Judith E French (3 page)

“How much of this luggage is absolutely necessary for us to take?” Shane asked.

“All of it.” Caitlin counted her trunks and cases to be certain everything was there. She’d already checked them when the steamboat docked and counted them yet again after the deckhands had loaded them onto the landing. These possessions were precious to her. They contained all she had of home, all she would ever have of her family and Ireland. She’d defended her personal
effects against petty thieves and smooth-talking flimflam men. She wasn’t about to be bullied into giving up any of her property by Shane McKenna.

“You decide or I will.” He heaved a trunk into the wagon bed.

“These two.” Caitlin shifted Derry to her hip and lifted a portmanteau. “I must have this. It has—”

“Two more.”

His impatience infuriated her. She handed him the leather case and went back to tug at a wooden chest. “I need this.”

“Too big. Take a smaller one,” Shane replied brusquely.

“No, I won’t go without the chest. I have seeds and—”

“Suit yourself.” He removed a leather trunk and put the wooden chest in its place.

Caitlin tried to lift one end of the trunk, but it was too heavy. She returned to the heaped luggage and chose a smaller box tied with red cord. Shane took the box out of her hands and jammed it into a spot under the seat. She turned back toward the remaining pile, but he stepped in front of her.

“I’ll fetch the rest of it when I find time to come to Jeff City again,” he promised. “Now, I’d take it kindly if you’d get into the wagon.”

Caitlin glanced back at the things on the landing, then nodded and offered him her hand. Instead, his big hands closed on her waist. Effortlessly, he swung her and Derry up onto the wagon seat.

Shane drove back the way he’d come with Justice following on his pony. After a short distance, Shane guided the team onto a side street that led back toward the bank of the Missouri River.

Lights blazed from a three-story house at the end of the block. Strains of music and loud laughter spilled
through the open windows. Several horses were tied near the door, and a liveried servant lingered by a phaeton.

“Where are we going?” Caitlin asked.

“Fat Rose’s … boardinghouse. I told you, she’s a friend of mine. I’ll ask her to look after your trunks until I can get back this way.” Shane reined the horses into a narrow alley. “You wait here.” He glanced at Justice. “Both of you.”

Caitlin watched as Shane secured the lines to a hitching post and walked away. “Shouldn’t I come with you?” she suggested. “If this Rose is a friend, shouldn’t I meet her?”

Justice stifled a sound of amusement.

“Nope.” Shane kept moving. “Stay put.”

Caitlin seethed. She was not used to being given orders.
Do this. Do that
. Who did he think he was?

Shane had never treated her like this in County Clare. He’d been sweet, understanding, patient. Good-humored.

She shifted restlessly. “How well do you know this Rose?” she asked Justice. “Will she take good care of my things, do you think?”

“Reckon so.”

The boy’s accent was so strong that she had to listen carefully to understand him.

Shouting echoed from the main street. A voice, definitely a female voice, swore a foul oath.

Caitlin’s cheeks grew warm.

“I’m going to leave Derry here while I find your father,” she said to Justice. “Can I trust you to watch her for a few minutes?” She carefully laid the sleeping child in front of the wagon seat.

“He said to stay put.”

“I know what he said. Can I trust you with the baby?”

He nodded.

“I’ll take her with me if it’s too much trouble,” she said.

“I kin watch her.”

“She’s a baby. If she was to fall under the horses’ feet or if they got excited and—”

“I’ll keep her safe.” The boy dismounted and climbed up on the wagon seat.

Caitlin nodded. Heart pounding, she started down the alley. Rose’s boardinghouse indeed! Sheltered she might have been under her father’s roof, but Caitlin was not stupid. At the very least, Rose’s was a dockside pub. At the worst … She didn’t want to consider what the worst was.

She reached the street and followed an uneven plank walk toward the brightly lit house. In an upstairs window, she saw the silhouette of two people dancing to the tinny notes of a cheap piano. Another couple lingered at the corner of the house.

Taking a deep breath, Caitlin walked purposefully toward the front door. She would find her husband and leave this place as soon as possible.

“Evenin’, sugar.”

Caitlin turned and caught a whiff of hard liquor and unwashed man. A bulky figure in a tall beaver hat staggered from the shadows.

“You’re new, ain’t ya?” The man lurched closer and belched. “Pretty little thing. Where’s Fat Rose been hiding you?”

Refusing to dignify the sot with a reply, she continued on up the brick steps. The music was very loud, a jarring, rowdy tune accompanied by stomping feet and off-key singing.

“Don’t go ’way,” the drunk protested. “Les be friends.”

Caitlin quickened her pace. She reached for the doorbell just as his fingers closed on her shoulder.

“I said, don’t go ’way, sweet thing.” He pulled a handful of crumpled greenbacks from his pocket. “I got money.”

She turned to face him, covering her fear with icy courtesy. “Kindly remove your hand.”

“How ’bout a kiss for ole Jim?”

A blast of one-hundred-proof breath made her gag. Twisting free of his grasp, she trod hard on his toes with the heel of her leather boot, then ducked under her assailant’s arm as he swore and reached out to grab her.

“Leave me alone!” she cried. “I don’t—”

The door burst open and a charging fury nearly knocked her over. Suddenly, Caitlin’s back was to the wall, and Shane was between her and the drunken lout. Shane seized the man by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the ground.

“That’s my wife!” Shane shook the stranger hard enough to rattle the man’s teeth, then tossed him over the porch railing into the shrubbery.

“I didn’t know she was your woman, McKenna. I swear! I didn’t know.”

Shane leaped over the rail and pounced on him. “You damn well owe her an apology.”

“What’s ado?” The fattest woman Caitlin had ever seen squeezed through the front door and teetered to the edge of the porch. “I’ll have no fighting here. Stop that, Shane McKenna. You let him go.”

Shane rose to his feet still holding the protesting drunkard by the shirt front. “He insulted my wife.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought—”

Several scantily dressed women with rouged faces and elaborately coifed hair spilled onto the porch, and Caitlin was nearly overwhelmed by a wave of cheap perfume.

“It’s McKenna,” whispered a tall redhead with bad skin.

Another snickered. “Shane McKenna? Which one is he?”

An assortment of men, some roughly dressed, others in
white shirt and tie, followed the women onto the porch. Several clutched bottles of spirits; one held a hand of cards.

“That’s him,” a burly riverman said loudly to his companion. “McKenna runs horses at Kilronan.”

“What’s he doing here?” demanded a stout man wearing spectacles. “I didn’t come to Fat Rose’s looking for trouble.”

An elderly gentleman pointed toward Shane with his walking stick. “You’d think he’d have better sense than to show his face in this town again after—”

“Enough!” The fat woman made shooing motions with her hands. “Inside, inside all of you,” she ordered in an altissimo voice. “Do you want the law on me?”

The onlookers filed noisily back inside, and the fat woman glanced back at Shane. “Must I throw you both in the river to settle this?”

Shane gave his victim a final shove, then let go. The troublemaker scrambled away into the darkness. Seconds later, Caitlin heard the sound of retching.

“You know I don’t want trouble here,” the fat woman admonished Shane.

“He insulted my wife.”

“Jim’s dead drunk. Last time he was this drunk, he propositioned my old sow.”

“I know he’s drunk,” Shane said. “If he wasn’t …” He left the threat unspoken.

The woman flashed a wide grin at Caitlin, displaying two silver front teeth. “I’m Fat Rose,” she said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. McKenna.”

“How do you do,” Caitlin replied numbly. She tried not to notice the huge quivering breasts visible above a shockingly scant neckline or the artificially yellow hair that hung around Rose’s moon face in long corkscrew curls.

“I thought I told you to wait in the wagon, Caity.” Shane’s voice was low, but he made no effort to hide his anger.

“We’ll discuss this later,” she flung back.

“No harm done,” Rose said, stretching a plump, ringed hand across Caitlin to pat Shane’s cheek affectionately. “Jim won’t remember a thing tomorrow morning. If he’d of known she was your wife, he never would have had the nerve to speak to her. You ain’t hurt none, are ya deary?”

Caitlin shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

“You’ll send Moses for the trunks?” Shane reminded Rose.

“Did Fat Rose ever let ya down?” Silver teeth winked in the lantern light. “I’ll send Moses lickety-split after your plunder. Don’t you worry. I’ll take good care of it. Just like it was mine.”

“I appreciate it,” Shane said.

“Where’s that music?” Fat Rose bellowed in the open door. “I pay for piano. I want to hear piano.”

The music began again. After two false starts, Caitlin recognized an old Irish tune called “The Banks of Claudy.” A man with a deep baritone voice was singing.

Fat Rose hugged Caitlin to her ample breasts. “You’ve got a good man, honey, no matter what anyone says. You two take care of each other. And kiss that sweet boy for me, Shane. You tell him that Fat Rose misses him.”

Caitlin exchanged bitter words with Shane on the way back to the wagon. “How dare you leave my things with such a person?”

“I told you to stay in the wagon. Why the hell can’t you do one thing I ask?” he demanded. “What if I hadn’t gotten there in time to save you?”

“I came from County Clare without your protection. I’m capable of dealing with one sloppy drunk.”

“You looked capable. Another minute and he’d have had you on your back.”

“In a pig’s eye. Do you think I’ve not had to deal with men on my own in the past eight years?”

“I’m sure you have.”

“That’s a rotten thing to say.”

“When I tell you something for your own good, you’d best learn to listen.”

“I’m your wife, not your maidservant. That’s a house of sin. How could you leave half of what I own in the world with that … that creature?”

“Fat Rose is an honest woman.”

“The very picture of virtue.”

“You shouldn’t be so quick to judge. She’s been a friend, and I’ve few enough of those.”

Caitlin held Derry tightly against her as the horse-drawn wagon rolled through the streets of the City of Jefferson. Shane sat on the hard wooden seat beside her, reins between his gloved hands, back straight, silent as a rain-washed stone. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it would be. He was not the man she’d married in the ruined church at Kilshanny. That Shane McKenna would never have doubted her word about Derry, and he would not have attacked a man in such a violent fashion.

And he would never have frequented a house of ill repute or allowed his wife anywhere near one!

Caitlin watched in silence as the houses and stores grew farther and farther apart. For all its grand name, the
City of Jefferson was only a small town, nothing to rival New Orleans, or even Saint Louis.

Circles of pale yellow light spilled from the windows of the private homes. Here and there, a yard was fenced with white pickets, and she caught the scent of roses. As they rounded a corner, Caitlin saw an elderly man and woman bathed in the glow of a copper lantern. They sat close together on a porch swing, their graying heads nearly touching and their quiet laughter mingling in the still night air.

The couple’s obvious affection for each other brought a catch to Caitlin’s throat. How many times had she watched her parents sit and talk of an evening, sharing memories and private jests? She’d pictured herself and Shane growing old together, weaving the fabric of their lives so closely that a thread could not be pulled from the cloth without destroying the pattern.

I wanted that, she thought fervently. I still want that…. And I want flowers. A yard full of bright blooms that would wipe away the memories of black, rotting fields and fresh-dug graves along the country lanes of County Clare.

She hoped that the seeds she’d carried from Ireland would flourish in this Missouri soil so that she could surround her house with sweet-smelling herbs and flowers. A house couldn’t really be a home without the colors and scents of a garden.

As they reached the outskirts of the town there were fewer people on the dusty street. A coach pulled by four horses rumbled past, followed by a solitary rider on a swaybacked horse. A small white dog ran from a yard and barked at Shane’s wagon. The animal ran after them, snapping at the near wheel.

Shane paid no heed to the passersby or the terrier. He
kept guiding the team along the streets until he reached a narrow lane that looked to Caitlin like all the other lanes they had passed.

“A few more miles along this track and we’ll camp for the night,” Shane said. He glanced back over his shoulder at the boy. “Mind what I told you, Justice. Keep a loose rein on that pony’s mouth. Move with him, not against him.”

A few minutes later, Shane reined in the team long enough to light a lantern. He motioned to Justice, and the boy took the lamp and rode ahead of them, illuminating the road.

“He rides well,” Caitlin murmured, wanting to make conversation with her husband, normal conversation that didn’t end in a fuss. The child did seem to have a good seat. His back was straight, and he showed no fear of his mount.

“He’s coming along,” Shane replied tersely. “His mother could ride anything with four legs.”