River Queen (10 page)

“No, I didn’t hear you, but you didn’t frighten me,” Julienne answered. “I don’t scare easily.”

“Guess not. You’re not scared right now? River’s wild tonight.”

“Not really. It’s just a storm. We have them all the time, and all the steamers don’t sink.”

“No, they don’t.” He grasped the top railing and looked out, his eyes searching the distance in front of them. He was quiet for so long that Julienne began to wonder.

“Mr. Bronte, you are a riverboat pilot, correct?” she asked.

“I have my pilot’s license, yes,” he answered cautiously, still looking far away. “I don’t have a boat right now.”

“But still, you know the river. You—you aren’t trying to tell me that I should be worried, are you?”

Julienne hoped that he would immediately dismiss her doubts, but to her dismay he frowned and considered her face for a long time. “Let me tell you something, Miss Ashby. Pilots are a special breed, and not one of us is any more knowledgeable than another. Every pilot has to know this river better than he knows his own home. And he does, or he would never get his license. And so no pilot would ever presume to second-guess another pilot.”

“I didn’t want a lecture on how special pilots are,” Julienne said, turning to glance up at the pilothouse. It was not lit, of course, as the pilot inside couldn’t possibly see the darkness outside if he stood in a lit room. But she thought she could see the outlines of Kip Herrin in the lurid light of the lightning flashes. “I was just asking a question, Mr. Bronte. I thought you might know something I don’t know.”

He shook his head, a short sharp movement, and watched the vague glimpses of the landscape sliding by. Julienne stared toward the shore, too, though all she saw was a blur of black with some lighter gray splotches. She wondered what Dallas Bronte saw.

Oddly, the silence between them was not awkward. It stretched out, and they both watched and listened to this fierce world. But they were acutely aware of each other. Without consciously realizing it, Julienne moved closer to him, and at the same time he took a step toward her, looming over her as if he were shielding her.

Unbidden, suddenly, an overpowering desire to touch Dallas Bronte rose like quickfire in Julienne, and she drew in a sharp ragged breath. His strong hands were close to hers, and she wanted to grab them and pull them around her. She wanted to turn to him and press her lips against his and run her hands through his thick hair and feel the heat of his breath on her. She wanted—

The sky split, the river exploded, the world burst, or at least that’s what the next few moments seemed like to Julienne. As if she were moving in slow motion she turned to look, to see what the frightfully loud noise behind her was. But then her whole body was falling and in this slowed time she realized that Dallas Bronte had pushed her down and had thrown himself on top of her. He covered her head with his hands and forced her to press her face to the deck, and he laid his head on top of hers. She heard loud groans of metal, another explosion, then another, and things started falling out of this insane sky, crashing all around her. Through Dallas’s body she could feel at least two heavy hits on his back. Still he forced her head down.

This seemed to go on for a long time, the frightful noises, the crashes around them, the ship beneath them tilting crazily. Dallas lifted his head and let go of Julienne’s head, then grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up. To her horror she saw fire everywhere, the glass windows bursting out of the staterooms and the pilothouse, and she saw that the boat’s nose was tilting upward and she and Dallas were sliding down toward the black raging water. Before she could say a word, she was deep under, the water roiling around her and over her head. She panicked and began struggling helplessly, her heavy clothing dragging her down. She opened her mouth to scream but it filled with water and she began to choke.

A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled, hurting her badly. Then she breathed air, and coughed. Roughly Dallas rolled her over onto her back and crooked one arm under her chin. “Be still,” he commanded her.

He began to swim, hauling her along like a heavy sack. His strokes were awkward, one-armed, but unbelievably strong. Julienne just lay there, concentrating on breathing, making herself relax because she realized that if she struggled the yards and yards of her dress, petticoat, and cloak would again pull her down like anchor weights. After awhile Dallas stopped and stood in hip-deep water that still swirled so fast and deep around them that Julienne couldn’t stand up. He scooped her up into his arms and waded to the shore. Gently he set her down, then stood and turned back to the river. All Julienne could see now were flames, and even in the chaos of her mind she knew that the fire was low, too near the water. The
Missouri Dream
was sinking fast.

Dallas took a long, deep breath, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted, “Anybody there? Anybody need help?”

Julienne couldn’t hear a thing except the far-off thunder and the rushing of the river. Still Dallas waded out and started swimming toward the ship. She could see his head outlined against the flames, searching this way and that, striking out to swim a few strokes one way, and coming back.

And then the flames disappeared, and the darkness closed in. Julienne sat there, her mind dulled as if she had been given a strong drug. She began to shiver. Then Dallas was standing there and he said in a deep, painful voice. “She’s gone. No one else made it.”

Julienne looked up at him, her face white and bloodless, her eyes stretched painfully wide with shock. “No—no!” She scrambled to her feet and ran, stumbling to the water’s edge. “No! Tyla! Tyla!” she screamed and started to wade out.

But Dallas was there, and he pulled her back, and wrapped her in his arms. “Shh, shh, Julienne, don’t, don’t. They’re gone. They’re all gone.”

She clung to him and began to sob.

Slowly the darkness Julienne was in lessened. She thought her eyes were opened but she wasn’t sure. The harsh blackness dissipated to a dismal gray, and sound—noises—started sounding in her ears.

She took a deep, gasping breath, and then with an effort opened her eyes. They were instantly stung with icy rain; the wind shrieked and tore at her soaked heavy skirts; and by a lightning flash she saw Dallas Bronte’s grim face above her. He was carrying her, and now against her side she could feel his harsh grunts as he struggled through the thick woods.

She reached up to touch his face and was startled by how very weak she was. “I can walk,” she tried to say, but the sound was lost in the tempest.

He looked down at her and searched her face. Her cold fingers pressed against his cheek, and gently he set her on her feet. She stumbled but didn’t fall. He leaned down close to her ear. “Are you sure you can walk?” His voice was deep and strong, so he didn’t have to yell at her. She nodded.

Still half-carrying her, they worked their way through the woods. Vines tore at her, and she felt as if she were fighting through deep, cold water. Realizing that she was about to faint again, Julienne made herself take deep, long breaths as they toiled.

After what seemed like an eternity, she could tell there was a clearing ahead. She took a step, dimly aware that Dallas was yanking her back, but then her shin hit a big log and she sprawled in the cold mud. He picked her up quickly and carried her again. Julienne was at the end of her strength. She clung to him, burying her face in his chest.

They came into a clearing where there was a tall chimney, but the farmhouse had burned. “Barn,” Dallas grunted. “At least a roof.”

He carried her into the small deserted barn. The doors had long ago rotted at the hinges, and sagged. Lying Julienne down on the mound of dirty hay left behind, he worked and worked to drag them so that they closed enough to keep out the driving rain.

Julienne struggled to sit up. “Where are we? What happened?”

Dallas turned to her, stripping off his sodden leather coat. “That chimney’s a landmark on the river. We’re nine miles south of Natchez. The boilers exploded.”

“Tyla,” Julienne whispered and began to weep. She was shivering helplessly.

Dallas came to her, grasped her upper arms, and lifted her up. “Julienne. Julienne. Listen to me. You’re freezing cold, and your clothes are soaked, and I’m afraid you’re going to faint again, and then I don’t know if you’ll live through this night. Do you understand?”

She stared up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. But her mind was clear enough to see the sense in what he was saying. “Y-yes, I understand.”

His face grew dark and stern. “You have to take this ton of clothes off, and I’m stripping down too. The only way you’re going to get warm enough is from my body warmth.”

“No, no,” Julienne said automatically. “Can’t you—can’t you light a fire?”

“There’s no wood, only hay, and if I set that on fire, the smoke would just choke us and we wouldn’t have a good warm fire anyway. Julienne, you have to trust me. This is the only way.”

Julienne stood there, looking down, shuddering so hard her teeth rattled. With the force of a blow she realized that ever since that terrible moment on the boat, her life had literally been in this man’s hands. He had saved her then, and he would save her now.

She lifted her chin and tried to unclasp her cloak fastening, but her fingers were so cold she had no feeling in them. “Will you help me, please, Dallas?” she asked pitifully.

Quickly he undid the clasp and slipped off her cloak. Then he turned her to unbutton the twenty-two buttons of her dress, which he did quickly. Then, leaving her dress resting on her shoulders, he undid the tight laces of her corset. Turning her back around as if she were a child, he gave her one reassuring, warm glance, and slipped her dress off her shoulders. “Th-thank you, I can do the rest,” she said.

He nodded, then made a half-turn so he wasn’t looking at her. He pulled his shirt over his head and wrung it out, then quickly shed his trousers, so all he was wearing was his ankle-length felt underpants. He picked up Julienne’s cloak, which must have weighed ten pounds, and wrung it out as best as he could.

Julienne felt numb and stupid, as if she were in a troublesome dream. She took off her corset and her four petticoats, so all she was wearing was her chemise and pantalettes. They too were soaked of course, but they were of such thin material that she was sure they would dry quickly.

The hay was piled into a corner of the little barn, and Dallas pulled on it and worked with it until there was a bed. “Come on, Julienne,” he said quietly. Obediently she lay down, and he pushed piles of hay around the bed. He lay down beside her, pulled a thick layer of hay over them, then spread her cloak on top of it. Without a word he turned to her, put his arms around her, and pulled her close.

She shivered and shivered, and she thought perhaps her brain might be frozen, too, because it seemed that she wasn’t thinking at all. Images darted through her mind, flashing through in brief moments like the lightning, of the boat burning, of Dallas’s grim face above her, of Tyla coughing, of Dallas’s desperate calls out over the raging river, of Tyla, lying in the bunk, of water crashing in. Her breaths grew shallow and distressed and Dallas murmured, “Don’t faint again, Julienne. Stay with me, stay with me.” He began to stroke her back, softly and gently, a comforting caress that a mother might give a sick child.

Julienne made herself think, made herself concentrate on breathing, on trying to relax and let the heat from Dallas’s body warm her.

Finally, dreamily, she lay pliant in his arms, savoring his breath on her face, the closeness and radiant warmth of him. She was, perhaps, more aware of her own body than she had ever been, and she felt a stirring in herself that slowly turned in a burning heat that she had never known. She felt the hard muscling of his chest, his flat stomach, the bulky strength of his arms. She made no conscious choice; she only did what she wanted to do, what she felt compelled to do. She reached up, put her hand on the back of Dallas’s neck, pulled his head down, and pressed her lips to his.

As he kissed her, Julienne felt the soft, wild half giving and half receiving in her own body. Everything for that moment was unreal: the sinking of the ship, the desperate fight to stay alive, and the wind howling outside their cocoon, but his warmth was real, and the touch of his lips on hers was real. She felt that his caress kept loneliness and fear away. Though Julienne was innocent, she became aware that Dallas’s growing passion made a turbulent eddy around them both, and she knew that he was not alone in his desires. She returned his kiss with a fierceness that shocked her.

At that instant Julienne was helpless and open to his strength. All she wanted in that moment was love and assurance and security and hope, and they all seemed to lie within his arms.

Suddenly Dallas jerked, took a deep breath, and turned his head away. Then he halfway sat up and moved away from her. His desertion stunned Julienne. “What’s the matter?” she whispered and tried to pull him back.

Dallas caught her hand, pressed it to his lips, and didn’t answer for a moment. When he did his voice was hoarse. “This isn’t right, Julienne. You’ve had a bad shock, and you’re not yourself.”