not a bit bothered by the fact that the young woman was going to be seriously inconvenienced.

As she stood there looking around, trying to figure out what to do next, she spotted a drug store with a public phone booth outside.  It also had a sign in the window identifying it as an authorized agent for the company whose bus she had just debarked.  This was the young woman’s first trip away from home, at least the first one on her own.

Before she could walk more than a few steps a car pulled up, blocking her way.  Startled at first, she relaxed when she saw the emblem on the door indicating that it was a sheriff’s car.

“Are you looking for something, miss?”, the man asked.

“Yes, I got off at the wrong stop, and now I’ll have to find out when the next bus comes through.  I need to get to Church’s Ferry.”

“Why, that’s another forty miles!”, he declared, “you should have known you hadn’t gone far enough yet.”

Sheepishly, she answered, “I would have known better if I had stayed awake, but I fell asleep almost as soon as we pulled out of the terminal in Minot.  A couple of men on the bus told me this was the right place, and I got off before I looked around for signs.  Now I’m stuck until the next scheduled bus.”

“Well”, the man said, “I guess I can give you a ride to Church’s Ferry.  Put your bag in the back, and get in.”

“Oh no, that’s too far!”, she exclaimed, “I’ll be okay if I can just get the information I need.  I don’t mind waiting.”

“It’s not too far”,