“I would like that.” Learning something new would take her mind off Ike. Old Obie did an amazing job of explaining how to pilot the sternwheeler. As long as he stayed by her side, she’d be willing to risk it. She stared into the depths of the water, as dark and murky as Ike’s brown eyes.
“…but the river is deep enough here to get close to the wharf. No ferry needed.”
“A ferry?” she said stupidly.
“To move the cargo to the town.” He tilted his head toward his shoulder. “You haven’t been listening. Something is on your mind. What is it? You can tell me.”
Blanche shifted from one foot to another. His listening ear had drawn her to the pilothouse in the first place, but she found it difficult to put her feelings into words. “I ran into Ike.” Her voice sounded strangled.
“It is a small ship.” His measured tones invited her to explain further.
She wouldn’t mention the fight she had seen between Ike and Ventura. “He had changed clothes. I have never seen him dressed in anything except his suit before.”
“I think I understand. It was like you were seeing him for the first time.”
“Yes.” The word came out as a whisper. “He was injured.”
“There was an accident?” Old Obie stiffened at the wheel, knees flexed as if he was prepared to spring into action.
“It was no accident. He and Mr. Ventura engaged in fisticuffs—on purpose.” Her voice grew stronger as her indignation asserted itself.
The older man laughed. “I would guess that you haven’t spent much time around men.”
Blanche shook her head.
“When you were at school, did you ever see two boys get into a fight?”
She nodded.
“And afterward they were best friends?”
Her face tightened in concentration. “That was so strange.”
“Boys—men—are like that. They take pleasure in physical challenges.” His eyes crinkled, waves lapping in the hazel of his eyes.
“I believe you.” She shook her head. “Although it still seems strange.” Ike’s image floated in her memory again. What she had seen bothered her far more than memories of childish playground tussles.
The mirth in Old Obie’s eyes altered, transformed into concern. “If you want the opinion of an old river rat like me, I’ll give it to you.”
You’re like the father I never knew. The thought sent more uncertainty swirling through her. In this arena, she trusted Old Obie more than she would Reverend Davenport. Her pastor was a good Christian man, but she couldn’t imagine him raising his hands in a fight between friends. “I’m listening.”
“Life in Roma hasn’t prepared you for life aboard a steamboat, and you haven’t met many men like Ike. But people are people, and Ike Gallagher is like a son to me. He’s a good man. The captain trusted him. He earned his position in the crew.” Coughing, Old Obie wiped his sleeve against his mouth, closed his eyes, and sagged against the wheel. He opened his eyes, drew a deep breath, and clasped the wheel with both hands.
“I’ve kept you from your rest time today.” Blanche backed away.
He pulled in his lips, pain creasing his face. “I get to rest all night, as soon as we arrive at La Joya. You go on and get ready. I’ll be fine.” The lines on his face argued against the strength he projected in his voice.
Blanche promised herself she would check on him when she returned. On impulse, she threw her arms around his shoulders, stooped from carrying the weight of the world. “I like to think my father was a lot like you.”
“That’s right kind of you, Blanche.” He wiped at moist eyes. “Now, go on, before tears blind me and I can’t see to pilot the boat.” He wiped his hands on his shirt and clasped the wheel with both hands.
Blanche paused at the head of the stairs, glancing at him over her shoulder. Her own eyes filled, and she hurried down to the main deck. Today, emotions she had rarely felt scraped against each other. She’d have to ask God to protect her heart tonight, or else she might break down and do something foolish.
Ike stared at his wardrobe, full of the latest in men’s fashions in a variety of fabrics and colors, with tasteful accessories. Fewer choices would make his decision easier. He hadn’t missed the gleam of appreciation in Blanche’s eyes when she saw him after the match with Ventura. But dressing in workday clothes felt like an insult. In fact, the restaurant where he planned to go required a suit jacket. Without a jacket and tie, he would not be admitted.
He settled on wearing a suit coat without a vest, neither black nor white, but pale gray. He rejected the dark blue shirt, hesitated over pale blue, and reluctantly picked out the white with his usual bow tie. His hand hovered over his pocket watch. Take it, he decided, and tucked it into the front pocket of his black slacks.
Did Blanche spend half as much time as he did worrying what to wear? He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Even a potato sack couldn’t hide her figure or her beautiful face, the sparkle in her eyes when she was excited.
Face it. You’re smitten. He shook his head. The feelings would pass. They had to. Blanche Lamar would no more settle for a gambler like him than he would become a Sunday pew sitter, although that possibility no longer seemed as impossible as it once had.
“I’m ready.”
At Blanche’s soft voice, Ike turned around. Her hair was swept up in a style that spoke of Effie’s flawless hands, held in place by a white comb. Black leather toes peeked from beneath the hem of her dress. A few simple changes made her even more beautiful than she was before, if that were possible.
A slow, warm smile spread across his face. If she was a different sort of woman, he might have whistled. Instead, he let his admiration linger for a moment. Then he swept his hat from his head and bowed before extending his hand to take her arm. “I will be the envy of every man in La Joya tonight.”
She ducked her head, sending the feather attached to the comb aflutter, shining against the vivid color of her hair. “I doubt that.” She raised her head. A brief glimmer in her eyes suggested she appreciated the trouble he had taken with his appearance. One gloved hand reached toward his chin but stopped short of touching him. “Is it sore?”
“I’ll live.” Ike led Blanche down the wharf, the heels of her shoes clicking on the wood of the wharf. He had held many women’s arms before, but never had one felt so fragile, never had the desire to protect one surged so strong in him. “I have hired a carriage to meet us at the wharf.”
Her head swiveled, her nose twitching as she breathed, eyes widening as she took in the appearance of the town ahead. She could have been someone just released from prison, seeing home with new eyes.
She caught the expression on his face and laughed. “I’ve never been so far from home before.”
Home. Roma was her home, not the Cordelia. Ike pushed the thought out of his mind. “How does it compare?”
They reached the end of the wharf where their carriage awaited them. The livery had outdone themselves, sending a sparkling white carriage with matching horses to pull it.
He offered his hand to help her step up for a ride designed to impress Blanche, but she looked down the street instead. “How far is the restaurant? I would like to walk if possible. It’s such a lovely evening.”
“And you haven’t been able to walk far in any direction for over a week. I understand the feeling. Yes, we can walk.” Stifling his disappointment, Ike explained the situation to the driver.
“She is the señorita?” The driver’s mustache quivered beneath his smile.
Ike nodded. “She has a yen to take a walk.”
He nodded. “Keep her happy, that one. You are a fortunate man to have such a lovely lady on your arm.”
Ike’s grin widened. “I intend to do everything I can to keep her happy.” He gave the driver some money for his trouble. The smile stayed on his face as he walked back to Blanche.
“The restaurant is this way.” Ike felt like he was ten feet tall as he walked with Blanche
at his side. Block by block, they turned heads. Men followed their progress with envy, women with interest.
Blanche remained oblivious of the attention, instead sweeping her head from side to side, as if memorizing the route.
“Is it so very different from Roma?” Ike asked.
She stopped their progress, studying a church on the opposite corner. A statue of the Virgin Mary out front dominated the buildings around it. Squinting, Ike read the sign: LA IGLESIA DE LA VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE.
“In some ways it resembles Roma,” Blanche said. “I wonder if that’s the largest church in town.”
Ike looked at the adobe structure, gleaming white. He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Of course not.” She said the words half under her breath, but he could hear the disappointment.
They resumed walking. Every few feet she’d stop and stare in the front window of a building. After each stop, her pace increased, until she was nearly skipping down the street.
“You’re having fun.”
“Of course.” Blanche spread her arms, taking in the street. “If I close my eyes and just breathe in the air, it would seem like I’m back home in Roma.” She inhaled deeply. “Sawdust and horses. Honeysuckle and pine. Baked bread and chilies.” Opening her eyes, she scuffed the dirt underfoot with the toe of her shoe. “I even like having the ground under my feet.”
Some of Ike’s good humor seeped away with her outburst. Was she so homesick for Roma so soon? “I feel the same way when I have to be away from the Cordelia for more than an overnight stay. The mist of the water on my face, the smoothness of the floorboards and railing, Elaine’s good cooking.”
Something across the street caught her attention. Instead of responding to his comments, she pointed across the street. “Look! There’s a mercantile. Do we have time to stop?”
Ike fingered the watch in his pocket but didn’t pull it out. He wanted to keep this evening carefree, not worried about the clock. “Let’s.” His sister had taught him how much women enjoyed shopping.
“Oh, thank you.” Blanche stepped down from the boardwalk in the direction of the store.
“Of course.” Ike trailed behind, curious about which section of the store would attract her first. Her choices would reveal a lot about her.
Once through the door, again she breathed deeply. Ike followed her example, his mind sorting through the odors—licorice, pickles, tobacco.
Blanche’s swift run through the store surprised him. She bypassed the baubles that had caught the attention of a pair of young girls who were chattering over the counter. She also strode past the sewing supplies, Effie’s favorite section.
A bookshelf distracted her for a moment. Her fingers ran along the spines of the books. Shaking her head, she turned to him. “Do you know if there is a bookstore in Brownsville?”
“Ventura will know.”
“They probably won’t have what I’m looking for in stock.” She backtracked to the sewing area and picked up a pincushion. “If I order something, can it be delivered directly to the boat?”
“Of course.” Did that mean she was committed to stay long enough to receive a package? Ike’s hopes resurrected.
Blanche lifted a box of stationery to her nose. “Rose-scented. Very nice.” She paid for it and they left the store.
“You’re going to write some letters.” He almost made it a question.
“I have special plans for this stationery.” She didn’t elaborate. “I’ll get started as soon as we get back to the boat tonight.”
Her hint of a promise of future plans concerning the boat lifted his spirits. So did getting back on board the Cordelia.
Land was fun to visit, but he wouldn’t want to live there.
CHAPTER 18
Did Ike buy you roses?” Effie asked when Blanche entered the cabin. She had stayed up to chat with Blanche after her dinner with Ike. What fun these days had been, sharing her cabin as if Blanche were her sister.
“You’re still awake!” A sigh accompanied the whoosh of the chair cushion. “Is he in the habit of giving girls flowers?”
“Only a special few.” A smile played around Effie’s lips. “He did give you flowers, I can tell.”
“No flowers, just a lovely dinner and conversation.”
Effie sniffed the air, detecting a light floral scent. “I thought I smelled them.”
“If you’re smelling roses, it’s from a box of stationery that I bought.”
“Oh, I almost wish I could write a letter, if it meant I could enjoy that scent every time I opened the box.”
Blanche handed Effie a sheet of the paper. “Here. Keep this. Perhaps you would like to place it in your bureau drawer, like a sachet.”
Effie brought the sheet to her nose and sighed as she breathed it in. “I’ll put it under my pillow, so that I can enjoy it as I fall asleep.” She tucked the stationery into her bed and pulled out her knitting. “Will you be coming to bed soon?”
“Not for a few minutes. I have some notes I want to write.” The tip of a pen scratched against paper while Effie worked on an intricate shawl. An hour passed before they called it quits for the night. Blanche continued her project for all the following day. After breakfast the second morning, she set down her pen at last. “Done.”
“I won’t ask what has kept you so busy these last two days.” Effie changed yarn colors for her shawl. “You have given me pleasure, filling our room with the scent of your stationery while you’ve been writing so busily.”
“You make the perfect roommate. I could wrap all your Christmas presents right in front of you, and you wouldn’t know what they were.”
“Don’t be so sure about that. I’ve fooled a lot of people that way.” Effie laughed. “I can tell a lot by the sounds something makes, or the scent. And the feel, of course. I used to drive Ike crazy, when I could guess and he couldn’t.”
“So what do you think I’ve been doing?”
“Writing something, of course. But what you’ve been writing, or to whom, I don’t know. I would guess you have written letters, and to more than one person. You’ve opened several envelopes.”
“You are good at this guessing game.” Blanche didn’t explain any more, and Effie didn’t press.
“Are you looking forward to arriving in Brownsville? We should be there tomorrow or the day after at the latest.”
A small silence formed around the word Brownsville. “I am hoping to have my questions answered.”
Effie switched back to the original yarn color. “What if you don’t like the answers?”
“God promises a good future, plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Not necessarily wealth, but whatever answers I find are ones that will help me.”
“I wish I had your faith.”
“My pastor used to say it wasn’t the amount of faith that a person has—the Bible talks about faith as small as a mustard seed—but the object of our faith. God is big, even if my faith is small.”
Effie shook her head. Such thinking went against everything she understood about religion. “God seemed big to me when I was a little girl. Then my parents died, and I realized even He couldn’t make everything right.”
“But He brought Old Obie into your lives about that time, didn’t He? I know losing your parents when you were so little must have been terrible. But God still took care of you.” The pleading tone in Blanche’s voice got Effie’s attention.
Effie stuck her tongue between her lips, a habit she had when she was concentrating on something, and counted the number of stitches in the row. “Didn’t drop a one. I always check after I have to change yarn.” She turned her sightless eyes in Blanche’s direction. “I only know that sometimes the answers God gives aren’t the ones I want. And I hope you’re not disappointed with what you learn.”
Blanche caught her breath. “I can’t say I won’t be disappointed. But if I am, know this. The problem is with me. God is good, all the time.”
Effie’s half smile
returned. “I know that’s what you believe.” She tucked the yarn away. “Are you ready to leave?”
Blanche dropped several envelopes into a bag. “Now I am.”
Rising early the next morning, Blanche donned her black suit to better blend into the lingering nighttime shadows, and made her way around the ship she had come to know as well as the hallways and rooms of her childhood home. First she headed for the salon, where she went to each table and left envelopes addressed to their guests.
Finding the right words to thank each passenger for their business had come fairly easily. She tucked a couple of envelopes into the waiting muffin baskets, trusting that the kitchen staff would discover them in the process of serving breakfast. Elaine was already at work, but aside from nodding good morning, she stayed at the back of the kitchen, preparing bread and other baked goods for the day.
Next Blanche headed to the crew’s quarters. A special envelope went to Dame Agatha, who would shake her double chins in severe disappointment if she spotted her prize customer in her “dowdy country clothes,” as she had described Blanche’s suit. The transformation the lady’s needle had wrought in Blanche still confounded her, changing her in ways she still didn’t understand. About half the crew remained abed, and Blanche slipped notes for everyone under their cabin doors. She added Effie’s letter to Ike’s, trusting he would read it to her. She brought that envelope to her nose, hoping the stationery would hold the scent a long time.
Last of all, Blanche headed for the pilothouse, where Old Obie stood on watch. She couldn’t leave it at his cabin, since she didn’t know which cabin was his. As for letting Ike deliver the note, she decided to keep it between the two of them.
The bow of the boat parted liquid gold as they slid into sunrise. If she could capture it, she would make a fortune that no amount of money could buy. She waited on deck, watching the water turn from black to gold to bloodred. Red, the color of blood. The color of joy. She’d felt such joy on the excursion to La Joya with Ike. Then she reminded herself that he was an unbeliever. Someone she could never marry. She placed her hand over her heart as if she could protect herself from the unwanted emotions flooding through her. She feared it was already too late.
The Brides of the Old West: Five Romantic Adventures from the American Frontier Page 27
