Elizabeth Grayson (36 page)

The shaking made Chase realize he hurt all over—his chest and ribs, his legs and back. He moaned and coughed and rolled his head to the left.

Richard Follensbee wavered into his view, leaning over the side of the yawl. Clutching Chase by the collar of his shirt to keep him afloat, shaking him the way a terrier shakes a rat.

“Hardesty!”

Chase moved his arms and legs experimentally. His muscles twitched and knotted, but everything worked.

“You dead or alive, Hardesty?” the colonel bellowed.

Chase blinked Follensbee into focus. “ ’live,” he managed to croak and set off coughing again.

“Well, you’ve got no right to be! Half that damn steamer came down on top of you.”

“Feels like it,” Chase mumbled and closed his eyes. He opened them again a moment later. “Rossiter?”

The colonel tipped his chin in the direction of a steaming pile of rubble. Chase recognized the
Cassiopeia
’s superstructure, collapsed and half-submerged in the water. He saw the wheelhouse’s crescent moon tilted drunkenly and gleaming in the firelight.

“Rossiter?” he asked again.

“Under there,” Follensbee said. “Buried with his goddamned rifles.”

chapter eighteen

CHASE RETURNED TO HARDESTY’S LANDING IN defeat.

In spite of receiving a letter of commendation signed by General Sherman himself, which thanked him for his part in stopping the shipments of guns, and in spite of his personal satisfaction in knowing that Boothe Rossiter had paid for his sins, Chase’s world had come apart.

Ann was gone when he got back to St. Louis. The town house was shuttered, empty, and had been seized by the bank. She’d left no word for him, no hint of where she’d gone. Chase searched the city from bottom to top. He stopped at every hotel and went from boarding house to boarding house all over town. And found nothing.

The longer he searched the more desperate he became. So many things had lain unresolved between Annie and him the day he left. He regretted storming out of her father’s house without a word. He wondered if she was angry with him for going after Boothe Rossiter. He worried that she’d lost faith in him and the life they’d begun to hope for together.

Chase spent another day questioning the ticket agents down at the levee, especially the ones who booked passage on steamers headed East. He crossed the river and inquired at the train depot in Illinois—and found no sign of her.

Ann and Christina had vanished.

He spent the rest of his time trying to verify his ownership of the
Andromeda.
Men from the Mercantile Bank had been waiting on the levee to repossess her when they got back. They’d taken possession of the steamer and evicted Chase from the captain’s quarters so fast he barely had time to pack their things.

He’d pressed his claim to the steamer at both the bank and at the courthouse. But no one cared what papers he’d signed, or what James Rossiter had promised him. The bank owned the
Andromeda
now. After two weeks of frustration and disappointment, Chase had begged passage and headed home.

Where else did a man go when he’d lost everything?

He leaned heavily against the railing of Barnaby Greene’s sleek little steamer, the
Julie B,
and waited for Hardesty’s Landing to come into view. As they rounded the last bend and he saw the house at the top of the bluff, at least some of the weight seemed to lift from his shoulders.

“So you’re leaving us, are you?” Captain Greene asked, ambling toward him across the steamer’s closely packed deck. From the quantity of merchandise aboard the
Julie
B,
it was clear the stores in towns along the river were stocking up for winter.

Chase gathered up his canvas duffel. “I expect I’ll spend the off-season helping my folks.”

“It’s a shame about the
Andromeda,”
Greene offered.

Chase acknowledged the older man’s sympathy with a nod.

“If you need work piloting in the spring,” the older man continued, “you come see me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” It was as close as Chase could come right now to thinking about the future. Then, as the steamer slowed, Chase grabbed up his bag and jumped ashore. “Thanks for the passage, Barnaby.”

Captain Greene waved in answer as the steamer eased back into the channel.

Chase slung the bag over his shoulder and started for the house. He’d taken barely a dozen steps when his father emerged from the shed at the edge of the woodlot.

“Chase!” he exclaimed. “You all right, boy? We didn’t expect to see you up this way for at least another week.”

He watched his father approach. The vigor in his stride made Chase feel old and tired by comparison. “The shipping season ended early this year,” he told his father. “At least for me.”

“Good God!” Enoch’s mouth narrowed with concern. “The
Andromeda
wasn’t involved in that big wreck downriver, was she?”

Chase rubbed at the half-healed gash that ran from his eyebrow into his hair. “Not exactly.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Chase hoped he’d have a chance to talk to his mother before he faced anyone else. He needed Lydia to tell him that losing the
Andromeda—
and especially losing Ann— weren’t his fault. He needed to be sure that someone still had faith in him.

The last thing in the world he wanted was to confront his father with all of this. But Enoch stood with his hands planted on his hips, as if he were waiting for an explanation.

Chase lifted his chin defensively. “Well, you might as well know,” he began. “I lost the
Andromeda.”

His father didn’t show so much as a ripple of surprise. “How’d you lose her?”

Chase did his best to swallow the regret wedged in his throat. “The bank took her,” he said, then waited for Enoch to say it was because he’d mismanaged his captaincy. “It’s what you expected, isn’t it?” Chase goaded him, spoiling for a fight. “You never believed I’d prove myself as a captain.”

“I might have had my doubts about your business dealings with James Rossiter,” his father conceded, not rising to the bait, “but I never once doubted your abilities.” He clapped one big hand around Chase’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you lost the boat, son. I’m even sorrier you didn’t think I believed in you. You make a fine captain, Chase. You’ll get a new command.”

Chase let his father’s words soak in like rain to dry, parched earth.

“I thought the
Andromeda
was where I belonged,” he said, his voice rusty with regret. “I thought by captaining my own boat, I could prove myself. I wanted so much for you and Ma to be proud of me.”

Enoch scowled and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to prove yourself to anyone, Chase. A man has to have pride in what he does. His opinion of himself is all that matters.”

If only it were that simple.
Because he’d been the first of the strays the Hardestys had taken in, Chase always thought he had more to prove than anyone else. Pa might not make concessions to any man, but Chase felt obliged to live up to a special set of standards. He’d negotiated the debt himself, built it on gratitude, love, and a load of early responsibilities. Now that he’d failed to meet those expectations, he felt lost.

Chase might have turned away if Enoch hadn’t held him still. “I don’t want you to mistake what I’m saying, boy. Your ma and me, we’ve always been proud of you. From the time you were little, you were as fine a son as any man could ask for. You worked hard, played fair, and always looked after the younger children—especially Rue. And we couldn’t have asked for anyone to set them a finer example.”

Enoch’s own voice caught a little as he went on. “If ever there’s a man who’s proved himself, it’s you, Chase. But you ought to know you don’t have to be a steamboat captain to make us proud of you.”

Chase turned and looked into his father’s eyes, seeing not just acceptance but warmth, not just pride but affection—and maybe a glint of tears.

Before Chase could speak, Enoch patted him briskly. “You head on up to the house, now. Your ma will be wanting to know you got home safe.”

Chase grabbed up his duffel and headed for the steps.

“And Chase...” Chase hesitated and looked back at his father. “You’ve had those words coming to you for a good long while. I’m sorry I made you wait so long to hear them.”

Chase wasn’t sure he could trust his voice, so he nodded in answer and continued on up to the house.

His mother was alone in the kitchen for once, whipping up some concoction that must have taken lots of eggs. There were shells scattered across the tabletop, and she counted her strokes as she stirred. “Seventy-eight, seventy-nine...”

“Afternoon, Ma,” he said and closed the back door with a
thump.

Lydia whirled around, bowl in hand. “Chase!” she cried. “How glad I am that you’re all right! We’ve all been worried!” She tipped her head so he could buss her cheek, then patted him, dabbing his chin with batter. “Ann will be so relieved to see you!”

“Ann!” Chase’s knees wobbled, and he had to grab the edge of the table to keep from ending up on the floor. “Is Annie here?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“How would I know?” he demanded, furious at being ambushed. “She didn’t leave a single word for me in St. Louis.”

Now that he knew Ann was here, he wanted to find her, dress her down for scaring him—then kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

“She’s been here nearly a month,” his mother said with the reproving lift of her eyebrows. “She came right after you set off after young Rossiter.”

“I didn’t ‘set off after’ anyone, damn it! The
Andromeda
was commandeered by the army.”

“Well, all I know,” Lydia went on, “is that she’s been beside herself ever since we heard about the
Cassiopeia.
She was sure you were involved in that terrible wreck.”

Chase ducked his head. He wasn’t ready to talk about the
Cassiopeia,
either.

“Ann would have had word of me a damn sight sooner if she’d been in St. Louis!”

“She didn’t have much choice about staying there, now, did she?” Lydia scolded, banging the spoon against the edge of the bowl for emphasis. “They snatched that house right out from under her. So she came here,
where
she belongs.”

That Ann thought she belonged at Hardesty’s Landing quieted at least some of Chase’s misgivings. “So where would I find Annie now if I wanted to talk to her?”

Lydia whipped the batter a few more strokes before she answered. “She put Christina down for a nap and walked on out toward the point.”

The point.
With those two words Chase was drowning in memories: of lying with Annie in the grass beneath a black banner of sky, of how beautiful she’d been in the light of the summer moon, of the consolation she’d given him when Rue was hurt.

Somehow that night had been their true beginning.

“Well, then,” he said and climbed to his feet. “I think I’ll just wander on out to the point and surprise my wife. Since we’ve got some things we need to discuss, I’d appreciate it if we weren’t disturbed.”

“Oh, I think I can manage that,” Lydia said, then turned and grinned at him. Chase flushed to the tips of his ears and fled from his mother’s laughter.

He followed the well-worn path along the top of the bluffs, striding through stands of cedar and pine, through hardwoods rustling in gold and russet splendor. He clambered through the jumble of rocks and found Ann just where he hoped she’d be, settled in the bowl of grass at the edge of the cliff.

He stood one long moment drinking her in: the graceful furl of her skirt and the drape of the sage-green shawl around her shoulders, the dip of her head and the thick, tightly wound knot of hair at the nape of her neck.

“Annie,” he called softly.

She swung around and stared at him, then scrambled to her feet. “Chase!” she cried as she ran toward him. “Oh, dear God! Chase, are you all right?”

They came together as if drawn by a force stronger than either of them. Ann threw her arms around his neck. Chase enfolded her in his embrace and lifted her right off her feet.

His mouth closed over hers, and the kiss that swelled between them was heady and reckless with weeks of separation and uncertainty. Chase couldn’t seem to hold her close enough, couldn’t seem to breathe deeply enough of her sweetness, or savor enough of her warmth to reassure himself he’d found her. That she was here in his arms.

“I was so afraid for you when we heard about the
Cassiopeia.”
Annie clung to him as if she never meant to let him go. “You were there, weren’t you, when Boothe’s steamer ran aground?”

Chase lowered her to her feet, but couldn’t seem to relinquish his hold on her. “Colonel Follensbee found invoices in the commodore’s papers that indicated the
Cassiopeia
was on its way to deliver one last big shipment of guns before the river closed for the winter. He commandeered the
Andromeda
to go after her. Didn’t you get the note I left you?”

“Couldn’t you have refused to go with him?” she asked, her eyes darkening as she traced the half-healed gash that ran up into his hair.

“The truth is, Annie, I didn’t want to refuse. The truth is, I wanted to make sure Boothe Rossiter got what he deserved.”

“We’ve heard all sorts of things in these last days,” she offered quietly, taking half a step away. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Chase looked down at her, trying to interpret the pucker between her brows and the line of her mouth.

“We chased the
Cassiopeia
upriver for a full six days,” he told her, “and caught her in the stretch between Glasgow and Lexington. We could have taken her peaceably enough if Boothe hadn’t tried to run.”

He could still feel the wind in his face and the hum of exhilaration in his blood as they’d steamed full-out into the setting sun. But the thrill he’d known in the midst of that run didn’t come close to making up for the horror and remorse afterwards. Eight people had lost their lives that night, and even if Boothe Rossiter had chosen to flee from the
Andromeda,
Chase had to shoulder his share of the blame for what happened.

“Is Boothe...” Ann’s words parted the fog of Chase’s regrets. “Is Boothe dead?”

Chase smelled the smoke and steam again, saw the orange glow of the burning wreckage reflected in the Missouri’s dark surface.