A Most Unsuitable Match (17 page)

He took a deep breath. “Anyway, Emma ran. Our father chased her to the barn. Later she said she thought he was going to kill her. She scrambled aboard one of the horses bareback, intending to run off. But Emma was never a very good rider. She fell off—and into one of the corral posts.” Samuel’s voice wavered. “And then I came home.”

“Oh . . . Samuel . . .” Fannie reached for his hand, but he pulled away.

“She was at the well, trying to wash it . . . trying to hold her face . . .” He traced a line from eye to jaw. “I thought she was going to bleed to death before I could get her to the doctor. But she didn’t.” His voice broke. “And that . . . that was the end of my beautiful Emma. Everything changed after that . . . because I went fishing.”

Fannie’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “Her fiancé wanted a beautiful wife. So he broke their engagement. She took up with the wrong sort.”

“And your father? It must have been horrible for him.”

Samuel’s fingers curled against his palms. “I hope so. I haven’t seen him since it all happened. I left Emma at the doctor’s long enough to go back to the house and pack some of our things. Pa was stretched out on the floor . . . snoring.” Samuel reached into his pocket and took the Bible out. Opening it to the page recording marriages and births, he pointed to a name. “That’s him.”

Fannie looked down at the name. Her mouth dropped open. “Saul Pilsner is your
father
?!”

He nodded. “Sometimes people who have horrible reputations are just . . . misunderstood. In my father’s case, everything you’ve heard about him is true.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Saul Pilsner owned a packet line, but his steamboats were only part of an empire that included warehouses in New Orleans, cotton fields in Georgia, and foundries back East. He’d tried to ruin Papa more than once. Fannie didn’t know the details, but every time that name came up in conversation, Papa clenched his jaw and his face reddened with emotion.

“He’s brutal in business . . . and no different at home,” Samuel said. “I’m done with him and his name. Forever. Beck was my mother’s maiden name, and I’m determined to spend the rest of my life being as different from my Pa as it’s possible to be.” He cleared his throat. “Emma disappeared a few weeks ago. Gone from her boarding house room without a word to me or anyone else. I finally found someone on the levee who told me she’d taken up with a Major Chadwick.” He glanced at Fannie. “Not married, mind you. Just . . . ‘took up with.’ Then I learned Chadwick was headed upriver to Fort Rice. So—” He took a deep breath. “Here I am.”

Fannie didn’t know what to say. Anything she could think of seemed so . . . empty. What did she know of trouble compared to what Samuel and his sister had been through?

Samuel reached for his hat and put it on. “I failed Emma, but I won’t fail you, Fannie. I have to get off the
Far West
while we’re tied up at Fort Rice and try to find her. I hope she’s found a new life, but I have to know.” He leaned forward, then, and took her hands in his. “But even if I do find her, I’ll come back to you. Lamar and I agree. We’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe and to help you find your aunt. If Emma isn’t in a good situation, I’ll convince her to come with us. Either way, both Lamar and I are committed to being the best friends we know how to be, for as long as you want us.”

Fannie soon learned that Mrs. Tatum had been right about the fare on the
Far West
. Evening menus listed a dozen meats, half a dozen vegetables, pies, and cakes, along with an impressive wine list. And yet, Fannie had no appetite for food, and she just wasn’t interested in polite dinner conversation with strangers. Too much had happened. There was too much to think about. Chatting with strangers about nothing wore her out.

She hated the truth behind Lamar’s statement that even though he was booked on the
Far West
as Samuel’s “manservant,” everyone on board—including him—would be happier if he stayed on the main deck.

She was relieved when Samuel proved himself to be an able and charming conversationalist. People soon assumed the two of them were brother and sister. Samuel encouraged the ruse, saying it would ward off any hint of scandal. It would also let any scoundrels of the E. C. Dandridge type know not to trifle with Fannie.

When he mentioned Dandridge, she forced a smile. “I believe I’ve learned to be a little wiser in that regard. But just the same, I appreciate your concern.” She was more than appreciative. She liked the idea that Samuel felt protective. Very much. Perhaps too much.

Tears seemed just below the surface for most of every day. Thinking of Mrs. Tatum’s kindness brought tears. Writing to Minette made her cry. She cried for Samuel’s sister, for Lamar, for the families affected by the
Delores
’s wreck. Once she even cried in sympathy for one of the servers who was scolded for dropping something. And every night, when she stared across at the empty space where Hannah should be, she cried some more.

“I miss you so much, Hannah. . . . I need you. . . . What’s it like to fall in love? . . . How do people know?” She remembered what Minette had said about an echo. She hadn’t heard one . . . yet.

Two weeks out of Sioux City, Fannie was standing at the railing just outside her cabin door when Samuel called to her. “Have you had breakfast?”

She turned around, surprised by an unexpected rush of joy at the prospect of breakfast with Samuel. When she shook her head, he grinned. “It’s good to see you smile.” He nodded behind him toward the dining saloon. “If we hurry, we’ll just make it.”

Samuel greeted several of the other diners by name as he poured coffee, and joined in their laughter when an older gentleman told about the child on board who’d kept everyone entertained the previous afternoon, playing with an imaginary rabbit. “At one point he had us all down on all fours searching under every table, every chair, in search of the invisible.” He pointed at Samuel as he said to Fannie, “Your brother saved the day, though. Found the imaginary rabbit . . . nibbling on his slippers.”

“I thought you said it was imaginary,” Fannie said with a frown.

Samuel grinned. “So were the slippers.”

After breakfast, they took chairs out onto the hurricane deck. Fannie opened
Great Expectations
and Samuel opened his Bible. Side by side, they read for a while. When the wind came up, they retired back inside. Once they were settled again, Fannie pointed to the Bible. “Read to me.”

“Really?”

“My father was more given to the Greeks. Mother used the Scriptures as a weapon. As I recall, she had a verse to support everything and everyone she condemned.”

Samuel looked down at the book in his hands. “Mine had a verse to support everything she did to help people . . . and her reaction to my father’s unforgivable behavior.”

“Read me those, if you can find them.”

“Easily.” Samuel opened the book. “She had them marked.”

When Samuel opened his mother’s Bible, Fannie was astonished at how abominably Mrs. Pilsner had treated her Bible—at least by Mother’s standards. “My mother would have had my head if I’d written in a book.”

Samuel smiled. “This is the only book I ever saw mine write in.” He began to read. “ ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.’ ” Looking over at Fannie, he said, “I imagine those comforted her more than once.” He flipped a page. “She has a date written in the margin here.

“ ‘Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.’ ”

“Something terrible must have just happened,” Fannie said.

Samuel nodded. “I don’t know what, but I don’t suppose it really matters. The sad truth is that it could have been any number of terrible things—all of them related to her being Mrs. Saul Pilsner.”

Fannie reached out to him. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “Do the words give
you
comfort?”

He seemed to ponder that for a moment before answering. “Yes. I think they do.” He turned a few more pages. “Because of this.” He read aloud, “ ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ ” He held up one hand. “Here’s what I know,” he said, holding his other hand opposite it. “Here’s what I don’t.” He nodded at the space in between his two hands. “That’s where faith lives. In the unseen space between the two.” He smiled. “I think that’s where hope lives, too.”

Fannie waved her hand through the space between Samuel’s. “All I see is empty air.”

“I’m beginning to think that from God’s side of things, there’s no such thing as empty.” He shrugged. “But then as soon as I think I have that figured out, I get confused again.” He made a fist and rapped his own head with his knuckles.” And then I decide it’s my
head
that’s empty.”

Fannie laughed with him. She glanced down at Mrs. Pilsner’s Bible. What if that book really did contain words from the mind of the God who’d made the river they were on . . . and everything stretching away from it . . . and all the rivers of the world. Oh, everyone believed God created the world in an intellectual sense. But Samuel was talking about a belief that was more than that. It seemed that his mother had had a kind of faith that took the words out of that book and put them into the decisions she made in her life. That was a far different kind of faith than Fannie knew. She prayed . . . but she was never certain anyone was listening. What would her life look like if she were more certain? What if she actually sought out the words in the Bible and let them rule her life? The idea was at once fascinating . . . and terrifying.

Samuel bent his head and peered up into her eyes. “Where’d you go?”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Read some more,” she said. She loved the sound of Samuel’s voice, but there was more to it than that. She was beginning to love the
words.
What was that hymn Minette loved? Something about “beautiful words of life.” Did the Bible really contain words of life? For the first time in hers, Fannie wished she had her own Bible.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.

J
OHN 3:16

There was always a sandbar to be gotten off . . . or over . . . or past. The weather became a major topic of conversation. Fannie wrote to Minette every few days, gathering up the letters and posting them at every opportunity as the
Far West
made its way upriver. She explained “lightering” to get off a sandbar and double-tripping to avoid grounding in shallow water. Fannie told Minette all about Samuel and Lamar and . . . Indians.