Elizabeth Grayson (33 page)

Boothe had risked the lives of everyone aboard the
Cassiopeia.

Chase scowled when he realized how much time and hard work it had taken to refloat the steamer. In the course of conferring, towing and sparring, off-loading and reloading, he had made a thorough inventory of Boothe’s cargo, looking for contraband. But the
Cassiopeia
was a good long way downstream. If they’d been carrying guns, they’d have made their delivery days ago.

Just thinking about the carbines down in the
Andromeda
’s hold made Chase sweat. He wasn’t any closer to knowing what to do about those damn rifles today than he’d been when they left St. Louis. All he knew was that he couldn’t live with himself if he sent the guns on their way to the Indians.

“Will the
Cassiopeia
lose much time making the repairs?” Ann persisted.

“A week or two,” Chase answered a little peevishly. “Why are you so curious about all this?”

“I suppose I’m not eager to see Boothe again.”

Those few words gave Chase the chance to circle back to what he’d meant to ask her earlier. “So Boothe ended up visiting you and Christina, after all.”

Ann pushed back from the rail, buoyed up and restless again. “He came right after the boats tied up for the night.”

Chase stepped in close, instinctively trying to protect her. “I thought I’d managed to keep him away from you.” He shook his head. “If I had any idea he’d come aboard—”

“No.” She silenced him with the brush of her hand. “No, it was all right.”

“What did Boothe do to bedevil you this time?”

“It doesn’t matter what he did.” She turned to him, her eyes alight. “What matters is that for the first time in my life I stood up to him! I told him to go to the devil—” She laughed as if she were amazed by her own temerity.
“—and he went!”

Chase had dealings enough with Boothe Rossiter to know it couldn’t have been that simple. “Tell me what happened.”

She gave his wrist a squeeze. “I will,” she promised. “But not today.”

He might have pressed her for more details except that Joel Curry hailed him from the hurricane deck. “Fort Leavenworth to port, sir.”

Chase turned his attention to the top of the bluffs where the fort’s square, solid buildings perched overlooking the river like a vulture along the lip of a crag. “Order preparations for landing, Mr. Curry.”

Begun forty-odd years before, Fort Leavenworth was a citadel worthy of the name, a big sprawling encampment whose primary function was to supply and oversee the string of military outposts that had been built along the river ... to control the subjugation of the Indian tribes in the
Northwest.

A gust of realization blew through him; shivers lifted his hair. He’d spent days trying to think of a way to avoid delivering the crates of carbines, and his nights dreaming about the consequences if he failed. Now here was a fort chock full of soldiers who’d be more than willing to come aboard and relieve him of every last one of those guns.

All Chase had to do was explain to Fort Leavenworth’s provost marshal that while he was loading cargo he’d spotted some suspicious-looking boxes. The army was bound to investigate, and when they did, they’d find the guns and confiscate them.

Curry and Skirlin would never know Chase was behind the raid, and the army wouldn’t learn a thing from the invoices and in the manifests that would involve Ann’s father. The
Andromeda
might fall a little behind schedule while the soldiers searched and questioned the crew, but it would be worth the inconvenience to be rid of those goddamn rifles.

Chase squeezed Ann’s arm, then pushed away from the railing.

“How big an order do we have to deliver to the fort, Mr. Curry?” he asked as he sauntered toward the hurricane deck.

“Nearly three hundred boxes and barrels, sir. Mr. Skirlin could give you the particulars.”

Even from the distance Chase could see how busy Fort Leavenworth dockage was. “How long will it take to off-load that much cargo?”

“A couple of hours, sir,” Curry answered.

“Very well, Mr. Curry,” he said. “I’ll stand the rest of your watch. Go below and prepare to off-load that cargo.”

Once they tied up at Fort Leavenworth, Chase was going to go see the provost marshal, tell a few lies, and let the army take those damn carbines off his hands.

THINGS AT FORT LEAVENWORTH DIDN’T GO QUITE THE WAY Chase thought they would. He hadn’t gotten rid of the damn guns; he’d acquired a passenger.

The trim little man standing beside him now in a tweed sack coat, corduroy trousers, and high boots might look like a sportsman, but he was really Colonel Richard Follensbee. The colonel had been detailed to accompany the carbines as far as their transfer point. Chase wasn’t privy to the colonel’s orders beyond that, so what Follensbee meant to do when they got where those guns were going was anyone’s guess.

But not knowing was putting Chase on edge.

At the moment, what Follensbee was doing, though, was reeling off a list of things he’d forgotten, things he wanted Chase to get for him while they were wooding up at Hardesty’s Landing.

“... shoelaces, and a razor strop,” he finished, as they stood together on the
Andromeda
’s hurricane deck. “And maybe a bit of pipe tobacco.”

Hardesty’s Landing lay half a mile upriver, and as Chase squinted ahead, his mind was not on what Follensbee needed. It was on Rue.

He’d had a note from his mother by way of another of the other Gold Star captains just after they left St. Louis. She had written that his brother was on the mend, but Chase wouldn’t be satisfied that it was true until he saw Rue for himself.

“My folks don’t stock a proper store, Mr. Follensbee,” Chase said, addressing the man beside him, “but I’m sure Ma will do the best she can to accommodate you.”

He signaled Boudreau to sound the landing whistle, then started shouting orders.

Only after the
Andromeda
was safely berthed was Chase able to turn his thoughts to other matters. When he looked up toward the house, he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

“Rue!” he whooped. “My God! Rue!”

“Managed to finish the run without me, did you?” his brother shouted back.

Rue was balanced on a pair of homemade crutches at the foot of the stone steps. From the way his mother was hovering, Chase guessed Rue might not be as steady on his feet as he looked from here. Still, considering they hadn’t been entirely sure Rue would live when they left, Chase was amazed by his recovery.

Lydia waved, too, then something on the lower deck snagged her attention. His family, no doubt.

His family.
Chase lit up inside.

For the first time since they’d spoken their vows, he and Annie were coming home to Hardesty’s Landing as true man and wife. As people who loved each other and meant to make a life together. He hadn’t been sure this day would ever come, but now that it had, he wanted to share his joy with everyone. Especially with his mother.

Ann and Christina were already visiting with Lydia and Rue as he strode toward the four of them a few minutes later.

“I can hardly believe how much you’ve grown!” he heard Lydia coo as she held her newest grandchild.

“She’s three months old,” Ann offered, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “How is that possible?”

“It seems like only yesterday
this one”—
Lydia gave Chase’s arm a welcoming nudge—“was in short pants.”

Chase bussed his mother’s cheek, then turned to Rue.

“I’m glad to see you’re recovering from your dip in the river,” he greeted him and slid his arms gingerly around his brother’s shoulders. “Ann was worried, but I said you were tough as shoe leather and being batted around by a paddle wheel wouldn’t slow you down for long.”

“Damn right,” Rue agreed and hugged him back.

Still, Chase could feel how bony Rue was beneath his hands, how he wavered on his crutches just standing there.

“I’m going to be all right, Chase,” Rue assured him quietly, “so you can stop fretting. But before you leave, we’ve got some things we need to discuss.”

“I figured we might.” Chase steered his brother toward the thigh-high ledge that ran across the back of the landing.

Rue sat down gratefully. “So,” he said once he caught his breath. “Did you figure it was Curry that pushed me overboard?”

“I was pretty sure what happened wasn’t an accident,” Chase hedged, glaring across at where the burly mate was supervising the wooding up. Still, he’d hoped there was another explanation. He hated the idea that a man he’d worked with and eaten with for months, a man who slept in a berth barely an arm’s length away had tried to kill his brother.

“I’ve never trusted either Skirlin or Curry,” Chase went on. “I should have tossed them off the boat as soon as we began to suspect they were moving contraband.”

But Chase hadn’t fired Curry and Skirlin. He hadn’t wanted to believe that the
Andromeda
was carrying contraband. He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself, much less reveal to the commodore, that he hadn’t been in complete control of his own boat.

“I’d gone down to settle a bet I’d made with Cal,” Rue said, recalling the day more than a month before. “Curry and Skirlin were getting ready to off-load boxes—the kind of crates you and I had been watching for. So I wandered over—and somehow the cover on one of them came lose.”

“And there were Spencers inside.”

Rue confirmed it with a nod. “Curry was waiting for me when I came out of the engine room a few minutes later.”

“And he tried to kill you,” Chase offered softly, reaching across to gently clasp his brother’s shoulder. He needed that contact, the reassurance that in spite of how fragile Rue seemed, he was going to be all right.

How could he have lived with himself if Rue had died?

“Curry and Skirlin are working for the commodore,” Chase went on. “He’s the one who devised this scheme, working hand in glove with the president of Overland Freighting. But I swear, Rue,” he vowed, “no matter what happens or who else is involved, Curry and Skirlin are going to pay for what they did to you.”

“I was counting on you to see to that,” Rue acknowledged. “Just the way I used to count on you when we were boys.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t act fast enough to spare you this,” Chase apologized.

Just then, Enoch Hardesty came striding across the landing. “Morning, boy,” his father greeted Chase.

“Hello, Pa.”

“You have a chance to talk to him about the rifles?” Enoch asked the younger man.

Chase’s stomach pitched. But then, Rue would have to have told Enoch about the guns. Knowing there’d been contraband aboard the
Andromeda
would have confirmed every doubt Enoch had ever had about Chase’s judgment and his worth.

“Of course I know about the rifles,” Chase said, owning up to what he’d done.

“About the carbines in the cave?” Enoch asked him.

Chase’s knees wobbled as if he had been sucker punched. “There are guns in one of the caves?”

Enoch’s lips quirked with something that might have been satisfaction. “Stuart came across four crates of shiny new Spencer carbines a couple days after you brought Rue home.”

“I don’t know a thing about those guns,” Chase declared.

Or maybe he did.

“When Rue was hurt,” Chase began sorting things out as he went, “I gave orders to head directly for Hardesty’s Landing, so we must have steamed right past the transfer point.”

“And your smugglers dumped the rifles first chance they got,” Enoch finished the thought.

“Which was here at Hardesty’s Landing,” Rue pointed out.

Chase nodded thoughtfully. That explained why there had been no guns to be found aboard the
Andromeda.

“James Rossiter is behind the smuggling, isn’t he?” Enoch asked quietly.

When Chase inclined his head, Enoch lay one big, rough palm against Chase’s shoulder in a gesture of commiseration and council. “What are you going to do about him being part of it?” he wanted to know. “He’s Ann’s father.”

Chase shook his head. “I’m going to do my best to protect her and Christina.”

“Chase...” There was concern in Enoch’s voice. “As much as you need to look after your family, you can’t get caught up in running contraband.”

“I’m taking care of it, Pa,” Chase said, wishing he knew what Follensbee meant to do. “It’ll be all right.”

Just then, Will came sprinting across the woodlot. “They went to the cave and got the guns, Pa,” he told them excitedly, “just like you said! Jake Skirlin and that new mate loaded them right aboard the
Andromeda.”

Chase turned on his father. “You warned me about not dealing in contraband and now you let Curry and Skirlin recover guns you know full well are headed for the Indians?”

“Well you see, Chase, while those guns were here with us we did a bit of gunsmithing.”

“What kind of gunsmithing?”

“Will and Silas and me, we filed down the percussion slides.” Enoch grinned like the firebrand he must once have been. “Skirlin and Curry may well send those fine rifles to the Indians, but not one of them will ever fire.”

chapter sixteen

A DETAIL OF SOLDIERS WAS WAITING ON THE ST. LOUIS levee when the
Andromeda
pulled in. Ann wondered why they were there, then watched with a hitch of apprehension as they quick-stepped up the gangway.

Led by a gangly young lieutenant, they approached the foredeck where she and Chase were bidding good-bye to their cabin passengers. “Captain Hardesty?” the young officer asked.

“I’m Captain Hardesty.”

“I’m Lieutenant Ashbrook, sir,” the young man introduced himself, “from the provost marshal’s office. I’m afraid I have orders to take you into custody and impound your vessel.”

Ann clutched her husband’s arm.

“On what charge, Lieutenant?” Chase asked.

“Unauthorized distribution of restricted materials to hostiles,” Ashbrook answered.

“What?” Ann gasped. “What kind of restricted materials?”

“Guns, ma’am,” the lieutenant answered. “Your husband’s accused of running guns to the Indians.”

“He wouldn’t do that!” Ann protested. She turned to Chase, wanting an explanation.

He gave her wrist a gentle squeeze. “There’s been some kind of a mistake, Annie,” he told her. “I’ll just go along with the lieutenant to get it straightened out. It’ll be all right.”

He sounded so calm, so sure of himself. Ann nodded and did her best to believe his reassurances.

Then one of Ashbrook’s men brought out a pair of manacles and clasped the iron bracelets around Chase’s wrists. For a moment Ann couldn’t tear her gaze away from where Chase—her Chase—was being chained like a common criminal.

“Please, Lieutenant Ashbrook,” Ann implored, her voice shaking. “My husband wouldn’t run guns to the Indians!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m just following my orders.” He extended the document for her to read.

Ann unfolded the warrant and scanned the jumble of legal phrases. She turned to Chase. “I know you didn’t do this!”

He looked at her for one long moment, then averted his eyes. “I’ll explain everything when I get back.”

Something in that instant of evasion sent a close, panicky heat coursing through her.

Then one of Ashbrook’s men grabbed Chase’s arm. A second man prodded him toward the landing stage, and the detail moved out, taking Chase with it.

Ann followed them across the deck. “Chase!” she called out. “Chase, I’m going to hire a lawyer.”

Chase shook his head as he looked back at her. “Find Richard Follensbee. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him to meet us at the provost marshal’s office.”

“Richard Follensbee?”

“In cabin eight. And, Annie,” Chase shouted as the provost’s guards loaded him into the back of a high-sided wagon. “This is going to be fine.”

It didn’t look like it was going to be fine.

As the wagon rumbled across the levee, Ann ran up the stairs, praying this Richard Follensbee hadn’t disembarked. Her heels clattered on the wooden floor as she crossed the empty salon, and she pounded impatiently on the door to cabin eight. She waited with her heart in her throat, wondering what she’d do if Follensbee was gone.

As soon as he opened the door, Ann recognized the slim, square-cut man as having come aboard somewhere west of Kansas City on the upstream run, then joined them again for the return to St. Louis.

“Mrs. Hardesty!” he exclaimed, clearly surprised to see her. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“They’ve taken my husband!” Ann told him in a rush.

Follensbee pulled her into the cabin and closed the door behind them. “Who took Captain Hardesty?”

“Soldiers came and arrested him. They say he’s been smuggling guns to the Indians, but I know Chase would never...”

For the first time, Ann realized just how serious the charges were. If Chase were tried and found guilty, he would be sentenced to years in prison. Her knees nearly went out from under her at the thought of losing him.

Follensbee’s grip on her arm tightened. “Where, Mrs. Hardesty?” he asked her. “Where did they take him?”

“Chase said to meet them at the provost marshal’s office.”

Follensbee nodded briskly and grabbed a portfolio from the half-packed valise. “You wait right here, Mrs. Hardesty,” he instructed as he turned to go, “until Chase gets back.”

Ann watched him go, knowing the very last thing in the world she intended to do was to “wait right here.”

Chase hadn’t been smuggling contraband, but there was something going on. Something Ann didn’t like. She could see that her husband was going to need a lawyer, money for bail, and a place to stay in town until this got settled.

She hated going to her stepfather for help, especially when the
Andromeda
was involved, but the commodore had friends in high places, men who’d be able to advise them.

Ann rushed to gather up her bonnet, reticule, and the things she’d need for the baby, then bustled into the galley. Frenchy had been keeping an eye on Christina, but Ann knew he had appointments of his own to keep this afternoon.

She’d just bundled her sleeping daughter up in her arms, when she heard footfalls behind her. She turned to thank Frenchy for his help—and stopped dead in her tracks.

Never had she seen Frenchy Bertin wear anything but baggy trousers, a flowing shirt, and a flour-dusted apron. She hadn’t once seen him freshly bathed
and
freshly barbered simultaneously.

Ann stared openmouthed.

“Anouk is waiting for me at The Planters House Hotel,” he said by way of explanation. “Do I look all right?”

The dark coat and pinstriped trousers hung on his lanky frame like wash on a clothesline. Someone had cut his hair too short, and his ears stuck out. His striped cravat was inexpertly tied and listing to the left.

“I think you look very handsome,” Ann lied stoutly. Then, bracing Christina against her shoulder with one hand, she adjusted his tie with the other. “Anouk will be so impressed.”

Frenchy blotted the sweat from his upper lip. “I will be glad to see her, too. And, of course, the children.”

Ann knew he wasn’t entirely resigned to living with Anouk as his only wife, but the priest at the St. Louis Cathedral had been quite insistent. He’d ordered Frenchy to resolve his matrimonial tangles immediately or risk his immortal soul.

Grumbling and reluctant, Frenchy had sent Marie and Charmaine letters the very next day, offering them annulments and settlements—money Ann was lending him. Both women had agreed, and Charmaine confessed that in his absence, she’d taken up with someone else. Though Frenchy’s feelings were bruised, Ann had written bank drafts to both the women and accompanied Frenchy to the post office to be sure he actually put them in the mail.

“So,” Frenchy said, shrugging off his own concerns, “are you going to get our captain out of jail?”

“I’m going to see the commodore,” Ann answered. “I hope he’ll use his influence to get the charges dismissed.”

“Smuggling guns to the Indians!” Frenchy said and huffed for emphasis. “Our captain would never do such a thing!”

With a determined nod, Ann headed toward the door. “Good luck explaining everything to Anouk,” she called back. “And don’t forget to tell her about that business opportunity we talked about.”

“Oui,”
he assured her. “That may be the only thing that keeps her from divorcing me outright when she learns the rest!”

Twenty minutes later, Ann rushed up the limestone steps to the wide double doors of her stepfather’s town house. Mary Fairley answered her knock, and the moment the older woman saw Ann outside, her round, wrinkled face was wreathed in smiles.

“Oh, Miss Ann, what a dear little thing your Christina’s getting to be!” she exclaimed as she ushered Ann into the hall.

The baby stretched and yawned and blinked awake almost as if she’d recognized her name and wanted to be accommodating. Ann nestled Christina against her, traced one soft cheek with her fingertips, drawing calm from the contact.

Mary leaned in close for a better look at the baby. “Oh, what a sweet little thing you are!” she cooed to her. “Wouldn’t cook and the girls downstairs just love a peek at you?”

“You may take Christina down and show them, if you like,” Ann offered. “I have some business to discuss with the commodore. I’ll come and collect her when we’re done.”

“It’d be grand to keep her for you, Miss Ann!” Mary offered and held out her hands for the baby.

As Ann settled Christina into Mary’s arms, the baby gurgled up at her. “Oh, you darlin’ girl!” Mary cried and rocked Christina against her. “Don’t you worry, Miss Ann, I’ll look after her. Take as much time with the commodore as you like.”

Ann watched Mary carry Christina down the hall, then burst in to her stepfather’s study.

“Ann!” James Rossiter looked up from his paperwork in surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you until this afternoon!”

“The provost marshal’s men came aboard the
Andromeda
and arrested Chase!” she told him, crossing the room in a bustle of skirts. “They claim he’s smuggling arms to the Indians. But you know as well as I do that Chase would never—”

The commodore pushed to his feet and hurried around the corner of the desk. “Sit down, Ann,” he offered solicitously. “Tell me what happened.”

She perched on the seat of one of the armchairs. “There’s not much more to tell! They arrested Chase and took him away in irons!”

The memory of her tall, proud husband shackled like a criminal tore at her. For the first time since the soldiers had come aboard, Ann’s eyes filled with tears.

“Please,” she whispered imploringly. “Please, can we go hire a lawyer for him? Can we see someone about having the charges dismissed?”

“Of course we’ll get him a lawyer.”

“Can we do it now?” Ann pressed him. “I don’t want Chase spending a single night in jail when I know he’s innocent.”

“Now, Ann.” The commodore settled in the chair beside her and clasped her hand. “As much faith as you have in that husband of yours, you’ve got to realize federal warrants aren’t issued willy-nilly. The provost marshal must have evidence—”

“But how could there be evidence?” Ann’s heart squeezed with fear. “Chase wouldn’t do this!”

“Are you sure?” he asked her. “Just think about the rough-and-ready life Chase lived before he married you, and the kind of people he comes from. If he had a chance to make enough money to put that life behind him for good—”

“Chase wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t smuggle guns to the Indians!”

The commodore’s mouth narrowed. “How can you be so sure?”

Because I know Chase!
she longed to shout. But she needed to give the commodore reasons, explanations. “Before Enoch and Lydia adopted him, Chase was orphaned in an Indian raid. He would never do anything to put another family in jeopardy.”

James Rossiter pushed to his feet and stood over her. Perhaps it was how tall he suddenly seemed, or the cant of his mouth that put Ann in mind of the night years before when he’d summoned her to this very room and told her he was sending her away.

Instinctively Ann braced herself.

“I think you should know,” he began, “that there have been rumors circulating for months that someone on the Gold Star boats has been running guns to the Indians. Both the provost and federal marshals have been investigating. They even came here and questioned me.”

Fear clawed up Ann’s throat. “What did you tell them?”

“I had to tell them the truth, Ann. You understand that, don’t you?”

Her heart went still.
“What did you tell them?”

The commodore shook his head. “After the
Andromeda
made that first packet run of the season, her clerk came to see me.”

“Jake Skirlin came here?”

“He said he’d heard rumors about the Gold Star boats running contraband and wanted to report a suspicious landing.”

Ann’s belly fluttered with apprehension.

“He said that about a day downstream from Sioux City the
Andromeda
made a stop in the middle of nowhere.”

Ann remembered that stop and remembered asking Chase where they were. It was barely dawn and the mist was still rising off the river. A man with a wagon had been waiting.

“I was on deck that morning,” she said quietly.

“Skirlin said they delivered some big, heavy boxes.”

She could see those boxes, even now. How the roustabouts had strained under their weight, how they’d grunted as they heaved them into the wagon.

Had they been boxes of guns for the Indians?
The hair stirred along Ann’s arms the way the wind stirred the grass on the open prairie.

“Jake Skirlin came here and accused Chase of smuggling rifles?” she asked and rubbed the shivers away.

Her stepfather nodded gravely. “I’m afraid that’s what I had to tell the marshals.”

Ann stared past him, not able to let the memory go. She’d been standing right beside Chase when the
Andromeda
made the stop, and she’d have sworn he didn’t know a thing about the boxes.
Skirlin
was the one who knew about them, and if those were boxes of guns, then he must be the one behind the smuggling.

But that didn’t feel right, either. How would Skirlin have been able to secure those rifles on his own? That would have required ready money. He’d have to have connections with the freighters to set up a rendezvous. Skirlin might be devious, but he wasn’t either smart or particularly ingenious.