Chapter 39

The afternoon slipped away as I cruised southwest on the Ohio River. At twelve miles per hour, you don't eat up the miles, but you have plenty of time to take in the scenery. The Monticello River Yacht is really just a houseboat, with a "V" hull, that allows it handle a strong winds, and choppy wakes better than those flat hulled houseboats that are so popular, these days. The autopilot feature is good to help you stay in the channel, but the boat has such a shallow draft, it isn't really necessary – until it is, then you're glad you've got it.

The Ohio River is way too busy to rely on an auto pilot for anything other than knowing where to find the channel. You have to be paying attention every second, to make sure you don't hit floating logs, debris, dead animals, pleasure boats, water skiers – though not in late October – tug boats pulling impossibly long chains of barges and just about everything else.

Going out through wide glass doors, was the front deck, covered with an extended roof to keep the sun off the main helm station. The fly bridge was built especially for the boat - enclosed in a screened room - and used the hard top roof to keep it anchored. Screened doors exited to the side stairs and the back sun deck. Passengers could also choose to lay out and catch the sun in front of the fly bridge on the roof of the main deck cover.

Behind me, still inside the screened room, was a six person, hot tub that I had a local screen room company add. The hot tub on the houseboat back in Branson fully spoiled me. Hank mentioned that he thought I was having a love affair with the new boat, and I didn't try to deny it. It was love at first sight - and kept getting better.

I bought a bunch of great big fenders, and hung them off both sides of the boat, in case I got too close to the dock, when coming in for fuel. The one HUGE option that came with the Monticello was the bow and stern thrusters that made docking almost automatic. Two small motors on either side of the boat, one near the front, the other at the rear, pushed the boat sideways to help get in a slip, or pull in to park.

It came with a remote control that plugged in at the front - or back, so you could stand close to the dock, and see how you're doing, while maneuvering in. Thinking about getting that big old boat in and out of tight places without the thrusters, was downright frightening. By the time Hank spent an afternoon teaching me to use it, I felt confident enough to pull into a riverside restaurant for supper, just past Louisville, Kentucky.

Supper was a bacon wrapped chicken breast, bathed in BBQ sauce, with homemade fried potatoes, and marvelous creamed corn. I ate far too much and enjoyed groaning when I finally realized it was impossible to stuff anymore food down my throat.

Since the early fall darkness was quickly falling, I paid at the gas dock, for overnight hookups, and plugged into shore power. The satellite dish came with a premium package of channels, and I found something brainless to entertain me for a couple of hours - before hitting the sack.

My first night, alone, on my new boat was restful. With no real agenda, I slept a little late, and enjoyed breakfast at the marina restaurant, before topping off my fuel tanks, and heading out. It was a crisp fall day. The heavy sweater Rebecca picked out for me, while we were still "guests" of the FBI felt, very welcome on my upper body. I spent the day driving from the fly bridge, enjoying the scenery, and letting myself unwind. Lunch was at Caesars Riverboat Casino, on the Indiana side of the river, which was tricky, because they don't have a public dock. I beached the boat, and tied up to a couple of trees, just south of the fake riverboat, they use to justify their gambling license.

I was far too young to even walk across the casino floor, but their restaurant was open and offered plenty of normal food. I played tourist, and wandered around for a while, but got restless, wanting to keep moving. By two P.M. I was once more, heading toward Cairo, Illinois.

The afternoon passed quickly, and I found a pizza place – Jailhouse Pizza – in Brandenburg, Kentucky. I had to, once again, beach the boat, tie up to an iron fence, at a public park, and walk a block to the pizza parlor. It was worth it. I enjoyed my dinner - with a good book. The town of Maukport, Indiana offered a public launch, with just enough space to tie up and spend the night on generator power.

That's how my days went. I visited little towns along the river, whenever it struck my fancy, until I needed some things from Walmart, and docked to shop in Owensboro, on the Kentucky side of the River. The marina was happy to pump out my holding tanks, fill the fresh water, top off my fuel, and have their dock boy scrub down the boat, top to bottom, while lending their ten year old, Ford minivan to drive to Walmart.

It was just getting dark, and I paid in advance for the wash down, and waited until the boat was fueled, to make sure I paid for all my charges. I thanked the owner, and promised to gas up the minivan on my way back. The clerk gave me turn by turn directions and I headed out.

The first order of business was to find something to eat, and then shop. I struck out on finding a restaurant that appealed to me, and drove to the Owensboro Walmart. It was just like every other Walmart, everywhere, big, out of town a ways, and dead on a chilly Saturday evening that was turning cold, windy and downright unpleasant.

I parked well off to the side of the store, to keep away from people who live to bash your car door, and walked inside. The first order of business was the men's room.

On my way out of the restroom, I overheard two young girls talking. One was obviously in tears, and the older one was trying to comfort her. Their plight intrigued me, and I stopped to listen. I was wrong. It was three young girls, and their mother. I heard, "Mommy, where are we going to stay? We can't even sleep in the car, like the last few nights."

Another girl said, "Please don't make us go back to that shelter. The men LOOK at me like they want to do things to me. Please don't make us go back there..." Her tears overcame her, and I could tell that her mother had all she could do to keep it together.

Shushing her daughters, the mother herded them next door to a little coffee shop, where she tried valiantly to find enough change in the bowels of her purse to buy something hot for them to eat, and drink. That was too much for me. I'd followed them desperately wanting to help.

"Here," I said, softly, trying not to scare her. "Let me treat you all to dinner." The mother gave me a scathing look that disintegrated into one of either fear, grief, or something worse. I suspected she was at the end of her rope, and my offering her a hot meal was almost too much for her overloaded brain to bear.

I waited, patiently, for her to look me over, and decide if I was just another predator.

She thought about it for a long moment, and then smiled the tiniest smile, I'd ever seen, and said, "Thanks. That would be very kind." She was somewhere in her mid to late thirties, though the stresses that brought her to this point, may have her looking a little older than she actually was. Her eyes had that haunted, beaten look that abusive men seek out, and decent men pity. If I were to guess, she was on the run from a wife beater, and maybe one that also liked to abuse young girls, but that was just a guess.

Her face, though tear stained, showed evidence of old bruising. Someone had been using her for a punching bag. I suspected that the bruises I couldn't see looked far worse. She caught me staring, and said, "Thank you, Mr... ?"

I smiled. "Hi. I'm Brian Morse, and you are?"

"Tammy. Tammy Weldon. Please join us, Mr. Morse. These are my daughters, the twins – Linda and Amy, and my baby, Carrie. We've ... had a ... difficult time, lately. Thank you for our dinner. Say, 'thank you, ' girls."

They all joined as one, in thanking me. I took the lone empty seat at the round table. Carrie, the youngest, and most outgoing, openly appraised me. "You look nice. My sisters are only sixteen, but they're crazy about boys." she challenged. "I bet they'll be all gaga about you before we finish eating."

Before her mother had a chance to apologize, and her sisters had time to hit her, I said, "Well. There you go. I just get to town, and some nosy young girl is already trying to marry me off. What are you, some kind of matchmaker? Huh??" I grinned, and put a smile in my voice when I said it. If things were as hard for these four as I suspected, it wouldn't take much to send them running in fear of all men. I needed to keep it light and friendly.

I asked the waitress to bring us menus, and ordered hot chocolate for everyone, without asking. The server handed around menus, and gave the woman an evil look, so I guessed they had been stuck at Walmart for some hours, desperately looking for a way out. To head off any unpleasantness, I said, "We're all going to order dinner, and everyone will be having dessert. What's fresh, tonight?"

She sized me up and decided I was good for whatever their dinner was going to cost, and said, "We've got five slices of Apple Pie left that the men have loved."

That sounded great, and I looked at Tammy for confirmation before ordering all she had left, with ice cream and all the trimmings, to come after our dinners. Everyone picked out a dinner, and the waitress shimmied back to the kitchen, to put our orders in.

The girls chattered among themselves, while sneaking suspicious looks at me, as I busied myself not staring at anyone. Tammy finally broke the ice. "Mr. Morse,"

I cut her off and said, "Please. Call me Brian."

"Brian. I really do thank you for this ... kindness." She was on the verge of tears, again. Just admitting their plight was almost more than she could stand. "We had a bit of bad news, earlier today. My car was stolen, from right out there." She pointed to the parking lot, now dark, except for the pole lights. "It had everything we own in it.

"For the last few nights it was our home, as well as our transportation, and now we've lost both..."

Wanting to spare her some of the pain this was causing, I asked, "What has you out on the road, traveling?"

She was quiet a long time. So long, that the waitress dropped off our hot chocolate, and the girls began to fidget. "Just tell him, mom," said one of the twins. "Maybe he has a good idea."

Tammy looked at me as if telling was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. Screwing up her courage she said, "My husband. The girls' father has a drinking problem. When he drinks, he gets ... difficult. We've lived right at the edge of his violent streak for a long time, but recently he started to take out his ... anger ... on the children.

"When he was just hitting me, I could stand it, as long as the girls were Ok. But ... they're not Ok, I mean they're not safe ... now.

"My husband has a ... well, he ... what I'm trying to say is ... that ... Oh. Hell. That drunken bum wants to ... Oh, God, I can't believe I'm saying this to total stranger. He thinks he is entitled to use the girls, the same way he's used me for the last eighteen years." Her admission pulled the plug on her resolve, and she cried, silently across the table from me.

The twins were accustomed to comforting their mother, so the abuse had been going on for a long time. As the twins cuddled with their mom, I decided to give them some time, and chatted with Carrie. "What grade are you in, Carrie?"

She liked getting attention, and brightened noticeably. "I'm in ninth grade, but we haven't been going to school for a little while..." She stopped talking, no doubt sad about being away from home and friends.

"Well. What do they teach fourteen year olds, in ninth grade, these days," I asked? She grabbed on to the idea of changing the subject, and launched into a discussion about freshman English, social studies, math, and science. As soon as she exhausted her classes, she moved on to a detailed run down of her friends and neighbors, especially the cute boys, who, 'never gave her a second look, ' because her sisters were the really pretty ones in the family.