Excerpt #8

Chapter Three

Chase braced both hands against the Andromeda's big wooden wheel and watched the last of the passengers straggling aboard the steamer, three decks below. He'd already looked over the distribution of the cargo and checked the manifests. He'd greeted most of the cabin passengers. Not five minutes before he'd rung the bells that connected the pilot house to the engine room and signaled Cal Watkins to build up steam in the boiler and limber-up the engine.

Soon they'd be getting underway, beginning Chase's first run as the Andromeda's captain. He'd been dreaming about this moment all his life. He imagined the way he'd stand with his feet planted on the deck of his own boat, how he'd watch the Missouri River country unfurl before him as if he owned that, too.

He drew in a long satisfied breath and let it go. He was a man in command of his own riverboat, a man in command of his own destiny. What Chase couldn't seem to control was his brother's curiosity—or his impertinence.

While Chase gave the orders that would ready the Andromeda for departure, Rue had settled into one corner of the lazy bench that ran across the back of the wheelhouse.

"So," he drawled as Chase consulted his river charts for what must have been the twentieth time, "when exactly do you mean to tell Pa and Ma about the new Mrs. Hardesty?"

Chase was concentrating on the maps, not on his new wife. Still, he knew better than to ignore Rue's question outright. He marked his place with his finger and raised his head. "I'll tell them about Ann when the time comes."

"When we stop home on our way upriver?" Rue pressed him.

"I expect."

"Are you going to mention that Ann's in the family way?" Rue wanted to know. "Or are you going to spring that on them the way you did on me?"

Chase could hear the scorn in his brother's voice that masked his hurt. He truly had meant to tell Rue about Ann, about Ann's baby, and the agreement he'd made with the commodore. He just hadn't been able to find the words.

The bargain sounded so cold-blood when you said it straight out. Yet even if his wedding to Ann Rossiter had been more a transaction than a love-match, what was wrong with that if both parties were satisfied with the outcome? Though after their interview in the commodore's study, Chase couldn't say Ann seem all that satisfied.

As much to cover his own discomfort as to get on with his duties, Chase strode to the wheelhouse doorway and shouted for the mate to ring the departure bell, signaling any passengers lingering on the levee to get aboard. He returned to the wheel and stepped on the peddle to blow the departure whistle—th-oo-op, thoop, thoop, th-oo-op, thoop—to let the other steamers know they were preparing to leave the levee.

"What I mean is—" Rue continued, never one to be put off. "Well, I wondered about Ann's baby. It isn't yours, is it? You and I must have been at Ma and Pa's about the time she..."

In the last two days Chase had spent more time than he cared to admit wondering about Ann, Ann's baby, and especially about Ann's baby's father. Who was he? What kind of man would seduce a respectable, gently reared woman, get her with child, then refused to marry her?

Chase might speculate about that, but he didn't want anyone else doing it. He turned and faced his brother, meeting his dark gaze head on. "Ann's baby is mine now," he said simply. "That's all that matters."

Rue paused, then inclined his head. "I see what you mean."

"Good," Chase answered. "Good. And if anybody starts asking questions—especially Ma—I'd be obliged if you tell them that baby belongs to me."

"But if I was able to count back far enough to figure out you aren't that baby's father," Rue pointed out, "don't you think Ma—"

"Let me handle Ma," Chase warned him.

Just then, a horsecab came clattering across the cobblestones at a speed that sent stevedores, transfer agents, and passengers sprinting out of the way. It came to a swaying stop at the foot of the Andromeda's landing stage.

"If that's one of our passengers," Rue observed coming to stand at Chase's shoulder, "he's cut things pretty damn close."

Chase nodded in agreement and watched the small, bandy-legged driver clamber down from his box. Against a heavy wind, he battled his way back to the carriage door and heaved it open.

A woman emerged somewhat gracelessly, then clamped one hand to the top of her head to batten down her broad-brimmed hat. She glanced once at the ship, then gestured for the driver to gather up her baggage.

Chase didn't recall seeing the name of any lone women on the passenger list, which meant this lady was joining her husband, probably after a day of perusing St. Louis's shops.

As the woman started up theAndromeda's landing stage, her overloaded driver bobbing in her wake, a particularly strong gust of wind molded her deep-blue cloak close against her body.

Chase saw at once that she was pregnant. "Oh, dear God!" he breathed.

Rue squinted and bent closer to the window. "Is that Ann?"

"I sure as hell hope not," Chase muttered, then bolted out of the pilot house. When he reached the main deck the woman in the wide-brimmed hat was standing at the lip of the gangway.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Jake Skirlin, the Andromeda's clerk, was saying. "We're all sold out of first class cabins, and even deck passage is at a minimum. Perhaps I can direct you to another..."

Just then the woman raised her head, and Chase saw his worst fears realized. It was Ann Rossiter.

Ann Hardesty, he corrected himself.

Before she answered, Ann tipped her chin in that prim, ladylike way Chase was coming to recognize—and detest.

"You misunderstand me, sir. I don't need first class accommodations. I'd like to be shown to the captain's cabin."

"To the captain's cabin?" Skirlin echoed.

For a moment, Chase wondered if he could simply disavow her, say he'd never seen this woman before in his life. He didn't know what Ann was doing here or what she hoped to accomplish, but there was something about the rigidity of her stance and the way the green leather gloves pulled across her knuckles as she balled her fists that made him think he didn't have much choice about claiming her.

"It's all right, Skirlin," he said coming toward them around the tall, finialed post at the foot of the grand staircase. "This lady is my wife."

Chase saw the clerk's mouth drop open in astonishment before he turned his full attention on Ann. "Go home," he told her.

"I won't!" The words were sharp, clipped and, judging from her tone, nonnegotiable.

"We're casting off in ten minutes. I don't want you aboard the Andromeda when we do."

Ann gave her head a quick, dismissing shake. "I don't care what you want. I'm coming with you."

He could see by the taut line of her jaw she meant it and was fully prepared to fight to win her way. Chase didn't have the time or patience to convince her otherwise.

He wasn't about to stand here on the deck with half the crew looking on and argue with her, either. He wasn't going to let Ann Rossiter—Ann Hardesty, damn it—ruin one of the most important moments of his life.

He caught her arm and escorted her, none too gently, in the direction of the stairs.

"If we're not back before you hear the order to cast off," he told Skirlin, "load Mrs. Hardesty's baggage and pay her driver. Give him a generous tip, too; those valises look to weigh half as much as he does."

Chase all but dragged Ann up two flights of stairs to where his cabin sat at the front of the Texas deck. Once they were alone he'd set things straight with her, then pack her and her valises back to Lucas Place.

As they approached his stateroom, Chase saw Rue leaning over the railing outside the wheelhouse on the deck above, his face bright with interest. Chase shot his brother the kind of glare that was usually set stevedores trembling, then escorted Ann into his cabin.

The office/sitting room and adjoining bedroom were compact, but luxuriously appointed as suited the master of such a fast and graceful steamer. It was certainly the fanciest place Chase had every lived. But since he'd taken command, he'd barely had time to notice the intricate millwork, the turkey-red carpets, and the elegant furnishings. For a moment he saw them through Ann's eyes and was pleased at their understated elegance.

Then he narrowed his focus to his wife, standing tall and poker-straight in the middle of his stateroom—where she most certainly didn't belong.

"All right, Ann," he said as reasonably as he could. "What's this all about?"

Ann plucked a long ivory hatpin from her hat, removed the wide-brimmed velvety thing, then patted her hair into place.

The presumption in that gesture made Chase clench his teeth.

"I decided—" Ann tilted her chin up another notch. "— that since you don't keep rooms in town, I'd live aboard the Andromeda."

It took Chase a moment to catch his breath. "You can't just move in here!" he protested.

"And why not?"

Several answers flashed across his mind: because women aboard a riverboat were as useless as bulls with udders; because no hot-house lady could bear up to the noise and dirt and rough companions. Because they were headed up the cantankerous Missouri, not on some picnic excursion. Because Ann was carrying a child and needed looking after.

Because he didn't want her here. He didn't want her aboard the Andromeda because this moment was his, his alone. He wanted to savor every hoot of the whistle, every riffle of wind across the water. Every prickle of pride.

He didn't want her here because it would be too damned difficult to have someone so young and lovely—and pregnant with someone else's child—living in such proximity. Just thinking about having her here—sharing these rooms, for godsake—made him itch all over.

Since he couldn't explain that to Ann, he did his best to be reasonable. "Now, Ann," he cajoled, "it would certainly make more sense for you to stay at the townhouse where you have family to look after you."

"I don't care what makes sense." She faced him, her hands knotted at her waist and color flaming in her cheeks. "I'm your responsibility."

The thorn in his side is what she meant.

"I met my responsibilities," Chase pointed out. "I made provision for you to stay on with your father while I was away."

"Without even asking me what I wanted!"

He hadn't had a chance to ask her; Ann had refused to see him. Besides, he'd done what was quite obviously best for her, and her inability to admit it infuriated him. Hadn't she vowed to "honor and obey" him just this morning?

"You don't belong on the Andromeda," he told her baldly. "The idea of you living aboard is ridiculous, irresponsible."

"Nevertheless," she answered. "I mean to stay."

"Goddamn it, Ann!" he shouted at her. "Why are you here? Why are you so bent on leaving your father's house?"

"Do you think—" Her words were harsh and bitten off short. "— I'd have come to you if I had anywhere else to go?"

Chase felt the impact of that question in his chest.

"I'm here," she went on, "because the commodore married me off to someone I'd never laid eyes on until two days ago. Because he sold me to a common steersman to save the Rossiter name from scandal.

"I'm here—" Her voice thickened, darkened. "— because after his doing that, I don't trust him to put my best interests—or the best interests of this baby—ahead of his own."

After his years on the river, Chase had seen Rossiter's ruthlessness in the deals he'd made and the men he'd fired without a though. That the commodore had married Ann off so hastily and to someone like him, reinforced what Chase already knew of the man.

"So you'll take your chances with me instead?" he asked.

"You've only betrayed me once—" she answered with more than a little bitterness. "— at least so far."

Her barb sank deep, and Chase couldn't help grimacing.

"If you stayed aboard I wouldn't have time to look after you," he warned her. "I'm on duty twenty-four hours a day. I stand watches, supervise the navigation and engineering, and make sure the passengers needs are being taken care of. There are logs and ledgers to keep, decisions to make, and goods to sell at stops along the way."

"You needn't take so much as a moment away from your duties for my sake." Ann stood perfectly still and watched him pace. "You'll barely know I'm here."

"Oh, Ann!" Chase stopped to laugh. "I'd know you were here if I were deaf and blind. Are you really going to be able to ignore me if we're living in these two little rooms together?"

Ann's eyes went wide, as if she hadn't fully considered what their living arrangements were going to be.

"Perhaps you have a vacant cabin," she suggested hopefully.

"Not a one."

She hesitated and pressed her fingers to her lips as if she were casting about for an alternative.

Just then the bell in the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral began to toll. It was four o'clock.

Chase straightened like a shot. He didn't have time to argue with this woman who, in a moment of utter insanity, he'd made his wife. He had his duties to perform.

"I'm going to spare you the humiliation of carrying you bodily off this boat," he began, "but don't imagine for a moment this arrangement is permanent. I'm flagging down the first steamer we pass that's heading downstream and sending you back to your father.

"Now, before we cast off—should I send word to him that you're here with me?"

"I left a note."

"Good enough," he answered and slammed out of the cabin.

He took the steps to the pilot house three at a time.

Rue was at the wheel when he arrived.

"I didn't see Ann leave," the younger man observed with the slightest of smiles. "Did I miss my chance to say good-bye?"

Chase scowled at his brother and took one last look at the charts. "Whether Ann left the Andromeda is none of your concern."

"Well, you have to admire her gumption," Rue went on, "storming aboard this afternoon and demanding passage."

"I can't imagine why I should admire that," Chase shot back. "Now will you sound that damn whistle to let everyone know we're leaving?"

As Rue blew a single long blast to signal their intentions, Chase made his way down to the hurricane deck. He paused to take one last look at St. Louis, at the cobblestoned levee and the rows of big, brick warehouses rising in tiers beyond it. Then he shouted down to the mate who was waiting on the foredeck.

"Mr. Steinwehr, single up the double lines."

Gustave "Goose" Steinwehr gave the order to his deck hands, and several men scrambled up the levee to loose the ropes that bound the Andromeda to big iron links set into the cobblestones.

"Let the stern and aft lines go."

As the hands dropped more of the ropes, the stern of the steamer began to drift out into the current.

Chase turned and called to Rue. "Signal the slow bell ahead and give me some left rudder."

Rue rang the engine room and muscled the wheel around. As the Andromeda eased closer to the levee, and Chase directed that they drop the bow lines, too.

Then, once the hands were aboard, Chase signaled for three sharp blasts of the whistle and gave the order for backing down. Graceful as a ballerina, the Andromeda eased away from the bank, and turned out into the brisk Mississippi River current.

A hot tingle of satisfaction sizzled from Chase's scalp to his toes. He was in command now; the riverboat was his.

"All stop," he sang out once they were well beyond the line of boats tied up at the bank. Facing upstream to the north, Chase sensed the steamer drift a little beneath him and took an intoxicating sip of the river's power before he gave the order. "Right rudder, full ahead." The Andromeda homed to the main channel like a swallow to its nest.

For a long, shining moment Chase stood alone on the hurricane deck and let the cold March wind tear at him. It plastered his clothes against his body and yanked at his hair. It made his cheeks sting and his eyes water. Never had he felt more alive than he did at this moment, like the world was his for the asking. Like he was a man who'd proved himself.

With a whoop of pure elation, Chase spun on his heel and strode back to the wheelhouse.

Once inside, he nudged Rue aside and wrapped his hands around the wheel's elegantly tapered spokes. He caressed the satin-smooth turnings and savored the feel of the engine's vibration in the hollows of his palms.

He closed his eyes and let loose a sigh that felt like it had been building behind his sternum for half his life. He'd never believed he could have this—a boat of his own and a river he could follow into the sunset—the sum total of all he'd ever wanted for himself.

As he guided the Andromeda north, the banks of the Mississippi rolled past him. To the east lay Illinois, swampy scrub country that masked its towns and villages in a gray-brown haze of branches. To the west the state of Missouri was slipping by, the St. Louis's waterfront giving way to lumber mills and manufacturing plants, scattered farmsteads and forested banks that climbed a low, gray bluff set well back from the water.

Chase rang the bells to the engine room for half speed as he maneuvered the Andromeda toward the mouth of the Chain of Rocks channel. It was one of the most treacherous sections on the Mississippi. In just the last ten years its rocky, saw-toothed reefs had killed seventeen steamboats outright and maimed countless others.

The current was stiff and Mississippi so swollen by spring run off that the Andromeda was having to fight up every inch of the Chain's seven-mile course.

"Eddy to port," Rue pointed out from where he was leaning against the breast-board at the front of the pilot house.

Chase held the wheel over hard, then brought it back. The Andromeda came about like a saloon girl ruffling her petticoats at a potential customer.

In the next hour and a half, they clawed their way north, struggling upriver toward the point where the Missouri flowed into the Mississippi from the west. The Andromeda bucked as they swung bow-first into Missouri's current. Then, as they penetrated the mouth of the river that would take them all the way to Montana, she settled again.

"They say boys go up the Mississippi, and the men the Missouri," Rue offered with a grin. "Guess what that make us?"

"Damn fools, for getting into steamboating in the first place," Chase answered and turned into a crossing toward the opposite bank.

"Want me to take the wheel?" Rue asked eagerly.

Chase measured the pleasure of piloting the Andromeda, against the demands of his other duties and shook his head.

"I'll hold her steady for awhile yet."

Rue shrugged, then ambled toward the door. "I'll head down and get some us coffee before the cooks start dishing up supper."

Chase nodded absently and let him go.

Though piloting took most of Chase's concentration, he couldn't seem to keep his thoughts kept straying to Ann. How delicate she'd looked as she'd glided toward across the parlor this morning. How stubborn and uncompromising she'd been standing at the head of the gangway this afternoon.

He'd recognized the resolve in her that first day, but it had been tempered by the mortification of being offered in marriage as damaged goods. Chase saw now that when she'd clenched her fist and refused his ring, it had been as much act of rebellion directed at her father as at him.

But when he'd faced her across the cabin this afternoon, she'd showed such temerity and resolve that Chase found himself wishing he could give her what she wanted. Still, keeping Ann aboard the Andromeda was impossible. No matter what James Rossiter had done or how single-minded he was when it came to his daughter, Ann was better off in St. Louis on a steamer bound for Montana.

Chase stayed on at the wheel for a good deal longer than he'd intended, well into a sunset that turned the river ahead to molten copper. It wasn't until after they'd tied up at Portage de Sioux for the night, that Chase left the wheelhouse, finally resigned to dealing with Ann.

She was his wife, his responsibility, and maybe once they'd shared a companionable dinner, he be able to make her see it was best that she take passage home.

Making his way down to the Texas deck, Chase paused outside the door to his cabin. He smoothed his hair, let out a long, gusty sigh, and reached for the knob. It turned beneath his hand, but when he leaned into the panel nothing happened. He jiggled the latch and nudged a little harder. The door didn't budge.

Ann had locked him out of his own cabin!

Chase fought a sharp jab of annoyance. "Ann," he said leaning close to the door so his voice wouldn't carry. "Open up, Ann. I need to talk to you."

He didn't hear a so much as a whisper of movement from inside. Not a rustle, not a murmur.

"Let me in, Ann," His voice was sharper, less cajoling.

He could imagine her sitting in there, knitting or reading with single-minded purpose while he stood out here.

"Ann, please!"

The silence persisted, growing stubborn, insolent, mutinous. Anger chewed along his nerves.

"Ann!"

Nothing.

Damn the woman, anyway. All he wanted was to settle in the captain's sitting room, savor a brandy and a cheroot, and reflect on all he'd accomplished. He'd been working toward this moment all his life. It was his triumph, damnit! His proof that a boy who'd been taken in out of pity could make something of himself.

He wasn't going to let Ann Rossiter—Ann Hardesty or whoever the hell she was—spoil his victory. He wasn't going to let her lock him out of his own cabin.

He glared at the door. He could break the lock without half trying. He could kick his way into that stateroom and show Ann Hardesty that her new husband wasn't a man to be trifled with.

He backed up a step, balanced on his left leg and flexed his right. Did he really want to burst into that cabin and begin married life by bullying his wife into submission? Did he want the crew and passengers to come trooping up here to see what the commotion was about?

That thought sobered Chase faster than a dip in the river. He straightened, let out his breath, braced back against the railing and glared at the door.

He had to get Ann off his boat.

What the devil was she doing in that cabin anyway?

He realized all at once that the sitting room windows were dark, and the only illumination glimmered dimly between the halves of the bedroom curtains.

He stepped up close to the glass and peered between the velvet panels. He could only see a narrow slice of room, the bottom half of the bunk, the built-in shaving stand on the opposite wall and the mirror that hung above it.

He saw that Ann lay fully clothed toward the outer edge of his berth. That she was dressed meant either that Skirlin had neglected to have her baggage delivered, or that she thought the layers of clothes might offer some protection.

Against him, he supposed.

Chase let out his breath in exasperation.

As he looked closer, he could see she slept with her knees drawn up and had left the lamp burning, like a child afraid of the dark. And he was suddenly very glad he hadn't gone charging into that cabin like a madman.

Still, a spark of resentment burned in him. Today he had gotten everything he'd ever wanted for himself, and Ann was spoiling his victory.

Biting back a curse, he turned from the window and took the stairs down to the boiler deck where a few hardy passengers stood in the cold smoking cigars. He spoke to each of the men in turn, then stepped into the warmth of the pastry kitchen.

Unlike the galleys on most steamboats, Frenchy Bertin's was spotless. The wide wooden tables had been wiped with vinegar, the floors swept, and the food stored away in the pie safe or carefully covered with cheese cloth.

Since he'd elected to remain in the pilot house right through supper, Chace was hungry. He scavenged two slices of bread, then headed into the starboard galley where Harley Crocker prepared the meat and vegetables. After making himself a sandwich of sliced beef and horseradish, Chase wandered back to Frenchy's side of the boat for a slice of pie and a glass of whiskey from the "nip" bottle Bertin kept hidden in one of the canisters.

Feeling better for having food and a jot of whiskey in his belly, Chase returned to the Texas deck and tried to figure out where he was going to sleep.

When he peered between the curtains again, he saw Ann hadn't moved—and that odd, that ridiculous, protectiveness stirred in him again. He couldn't quite bring himself to disturb her, which left him one choice about where he'd spend the night.

Cursing under his breath, he entered the officers' quarters, the series of narrow bunk-lined rooms that lay directly behind the captain's cabin. Three men were at the table playing cards, Rue, Cal Watkins, and Beck Morgan, the mud clerk.

They watched without a word as Chase sat down on the nearest berth and removed his boots. In absolute silence they watched as he stripped to his knitted underwear. He tugged back the blankets on the bed and climbed beneath them.

"Good night," he mumbled gruffly.

Not wanting to see his officers' speculative glances, Chase turned his face to the wall. Though not one of them said a word, Chase knew what they were thinking. Here he was, the captain of his own damned steamer hunkered down in a steersman's cot, humiliated in front of the men he was supposed to command.

And sleeping alone on his wedding night.

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