“Where’s your mind?” Zanna asked once.
Delta shrugged. “I didn’t sleep well.” But her thoughts had left her dream, at least the content of her dream. For some unexplainable reason she now felt the baby in her dream represented not a child of her own, but Brett himself. He was the one needing her help: she knew he was. The reason she had dreamed of Anne Bonny falling to her death clutching her child to her bosom, must surely symbolize the lengths to which Delta herself was prepared to go in supporting Brett.
He was a part of her life. He could deny the fact until kingdom come, but it would remain a fact. He had been part of her life for months. Seeing him, knowing him in the flesh validated her dream, convincing her beyond doubt that her life was inexplicably intertwined with his.
Whether he wanted this to be true or not did nothing to change the facts. And the thought of him facing his enemies alone was unbearable.
By the time they finished breakfast Delta’s mind was set. She would go to Brett, force him to see her. Somehow she would persuade him to allow her to be a physical part of his life. Already he was part of her life in every other way.
But before she could carry out her plan, the Mississippi Princess arrived in Natchez and Cameron’s representative came aboard.
Zanna was taken with Stuart Longstreet from the first. He wasn’t as tall as Cameron. In fact, he and Zanna were close to the same height. His most visible feature was a sweeping, exquisitely groomed blond handlebar mustache. He had a ready laugh, but his brown eyes remained alert and serious. His penchant for observing large areas while keeping up a conversation, made Delta nervous. She worried that he might be searching for a glimpse of Brett.
Stuart, as he insisted on being called, was also organized, she discovered, for he had a day of sightseeing mapped out. She wanted desperately to refuse, to remain on board and find a way to get in touch with Brett, but she dared not arouse Stuart’s suspicions. And she had to write articles about Natchez to post to Hollis anyway, else the family would grow suspicious.
“You can wire Cameron as soon as we get to Natchez-on-top-of-the-Hill,” Stuart advised her, quick to distinguish between the disreputable Natchez-under-the-Hill, near which the boat had docked. “He’ll be on pins and needles until he receives word of your safe arrival.”
After retrieving her parasol and tapestry portfolio from her stateroom, Delta searched out Zanna again. “Why don’t you leave the parade to Albert and come with us?”
“I shouldn’t,” Zanna replied. She gave Delta a quick peck on the cheek. “Have a good time today. He’s a handsome man, and he appears to be more … ah, more honorable than others you’ve met recently. Let him take your mind off your troubles.”
“I don’t have any troubles,” Delta objected.
“Have a wonderful day,” Zanna repeated, leaving Delta dismayed. Had her feeling for Brett been so easy for all to see? If so, no wonder he considered her a threat to his safety.
Stuart guided her down the gangplank, explaining about the yarn mills they would visit, and the ice factory. “Cameron was anxious for me to get you away from the wharves,” he told her, glancing toward the saloons and dives along the waterfront. “Natchez-under-the-Hill is no place for a lady. Nor a man either, unless he’s hunting badmen.”
She felt his fingers touch lightly at her waist when they stepped off the gangplank, as though to help her keep her balance. Thoughts of Brett flashed through her brain. She turned back toward the boat, searching the decks, hoping this time not to find him watching her. What would he think, seeing her with another man? And so soon? Whether he cared for her or not, he would be certain to feel abandoned.
Brett wasn’t in sight, of course, and the sinking feeling she experienced reaffirmed how desperate she was to see him. From the top deck, however, a figure waved in wild circles, drawing her attention.
“Have a good time, Delta.”
Nat. She felt sick inside. Then suddenly she became aware of Gabriel who stood beside the gangplank playing his fiddle, an act she now knew to be a signal of some sort to Brett. She glared at him. Without missing a beat of the lively tune, Gabriel lifted eyebrows in salute, then favored Stuart with a quizzical frown.
Not only did Natchez-on-top-of-the-Hill, as Stuart called it, appear to be a more respectable place than its counterpart down under, but it was beautiful. Sitting stiffly in the carriage beside the Pinkerton agent, wishing she were back on board the Mississippi Princess, Delta caught her breath at the brilliant array of azaleas. Their sweet fragrance filled the air. But her spirits would not be lifted more than a notch or two. Her fear for Brett had become an all-consuming plague, gnawing at her like a busy beaver.
What would this day hold for him? For her? For them? And how would she ever persuade him to let her love him?
Somehow the day passed. Delta dutifully allowed Stuart to squire her about town, first to the Rosalie Yarn Mill, then to Natchez Cotton Mills Company, both which seemed enormously prosperous. Although evidence of the war’s destruction remained, she saw less of it here than in Vicksburg.
“The war was rough,” Stuart replied to her comment, “especially the occupation, but we didn’t spend six unrelenting weeks in the midst of one battle like Vicksburg did.”
After lunch in a fancy hotel dining room, to which Delta knew she should have worn a bonnet instead of her hair ribbon, Stuart took her to the ice factory. It was a large building with a maze of pipes running every which way. The floor was littered with tin boxes, which had been filled with clear water and sunk into the floor. Men with long sticks walked along between the rows stirring the water as it froze. “We turn out thirty tons of ice a day.” The foreman led them to one corner of the room, where he instructed Delta to notice the various types of cut flowers that were freezing inside the water.
“These are popular in the summer,” the foreman said. “Folks like to place them on silver trays at social gatherings. Helps cool the air.” He indicated several blocks in the far corner. “Those are for the Mississippi Princess. Captain Kaney wanted something special for the reception tonight.”
Delta scribbled as fast as she could while the foreman answered questions about the methods used to freeze the ice—“ammonia gas flowing through those pipes produces the freezing”—and to ship the ice—“pack it in sawdust,” he explained.
By the time they stepped outside again, the calliope had begun to call patrons to the evening’s performance. The streets were filled with people in carriages and on foot headed for the docks.
“All the performances will be on board the ship in Natchez,” she told Stuart after he assisted her into the carriage.
“I should hope so,” he replied, “what with the dangerous area surrounding the docks.”
When he took up the reins, she expected him to head downhill toward the boat, but he turned the opposite direction.
A couple of streets over, he drew rein in front of a small building off the main square. “I’ve saved this little chore for last,” he said, climbing down from the carriage. “Cameron indicated that you wouldn’t find it to your liking, so I didn’t want to spoil the day.”
The sign outside the building read: Stuart Long-street, Detective. “This is your office?”
Even before he answered, anxiety began to grow inside her. He took her hand and helped her alight, while she fought back her fear.
“What won’t I find to my liking?” she asked, striving to sound casual.
He held the door, ushered her into an office that showed signs of needing a housekeeper’s attention. Papers and files were stacked high on every available surface. Clearing a chair, he motioned her to it, then busied himself lighting the lamp that stood nearby.
“I take it our gambler is still on board the Mississippi Princess?” he inquired.
So he was our gambler now? Somehow the term held a more ominous connotation than Cameron’s calling Brett her gambler. She shrugged. In truth she had no idea where Brett was.
Stuart handed
her a sheaf of handbills. “Look through these. See if you can identify him.”
Terror gripped her as Nat’s accusation about the wanted poster came to mind. The papers trembled in her hands. Dare she look through these? What if his likeness stared back at her? His beloved likeness. On a wanted poster.
“There aren’t many,” Stuart encouraged, “ten at the most. I went through everything that resembled the description Cameron wired me: tall, broad-shouldered, thick black hair, dark eyes separated by a deep vertical crease, of French descent. The most likely candidate—” He paused, fingering his mustache. “Go ahead and leaf through them. I don’t want to prejudice what you see with my suspicions.”
She held her breath. Nothing he could say would prejudice her reaction to a photograph of Brett Reall on a wanted poster. Gingerly she began to study the pictures. Her eyes skittered across the first page. Relief followed when she didn’t recognize anything about the man. Terror returned with the second page. But she didn’t recognize him, either. Nor the third, nor the fourth.
“Where are these people from?” she asked, more to take her mind off what she was doing than because she desired an answer.
She didn’t recognize the fifth face. Or the sixth.
“All over. We looked for someone with connections to Canada. Didn’t find any.” Stuart reached for the stack, withdrew a poster, and handed it to her for further scrutiny.
For a moment all she could do was purse her lips and stare at the unfamiliar face of an unknown criminal, willing her head to stop reeling, her heart to resume beating. “I’ve never seen that man.”
She felt ill. “Why do you think Brett Reall is a fugitive? I mean, Cameron wasn’t even suspicious of him.”
“That bounty hunter’s after someone, Delta. We don’t want to take a chance on a criminal slipping into the country under our noses.”
“Brett’s a gambler—”
“Cameron swears not.”
“Cameron only met him once.”
“What kind of gambler has calluses on his hands and a face that’s seen more sunshine than barroom lamps?”
She inhaled, gritted her teeth, and finally exhaled, trying to expel the awful fact that she could be responsible for Brett being apprehended by authorities.
“One that isn’t very good,” she suggested. “Maybe he isn’t able to make a living gambling. Perhaps he has to … uh, to supplement his income by other means.”
“In that case, it’s those other means we’re interested in. I’ve wired the name and description to the Mounties.” Stuart paused to give her a look filled with portent. “I’ll be traveling on board the Mississippi Princess the rest of the way to New Orleans.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“If you had identified one of these fellers—” He tapped the stack of wanted posters he had taken from Delta’s hand. “—as the gambler on board the showboat, Cameron’s instructions were to keep you here in Natchez until he could arrange for your passage back to St. Louis. But since you didn’t—”
Delta jumped to her feet during Stuart’s discourse. “Cameron said? Cameron decided? Cameron’s instructions—?”
“Delta, he knows his business. I can’t blame him.” He gave her a look that, before she met Brett Reall, might have set her heart to thrumming. Now it only irritated her. “You’re a mighty lovely woman, Delta. Cameron doesn’t—we don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She felt sick. Weak and sick. And frightened. “What will you do?”
“Do?”
“On board the boat? About … about the gambler?”
“Watch him,” Stuart replied.
“I talked to Nat, the bounty hunter. He isn’t after Brett,” she assured him. “He’s after someone else. He told me so. He even had a wanted poster with the man’s face on it, and he said it wasn’t Brett.”
“Who is he after? Would you recognize the poster if I found it—” he motioned around the room, “—in all this mess?”
“I didn’t see the poster. It was stolen from Nat’s room, or so he said. He accused me of the theft.”
“You?”
She shrugged. “I’m a journalist. That has a lot of people worried.”
“And that’s another thing that worries Cameron—and me.” Stuart chewed his bottom lip, setting his mustache to bobbling. Delta wanted to reach over and yank it. She wanted to run from the room, to find Brett, to warn him.
“I really must be getting back to the boat,” she said. “Zanna depends on me to sell tickets and it’s getting awfully late.”
It took more finagling than Delta had thought to free herself from Stuart Longstreet. Back on the boat, he suggested they take in the afternoon sunset with a glass of lemonade on deck.
His invitation called to mind happy times with Brett, and only added to her anxiety. She must find Brett. Now she had more than her nightmare to discuss with him. Now they faced a real threat. Another one.
“Thank you, but I need to freshen up. Why don’t you find a cabin boy to show you to your stateroom before dinner?”
Although Stuart carried his grip along, he didn’t seem in a hurry to settle in. “We’ve plenty of time.”
“Not on this boat. Captain Kaney runs a tight schedule. When his dinner bell sounds, he expects everyone to be dressed and ready to eat.”
No sooner had she extricated herself from the persistent Pinkerton agent than she faced another problem—she had no idea where Brett’s stateroom was located. Heading for her own cabin, she willed her brain to work, for she certainly couldn’t ask anyone for directions.
That would only draw attention, which she must avoid at all costs. So, what did she know that would lead her to his room?
The only reference she could recall him making to his cabin was when he left her to dress for breakfast those two mornings. For a moment her emotions took over and she was lost in reflective longings so intense she felt her heart stammer.
Striving to order her thinking as she did when researching a story, she started at the beginning. The beginning.
She had first seen Brett in the dining room. No clue there.
Next the captain had introduced them at the rail outside the grand salon. No clue there.
She had seen him at dinner. Again, emotions assailed her, warm and poignant, recalling how they had bantered at the captain’s table. He’d thought her an actress. Her smile faded recalling his reaction when he discovered her to be a journalist. She understood the reason, now. Or she was beginning to understand.
The next time she saw him had been on deck by the sternwheel after her nightmare. And that, she knew the moment it popped into her head, might hold a clue. He had obviously been in some sort of clandestine meeting with two men she now knew to be Pierre and Gabriel. He wouldn’t have walked the entire length of the boat for such a meeting—and risk being seen either going or coming.
He would have traveled the shortest and least traveled route to and from his stateroom. Or so it seemed.
She headed for the stairway at the stern. It was narrow, dark, and thankfully empty. Not until she began climbing did she think of Nat. What would she do if he found her searching the boat for Brett?
Lie to him, of course. But Nat was becoming more and more difficult to evade.
The stairway to the observation deck, immediately above the cabin deck, opened onto the paddlewheel lounge. The moment her foot touched the deck, emotions assailed her. Then she recalled Stuart Longstreet. It wouldn’t do to have him discover her mission, either. Ducking her head, she slipped around the corner and continued in the stairwell to the next level, the promenade deck.
Instantly upon gaining the promenade deck, she came face to face with Pierre. Without a word, he blocked her path. She craned her neck to see around him. The staterooms on this deck were the largest on board. They ran back to back down the center of the boat, each opening onto the passageway and rail. She had no idea how many there were. Nor where to start searching. With Pierre at this end, howe
ver, she had a good idea.
“You’re lost, m’moiselle.” His abruptness infuriated her.
Summoning all the determination she possessed, she looked him straight in the eye. “I must see him.”
“You’re lost,” he repeated, his enormous bulk filling the narrow passageway. “Go back downstairs, right now.”
Her brain whirred with piffle when she needed substance. In order to succeed, she would have to find a way around this brute, but all she could think of was that she wanted to spit in his face. “I must see Brett,” she insisted. “It’s a matter … an urgent matter … most urgent.”
Mutely Pierre stood his ground.
Delta looked toward the nearest staterooms, one to her left, one to her right, each angled into a corner, separated from the rest. Could one of those be Brett’s? Likely, she decided, with Pierre blocking the passageway at this particular point.
But which one? Realizing the futility even as she moved, she tried to step around the oversized guard, but as she had suspected he would, he blocked her path. Desperation overtook her.
“Brett!” she screamed to the right. Pierre’s hand whipped out to stop her. She dodged it. Turning to the left, she screamed again. “Brett!”
That was all she was allowed, because the big man’s arm came around her neck, turning her toward him. His massive hand clamped over her mouth. She kicked at him. Then realizing that would serve no purpose, she began to stomp on the floor. Noise. She must make enough noise that he would be forced to stop her. He could ill afford noise.
Surely this brute knew that.
Suddenly in the midst of it all, the door to the stateroom on the right opened and she saw Brett.
“Bring her in.”
He spoke in a curt monotone, and she thought without reason of the ice factory and the flowers embedded in the freezing water. Somehow recalling them gave her hope. Brett Reall could put on a cold front, but that’s all it was. A front.
She knew him for the gentle lover, the tender man who had shared her bed, who filled her heart.
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 20
