The Timber Salvage
In a rain-drenched Oregon harbor, nineteen-year-old Hannah works under her uncle's strict salvage operation until a brass drafting rule and a harbor master's ledger expose a long-buried inheritance.
Fictional story. Contains themes of family conflict, financial deception, and emotional distress.Chapter 1: The Cold Draft
The salt-heavy wind off Blackwood Bay slammed relentlessly against the rusted corrugated iron walls of the shipyard barn. Inside the cold, cavernous structure, nineteen-year-old Hannah Vance adjusted her oil-stained leather apron and drove another copper rivet into the oak rib of a twenty-foot wooden skiff. Her fingers were stiff with the damp chill, her skin stained dark grey by wet wood rot and metallic polishing compound. Beside her workstation, the tide mill’s massive wooden waterwheel groaned through its nightly churn, sending low, rhythmic vibrations shivering through the wet pine floorboards.
For three long years following her mother’s death, Hannah had lived and worked under the shadow of Vance Marine Salvage. She slept in an unheated room above the tool shed and survived on whatever food was left in the mess hall. Her uncle, Gareth Vance, ran the salvage yard with an iron ledger and an unyielding temper. He repeatedly insisted that Hannah’s mother had passed away leaving behind tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid dockage fees, timber storage costs, and administrative debts. According to Gareth, Hannah was legally and morally obligated to remain at the bay and work off every cent before she could ever think of leaving.