The River Devil

by Diane Whiteside

  “Woof!” Cicero responded and sprang up. He trotted out into the street and began sniffing intently, casting about as if trying to find the scent.

  The Spartan’s whistle sounded through the fog. Two long, one short in her signal for departure. Lennox was leaving town. Hal gritted his teeth rather than think about all the trouble that blackguard could cause now.

  Cicero barked, as if summoning his humans, and headed up Farnam Street.

  “He’s found something!” Rosalind exclaimed.

  “He’s following the road to the Cozzens Hotel, a route taken by many,” Hal felt obliged to point out. “He could be trailing a female dog, for all we know.”

  “But that’s the hotel where they stayed, isn’t it?” Rosalind retorted.

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’s a very good boy.”

  Hal surrendered to her confidence and offered her his arm. “Yes, he is. Shall we?”

  Hal, Rosalind, and Evans followed Cicero from the boardwalk’s relative comfort, with William and Viola in the buggy, while Ezra and the carriage brought up the rear. The small crowd trailed them from a distance, slowly growing in numbers. Hal suspected they were the best show this part of Omaha had seen in years.

  At the first corner, they paused to let an open carriage pass, apparently headed for the levee. Two women sat inside, both shabbily dressed in mourning black, although lacking the heavy veils of recent bereavement. They appeared related, given their patrician features, but of very different ages, with the youngest not yet thirty and the other clearly past sixty.

  Evans broke stride. Hal looked back to find the man, who had casually hunted snipers and spoken offhandedly about pleasuring women, now gaping at the carriage’s occupants. Then he started to smile, a very predatory smile that raised Hal’s ire. He would not care for such a look to be directed at his kinfolk.

  The youngest female’s hand tightened on her carriage as she stared at Evans. She swallowed, her eyes as wide as if she gazed upon a cottonmouth snake. Hal spared a look at William, who shrugged his ignorance. Then William’s buggy passed between the carriage and the boardwalk, breaking the spell.

  Evans visibly shook himself and moved quickly to catch up. Glancing backwards Hal saw the young female still eyeing Evans as her carriage turned the corner.

  Cicero trotted steadily uphill, ignoring all other traffic. The drivers stared at the cocky dog, then paused or made room for him, all allowing him to pass unhindered. A few even turned their rigs around and followed, forming a small procession behind Rosalind’s carriage.

  The Spartan’s calliope began to play, fading as she moved past. Hal missed a step. Why the devil was the Spartan heading downstream? Was she rushing Lennox back to Kansas City and the railroad east? Given how fast the Missouri River was running, she could have him there in a handful of days. Perhaps the fog’s remnants had muffled the sound too well for him to read, and she was continuing upstream.

  Cicero kept on, steadily surging along city blocks and across intersections as he followed a carriage’s typical route to the Cozzens Hotel. Rosalind murmured approval and Hal added his voice to hers, as he became more and more convinced that Cicero did indeed know where he was going. Their trail of followers continued to grow, now numbering more than a dozen men with a handful of vehicles.

  And the Spartan was definitely sailing downstream….

  Suddenly, Cicero halted in the middle of a corner. His head came up, and he sniffed rapidly, turning around and around as he tested the air.

  Hal’s mouth tightened. Homer had always done the same thing when he lost the rabbit’s trail. But he’d always found the rabbit.

  “Has he lost the captain?” Rosalind murmured.

  “No. He’s found the point where the Old Man came down the hill but departed from his former route,” Hal answered. He did not want to consider why his parents might leave a main road in this rough warehouse district.

  Cicero barked twice, then plunged down a narrow side street. Rosalind immediately turned to follow him, efficiently lifting her elegant demi-train away from the mud.

  William shot Hal a long look, then pulled the buggy over and headed the reins to a willing urchin. Both he and Viola jumped down, Sharps carbines in hand.

  Rosalind’s carriage parked neatly behind the buggy, and the driver leaned out to watch, his face alive with interest. The crowd gathered in the street beyond, goggling at the strange goings-on.

  Hal drew his gun and entered the alley, well aware of Rosalind ahead and William and Viola close behind. The three most important people in the world, and the dog who’d stayed with him when none other ever had, were with him now, no matter what happened.

  Cicero began to bark rapidly, jumping up and down before a squalid warehouse, whose door boasted a broken lock. The hair on the back of Hal’s neck lifted. He could think of no good reason for his parents to be here.

  “Did you find him, Cicero? Is Captain Lindsay in there?” he asked.

  The terrier launched into a frenzy of barking and scratching at the warehouse door. A putrid scent, of neither mud nor river mist, seeped through the door’s cracks.

  “What the devil could he have found?” Rosalind asked.

  “Stand aside, Miss Schuyler, and let us through.”

  She looked up into his face and swallowed. Then she moved back against the opposite building, yielding the lead to him.

  Cicero’s barks were so loud now that Hal could barely hear himself. Evans swiftly scanned the roofline with his drawn gun. He nodded the all-clear and took up watch. The last notes of the Spartan’s calliope faded as she rounded the first bend downriver.

  William stood at Hal’s shoulder. They shared a single glance, each knowing what they would find.

  Dear God, not both of them, Hal begged the Almighty. He hadn’t prayed for his father since the war. He gently touched the door, and it swung backward. The reek was stronger now. Blood and death but not yet putrefaction.

  Early morning’s tentative light slipped into the dark little room beyond. A few pieces of furniture—notably a desk, chair and cot—loomed. A darker lump lay across the floor just inside the door, too large for a single person.

  “Lord have mercy,” Rosalind murmured.

  Cicero dashed into the room and started nudging the unmoving heap. Hal followed and lit the lantern by the door.

  Two people lay on the floor. A woman, wearing his mother’s favorite black jacket with a triple strand of pearls, was on top. A neat hole was centered in her forehead.

  Mother. She’d been shot to death in this hovel.

  Hal’s throat closed.

  A man lay underneath her, his body half obscured by her skirts. Blood pooled around him, speaking of ebbing life.

  Dear God, don’t let the Old Man be dead.

  For a moment, Hal let himself remember all the good times with his father. The trip down the river to Louisville when he’d first steered a boat. The reunion at Vicksburg when two fleets had cheered themselves hoarse…

  The man stirred then settled.

  “Father?” Viola whispered. “Is he dead?”

  Hal pulled his mother’s body off the floor and onto the cot. A quick twist wrapped its thin blanket around her.

  Then his father lay before him, his face so bloody as to be almost unrecognizable. But he still breathed, his lungs barely moving.

  “He’s still alive, thank God. But just barely.”

  Viola shoved past her husband and knelt beside her father. Her face was white, but her hands were very steady as she checked her father’s pulse. “He needs a doctor,” she announced without looking up. “William, rip some bandages. Rosalind, we’ll use your carriage.”

  “Please have Ezra fetch a wagon for my mother’s body, Rosalind,” Hal added. She nodded and turned to go.

  “Daughter.” The sound was weak, but it stopped them all.

  “I’m here, Father. Just be quiet and save your strength.” A tear slid down Viola’s face.

  “No
.” The wounded man gasped for breath before he spoke again. “Hal?”

  “Here, sir.” He squatted down and took his father’s hand in his for the first time in decades. “Steady there, Old Man. We’ve got you safe now.”

  “Lennox. Shot. Her.” The words were broken and compelling.

  “Son of a bitch,” Hal cursed. He didn’t see the glance Viola shot at her husband, of sudden and complete comprehension.

  His father stared at Hal through the only eye not totally caked and matted by blood. “You must…give her…justice,” he demanded. His hand turned and gripped his only son.

  “Of course. We’ll see him finished.”

  “Sorry I beat you. Sorry I disinherited you, Viola.” His voice was fainter now. “Forgive me.”

  “Of course.” Hal and Viola spoke as one. His heart was shredded by grief, but he managed to speak, using the same phrase he’d used so many times before on his gunboat. “Now you stay alive, you hear?”

  The old naval captain smiled at him. “I’ll see…the bastard…in hell first.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rosalind’s heart ached as she watched Hal, Donovan, and Evans carry Captain Lindsay’s still body up the stage, under Viola Donovan’s supervision, and onto the Cherokee Belle’s main deck. The tears that she’d shed barely four months ago, when she followed her father’s casket to the cemetery, again burned behind her eyes. She prayed that Hal would hear his father’s characteristic bark again.

  She followed the cortège aboard, Cicero at her side as if understanding the need for decorum. The sun was shining brightly now, and the earlier fog remained only as scattered fragments. The river and its dangers were unimportant now, compared to Captain Lindsay’s well-being. She could almost wish for a return of the enveloping mists, simply to provide privacy for Hal and Viola’s grief.

  On the deck, the roustabouts were unusually silent as they rushed to clear a passage for the stretcher. O’Brien, after one horrified look when they’d arrived at the levee, had rallied immediately and now chivvied the roustabouts into the fastest possible movement. Sampson had broken off his conversation with some passengers and now led the way. Bellecourt and McKenzie watched from the hurricane deck, hats over their hearts.

  Shocked and whispering passengers leaned over the promenade’s rail to observe. Clerks and casual laborers stared avidly from the levee. Even the railroad workers studied the strange happenings from the bridge, some using spyglasses.

  O’Neill, the clerk, had seized upon Rosalind’s trunk as if it were a life raft on a sinking ship. He’d quickly signed for it, labeled it, and now carried it aboard without saying a word.

  Under her feet, the Cherokee Belle quivered slightly as her boilers built steam. Beyond the stalwart craft, the Missouri River rushed towards the ocean in a flurry of brown water and sundered trees, as if eager to find the treacherous Lennox. Rosalind smiled at the raging torrent in perfect understanding and continued on.

  The men deposited Captain Lindsay carefully on his bed. Evans backed out of the stateroom immediately, but Donovan rested his hand on his wife’s shoulder. She put hers over his for a moment and flashed a smile up at him, then returned her attention to the unconscious man. Sarah, her maid, stepped forward with a tray full of small boxes and jars, such as a traveling pharmacy might offer.

  In contrast to the loving attention paid Captain Lindsay, Mrs. Lindsay’s corpse would be buried in Omaha, under the supervision of her freed slaves and Donovan’s local factor. She’d be interred at the edge of civilization, with the only kindness coming from her servants and her despised Irish son-in-law’s hired help. It would be an ironic end for a woman famous for her enjoyment of society’s adulation.

  Rosalind hated to imagine what Hal was thinking. His face was graven in stone as he stood beside his father, as if torn by grief and shock too strong to be shown.

  Then Roland Jones, the steward, rushed in with an armful of clean linen and a huge pitcher of steaming water. His expression was an interesting mixture of shock and concern, although his hands were so steady that he never spilled a drop.

  “Excellent, Roland,” Viola praised. “Put that down on the dresser and I’ll start washing my father. May I have some hot tea, too?”

  Hal nudged Donovan and glanced toward the door. Donovan eased himself out, to stand beside Rosalind in the grand saloon.

  “It’s ready now, ma’am,” Roland answered Viola. “I also took the liberty of asking the chef for some beef tea. And Captain Sampson has sent for a good doctor.”

  Hal kissed his father’s forehead and left the stateroom. He shut the door firmly on Viola’s activities and looked at Sampson, his face harsh. “I need to speak to the officers immediately. In your quarters, if you please.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Hal silently offered his arm to Rosalind and took her upstairs to Sampson’s large cabin, where he seated her on a chair and stood at her side, as the other men filed in. Sampson, O’Brien, Black Jack Norton, Bellecourt, McKenzie, and O’Neill entered, Sampson and Bellecourt taking seats while the others stood. Even O’Neill’s mud clerk and Norton’s assistant engineer managed to squeeze into the cabin. Cicero paced restlessly between their feet before plopping himself down next to Hal.

  O’Neill’s mud clerk tried to close the door but couldn’t, given the crowd. Hal gestured for him to stop. “Leave the door open. The men will learn soon enough what’s about.”

  He glanced around the circle of faces. Strong men all, masters of their professions. Every one looked back at him, their trust and eagerness as clear as if written in golden letters.

  “First, gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Rosalind Schuyler, my fiancée. I’ll make you known to her as individuals later.”

  “Good day, gentlemen,” Rosalind said calmly.

  Sampson bowed to her slightly. “Ma’am.” There was a general murmur of welcome but no sign of recognition, not that such matters were important now.

  Hal’s voice deepened, announcing the start of the conclave’s true business. Emotion seemed to burn within him like the boilers two decks below, hot and bright under the steady exterior. He must have looked like this during the war, when he told his men they would sail under the massive rebel batteries at Vicksburg.

  “Gentlemen, last night Nicholas Lennox, a passenger on the Spartan, shot and killed my mother. When Captain Lindsay attempted to defend his wife, Lennox wounded him nigh unto death.”

  The men growled, raising the hair on the back of Rosalind’s neck. She would not have chosen to be Lennox at that moment.

  Donovan held his right wrist against his left as if testing a dirk hidden against his forearm, while his eyes glowed incandescent as a blacksmith’s forge. It was the stance, and the look, of an experienced knife fighter ready to kill quickly and without compunction.

  “Now the blackguard has sailed downstream on the Spartan,” Hal continued.

  “Sacre bleu,” Bellecourt spat. “There’s nothing between here and the Kansas River that can catch him. And once he reaches Kansas City, he will disappear like the cafard he is.”

  “What about the telegraph?” Donovan asked.

  The rivermen shook their heads unanimously and Hal spoke for them. “You can send a cable, but the sheriff would still have to stop the Spartan.”

  “Won’t they have to stop for fueling?”

  “She can run on wood, as we can,” Sampson answered. “Give her a quiet patch of trees, under a bluff or behind an island, and no lawman will catch her.”

  “She can travel a long ways between stops,” Hal added. “Current’s running hard and fast now; six, maybe eight knots. When you add the Spartan’s ten or twelve knots onto that, she can cover a great many miles before she’ll have to wood up.”

  He glanced around the crowded room, which made Rosalind think of how Farragut’s council of war must have looked before New Orleans. The watching faces were as angry as Hal’s now, as they hung upon his every word. Evans restlessly fondled hi
s Colt’s hilt as he leaned against the door frame.

  “What if a telegram reached the Spartan, demanding that she stop and turn over Lennox? Would Hatcher obey?” Evans’s tone insinuated he hoped Hatcher wouldn’t comply.

  Norton shook his head. “Hatcher’s opinion of the law is profane and well known. He has a habit of breaking policemen’s heads whenever possible. And if Lennox has greased his palms well, he’ll never stop.” The other officers nodded agreement.

  “So we can hope that Hatcher acts as a law-abiding citizen, but we can’t depend on it,” Hal summarized. “It is therefore up to the Cherokee Belle, as the fastest boat on the Missouri, to catch him and bring him to justice.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “We will put ashore all the passengers and their luggage. The Cherokee Star will pick them up, when she arrives in three days, or they may take passage on whatever ship or train they choose. In either case, Lindsay & Company will pay for their passage and their accommodations. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” O’Neill assured him.

  “I’ll make the announcement personally, O’Neill.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’ll put ashore all freight, except that required to trim the Belle for speed. Bellecourt and I will work with you there, Sampson.”

  The man nodded, his thin, intelligent face alive with calculation.

  “Donovan & Sons will help with the arrangements, both for passengers and freight,” Donovan inserted quietly. “Morgan will stay to look after them.”

  Evans jerked upright with an appalled look, then slowly relaxed. A stray thought crossed his face, and he began to smile, not generously. It was the same expression he’d worn when he sighted the lady in the carriage.

  “Thank you, William,” Hal said sincerely.

  Rosalind was very pleased not to be the target of Evans’s interest. O’Brien’s question, uttered in his surprisingly melodious voice, brought her back to the present.

  “What about the cabin crew and the deckhands? We won’t need as many for this trip.”