Gwyneth Atlee Read online

  Now the guard sounded apologetic. “I got orders to keep the men away from these animals. But you might try back by the boilers. It’s plenty warm there. Some of the real sick fellas already staked out spots, but there might be room to squeeze in.”

  Yvette picked up Lafitte’s basket as Gabe thanked the man. Then the pair left their sanctuary.

  When they were out of the guard’s earshot, Yvette whispered, “This crowding is terrible. Where can we go?”

  He thought about two decks above, where his friends lay sleeping. He imagined explaining that he was helping her first to Jacob, who would question his loyalty, and then to Seth, who would question his sanity. Of the three of them, Zeke was the only man likely to support the idea. He’d see the notion of smuggling a Southern girl as a grand lark and nothing more.

  But whether or not his friends approved, Gabe couldn’t imagine any of them reporting this strange “drummer boy.” Their very silence would put all of them at risk, should Yvette be discovered. Gabe shook his head at the thought. He was willing to accept the price he might pay for helping Yvette, but he would not—could not—involve his friends. Better they should wonder, even worry, about what had happened to him than become embroiled in this mess.

  “Maybe we should try the cargo hold,” he suggested. He thought about the darkness and the dirt. Once more the thought assailed him that Yvette deserved far better than this ratlike scrabble for survival. “I warn you, it won’t be too pleasant down there.”

  “I don’t care at all.” She tried to mask her anxiety, but beneath the thin veneer of boldness, her voice quavered. “I will do what I must if at the end of it I can make Captain Russell pay for what he did.”

  He admired her determination. Most women would by now be in hysterics.

  Or perhaps not. Perhaps women were no frailer than circumstances allowed them to be. He thought of his father’s sister, Aunt Agatha, who had buried first a husband, then her three children, one after another. And survived. She had not only survived but had taken over—and expanded—the family business, a prosperous millinery. Predictably, his father bragged it was the Davis blood that made her tough, shrewd, and resilient. But Gabe suspected it had been necessity instead.

  Gabe and Yvette edged along dark, blanketed humps of sleeping men. Occasionally, from somewhere along the deck, they heard the outcry of a former prisoner erupting with some nightmare. Gabe was so used to the eerie night cries that he scarcely would have noticed except that Yvette stiffened and looked around each time she heard a scream.

  There were other sounds as well, snores and sometimes moans. The moans of men who suffered every ill, from the phantom pains of amputated limbs to the cramps of diarrhea. The inescapable noises of exhaustion and of suffering that Gabe had ignored for months and months.

  A new sound broke the darkness. Different, unexpected, yet unmistakable. The metallic click of a revolver. He froze, listening for direction. It had sounded all too close.

  A shadow separated itself from the others. Before Gabe could recognize Captain Russell, Yvette’s gasp assured him that their worst fear had come to pass.

  She glanced about herself, as if looking for an escape route. Her body shifted, and in an instant, Gabe realized she would go over the rail and leap into the river.

  Russell pointed his pistol at her chest. “You’ll be dead before you hit the water. At this range I won’t miss.”

  “That would save you the trouble of dumping me there yourself,” Yvette told him, “as you dumped Marie.”

  “Come along. We’ll discuss this upstairs, in your stateroom.”

  “Did she tell you she was carrying your child?” Yvette continued, fearless in her fury. “Or did you kill her first?”

  Russell flinched visibly. “Liar!” he accused. “Come now, before I’m forced to fire.”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you,” Gabe swore.

  “You won’t have anything to say about it. You’ll be under guard. Helping her was treason. I’ll have you up on charges for aiding this murderess. Perhaps you’ll hang as well . . . unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Yvette asked.

  Russell was still staring at Gabe. “Unless he turns around and walks away from this right now.”

  Gabe didn’t realize he was moving toward Russell until he felt Yvette grasping his arm, restraining him.

  “No, Gabe! Don’t! Just do what he says! Go . . . please go back to your friends, go home,” she pleaded.

  He patted her hand and loosed it from his shirt. They both were offering him freedom, the chance to tuck his tail between his legs and walk away. But neither Russell nor Yvette could hear the words that still rang in his head, “Got no use for a goddamn coward.” Neither one imagined what such an act would cost him.

  But Gabe Davis knew, and in that instant, he realized what had happened on the battlefield had been something unexplainable, but it had not been cowardice. As it would be if he left now.

  “There is no price too high for self-respect, sir.”

  Yvette had spoken those words to him, and he saw now that she had been right. There was no price too high, not even death.

  With that thought, he launched himself at Darien Russell.

  But he never reached his goal.

  Ten

  All was still; no one thought of danger by the resistless power of that clement which has enabled men to triumph over the mighty force of wind— the steamer was on her way. . . .

  —Rev. Dr. George White,

  from his sermon of April 30, 1865

  Clutching his stomach, Jacob staggered toward the railing. It hardly seemed fair that he was the only one who’d taken ill from the meat pies after all the trouble he’d gone through to get them. Several yards behind him, both Captain Seth and Zeke slept peacefully, clearly untroubled by the nausea that plagued him. Of course, neither one of them had been cracked on the head this evening, either.

  Jacob wondered once more what had become of Gabriel. He’d bet his bottom dollar (if he had one, he thought ruefully) that it had something to do with that Southern woman. And knowing Gabe, he’d have trouble nipping at his heels. Jacob disapproved of Gabe’s involvement with a Rebel, but he hoped that whatever his friend was up to, it would inconvenience the hell out of that jackass Captain Russell.

  Jacob leaned against the deck rail and stared out over the dark water, illuminated only by the meager light of those few stars not hidden by the clouds. A chill night breeze stole across the hurricane deck to give his curls a playful tousle. Inhaling deeply, he smelled the damp, muddy river scent. Despite the coolness, there was a hint of spring as well, of translucent green, unfurling leaves, of blades pressing upward through the soggy soil.

  The fresh air settled his stomach and made the pounding in his head more bearable. The hour was late now, so that most men slept, and the boat felt for the first time quiet, still. Jacob let the rare peace soak into him . . . one split second before it was shattered by the loudest sound he’d ever heard.

  * * *

  The gunshot reverberated through Gabe’s body, through his brain and through his world, all-consuming and as unending as the heaviest artillery barrage. He’d expected it, of course, expected Russell would fire. Expected, probably, to die, to give Yvette the chance to get away.

  But he had not anticipated the way the sound would seem to lift him, to send him spinning into darkness. He had not expected that dying would feel anything like flight.

  Cold enveloped his whole body, pressing in on him. Cold liquid. The realization sank in that he had fallen into water. A dark river without landmarks, without up or down or any frame of reference whatsoever. The shot must have flung him over the steamboat’s railing, down into the Mississippi, where he would bleed to death or drown.

  His body provided him with a direction. Some instinct sent it struggling toward air, limbs pumping as efficiently as if there’d been no bullet. As if he were yet again a truant boy swimming in the pond near home.

 
; He gasped and sputtered at the water’s surface, his mind grappling with his surprising strength and the utter lack of pain. He remembered hearing that the soul separated from the body at the moment of death, but he still felt sensations: the chill wetness of the river, the expansion of his lungs, the disorienting dizziness of his rapid tumble through empty space, then water.

  His eyes began to focus, and he saw shapes around him, floating: odd fragments of flotsam, a swimming white horse, what looked like a man’s body, limp and facedown, bobbing amid wavelets. The horse neighed frantically and struggled closer to Gabe. With an effort, he made a few strokes, then grasped the animal’s thick mane.

  It dragged him along toward a huge hulk in the water, a black shape lit by . . . flame? And all at once, the pieces spun together in Gabe’s mind. He had not been shot at all. Something must have happened to the Sultana. Perhaps a Rebel shell had struck it or a boiler had given out. Whatever the cause, some sort of explosion must have blown him off the deck.

  And not only him. Now that his senses were returning, he could hear desperate cries all around him in the water, shouts to God for mercy or to curse his name. Other shrieks, less clear, were coming from the steamboat, and the fire silhouetted masses of humanity leaping from the stern, clutching at each other, going down beneath the flame-lit water in writhing, screaming clumps.

  A shaft of fear impaled him so fiercely that he nearly lost his grip on the white horse. Yvette was in this somewhere. Had she, too, been blown off the deck, or was she part of the madness on the burning steamer?

  Not ten feet from him, men fought for purchase on a floating plank, clawing as viciously as mad dogs. Yvette, who might be five feet tall and a hundred pounds at best, would never survive such savage chaos, never—unless he found and helped her. Yet how could he locate one small woman in this hellish nightmare? Was she even still alive?

  He thought, too, of his friends, of Seth and Jacob and Zeke, whose infected wound had cost him so much strength. Dear God, after all that they had suffered, would any of them live?

  The panicked horse, whose mane he held, was making directly for the stern, as if it thought it could climb up onto the ruin. Gabe realized that if the horse swam close enough, men would try to scramble onto it and overwhelm it. He grasped its halter with one hand and fought to pull its head to redirect it away from the Sultana, but the animal was oblivious to everything except the instinct to return to what it remembered as a place of safety. One thrashing hoof struck Gabe’s shin painfully, and he gave up the useless struggle.

  God help him, he would have to let the horse go, Gabe realized. He scanned the river’s surface, but every floating object he saw was being fought over by other swimmers. Even so, he pushed away from the white beast. He had no other choice, not if he wanted to live long enough to find—and save—Yvette.

  * * *

  The revolver must have misfired, Darien Russell thought. The flash and sound of it reverberated in his skull, filling all the world with heat and thunder, sending him reeling toward the blackness. Tumbling, grasping, clutching. His left hand grabbed something wooden, and with a painful jerk, his body came to rest.

  It took several moments for him to realize he was hanging by one arm from the railing. If he slipped, he’d be in the water—in the dark.

  Shrieks of pain and terror splintered the air around him. Far too many to be explained by a misfiring revolver or the young soldier’s attack against him. Smoke thickened the air, gripping his chest as painfully as talons. Coughing hurt, but the breeze shifted, and his breathing eased.

  Still wondering what happened, Darien reached up to grasp the railing with his right hand. Only then did he realize he had lost his gun. Pulling himself higher, he saw ruptured interior walls and flickering blue flames. Men were leaping pell-mell off the stern, and moans and screams added to the nightmare quality of the scene.

  Had a Rebel unit, one too stubborn to surrender, somehow fired upon them? Or had they struck another boat? Surely there must have been some sort of explosion. His mind worked desperately to make sense of what was happening until he realized that his questions must wait for later, till a time when he’d found safety.

  He hesitated, wondering if he should drop into the water or climb back aboard the Sultana’s deck. He shuddered at the thought of the black and swollen Mississippi flowing beneath his feet and at the image of Marie as she had slipped beneath its surface. He didn’t want to go there, not with the river sprawling cold and endless under the night sky. He’d never survive it unless he found some floating object and kept it to himself.

  Darien struggled for several minutes to pull himself back over the rail. Panting with exertion, he scanned the gangway for any sign of Yvette or the private who’d befriended her. Perhaps if one or the other had been wounded, he could pitch them overboard and let nature take its course. Panicked soldiers rushed about, desperately snatching up anything that might float, and he knew no one would take any note of what he did. Certainly no one would bother to try to stop a murder.

  But neither one remained anywhere in sight. It seemed likely that both Yvette and the soldier had been hurled into the water by the blast.

  “Please, you have to help me! It’s burning me alive!”

  Russell turned his head and looked down. A pile of rubble pinned a man’s midsection to a half-collapsed stretch of deck. Darien moved closer, hoping the trapped fellow would prove to be Yvette’s friend. But the man reaching toward Russell was gray-haired and not blond, and Darien recognized him as one of the guards.

  “Please!” the soldier repeated.

  Darien hadn’t meant to come near enough for the man to look him in the eye. Yet he had, and he nearly gagged on the sharp odor of scorched flesh. That was when he realized the guard’s legs were covered by a red-hot sheet of twisted metal.

  All around him, heaps of glowing coals gradually smoldered their way through both the deck and fragments of shattered interior wall that lay scattered like kindling. Flame licked at the debris that trapped the soldier, and his pleas abruptly changed to screams of agony.

  “Dear God! Dear God! I’m dying!”

  A lump formed in his throat as Darien used his shoes to try to kick some of the debris off the guard. He quickly realized that nothing in the pile was large enough to make a proper float. Even so, the man’s pleas prompted Darien to kick a few more times until flame ignited the hem of his wool trousers.

  After using his hands to beat out the fire, he turned away, heedless of the rising volume of the guard’s agonized screams. Nothing to be done about it, Darien told himself. Not unless he wanted to die, too.

  Distinctive female cries drew his attention. He spun toward the sound, hoping he would have the chance to settle accounts with Yvette. But the woman running down the gangway was clearly not her. The tall blonde’s eyes were wild, and by the firelight, he saw what looked like a large red burn on her left cheek. Despite the apparent wound and the tears streaming down her face, she was moving with swift determination, clutching two boards as if for dear life.

  He couldn’t stay and burn to death as the guard had, and he couldn’t face the river without a float. This might be his best chance. Darien grabbed the larger board as she tried to pass him. She shrieked and swung the other toward his shoulder. He wrested it away from her as well, but she clawed desperately in an attempt to regain her treasure.

  With all his strength, he smashed the smaller board into her left temple. Hard enough for the force of the impact to send shafts of pain shooting through his arm. Hard enough to send an arc of bloody droplets flying across the boards. Did he only imagine the sound of the liquid sizzling against hot coals?

  The woman crumpled at his feet. His third murder. But unlike the others, this one had neither neatness nor precision to take pride in. Only ugliness and the base instinct to survive no matter who stood in his way.

  Before anyone could serve him the same, Darien stripped off his frock coat and climbed over the railing. After pitching hi
s boards into the water, he leapt after them, barely noticing that the screaming of the burning man had finally ceased.

  * * *

  Sharp, exquisite agony was all that kept her focused. Without it, the shock of the concussion might have rendered Yvette unconscious or stunned her until it was too late to try to swim. Her left elbow, struck by some heavy flying object, instead drew every bit of her attention, even as she plunged beneath the water’s surface.

  The wound throbbed a dark warning. The cold Mississippi meant to swallow her, just as it had Marie. Already its chill ebbed away her strength and pulled her bare feet toward the bottom.

  No! Yvette rose on a wave of outrage, aided by her kicking legs and her right arm. She refused to sink, to feed the river yet another unprotesting Augeron. Her face broke the surface, and she took angry gulps of air.

  What in the name of heaven had thrown her off the steamboat? What had struck her hard enough to cause such sickening waves of pain? Putting her questions aside for later, she tried—and failed—to use the injured arm. The effort made her vision cloud with blackness and her head dip once more beneath the surface of the waves.

  God, no! She sputtered to the surface once more and knew she mustn’t try again to use that arm. Surely it was broken. Yet without it, how would she ever keep herself afloat?

  Gradually, she became aware of other swimmers in the water, their heads lit intermittently by the flickering of flames upon the burning steamboat. Some sort of fire or explosion, she decided. But right now that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the plank she saw illuminated, not twenty feet away.

  As she set out toward it, she prayed that she would reach the plank before anyone else saw it. And before her strength gave out. * * *

  In those first few instants, Capt. J. Cass Mason thought it a nightmare, the result of too much worry, maybe even too much drink. But the Sultana’s violent shudder soon shook him awake, and he quickly realized this was something far worse than any nightmare, far deadlier as well.