Kary, Elizabeth (14 page)

"Why,
Leigh, what a perfect way to travel!" Delia spoke up. "And how nice
of Mr. Banister to offer you passage. After all, you were concerned about being
able to get a stateroom on one of the other packets on such short notice."

Leigh
was not prepared for her friend's defection and sent Delia a scathing glance.
She was becoming more and more certain that she did not want to spend all those
hours on a riverboat in Hayes Banister's company, much less on a riverboat he
owned and operated. But Delia seem oblivious to Leigh's predicament and was
instead smiling up at Mr. Travis, who, amazingly enough, was smiling back!

"Well,
if you're sure it's no trouble to delay your departure...." Leigh
capitulated with what little grace she could muster.

"Then
it's settled," Banister concluded with a victorious grin. "Would you
like me to come by in the morning and help you with your baggage?"

Leigh
ground her teeth in frustration. "No, thank you. I'm sure I can
manage."

"Then
I'll see you first thing tomorrow at the landing."

"Yes,
I'll be there."

"And
since you gentlemen are going to be in town tonight," Delia put in
unexpectedly, "there's a dance at the town hall you might want to
attend."

Leigh
stared at the other girl in open astonishment. The dances were a weekly
occurrence in Cairo, offering one of the few respectable diversions the
soldiers from Fort Defiance had, but neither she nor Delia had ever had the
time or inclination to attend.

"We'll
keep it in mind, Miss Dobbins," Mr. Travis assured her, though Leigh
thought him as unlikely a dancing partner as she could imagine.

There
was nothing left but to say their good-byes, and Banister and Travis were
hardly out of sight when Delia turned to Leigh, her face flushed and her
cornflower-blue eyes as round as saucers.

"Oh,
Leigh," she said breathlessly, "I think I've just met the man I'm
going to marry!"

***

November 16, 1861

Not
long after dawn, Hayes Banister emerged from the boiler room of the
Barbara Dean,
unkempt, sweaty,
and covered with grease. When he had returned to the riverboat from the town,
he discovered a need for repairs that would have delayed their departure from
Cairo until this morning even if he had not promised Leigh Pennington passage
to St. Louis. Hayes breathed deeply of the heavy morning air, thick with
unseasonable humidity, and brushed the perspiration from his brow with one
smudged hand. He was tired, disgruntled, and sorely in need of a bath. Nor was
checking and repairing the fittings and gaskets on a steam engine the way he
would have elected to spend the night.

While
he had worked, Nathan Travis had gone off into the twilight to attend the town
hall dance, dressed like a disapproving church deacon. But when he returned
just after midnight, whistling softly under his breath, with his black coat
tossed carelessly over one shoulder and his cravat askew, Travis was a changed
man. As they shared a pot of strong, black coffee in the crew's quarters, Hayes
had discovered the reason: Delia Dobbins. Somehow in the three or four hours
they'd had together, the young nurse had plumbed a well-concealed part of
Nathan Travis's personality, finding a lightness and congeniality in him that
Hayes had never suspected. For those few minutes as they sat relaxing together,
Travis was more garrulous and expansive than Banister had ever known him to be.
But an hour later when Travis set out in a skiff for the Kentucky shore, the
glow was gone from his black eyes and his grim demeanor had returned. And it
was small wonder, Hayes mused. In the past three or four months he had seen
enough of Travis's comings and goings to guess at his part
in the war
effort. The knowledge he had of the man's convictions only reinforced Hayes's
suspicions. Nathan Travis was a Union spy, and wherever he was now, he was
terrifyingly alone in his battle with the enemy.

Hayes
stretched his cramped muscles and squinted up at the sun, just cresting the lip
of the levee, and wondered how long it would be before Leigh Pennington would
put in an appearance. He frowned abstractedly at the thought and leaned his
elbows on the rail. What mixture of fate and coincidence had brought Leigh back
into his life after all these months? God knows, it had been the truth when he
told her he had been too busy in St. Louis to seek her out. His days at the
shipyard had been long and hectic, and even his sleep had been caught in
snatches. But there had been odd moments of leisure when he might have welcomed
her company. Why, then, had he assiduously avoided anything that might have
brought him into contact with the beauteous young woman who haunted his dreams?

Perhaps
it had been his own perversity that prevented him from trying to see her, or
the conviction that once he saw her and spoke to her and became reacquainted,
he would never be able to walk away from her again. Over space and time, Leigh
was with him still: her cameo-perfect features etched in his mind, her orange
and spice scent an elusive memory, her ingenuous passion a thing that teased
the edges of his imagination. He had not been able to forget Leigh, and in that
lay a threat that tested the limits of his courage. Monica's rejection and the
pain it brought had been enough to last a lifetime. And in spite of the
attraction, it was obvious they both felt, he knew Leigh did not want him. She
did not want him, and he would not fight and lose the same battle twice. It was
as simple as that.

And
yet yesterday when he had seen her on the street, his spirit had soared,
leaving his doubts earthbound. She should have been less appealing in her drab,
shapeless gown and shawl, with her hair twisted primly into a knot at the back
of her neck, but she was not. For a few moments it had been as if he were blind
to all but the sight of her, deaf to everything but the sound of her voice, his
hands numbed to everything but the feel of her flesh beneath them. Seeing her
had made him feel as if he were living only half a life, and he ached to make
himself whole, no matter what the cost.

Hayes
leaned against the rail more heavily and snorted in disgust at the trend of his
own thoughts. He was a supremely rational man, he told himself stubbornly, and
wasn't about to let some green-eyed chit tie him into knots. He was attracted
to Leigh Pennington, as any man with eyes in his head would be, but he did have
some control over his emotions. He was no longer a callow youth, a slave to his
illusions and his lust. Leigh was graceful, beautiful, and sweet, but there was
no reason why he had to become involved with her if he chose not to take that
course. Surely he could spend the next day and a half in Leigh's company without
succumbing to her charms; he could practice that much restraint, at least.

Then,
Leigh herself topped the levee, the morning sun catching in her fiery hair and
turning it brilliant, blazing red before she descended from the crest of the
embankment into the shadows. Hayes's heart leaped at the sight, and he watched
her for a long moment before he pushed away from the rail and headed toward the
gangplank.

She
swung jauntily down the wagon road toward the dock, a carpetbag in one hand
that moved in time to her steps, a feed sack clutched in the other, an old
Shaker bonnet dangling by its strings from her elbow, and a full two inches of
lacy petticoats visible beneath the shortened hem of her calico gown.

"Good
morning, Leigh," he called to her as he started up the slope of the old
wagon trace. "Can I give you a hand with those things?"

She
smiled a greeting and shook her head. "I'm far stronger than I look,"
she assured him. "I just hope I haven't held you up. I came here right
from the hospital, but I feel terrible that you delayed your departure because
of me."

"Some
unexpected problems with the engine would have kept us in Cairo until this
morning anyway," he assured her, coming closer. "It took us most of
the night to fix them."

"Then
that explains why you look like you've just escaped from a minstrel show,"
she teased, noting the dirt and grime on his face.

The
answering rejoinder died on his lips as he came up beside her. "Leigh,
you've been crying!" he blurted out as he noticed the tracks of fresh
tears on her cheeks.

Leigh's
expression softened at the concern in his tone. "It's been a fairly
emotional hour or so," she conceded.

"Saying
good-bye to your friends, you mean?"

"Yes,
that, too. I've grown very attached to Delia and Mother Bickerdyke in the
months I've spent here in Cairo. But we also lost one of our patients just
before dawn, and that was hard to accept."

Sympathy
filled Banister's pale eyes, and there was a grim twist to his mouth. "I'm
so sorry, Leigh. I wish you didn't have to see that kind of thing, but since
you are a nurse, I suppose there's no way to spare you—"

"But
I don't want to be spared," she told him, taking exception to his
well-meaning condescension. "I knew what nursing would be like when I
volunteered to help here in Cairo, and I'm as prepared as anyone to deal with
pain, death, and grief. Why should you want to shield me from it?"

Her
answer caught him unprepared, and he was curious about just what kinds of
things she'd experienced in the months since she'd left St. Louis to make her
capable of such a statement. Unexpectedly, a primitive need to protect her rose
up in him, and Hayes found himself wondering if the good she was able to do
would ever balance the inevitable loss of her innocence. Somehow her words
demanded a rebuttal, and he faced her with a frown nestled between his dark
brows. "But women aren't equipped to deal with the tragedies of war,"
he protested.

After
clinging to his words as her only solace in the dark, difficult days since
she'd left St. Louis, Leigh was left feeling bereft by Hayes's defection.
"And are men equipped to deal with them?" she countered as she eyed
him coldly. "If I've learned one thing in these past months, it's that men
feel the same things women do. The only difference is that men hold their grief
inside, where it turns them hard and bitter. At least a woman knows the luxury of
tears."

Hayes
had no idea how to respond to her and stood staring. Like most men of his time,
he subscribed to the theory that women were weak, fragile things, to be protected
and cared for at all costs. But then there was something in Leigh that suddenly
reminded him of his mother, Barbara, who had taken over the shipyards when his
father died, and of his sister Rose, who traveled around the country with her
clergyman husband speaking for Abolitionist causes. Neither of them had ever
asked for concessions to their femininity, and Leigh was not asking for any
now. Uncomfortably he realized that both his mother and sister might well share
Leigh's convictions and agree with her sentiments. He was used to his mother's
and his sister's independence, but somehow hearing Leigh declare her own
unsettled and confused him.

Unable
to concede the point, Hayes wrenched the carpetbag from Leigh's hand and turned
back toward the riverboat. "Now that the engine's fixed, I think we might
as well get under way," he grumbled.

He
showed her to his own cabin on the Texas deck with its wide double berth and
sumptuous appointments. "When we use the
Barbara Dean
for short
runs, we stow gear in the passenger's cabins," he explained as he set the
carpetbag beside the bed. "I'll be bunking next door with the crew
tonight. Is there anything you need?"

Leigh
took a turn around the cabin, noting the rich, masculine furnishings in warm
woodsy tones and the books and drawings scattered across the built-in desk.
"I'd like to wash up first and then get some sleep." Hayes gave a
quick nod of acknowledgment, then went, closing the door quietly behind him.

When
Leigh awoke hours later, the cabin door had been propped open again to admit
the faint breath of a breeze off the river and the faraway churning of a paddle
wheel. Through the bed she could feel the vibration of the steam engine two
decks below and sense the rhythmic motions of the mechanisms that drove the
vessel forward. It was warm in the cabin, and the hazy sunlight that filtered
in through the open doorway hinted that the day had turned sultry for November.
She sat up and stretched lazily, pulling her loosened hair back from her face.
It was months since she had slept so long or so comfortably, and she felt
languorous and self-indulgent. Hospital nursing had taken her every waking
moment in Cairo, and the accommodations in Mary Ann Bickerdyke's little cabin
had been far from luxurious. Stretching again, she bent over the side of the
bed and withdrew her serviceable forest-green wrapper from her carpetbag,
pulling it on over her chemise and tying it securely before she rose from the
bunk. She ambled from the bed to the doorway and glanced out across the face of
the river. It was still and murky brown, with grain-stubbled fields on the bank
far beyond. Before she realized Hayes Banister was sitting just outside, she
had stepped into the opening to catch what she could of the logy breeze.

Tipped
back in his chair with his booted feet resting on the rail and a crumpled
newspaper lying forgotten in his lap, he looked comfortable and contented.
"Awake at last?" he asked in a lazy tone. "I thought you were
going to sleep all the way to St. Louis."