Gwyneth Atlee (4 page)

You must believe me, Marie, when I say I only meant to warn you that he
was unworthy of your affections. When you refused to hear my suspicions,
I sought evidence that you could not refute. But only out of loyalty, my
sister. Only out of love. Had I known what grief this proof would wreak, I
would have gladly burnt the letter and returned to deviling the demon
with my usual mischief.

Yvette put down her pen and blew across the drying letters. All
throughout the day, as the steamboat labored upstream, she had sat
inside this cramped room, thinking of Marie. She wondered idly if this
was proof of the onset of madness, this short step from brooding to
writing letters to a woman who could never answer. But Yvette remembered
from ten years ago, when Joëlle, her toddler sister, succumbed to yellow
fever, that death, though terrible, did not separate two people all at
once. Rather, it descended layer after filmy layer, in curtainlike veils that
gradually obscured the memory of the lost loved one.

Yvette never found it possible to think of those she’d lost—and the
climate of New Orleans ever took its toll—without feeling melancholy.
Thankfully, time diminished the great tearing gouges that grief took
from her heart.

Two weeks, however, had done nothing to blunt the agonizing
clarity with which she recalled Marie. Perhaps, because of the part
Yvette had played in Marie’s death, her sister’s memory would never
fade, at least not until her murder was avenged.

A pang of hunger distracted her from the unsettling thoughts. Only
steps away, inside the main cabin, a banquet would have been laid
out, then put away by now. Earlier, Yvette had forced herself to ignore
the scents that crept beneath her stateroom door and beckoned. She’d
had to remain hidden, for if Captain Russell were aboard, he’d certainly
watch for her at mealtimes. But now her empty stomach growled its
hunger and frustration. Surely, she couldn’t spend the entire journey
hiding in this stateroom. Russell might not even be here.

If she were home, by now the family would have gone to table. She
sighed wistfully at the thought of her favorite centerpiece, a cleverly
molded nougat church, surrounded by its sumptuous congregation:
steaming bowls of crab gumbo, crusty, fragrant bread, plump oysters,
stuffed mirliton, suckling pig, café brûlot. Who would have imagined
a week ago that today she’d be desperate to fill her stomach with
coarse American fare?

Although she’d learned that even peculiar food could suffice, she
still dreaded the idea of dining alone—even alone among so many
strangers. How could she savor any meal without
Maman
and Papa’s
spirited discussions of the latest opera, her spinster Aunt Zaza’s
whispered gossip, her brothers’ cunningly risqué remarks?

Her stomach rumbled again, troubled by both emptiness and loss.
She felt like Lucifer, cast out of paradise for all eternity, for she had to
admit there was only the slimmest chance of going back. Even if Uncle
André exonerated her of the criminal charges, no proper Creole family
would forget the taint of scandal; her own relations would doubtless
remain as aloof as strangers if they chanced to pass her on the street.

Could she ever again return to her family or New Orleans? If she
proved her innocence, proved that Captain Russell had abused the
family trust, surely they must accept her once more. Mustn’t they? She
still held proof cleverly folded and sewn into the cloth lining of her
reticule. Evidence that she would use to destroy Russell in the end.

She brushed away a tear and thrust her shoulders back defiantly.
Whether or not her family forgave her, she was still an Augeron, her
lineage traceable to French nobility. She might be ruined, but she was
not defeated—yet. Not yet and not ever, especially while Darien
Russell walked this earth.

And she’d be cursed for a fool to starve just steps away from
dinner. A day had passed already—broken only by reading,
prayers, and her letter to Marie— since she had begged milk for
Lafitte and a simple meal for herself.

As Yvette entered the main cabin, she felt as exposed as if she were
completely naked. The sight of a number of crewmen dismantling the
long dining tables at its center and setting up rows of double-deck cots
did not disturb her. Nor did the deck passengers, who waited patiently
along the edges of the well-appointed hall. As usual, it was the Union
blue, a number of Yankee officers who were also apparently waiting
for their cots, that made her so uneasy. She tried to maintain an air of
casual indifference. She wasn’t certain if she was succeeding, especially
considering that she was holding her breath. But to her relief, Captain
Russell’s dapper figure was not among the other men.

She began to think she had imagined seeing him before. Frightened
and far from home as she was, her mistake was understandable,
if vexing.

She let out a sigh to free her pent-up breath and the rush of anxiety.
Then she hurried to the rear section of the main area, which was
designated as the ladies’ cabin. She nodded a greeting to a trio of
women who sat talking together, their laughter ringing like fork tines
upon crystal. Their obvious camaraderie and their kinship, evident in
the similar wide-set blue eyes, sent a pang of homesickness jolting
through Yvette.

After moving past them, she found the head steward, an older,
surprisingly active little man, and asked if it was too late to get a bite
to eat. He interrupted his direction of the conversion of the room
from dining hall to dormitory. Below his white mustache, his smile
looked both sincere and professional. “There are a number of
passengers anxious to bed down in here, miss, but I’d be delighted
to run to the galley and have a plate prepared for you to enjoy inside
your stateroom.”

Cramped as she had been inside her quarters, waiting among these
Union officers felt too dangerous. She couldn’t shake the idea that at
any moment she might be arrested, that here, as well, no one would
listen to her explanation of what had really happened.

Besides, Yankees always spoiled her appetite.
Just as she turned to leave, Yvette froze. Near the front of the main
cabin, Captain Russell stood talking to some gentlemen beside the bar.
He did not appear to see her, but there was nothing to prevent him
from turning his head at any moment to glance in her direction.
At the sight of the man, she heard her own blood rushing in her
ears, felt it pulsing hot with terror just beneath her skin. She thought
she might explode if she stood here another second, simply waiting
for him to look at her.
Her feet seemed so far distant from her brain, so hard for her to manage.
With an effort, she subdued her quivering limbs and forced them to carry
her outside onto the promenade, where Russell could not see her.
The evening air felt damp and chilly, refreshing in her lungs, and
the breeze of the boat’s movement quickly cooled her. The farther
from the doorway— and Russell—she walked, the more she distanced
herself from her anxiety.
Relieved to find that the
Sultana
’s motion didn’t slow her, she
hurried down the stairs leading to the galley on the deck below. After
retracing her trip there yesterday, she repeated her request for a small
meal to enjoy inside her stateroom. Once more, she felt a twinge of
guilt for telling them she was hiding from some humiliating faux pas
she’d inadvertently committed in the ladies’ cabin. The cook and his
assistant smiled their understanding, and within a few minutes, she
emerged, carrying a covered basket.
She’d gone only a few steps when her path was blocked by a group
of men who’d just come to claim the spot. Lanterns bracketed along
the cabins’ outside walls increased the meager starlight enough so that
within the brighter circles Yvette could discern faces whittled by
exhaustion and starvation. Some of the former prisoners appeared to
be asleep. Or dead.
Mon Dieu.
Show courage,
she told herself.
You’ve already proven you know how.
She’d been brave enough to flagrantly turn her back on Marie’s
Yankee visitor. She’d risked arrest by painting General Butler’s portrait in the bottoms of chamber pots for friends. She’d even dared to
sing her insolent tunes so loudly that passing Yankees could hear each
one of the rude words. If she could manage all of those feats, then she
could certainly face a few sick and hungry men.
A shaft of lantern light fell across what looked to be a pair of sticks
jutting from the hems of trousers. It took Yvette several moments to
understand they were not sticks at all, just a man’s legs, so impossibly
thin that they appeared inhuman. Above the legs, the man’s face stared
at her, so gaunt and vacant-looking, she wasn’t sure he really saw her.
The basket of food weighed heavily on both her arm and her
conscience. Reaching beneath the cloth, she took out one warm roll
and tucked it into the pocket of her skirt for later.
She bent so that her voice would not have far to travel. “Excuse me.
Are you hungry?”
His head tipped back, and she could tell he saw her, but he simply
stared. Probably because her question had been so ludicrous, she
realized. She doubted he remembered a time when he had not
been hungry.
In the face of such suffering, the color of his ill-fitting uniform lost
all meaning to her. As she passed him the basket, the long twigs of his
fingers closed around its sides.
“This is for you, my friend,” she whispered. And why not? Seeing
Darien Russell had completely killed her appetite.
The soldier stripped away the cloth and stared down at the food
heaped on the plate. The warm scents of roast chicken and potatoes
and some cheese-covered vegetable made Yvette feel nauseated, but
she saw comprehension, then slow hope, dawning on the prisoner’s
thin face.
Another man, his face nearly obscured by a tangled thicket of a
beard, sat up. “He can’t say it, so I will. God bless you, miss. God
bless you.”
She certainly hoped so. She needed all the blessings she could get if
she were to somehow avoid Russell aboard this crowded boat. She
nodded and edged past the group, intent on quickly reaching her
stateroom’s outside door.

Gabe peered along the cabin deck and hoped like hell the dim light
would obscure his features. He tried to picture his former comrades
from Ohio, one level below, settling in, their backs turned toward the
outer railing as they curled in slumber. He wouldn’t have risked
venturing this close except that the hurricane deck had grown so
crowded that Zeke could not stretch out his swollen leg. Stiff in his
own joints, Gabe had volunteered to see if the steamboat’s second
level offered any better spots.

For a moment, he wondered if that had been only an excuse. Or did
some part of him still hope he’d meet someone he’d once known
willing to listen to what had really happened on that day in
Tennessee? He pushed aside the question, unwilling to examine such
a childish notion. He was through hoping his reputation could be salvaged. He now existed only to put the past behind him.

The steamer’s whistle cut through the darkness. For a moment
Gabe stood still, hearing as well as feeling the
Sultana
’s wheels churning,
propelling them along the main channel of the Mississippi River. As
they glided northward, relief flowed through his veins, relief that they
were leaving the damned South, which had cost so many lives with its
futile rebellion. Away from the prison camps, empty of everything
except the rows of shallow graves and the old stench that hovered
thickly. Away from the burned-out shells of houses and a thousand
blood-soaked fields.

And headed into what? he wondered. Though he felt certain his
mother and sisters would be glad to see him after so many months of
silence, would his father allow him to embrace them even once?
Would he let Gabe hear their voices, so long dreamed he’d recognize
them at the world’s end?

But no matter how they reacted to his unannounced arrival, his
family deserved to see him whole, to hear why he had run that time in
Tennessee. They might even understand. He couldn’t imagine their
condoning what he’d done, but at least they’d comprehend his reasons.
Afterward, he could disappear, start over somewhere in the West.
Plenty of folks were relocating to the rich farmland of Oregon. He’d
bet a man who could work metal into plows and other implements
would be welcome despite a checkered past.

If the South didn’t somehow swallow him, he could move past
heartache to start his life anew.
A soldier swore as Gabe tripped over his leg. He apologized the
first few times it happened, but he couldn’t help bumping and jostling
prisoners every few steps. His spirits sank. This level appeared at least
as crowded as the one above. And the only other place to check was
the main deck, where the Ohio troops had settled.
By the time he was halfway through his circuit of the second level,
he thought of asking Seth to go below. But the captain and Jacob had
both been asleep when he’d come downstairs. Was he such a coward
that he would wake them rather than take this chance?
“There’s a thin line between good sense and cowardice.”
Captain Seth had told him that once, when Gabe had felt the need
to challenge those prisoners who preyed upon the weak in
Andersonville. Those first few weeks, he’d had so much to prove, he’d
nearly gotten himself killed. He’d had to relearn that a man wouldn’t
stay alive if he didn’t look out for himself.
Was now one of those times?
Everything inside him rebelled at the idea. Damn it, he would not
continue skulking around like a whipped pup, hoping against hope
no one he knew would see him. He was a full-grown man of twenty-four.
Old enough to have some pride left, though the Rebels had done
everything they could to strip it all away.
He would go to the main deck then, even if that meant facing the
demons that he’d hoped to leave behind. He met no one on the stairs
as he descended, but below he found men huddled, mostly sleeping,
in every available space as well.
As he passed the boilers, he glanced toward them, remembering
Jacob’s earlier misgivings. But this evening, all was quiet, empty, save
for one man intently monitoring the gauges. The man, who wore the
steamboat line’s uniform, stood from his stool and shook his head as
if to ward off sleep.
Jacob would rest easier, Gabe thought, if he saw how safe and quiet
everything appeared now.
A few steps beyond the boiler area, someone he hadn’t heard
approach grasped Gabe from behind.
“Figured you’d be dead by now, Davis.”
The man’s fingers squeezed his neck painfully, but the voice dug
even deeper. Before Gabe turned around, he knew the face he’d see—
the wild, wavy black hair and the almost lipless mouth that slashed
above a long chin like an ugly scar. He remembered eyes so black that
they looked like a pair of holes drilled into meanness. Bulging and set
too close together, their fathomless stare always made Gabe want to
look away.
He didn’t, though. Instead, he jerked free from Deming’s grip and
swung around to face him, struggling to keep his own gaze cool and
level. He owed this bastard nothing but a mouthful of shattered teeth.
He’d be damned if he’d explain or apologize to this prison bait hiding
in a Union uniform.
Like the other human cargo from the Southern prison camps, Silas
Deming looked worse for his incarceration. Cahaba Prison, where
Gabe had found out that members of his former unit had been kept,
had been a hellhole, but its captives were in far better condition than
most of the men held in Andersonville. Still, the angles of Deming’s
face looked sharper, the black and bulging eyes more prominent. He
yet towered over Gabe’s six feet, but hunger or disease made him
stoop forward, as if the upper portion of his spine had been bent by
his confinement.
“I figured he’d be home shivering in his bed now, being as how
our Gabe’s so quick on his feet. Leastways when the shootin’ gets
too close.”
At first, Gabe didn’t recognize Reuben Mueller. As boys, the two
had sneaked away to a nearby swimming hole when they should have
been in school. When their parents put a stop to their truancy, they’d
created enough mischief in the classroom to bend many a hickory
stick. But they’d never been mean-spirited in their antics. Most had
been directed at the bullies who gave the younger boys such hell.
But like all of the prisoners, Reuben had changed. Though he’d
once been renowned for an ability to thrive on camp cooking and even
nearly inedible army rations, his persistent fleshiness had been whittled
away by the hardships of Cahaba. So, apparently, had the last traces of
his long friendship with Gabe. Seeing Reuben allied with a petty criminal
like Deming was far more painful than the fingerprints that still
throbbed at Gabe’s neck.
“You’re lookin’ mighty scrawny. Figured you bein’ a namesake of
ol’ Jeff Davis and all, he mighta fed you better while you was his
guest.” Deming moved in on him again, so close that their noses were
just inches apart.
Gabe withstood the impulse to strike out. Silas Deming knew
damned well he was no kin to the Confederate president. There was
no need to rise to that bait or any other.
“Yeah, you’re lookin’ awful thin. But maybe those Rebels don’t give
feasts for Yankee runners like we imagine.” Though the light was dim,
Gabe saw his old friend’s sneer move closer. “Maybe they hate cowards
and deserters every bit as much as we do.”
The bitterness in Reuben’s words finally unlocked Gabe’s jaw.
“I did not desert.” He straightened his back and stared into
Reuben’s face. “I came back to camp and turned myself in for discipline.
But I never deserted.”
“Even worse,” Reuben insisted. “You were drummed out.”
Gabe shook his head. “Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t
drummed out, either. I was
sacrificed,
and you were a party to it,
Reuben. I always thought that you, at least, might have wondered
why I ran off the field of battle. Weren’t you my friend long enough to
at least wait for an explanation?”
“That day, I forgot I was your friend, Gabe. That day, I was ashamed
I ever had been.”
When Reuben looked him in the eye, his gaze was both sad and
hostile. Gabe thought he spotted remorse in the set of Reuben’s square
jaw. He thought he saw the potential to mend fences. But he might
have imagined the moment out of hopefulness or even desperation.
And even if he hadn’t, Silas Deming’s next act destroyed the opportunity
to resolve their differences.
Deming spat in Gabe’s face. Deming, a bastard so low he stole from
his own messmates and cheated anyone green enough to try his luck
at a game of chance. Deming, who thought the war a license to loot
every farmhouse their unit marched past, to rip the stuffing from tots’
rag dolls just to make the frightened children cry.
Deming’s spittle sliding down his cheek was more than Gabe could
bear. With a howl of fury, he brought his fists up and jammed them
toward the bastard’s belly.
But no man spat in another man’s face without foreseeing an attack.
Deming stepped sideways and grabbed Gabe’s wrist, then slung him
forward, headfirst into a cabin wall.
The impact sent showers of light sparking across Gabe’s vision and
waves of pain cascading through his skull. In addition to the sharp
crack of his head against wood—a sound very much like a bat striking
a baseball—Gabe heard an even more unlikely sound. The scream of a
woman on this steamboat packed with men.
He had no time to wonder at the source, however, for as he struggled
to rise with the intent of pounding Deming, the brilliant light inside
his head exploded into blackness. His knees buckled, and awareness
slid away.