A Most Unsuitable Match (13 page)

Every time Samuel had reason to go up on the hurricane deck, his heart beat faster than it should. He tore his shirt one day while hauling wood, and Miss Rousseau noticed and Mrs. Pike mended it. The idea that Miss Rousseau was watching him haul wood drove him to distraction.
She’s not watching you, you idiot. She’s bored. What else is there to do? She’s anxious to get to Fort Benton and begin searching for her aunt—and return home to civilization. Just because she watches the goings-on at the woodlots doesn’t mean a thing.
And even if it did, he couldn’t let it mean much.

From the number of yards of silk gathered into Miss Rousseau’s mourning dress, she was obviously a lady of means. There might as well be an entire ocean between the two of them. But that didn’t keep Samuel from thinking about her. Nights were the worst. Just when he’d developed enough callouses that his hands didn’t hurt, just when he’d gotten used to the work and the aches and pains didn’t keep him up anymore . . . thinking about Fannie kept him awake.

Every night he gave himself the same speech.
She’s in a first-class cabin, you dolt. She’s a lady. Ladies are polite. They return smiles. That’s all it is. You wouldn’t dare so much as walk up to her front door in St. Charles. You’re a back door common laborer now, and the sooner you remember that, the better off you’ll be. Even if you were still the heir of a wealthy man, it wouldn’t matter. You’re on the river to find Emma . . . not to fall in love.

Tonight was no exception. Rain had raised the river a couple of inches, and Captain Busch had decided to navigate a stretch of river for just an hour or so after sundown. Just until they got to the next woodlot. The crew members were taking shifts sounding the depths, the river was calm, the evening perfect. But Samuel couldn’t sleep for thinking of Fannie.

Grabbing his coat and retrieving his mother’s Bible, he crawled out from beneath the wagon and made his way past the boilers and toward the front of the ship. Just as he passed the stairs leading up to the hurricane deck, the ship shuddered. Samuel paused. Listened. Jerked on his coat, stuffed the Bible into an inside pocket, and called for Lamar. This was no sandbar. Something was ripping into the underbelly of the
Delores
.

In seconds the deck began to tilt. As the vessel listed toward shore, everything began to slide toward the water. Deck passengers and hands alike screamed and shouted. The wagon toppled. Samuel lunged to help Lamar, but then he caught a glimpse of the small man already scrambling toward the far end of the deck.
Of course.
Lamar’s first instinct would be to free the panicked horses. Changing course, Samuel made for the crew lowering the mackinaws into the water. And then he heard the women screaming.
Fannie! Mrs. Pike!

Grabbing the tilted railing, he managed to climb halfway up the stairs toward the hurricane deck. One of the smokestacks ripped free. As cables whipped through the air, steam escaped in a horrific burst of heat and vapor. Thrown off the stairs and against one of the capstans, Samuel barely avoided being thrown into the river. Before he could right himself, flames spewed from the firebox below the boilers and began to crawl across the deck, blocking the stairs.

One moment Fannie was asleep. The next she was awake and terrified. Something in the saloon slammed against the opposite side of the wall at the head of her cot. The next thing she knew, her cot was sliding toward the deck-side wall, its progress stopped only when it crashed into her trunk. The force threw her out of bed. She tried to get up, but the floor was tilted.

She reached for the edge of Hannah’s cot, shouting the older woman’s name. The cot contained only rumpled bedding. At the sound of breaking glass, Fannie looked toward the deck-side door. As she watched, the transom window shattered. Her hand went to her face, but the glass fell outward toward the deck. Hannah’s skirt! The hook on the door where she hung her skirt at night was empty! She must have been out on the deck when—
No! No! What’s happening?

Staggering back onto her own cot, Fannie snatched her dressing gown off the foot of the bed and pulled it on. Intending to open the door just a crack to peer outside and call for Hannah, she nearly fell out of the cabin when the latch gave way and the weight of the door yanked it all the way open. She clung to the doorjamb, staring in horror at the swirling water just on the other side of the hurricane deck railing. Her cabin door faced the water now.
Hannah! Where are you?! Where are the lifeboats?

Her things—she needed her things. Planting one foot against the doorjamb, she pried her trunk open. The ship shuddered. When someone screamed
Fire!
Fannie peered over her shoulder and up toward the saloon. Oh, dear Lord . . . she could see it . . . crawling across the saloon floor . . . coming this way . . . a golden monster, licking up the wood.

She screamed again, panicked at the thought of flames in one direction and water in the other. She couldn’t go into that water. No, wait . . . the ship had stopped moving. It had to be sinking, but for now . . . for now it was steady. She might not be thrown into the water after all . . . but the flames! Clinging to the foot of her cot, she watched the flames approach, mesmerized by the light and the smoke rising into the sky. Someone called her name. Someone behind her . . . near the water . . . She looked that way.

“Hurry, Fannie! There’s no time! Come to me now!”

Mr. Beck . . . Samuel . . . in a lifeboat.
Her things
 . . .
the letters!
She couldn’t give the letters to the river. Rummaging through the pile tossed out of the tray and into the open trunk lid when the steamboat pitched, she grabbed her mother’s locket and pulled it over her head. Snatching up the leather envelope, she hesitated. It was odd to feel heat at her back.

Samuel screamed her name again and reached one hand through the railing. Fannie glanced over her shoulder. Flames were curling around the saloon-side cabin door. The transom window popped and shattered. Just as a burst of flames belched through the doorway toward the two cots, she let go of the doorjamb. The ship moved again. Clutching the envelopes to her breast, Fannie fell toward Samuel. The railing stopped her fall . . . pain . . . and the world went dark.

Cold. So cold.

“Fannie? Fannie . . . can you hear me? Please, Fannie, open your eyes.”

He sounded so worried. He shouldn’t worry. She was fine. Except for being cold. She needed a blanket. Where were the blankets?
Fire!
There was fire! Sucking in a breath, Fannie struggled to escape the fire, but a gentle hand on her shoulder settled her back. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

She opened her eyes. Samuel was looking at her with an embarrassing amount of tender concern. Hannah wouldn’t approve of the emotion registered on his face.
Hannah.
Where was she? Turning away from Samuel, Fannie noticed some people huddled around small campfires. They were . . . on shore. They looked . . . so forlorn. Exhausted. Smudged faces. Torn shirts.

A dark face appeared beside Samuel’s. Mr. Davis smiled. “There now, miss. You’ll be fine, just fine. You rest now. Help’s coming. It shouldn’t be long.”

“Wh-what happened?” Fannie croaked, but before either man could answer, she remembered. The shuddering crash, the rushing water, the fire. “Help me sit up,” she said, but when she extended a hand, she realized she was still in her dressing gown. Horrified, she looked about for a blanket, but there was none.

Samuel shrugged out of his coat and drew it about her shoulders. “The envelope you were carrying is in my inner coat pocket. It’s safe.”

She curled her fingers around her mother’s locket and thanked him as she peered at the river. A smoldering skeleton hovered over the place where the
Delores
had once floated. She looked up at the two men. “Hannah?”

Mr. Davis answered. “There’s men searching both sides of the river, miss. They’ll search until they’ve found everyone.”

Fannie bowed her head. Fatigue washed over her.

The old man’s voice soothed, “You lay yourself back down and close your eyes. Help’s coming soon.”

Terrified as she was, Fannie obeyed. Her head cushioned by a patch of thick prairie grasses, she curled up beneath Samuel’s black coat and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, shouts were ringing out from the river, and when she opened her eyes, a row of mackinaw boats were lined up waiting to carry everyone . . . where, she didn’t know.

The silver light of a full moon had given way to morning gold. Fannie clung to Samuel’s arm as he led her away from the landing. They’d been brought there by the mackinaws sent out from this place to rescue the steamboat passengers and crew. Samuel said they were at Sioux City. Fannie’s side hurt where she’d hit the railing. Every pebble felt like a shard of glass against the tender soles of her bare feet. Determined not to cry out, she bit her lower lip, ducked her head, hung on to Samuel, and kept going. Everything seemed to be happening in the mists of a fog that wouldn’t clear. What were bleeding feet in a world where ships burned down and people lost everything that mattered.

She slid her hand along the lining of the black coat still draped about her shoulders. She’d saved the letters, but the idea brought little comfort. Nothing mattered right now except that they find Hannah.
Please, God. Let Hannah be all right. She’s all I have left.

The levee bustled with activity. Townspeople clustered around, offering assistance, asking news of the wreck, offering opinions about Captain Busch’s navigational skills, and generally adding to what Fannie considered a curtain of noise hiding the one thing she wanted to see: Hannah’s smiling face. When a train whistle pierced the morning air, Fannie jumped. Looking behind her toward the river, she saw two steamboats at the landing. One was the
Sam Cloon
, the steamer Captain Busch had been determined to catch . . . and pass. Shivering, she clutched Samuel’s black coat to her and looked toward the town. As far as Fannie could tell, Sioux City was little more than a collection of clapboard buildings and log huts strewn along streams of mud that people had aggrandized with street names.

When a tall, stringy-haired woman spoke to her, Fannie recoiled at first, but the woman’s voice was kind as she spoke to Samuel about providing shelter. “Here now, dearie,” she said, gesturing toward a false-fronted building up ahead. The letters above the door proclaimed the building to be a hotel.

“I’m Nellie,” the woman said. “Nellie Tatum. My husband and me own the hotel and Captain Busch’s mate has arranged for us to take you in. You’re safe now. You come with me and we’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

Fannie hesitated and, it seemed, so did Samuel. She liked the idea of his being reluctant to let her go, but then she remembered she was wearing his coat. He was just waiting for her to take it off. Grabbing the envelope of letters, she started to shrug out of the coat, but Samuel stopped her. “Keep it for now. Lamar and I are going to go back to the river and see what news there might be of the others.” He touched her arm. “You’ll know as soon as I know.”