Nan's Journey

Desperate to save her life and that of her five-year-old brother, Nan packs and flees an abusive home, embarking on a journey that will test her faith, determination, and spirit. Set in the 1800s, Nans Journey, follows Nan and her brother, Elmer, as they seek safety and find refuge and hope in the arms of a family of strangersincluding Fred Young, a disgruntled preacher turned mountain man, who reaches out to help, only to find a hope and love renewed in his own heart. In her first novel, author Elaine Littau weaves memorable characters into the vivid background of the wild, unsettled heart of America, presenting readers with the timeless struggle of overcoming adversity, and seeking hope above all through Nans Journey.

Nan’s Journey

Book I

Nan’s Heritage Series

by Elaine Littau

Elaine has written the story
Nan's Journey 
from the very core of her being.
 
She is a passionate woman.
 
Her love for God, her family, her friends, the way she speaks, the way she writes is all done
 
with passion.
 
God has blessed her and has allowed her to share one of her many talents with the world when she wrote
Nan
’s Journey.

Stacy Townsend

Elaine is one of the most thoughtful people I've ever known. In addition, she's creative and outright fun! I'm not at all surprised that she's also a successful author!

Chris Samples

President

Chris Samples Broadcasting, Inc.

98.3 KXDJ

Having pastored fifteen years, and as a lover of Christian fiction for over thirty years, it has been a joy to read the very moving story of Mrs. Littau's
Nan
.
I look forward to her future work and to the resolution of
Nan's Journey.

R. Scott Barton

Senior Pastor of Harvest Time First Assembly of God Church.

This intriguing story drew me in from the very beginning. I ‘became’ Nan trying to escape from a painful life.
Nan’s Journey
was full of excitement and hope for the future.

Geraldine Bond

Through Elaine’s talent and imagination she has utilized her creative nature in this book. Nan will capture yur heart as her life unfolds through sorrows and joys. Nan learns to love, forgive, and trust God through unpredictable twists and turns. This is a book I could not put down! I
ca
n’t wait for
the sequel.

Melissa Otto

Other Titles by Elaine Littau

Nan’s Heritage Series:

Book I - Nan’s Journey

Book II- Elk’s Resolve

Book III- Luke’s Legacy

Book IV- The Eyes of a Stranger

Book V - Timothy’s Home

Rescued, A Series of Hope:

Book I- Some Happy Day

Book II- Capture the

Wandering Heart

Plus others coming soon.

Nan’s Journey

Copyright 2012 by Elaine Littau. All rights reserved.

No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise with the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1769. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This novel in a work of fiction, Names, descriptions, entities and incidents in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual  persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy of each recipient. It your’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for youruse only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own. copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Smashwords edition.

Dedication:

This book is dedicated to my husband, Terry

Sons: Stephen, Marlin, and Michael

Daughters-in-law: Aimee,
Cari
, and April

Grandchi
ldren: Devon, Zach, Sierra,
Maci
, and Elijah

Siblings: Donna, Geraldine, Wanda, Maynard, and Jim.

Acknowledgements:

My mother and daddy had six children. I happen to be number six. When I came along my siblings were either teenagers or in their twenties. By the time I became a teenager my parents had retired.

My growing up years were flavored with many stories from my parents of “old times”. They told of how both of them moved from place to place in covered wagons. My grandparents were real pioneers, blacksmiths, and homesteaders. They travelled in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado in the covered wagons.

Westerns played on the television every evening as I did homework and books by Grace Livingston Hill, Zane Grey, and Louis L’Amour made up the majority of my entertainment selections. All of this was the basis of an appreciation of by-gone days. Today I can imagine myself bumping along on a wagon seat or gathering cow chips. Mother and Daddy are gone now, but the stories live on.

Foreword

There are people who flow in and out of our lives, weaving a beautiful tapestry of relationships, but sometimes you see the same colorful thread or pattern repeated over and over. That's how it is with a good friend. Their presence is woven into our lives until it literally becomes part of the pattern of our lives. Elaine Littau has been that kind of friend for me. She is a woman of many diverse, creative talents, not the least of which is the ability to take a negative situation and turn it into something positive and even wonderful. Elaine has a keen eye for possibility, an innate ability to take unlikely materials and mold them into beautiful creations. Throughout the years, I've known her to take on various challenges from set design for the community play, to Robin Hood costumes for the neighborhood boys to play in, to speaking before ladies’ groups and creating crafts for the local craft cooperative, just to name a few.
An artist, writer, humorist, and speaker, Elaine can fill many roles. She simply sees things differently than the rest of us. A crack in the wall? Well, we'll just paint over it thus and so, and voila! It looks like it was meant to be that way. Not enough money to purchase the right supplies? Let's try this and that, and suddenly, you have the intended effect.
 
The word "impossible" is
not
in her vocabulary.
A gifted story-teller, Elaine has a natural ability to make people laugh. Through the years, she has regaled her friends with stories of her wonderful husband and sons, and large extended family, complete with accents and colloquialisms.
 
Many times, Elaine has taken an unpleasant incident and woven it into a hilarious tale, which ends more often than not with an imitation of her husband's slow Texas drawl, "Well, babe," as a preface to any explanation he feels the need to make. I recall her lively tale of working in the kitchen of a church camp one hot Georgia summer, and repeating a southern cook's drawled advice to her that "You cain't rosh aiggs," as she rushed about in the stifling humidity to crack and scramble enough eggs for a couple hundred hungry youngsters. Elaine's expressive mimicry and ability to paint pictures with words can make you see a scene so vividly in your mind that the experience seems to become your own.
Elaine's giftings are God-designed and God-given, and those who know her have been blessed by those gifts, because she so generously shares herself with others.
 
I hope that her story of
Nan's Journey
will inspire those who read it, and that Elaine's personal story will encourage others to take a chance and try what they've never tried before, and spread their wings and fly, even if just a little.
 

Rhonda Culwell

Chapter 1

It was late. The moon had
risen and the night
symphony
was
in full force. Crickets chirped at their rivals, the frogs
, and dominated the night chorus
. Only one sound in the
forest was foreign
—a
whimper from u
nder the ferns
. A
t the base of the largest pine in the woods was a small form crying, moaning, and whimpering. Black hair
,
matted and dirty
,
hung in long ropes down the front of the tiny girl. She had bee
n in this spot for hours.
Stretching, she cried out in pain. The blood-covered welts burst open to bleed again. Her back was wet with blood
,
and her dress was torn and useless.

Why had she dared to speak to the woman that she was obliged to call mother in that way? She knew that talking was not allowed from children before chores were finished. The accusations being made by “Ma” were totally false and she could not let Elmer take the blame for something she herself had forgotten to do. She shut her eyes tight against the memory, but it intruded anyway.

She got
up to take the wat
er off the stove to make up
dishwat
er for the supper dishes. Ma
stepped outside the room to turn down her bed and prepare for sleep. When she reappeared in
the kitchen, she realized that the wood supply next to the stove was low. Elmer was standing next to the table gathering the plates for washing.

“Elmer, where is the wood you were supposed to bring up to the
house?”
She asked.
Before he could answer,
a hand had slapped him across his face. Getting back onto his feet and standing as tall as a
five
year old can stand, he looked her in the eye and said, “Ma, I was sick today, ‘member?”

“So, Elmer, you’re going to play up that headache trick again. Nan, didn’t your good for nothing Mama teach you people how to work, or are you just lazy?”

“Our Mama was good! Don’t you say mean things about her
!
” Nan yelled as her heart raced at the assault against her real Ma
ma
’s character.

“What about it, Elmer, are you like your weakling Mama or
what?” Elmer’s eyes became
large and filled with tears. He could barely remember his real Ma
ma
. All
he remembered
were soft kisses,
sweet singing and a beautiful face. “I’m
sorry;
I’ll get the wood now.”

“No, Elmer. D
on’t. I promised you I’d do it today when your head was hurting, but I forgot. I’ll get it after I do these dishes
.
”

“Listen here, Nan,
Elmer will do what I say
,
when I say, and you will respect me.”

Nan’s eyes widened.

“Don’t look
at me like that, little girl.”

Nan held her breath.

That look was the last straw. Mary screamed, “Come
to the wood shed…
with me!”
Ma
grabbed her by the arm and jerked her along behind the shed. The strap was hanging there, waiting
. Whippings were becoming more
frequent
. After Ma’s husband left, they had taken on a more cruel form. The last whipping was more like a beating. It took days for the marks to scab over and heal.
Afterwards Little Elmer
brought some horse medicine from the barn and applied it to the oozing marks.

The next afternoon when the schoolteacher came over, Ma had already formulated a story. “Mrs. Dewey, we missed Nan and Elmer today a
t school. Are they sick?” Ma was not accustomed to lying
but she
said, “Well Miss Sergeant, since Mr. Dewey is going to be gone for another four weeks, I need more help around here to get things done. I’m holding the kids out until he gets back.” Week after week went by, and Mr. Dew
e
y still hadn’t come home.
Everyday Ma grew more angry and it was
impossible to please her. When she began hitting Elmer, it was too much. Nan had to do something
—
right or wrong; things couldn’t stay the way they were.

The
coolness of the earth had settled
into Nan’s bones. She stood silently fo
r a minute and carefully crept
up to the farmhouse. As she opened t
he door, she saw that Elmer
in the pallet at the foot of the stove next to her bedroll.
Ma was asleep in her room. T
he door
was
held open with a rock. Slowly sh
e began
peeling
off the dress and
the dried blood stuck to it. She reached for the old shirt she no
rmally wore over
under her dress
to soak up the blood from her wounds. She
washed it today. It had bloodstains on it, but it would keep
her
from ruining another dress. She retr
ieved the old work dress. I
t w
as the only one left. S
he put it on
swiftly
and shook Elmer awake with her hand over his mouth.