Forsaken Dreams
© 2013 by MaryLu Tyndall
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-596-0
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-993-7
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-992-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio,
www.faceoutstudio.com
Cover Model: Photography: Tyler Gould
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
To obey is better than sacrifice
.
1 S
AMUEL
15:22
Dedicated to every Jonah running from God.
C
AST OF
C
HARACTERS
Colonel Blake Wallace—leader and organizer of the expedition to Brazil and a decorated war hero wanted for war crimes by the Union. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Eliza Crawford—widow and Confederate army nurse who signed on to nurse the colonists, married to a Yankee general, and disowned by her Southern, politician father.
James Callaway—Confederate army surgeon turned Baptist preacher who signed on as the colony’s only doctor but who suffers from an extreme fear of blood.
Hayden Gale—con man who has been searching for his father to execute revenge for the death of his mother. Believing the man is heading toward Brazil, Hayden stows away on board the
New Hope
.
Angeline Moore—signed on as the colony’s seamstress, Angeline is a broken woman who wants more than anything to put her past behind her. Unfortunately, there are a few passengers on board whom she recognizes from her prior life.
Magnolia Scott—Georgia plantation owner’s pampered daughter who doesn’t want to go to Brazil and will do anything to turn the ship around. Constantly belittled by her father, she is obsessed with her appearance.
Mr. and Mrs. Scott—once wealthy plantation owners who claim to have lost everything in the war, yet they still retain their haughty, patrician attitude toward others. They hope to regain their position and wealth in Brazil.
Sarah Jorden—seven months pregnant and a war widow, she signed on to teach the colony’s children.
Wiley Dodd—ex-lawman from Richmond who is fond of the ladies and in possession of a treasure map that points to Brazil as the location of a vast amount of gold.
Harman Graves—senator’s son and ex-politician from Maryland whose hopes to someday run for president were crushed when the South seceded from the Union.
Captain Barclay—old sea dog who was a blockade runner in the war and who captains and owns the ship
New Hope
.
Parson Bailey—signed on as the colony’s pastor and spiritual guide.
Emory Lewis—the colony’s carpenter who took to drink after losing his wife and child in the war.
Moses and Delia—a freed slave and his sister who, along with her two children, want to start over in a new land away from the memory of slavery.
Jesse and Rosa Jenkins—simple farmers who, with their young daughter, Henrietta, hope to have a chance at a good life away from the ravages of war.
Mable—slave to the Scotts.
C
HAPTER
1
May 29, 1866
Somewhere in the Caribbean
W
e shall all be in heaven or hell by night’s end!” Parson Bailey shouted above the din of the storm. “God save us. God save us.” His pudgy face swelled with each fateful phrase, while his eyes as wide as beacons, skittered around the tiny storeroom with each pound of wave and wind.
Eliza Crawford extracted herself from her friends huddling in the corner and made her way to the parson, intending to beg his silence. It did no good for him to say such things. Why, a parson of all people should comfort others, not increase their fears.
Thunder shook the ship. The deck canted, and instead of reaching Parson Bailey, Eliza tumbled into the arms of the very man she’d been trying to avoid since she boarded the
New Hope
almost three weeks ago—Wiley Dodd. Though of obvious means, evident in the fine broadcloth coat he wore and the gold watch he so often flaunted, something in his eyes, the way he looked at the women, made her stomach sour.
“In need of male comfort, Mrs. Crawford?” he asked. That sourness now turned to nausea as his arms encircled her. Not that she needed much assistance in the squeamish department. Her stomach had been convulsing since the storm began a few hours ago. But the perfumed Macassar oil Mr. Dodd slicked through his hair threatened to destroy all her efforts to keep her lunch from reappearing over his posh attire.
“We are done for. Done for, I say.” The parson continued his rambling as he clung to the mast pole.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd.” Pushing against his chest, Eliza snapped from his clawing grip.
The lizard-like smile on his lips belied their dire situation. “You’re welcome to stay with me if you are frightened, my dear.”
“Yesterday you called me a Yankee whore, sir!”
His smile remained though he gave a little shrug. “Desperate times and all that, you know.”
Lightning flashed through the porthole, masking his face in a deathly gray.
“Why are you not frightened?” she asked him.
“Naught but a summer squall,” he shouted over the ensuing roar of thunder. “I have experienced many such storms.”
Eliza wondered how often a sheriff would have been to sea. Even so, he’d still chosen to remain below instead of help above with the other men. The ship careened upward as if it were but a toy in a child’s hands. Eliza stumbled again and struck the bulkhead. A wall of water slammed against the porthole, creating a perverted dance of seething foam that lasted far longer than it should.
Was the ship sinking? Her lungs seized at the thought.
“The end is near. Near, I tell you!” the parson ranted.
The wave retreated. Leaden sky took its place, and Eliza scrambled on hands and knees back to her position beside a massive crate strapped to the bulkhead. Back to her only friends on this ill-fated ship. Mrs. Sarah Jorden and Miss Angeline Moore received her with open arms, neither one sobbing as one would expect of genteel ladies in such harrowing circumstances. Besides, there was sobbing enough coming from the other side of the room, where the wealthy plantation owners, Mr. and Mrs. Scott, and their pampered daughter, Magnolia, clung to each other in a desperate barbarism contrary to their elevated station. In fact, Mr. Scott had not opened his eyes in hours. Perhaps he attempted to drown out his wife’s incessant howling, which elevated to a piercing level after each of the parson’s decrees of doom. Tears streamed down Magnolia’s fair cheeks, pricking Eliza’s heart.
She should be angry at the young lady for exposing Eliza’s ruse. But all she felt was pity.
Sitting beside the wealthy planters, Magnolia’s personal slave hunched with folded hands and moving lips as if she were praying. Eliza hoped so. They needed all the prayers they could get. She had already lifted her petitions to the Almighty. Still, she whispered one more appeal, just in case, as she scanned the rest of the passengers crowded in the tiny storeroom—sent below by the captain when the seas had grown rough.
Farmers, merchants, lawyers, people of all classes and wealth. Jessie and Rosa Jenkins and their young daughter, Henrietta, had not uttered a peep since they’d tied themselves to a large table anchored to the deck. Mr. Harman Graves, a politician from Maryland, sat with his back against the bulkhead and a pleased look on his angular face, as if he knew something they did not. He rubbed an amulet between thumb and forefinger, lips moving as if in prayer, though Eliza doubted it was directed at God.
Next to him, Mr. Emory Lewis, a carpenter, if Eliza remembered correctly, kept plucking a flask from his pocket, taking a sip, and putting it back, only to repeat the ritual over again.
The eerie whistle of wind through rigging tore at Eliza’s remaining courage. She shivered, and Sarah squeezed her arm, whispering something in her ear that was lost in the boom of another wave pounding the hull.
A child’s whimper brought her gaze to her left, where Delia, a freed Negress, hugged her two young children close. A flash of lightning accentuated the fear tightening the woman’s coffee-colored face. The fear of death—a fear they all felt at the moment. A fear that was no respecter of class or race. A fear that broke through all social barriers. For yesterday, the Scotts, as well as some of the others present, would not have agreed to be in the same room with a freed slave.
Or even with Eliza.
Thunder bellowed, barely audible above the explosion of wind and wave. How did this tiny brig withstand such a beating? Surely the timbers would burst any moment, splintering and filling the room with the mad gush of the sea. Locking her arms with the ladies on either side, she closed her eyes as the galloping ship tossed them like rag dolls over the hard deck.
“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” Parson Bailey had taken to quoting scripture, which only caused Mrs. Scott to howl even louder.