by Martha Hix
She turned and walked down the jetty. For her child’s sake, and for her own, she first needed to work through her emotions. Neither New Orleans nor Richmond was the place to do it. She’d stay here in Galveston, not with Paul of course, but she wouldn’t run away.
Anthaline agreed to rent her a room, and Emma was thankful the dear woman didn’t ask too many questions. Undoubtedly Paul was aware she hadn’t left Galveston, but he didn’t seek her out. It was best this way.
Two days later, Cleopatra told her that Paul had left the port city. He was traveling to the new capital, Washington-on-the-Brazos. He and Moore planned to meet with Sam Houston. Emma hoped all would go well.
A week after she had left their little home, and her husband, she had a caller—Uncle Rankin.
“Simon told me ye know about . . . about all I’ve done,” he said, his head dropping toward his chest. “I’m wanting to make amends.”
From the rocking chair beside his on Anthaline’s front porch Emma watched him. In the past, she had never seen him like this—humbled.
“In your lifetime you’ve hurt a lot of people, Uncle.”
“I never wanted to hurt ye.”
“By maligning those around me, especially the man I love, you have played me false.”
“Do ye . . . could ye—Is there anything I can do to get yer forgiveness?”
“I cannot absolve you,” she replied. “The past can’t be undone, but can you change your life?”
“I’m trying.” He shuddered. “Do ye still have a place in yer heart for me, Emmie?”
“I love you. I can’t stop loving you, and I don’t want to.”
He lifted his head, and hope sprang to his eyes.
“But it would do me proud,” she added, “if you’d do yourself proud.”
In slow measured words, he explained his intention to help the Texas Navy . . . to help Paul. But his gesture had been too late in coming.
Pleased by his efforts, she said, “That was good of you.”
“When I arrived in Campeche the governor told me ye’d been the ship’s surgeon. At first I was furious that yer husband had allowed ye into that mess, but then I realized—knowing ye and the way ye are—that it had been yer own decision.”
“Exactly.”
“Anyway, I had to come here. I wanted to face ye, and beg forgiveness.”
“You should be begging Paul’s forgiveness, not mine.”
“Then I will.” Rankin stood and brushed his lips with the back of his hand. “Where can I find him?”
“He’s gone to the new capital. I have no idea when he’ll be back.” She steepled her hands on her lap. “Go home for now. Go back to Magnolia Hall—you have a woman there who loves you. Aunt Tillie needs your affection.”
“She does. I’ve many years to make up for.”
“And try to give her your love.” Truly believing that her uncle had changed, Emma smiled. “Then come back to Galveston. Make amends with Paul.”
“I will.”
They embraced, and he departed. Yet Emma was left with her own insecurities. For so long she had imagined her future melded to Paul’s, had assumed she’d continue her medical practice. But she had forfeited the right to call herself physician. All was gone now. Except for the child growing beneath her heart.
After four weeks had passed, Cleopatra showed up, for the tenth time, at the boarding house. “There be a slave girl over to the Morgan place,” she said. “Her babe’s aborning, and she be needing your help.”
“This town is full of doctors. Ask one of them to help.”
“She don’t want them. She heard about your magic, and needs you to take the pain away.”
“Is she having complications?”
“No, but she’s asking for you.”
“Cleo, since the beginning of humankind women have been birthing children without the benefit of sulfurous ether.” She yearned to go to the slave woman and ease her suffering, but she wasn’t worthy of doctoring. A good physician abided by a code of ethics. “Call one of the other doctors, and leave me be.”
Cleopatra huffed up. “Listen here, missy, folks be needing your skills. You cain’t quit—not after all you done gone through to be a doctor.”
“I can’t call myself a physician anymore. I betrayed a patient . . . for my own benefit.”
“That’s about the dumbest thing that’s ever come outta your mouth, gal!” Cleopatra wiggled her forefinger in front of Emma’s nose. “A quitter, that’s what you is. Nothing but a lowdown quitter!”
“Exactly. Now go find help for that woman. I need to take a nap.”
“Then you oughta be taking it in your own home, not in this durned boardinghouse!” Cleopatra shook her head in disgust. “You be pea-brained as a huntin’ dog to let that man have your home. If’n you don’t want him for a husband, least you should do is protect what’s yours. But you quit on your work, quit on him, and hole up here in Miss Anthaline’s place. I’m plumb ashamed of you.”
“Hush, Cleo. The house isn’t important. I want a home, not a mere roof over my head.”
“Then go home to Virginie. Ben and I’ll go with you if’n you’re worried about making the trip alone.”
“You two have followed me from New Orleans to St. Martinsville to Galveston. You have your own home here, and a good life. Ben has his blacksmith shop, and for once you’re living as you should—for yourselves. There is no way I’ll tear you two from your home.”
“Ain’t you got no sense? Home’s where the heart is.”
“Well, my heart isn’t in Louisiana or Virginia.”
“Then you haven’t given up on Frenchie?”
Emma sat down on the bed. A tiny flutter, like butterfly wings, tickled her abdomen. The baby! It was moving for the first time.
“I guess I haven’t given up on my husband. It’s foolish of me, I’m sure. And I’d appreciate your not agreeing.”
“I ain’t agreeing to nothing.” Cleopatra perched beside her, taking her hand. “Now don’t you lie to me, baby. I know you be worried about this business with Sam Houston.”
“Yes. I know Paul must be hurting.”
“Cain’t blame him. That was a dirty trick that ol’ Raven did to him and the others.”
“No man wants to live with the disgrace of a dishonorable discharge,” Emma explained, “especially without the benefit of a court-martial.”
Cleopatra pursed her lips. “Be pretty hard for a man to face all that without his woman backing him.”
Refusing to succumb to her old friend’s emotional blackmail, Emma went on. “I know Paul, and the commodore. For honor’s sake they need that trial.”
“Well, you cain’t say they ain’t trying to get ol’ Houston to change his mind.”
Emma recalled the events of days past. The president of the Republic of Texas was furious upon learning that the Navy men had been given a hero’s welcome in Galveston. Immediately, he had issued dishonorable discharge papers to the commodore and to Paul. The next morning the men of the Texas Navy, led by Reese McDonald, had resigned in protest. Each and every one of them.
Paul had to be hurting. After fighting for Texas’s freedom he had been branded an outlaw and pirate.
What could she do to help? Emma remembered his words: Why don’t you forgive and forget?
“Cleo, I’m going to talk to Sam Houston myself.”
Paul returned from Washington-on-the-Brazos a week later. Again Houston had denied his and Moore’s requests for their day in court. Paul was determined to forget the shame of it and to get on with his life.
He stepped around the boards that littered the banks of Galveston Bay. Workers, twelve of them, were building a sloop. The first fruit of the Rousseau Shipyard’s loom. But he was miserable.
He knew Emma was staying with Anthaline Lightfoot, and he yearned to throw himself at her feet and beg mercy—but he wouldn’t. His stubborn pride wouldn’t let him admit how wrong he had been to let her leave.
Yet the
crates were still hidden in the shed. Paul had put off a decision about them. He realized he was delaying, stalling for time. When it came right down to it—no matter what he said or implied to Emma—he couldn’t bring himself to turn the ordnance over to the Department of War and Marine.
“You’re doing a fine job, Reese,” he told McDonald, who was in charge of building the vessel. “She’s a beauty.”
“Thank you, Cap’n.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m Mr. Rousseau, a private citizen. Paul to you.”
Reese shook his head in exasperation.
Paul turned away. “All of you go home for the evening.”
The workers departed and he ducked into his office. Closing the door, he started across the small room. Suddenly he felt something hard and blunt hit the back of his neck.
“Traitor!” he heard, as if from very far away as pain exploded in his head—into fiery stars of white, orange, and blue. His knees buckled, and he pitched forward into darkness.
The office was dark, night having fallen, when his senses returned. Lying on the cold floor, he smelled dust, tasted it. A stabbing pain throbbed in the back of his head, which felt as if it were twice its size. His muscles twitched, and his throat was dry. What . . . who? . . . Where am I?
“Emma,” he croaked, half-dazed.
“She ain’t here,” Henry Packert imparted wickedly. “It’s just you, me . . . and me gun.”
Paul pushed himself up by an elbow and shook his head, hoping to clear the cobwebs from his brain. “Damn you . . . wh-what’s going on?”
The pirate lurched forward. Sticking the pistol barrel in Paul’s face, he hunkered down. “You double-crossed me. And I’m gonna kill you for it.”
“You’re mistaken.”
As Paul stared down the barrel, panic stabbed him. He didn’t fear dying, but he was terrified of going to his grave without righting things with Emma. He desperately wanted to mend their broken fences. Right now, though, he had to get control of himself and of the situation.
“How’d you . . . get out of jail?” he asked.
“Broke out.” The old corsair waved the gun. “Get up.”
His stomach rolling with nausea, Paul shakily pushed himself to a sitting position. Then he took a deep breath of fortifying air. “I don’t know what you mean about a double cross.”
“Rankin Oliver’s back in New Orleans,” the pirate said. “If you’d gone with me, we’d o’ got him. But you hemhawed around till that limey skipper come for me. Stalled, didn’t you? I bet you knew all along that Brit frigate was on its way!”
“The Spartan was after me, too.”
“I ain’t believing you! You wanted to make me pay for swatting you back at the factor house.”
They had had this discussion before, when Paul had visited Packert in jail. “Not true.”
“Blimey, you were out to save your own skin—don’t try and deny it. You always wanted Oliver to answer to the law, and you was just giving me lip service.”
What was the use of replying?
“Now me Barbara Elaine’s gone to the bottom,” Packert moaned. “Me crew’s thrown in jail. And you’re gonna pay for the insult!”
“Get another ship. Another crew.”
Even as he said those words, Paul realized the futility of them. Henry Packert had never been a reasonable man, and the pirate wasn’t going to trust him.
The tables had turned, and Paul fought to keep his head clear. He was dizzy, but he had youth and physical strength on his side. Nevertheless, there was a gun pointed at his nose. In the next moment, his luck changed—there was a noise outside.
Deciding on trying the oldest trick in the world, Paul motioned to the door and shouted, “Come in, Sheriff.”
Packert turned his head. Paul’s left hand shot out and up, knocking the gun to the floor. At the same instant he flung his right arm against the weapon, and the pistol slid away behind him.
“Damn you,” the pirate screeched, diving for it.
Paul drew back his fist and slammed it forward into his attacker’s nose. The heavyset man reeled backward, his nose flattened, as blood spurted over Paul’s hand. Jumping to his feet before Packert had time to recover, Paul grabbed his opponent’s right arm, wrenching it to the man’s back, and put a strangle hold on his thick neck. Packert yowled in pain.
Paul kicked his leg to the side and the gun flew into the corner. He then further twisted the pirate’s arm. He heard a gasp, a struggle for air. He felt a bone crack. Packert lost consciousness and Paul let him fall to the ground. Yanking the scarf from the pirate’s head, he wound it around the man’s limp hands.
He had fettered him for the moment, so he grabbed a skein of twine from his desk and wrapped length after length of it around Packert’s feet. He then dragged the unconscious man to the lumber dray, swung his heavy body onto it, and set out for the jail. By the time they reached it, Packert, still unable to talk, was choking into consciousness.
“By golly, you caught him,” the sheriff shouted. “I was just rounding up a posse.”
Sheriff Smythe and his deputies surrounded the dray. Lifting Packert from it, they carried him into his cell. A doctor was called for the old pirate, and the lawmen slapped Paul’s back and thanked him for apprehending the escapee. One of the deputies offered him a snort of rotgut, but he declined and left.
Paul had gotten little satisfaction from taking the pirate back to jail. The man was sick in the mind. Had been for a long time.
“You’ve been sick in the mind, too, Rousseau,” a voice in the back of his skull called out as he leaned a shoulder against the outside corner of the jail. With his thumb and forefinger, he rubbed his eyes and thought back on the promise he had made himself while tangling with Henry Packert.
What could he do to rectify his problems with his wife? The answer was simple, unfortunately. Rankin Oliver stood between them, and as long as Paul bore a grudge against Emma’s uncle, there would be no reconciliation. To reclaim the woman he loved, he’d have to close the door on the past. Now and forever. For their marriage—and for himself—he’d do it.
Over time he had come to believe what Emma had told him, that his archenemy was innocent of killing Karla and of selling munitions to the Centralists. But Paul still had to come to grips with Étienne’s death, to realize in his bones what Emma had said so long ago, nothing could be done that would bring his father back to life.
Deciding that life was for the living, Paul walked down the Strand, toward Anthaline’s boardinghouse. He was bent on having Emma back in his arms. If it wasn’t too late . . .
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Emma ain’t here,” Anthaline said, starting to close the door in Paul’s face.
He wedged his foot between the jamb and the barrier. “Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Where did she go, and when will she be back?”
“If she wanted you to know, she’d’ve told you.”
“Anthaline Lightfoot, you and I have been friends for a long, long time. In—”
“I’m her friend now, you sidewinder!”
Undaunted, Paul went on. “In the name of our friendship I’m asking you—where is my wife?”
Anthaline’s tone softened. “Why do you want to know? You ain’t out to hurt her, are you?”
“I love her, and I promise I’ll never again do anything to cause her pain. I need her, and she needs me.”
“I reckon she does.” Anthaline released the pressure on the door. “Come on in, Paul. I’ll make us a drink.”
Over a glass of Madeira, Anthaline said, “She left a week ago. Went up the Brazos River to the capital. Gonna have a showdown with Sam Houston. Over you.”
After he had hurt her, she was championing him? Paul wanted to think she was doing it in the name of love, but . . . She was being loyal, that was all, he told himself. “Why?”
“Because she loves you, fool that she is. She’s got some crazy notion you need your honor protected, an
d she’s gonna see that ol’ Raven gives you, and Edwin Moore, the court-martial you’ve been wantin’.”
His ego bruised, Paul put his drink down. “I don’t need a woman fighting my battles.”
“Men! You’re all alike. You say you need her, but I reckon it’s just for makin’ your home and babies. Wake up and smell the coffee, Paul Rousseau. You got a woman who loves you despite your faults—they’re many, I shouldn’t have to remind you—and she’s set on walkin’ beside you through the garden of Gethsemane. You outta be glad, not mad, she’s willin’ to help you with the Raven.”
Remembering the time Emma had rescued him from the San Antonio’s hold, Paul realized he did need, and appreciate, his wife’s support. Before he ruined what they’d shared, they had had a good partnership going. A partnership of love. But who had done most of the giving? Not him. Not even on the final issue that had torn their marriage asunder.
“You’re a wise owl, Anthaline Lightfoot.”
“You bet I am.” Anthaline leaned forward. “And there’s somethin’ else you ought to know. She needs you real bad, too. And it ain’t for spoutin’ sweet nothin’s and double-talk.” She paused. “She’s lost faith in herself as a doctor.”
“That couldn’t be true. Emma is above all dedicated to her work.”
“Was. Was dedicated. Somethin’ happened that changed her way of thinkin’. It’s time you learned to give instead of takin’ all the time. Get off your arse and go after her. Find out what the hell’s the matter, and fix it!”
He got off his posterior and made for the door. “Rest assured—I will.”
“I won’t take no for an answer.” Emma, having given up on charm, folded her arms under her chest and stared down her nose at Sam Houston’s aide-de-camp. “I’ve traveled all the way from Galveston to see the president; surely he’s gentleman enough to spare me a few minutes.”
Theodore Spivey frowned and shuffled a stack of papers. “Mrs. Rousseau, you’ve been here to the capitol building every day for the last week, and every time I’ve mentioned your presence to our leader, he’s refused to talk with you.”
