Gwyneth Atlee (9 page)

She shook her head emphatically. “I watched another Yankee ruin
poor Marie. I’ll be cursed if I learned nothing from her error.”
Offense wiped the smile from his face. “You take me for a Captain
Russell?”
She did not immediately answer. Instead, she studied him keenly.
His anger and disappointment steeped a bitter brew. How could he
have imagined she’d see past this uniform, that the kisses she’d
bestowed meant more than either impulsiveness or pity?
He turned for the door and unlocked it. Her silence gave him all the
answer that he needed.
The door was halfway open before she caught him by the elbow.
“You have to understand how hard this is for me. I have never kissed
a man before today.” Color rose into her face with the admission. “I
scarcely know how I feel about it. Except that . . .”
She turned him toward her, then leaned against the door until
it once again clicked shut, isolating both of them amid a crowd
of thousands.
“Except that what?” he prompted.
She glanced up at him through her long lashes. “Except that I am
frightened and alone for the first time in my life, and I can’t imagine I
am thinking very clearly.”
“Must be brain fever,” Gabe told her, despising the irritation in his
voice, hating the fact that her admission so disturbed him. “Only a
damned fool would want anything to do with a man like me. I hope you
get your troubles ironed out, Yvette. I hope you get to go back home
again. But until you manage that, I hope our kiss will give you something
to remember. Something to make you wish for more than lonely nights.”
Without waiting for her reply, he strode out of the room, pausing
only long enough to hear the door lock in his wake.

After Gabe sent for the head steward, he wondered if Seth had
been right. Maybe he was only tempting trouble. As if he found it
preferable to returning home. He held on to the thought, picked it up,
and turned it, examining the possibility from every angle.

Despite the unpleasantness he knew he’d face from his father, he
didn’t want to die. The dream of Oregon glittered brightly as a star on
his horizon. His inheritance from his grandmother’s estate, though
modest, would be enough to get him there, half a world away from
Father’s ever-present, unasked question:
Why in God’s name did
you
live instead of Matthew?

With that thought came relief that no one in Oregon would know
he’d had a younger brother. No one there would wonder why he hadn’t
gotten to Matthew in time, dragged him out from that hole in the ice,
and brought him home. No one would ever ask why, unable to be the
hero, he had instead run like a coward in the war.

Gabe swallowed past the painful lump of his delusions. At the edge
of the Pacific, no one would know what happened. No one except
him. The harsh truths of his life would shadow his journey across the
continent like a pack of hungry wolves, always waiting for him to
stumble so they could pounce and savage him.

The thought angered Gabe. He’d had a bellyful of running.
Whatever slunk up behind him, he’d rather turn around and fight.
Why else would he have left a safe deck to scout another place to sit?
Why else did he feel the need to help Yvette with her problems?

Gabe glanced around uneasily. If either Capt. Darien Russell or
Silas Deming caught him before he made it back upstairs, he’d have
the opportunity to see how much he really wanted trouble.
After about fifteen minutes, the head steward finally met him outside the main cabin. A slight man with a thick, white mustache, he
looked distinctly annoyed.

“We’re very busy settling in deck passengers and the officers.
Before you ask, I cannot do a thing about the overcrowding or the
distribution of your rations. Those are military matters. My concern
lies mainly with our civilian passengers. So tell me quickly, what is
this important matter you must discuss?”

“One of the lady passengers, a civilian,” Gabe emphasized,
“confided in me that she is experiencing a, ah—delicate problem
with one of the high-ranking officers aboard, a Captain Russell.
Apparently, she— ah, discouraged his attentions some months ago,
and ever since he has been sending her alarming notes, troubling
her on the streets, and so forth. Finally, she decided to flee north to
stay with family for some time. Unfortunately, he followed her on
board the
Sultana.”

“Have there been problems here?” the steward asked, his irritated
expression dissolving into interest.
“I saw him grab the girl myself. I think he might have harmed her
if I hadn’t been able to distract him. Of course, since he’s a captain, this
is an awkward problem. I’m afraid he may invent some wild story and
convince crew members to help him search the staterooms.”
“He most certainly will not!” The steward’s voice bristled with
indignation, and he straightened his spine, adding half an inch to
his modest height. “I will alert the cabin crew immediately that no
information may be shared and no civilian passengers disturbed.”
“The young lady will be very grateful.”
The steward peered up at Gabe, his sharp-eyed gaze appraising.
“You’re a fine young man to stick your neck out for a stranger. Wait
here. I’ll bring you something for your trouble.”
“That’s all right, I—” Gabe began, but the older man whisked away.
Once again, Gabe peered nervously up and down the deck and
hoped to heaven that none of the men crowded nearby had overheard
his story. If any of them related it, he could add military prison to his
list of worries. He realized now that Yvette had never said what
crime she’d been accused of committing. If he were abetting someone charged with something serious in nature, he might even be risking
a hanging.
And for what? For those brief moments that their kisses felt like
something real? Those moments before she’d wondered aloud how
she could allow herself to feel attraction to a Yankee?
He shook his head, disgusted with his own foolishness. Not
wanting to risk staying here another moment, he started toward
the stairway.
“Wait!” someone called from behind him.
Gabe’s pulse roared in his ears until he realized it was only the
old steward with the flowing white mustache. Noticing the covered
basket the man carried and the delicious scents that rose from it,
Gabe could not suppress a grateful grin.
Food. He’d never tire of eating, but this meal would be shared with
his friends.
If he could make it back up to the hurricane deck without being
hurled overboard or arrested.

The
Sultana
had to fight the river’s current to carry them
northward, just the way Gabe fought his misgivings every mile of the
trip. Everything about the journey felt precarious, from the possibility
of Rebel snipers to the enemies aboard the steamer and his ill-advised
attraction to a Southern woman.

He’d tried so hard to put Yvette out of his mind, to focus on the
problems at hand instead of those his attraction to her represented.
This morning, he’d succeeded, at least for a while, when they’d had
that scare back near Helena. Someone had shouted out that a photographer was taking their picture from the shore, and every fool
aboard had crowded to the port side, trying to get his face into the
photograph. Top-heavy with prisoners, the steamer had listed over so
far that it nearly capsized. The officers quickly shouted orders for the
men to keep their places for the duration of the journey. But sticking
to one spot was difficult, especially with the lack of the barest
requirements for human comfort.

In spite of both the scare and the conditions, it was hard not to
take cheer from the way the morning sun slanted through the trees
to their east and the sky shone sapphire-bright with promise. If he
had a thimbleful of sense, he’d cast last night’s temptation to the
river and leave it safely behind him in the South. He needed to fix
his thoughts instead on his new beginning.

With that admonition firmly in mind, he tied a long rope to the handle
of a borrowed bucket, then cast it far over the boat’s side. Within
moments, the bucket splashed into the Mississippi, and Gabe almost
wished that he could follow. It might be a bit nippy yet, but a swim
would feel like heaven after all the time he’d spent cramped on the
upper deck. Opting for sanity instead, he settled for the exercise of
hauling the full container back up, pulling the rope hand over hand.

Jacob joined him.
“Zeke’s not doing so well this morning.” Jacob leaned over to pull
the bucket over the railing. Half the water had sloshed out the sides
during its journey past the lower two decks. “He feels hot as hell.”
“Fever? Damn. Is it the leg?”
Jacob ran strong fingers through his dark brown curls. Frustration
was evident in the set of his square jaw. “Yeah. I think so. It doesn’t
look good, Gabe.”
“It’s infected, isn’t it?”
His brown eyes filmed with emotion, Jacob looked away. “I have to
get him home, Gabe.”
Gabe put a hand on his forearm. “We’ll help you do it, both Seth
and me. You know that. We’re going to get Zeke back to Indiana. He’ll
be all right then.”
“It’s a damned disgrace,” Jacob growled, his impatience bubbling
through the worry. “Packing us on board this boat without water or
decent food or even a damned privy we can get to. Then telling us, ‘Be
still. You’ll roll the steamer.’ You notice most of the ones saying that
are sleeping in their fancy staterooms or on cots in the main cabin.
They aren’t jammed on top a bare deck with their legs rotting off.”
“Is that what you’re worried about? That Zeke will lose the leg?”
Jacob shook his head, his features taut with tension. “No, not now.
Now I’m worried he won’t let them take the leg if they have to. He
swears he won’t do it. . . . I’d make him, anyway, but there’s something
you don’t know. Something in our sister’s letter, the one that caught
up to us in Vicksburg.”
“What? What is it?”
“Our pa’s real sick. It’s his breathing. He’s always had his troubles
with the dust from the grain, but not like this. It’s bad enough so Eliza
was worried we won’t make it home in time.”
“I’m-I’m sorry, Jacob. Why didn’t you say something before?”
Jacob shrugged and stared at the swirls and eddies of the river. At
length, he spoke again. “Zeke and I both think the world of our pa. We
didn’t want to imagine what might have happened in the month since
that letter was posted, much less talk about it.”
Gabe nodded. Jacob, especially, valued his control. Discussing the
possibility of his father’s death might put that at great risk. Respecting
his friend’s feelings, Gabe changed the subject.
“Seth said he asked around about a doctor last night. No luck, though.”
“Damned army. All the half-starved, sick fellows on board and they
can’t even spare a doctor.”
“The military’s been one treat after another,” Gabe allowed, “but at
least we’re heading north.”
“Yeah. Still hardly seems real sometimes. We’re finally going home.”
Gabe grasped the bucket’s handle. But before he started back
toward the place where Zeke was slumped beside Seth, he made a
promise, one that he meant with all his heart. “All four of us, Jacob.
Every single one.”

Capt. Darien Russell could not resist a smile of satisfaction at
the chief mate’s frown. Especially since that expression was directed
at the supercilious little steward who’d been obstructing his
efforts. Russell couldn’t help appreciating the nervous twitch of
the steward’s white mustache.

“I don’t like to be bothered about these matters.” The chief mate
paced the section of deck cleared for this discussion, his hands clasped
behind him as he walked. “Captain Mason wants a good time and a
safe journey, Mr. Beecham. With a record load like this one, those—
and only those—are my concerns this morning. As far as I know, the
country’s still under martial law. If Captain Russell wants to search the
staterooms, let him do it. He shouldn’t have to come ask me.”

Beecham straightened, as if that might fool anybody into thinking
he was more than five feet two. When he glanced toward Russell, his
dark blue eyes glittered with disdain. “I have reason to believe the
captain’s motives may be less than honorable.”

Fear jolted through Darien’s system. What could this man possibly
know about his motives? He glared at the steward, and he determined
to grind this professional lickspittle under heel.

“As I’ve told you before, this woman is a criminal against the
Union!” Russell shouted. “Are you in league with the Confederate
traitors, man? It’s well within my power to detain you, too.”

Behind the snowy mustache, Beecham colored instantly. “I was
born in Illinois, sir. I once shook Mr. Lincoln’s hand. I tell you, I’m
loyal through and through. But I also have a duty to my passengers.
And I was . . . given to understand that this young lady is no criminal,
just the unwilling object of your affections.”

“What?”
Not far away, heads turned toward Darien’s exclamation.
It took every bit of control he could muster not to swear at the outrageous lie. “This— this woman is a murderess, I tell you! I have
written orders to arrest her, signed by the general in command of
New Orleans!”

Withdrawing a folded piece of paper from his frockcoat pocket,
he thrust it toward the chief mate. There was no chance at all
either of these civilians would recognize the signature for the
forgery it was.

The chief mate, who looked distinctly as if he’d rather be attending
other duties, made a show of examining the paper. “This appears to be
in order, Mr. Beecham. I want you to cooperate. The captain will be
most unhappy if he is disturbed with this matter.”