Just Once (25 page)

Noah stepped around her, ready to shove off and pilot the flatboat through the shoals. The other travelers on board were anxious to be on their way to new horizons. Knowing that she dare not say another word, Jemma hugged Nette, then Hannah. Biting her lips to still their trembling, she turned away. Luther was just stepping onto shore. He paused, started to say something, then took her in his arms and gave her a bear hug.

“I wish things could have been different, Jemma.” He let her go. All she could do was nod. “We’ll miss you, and we’ll never forget all you did for us. I couldn’t have gotten the crops in if you hadn’t been here to run the post.”

She found a place to sit atop a barrel securely lashed to the rail. The river was yellow-brown with mud, running swift and high since the spring thaw. She looked down into the swirling, muddy water as the flatboat was pushed out into the current, and had a queasy feeling, along with a flash of memory of falling headlong into the Homochitto.

She should have known better than to travel by water. The Mississippi was flowing fast and high, a churning mass of water and silt. Noah stood in the stern, watching for treacherous shoals, floating logs, or lodged debris. Hunter’s friend. In his own way, the half-breed exuded the same kind of confident capability as his gaze swept the water and he shouted directions to the men manning the broadhorns, or oars. A few yards away, Noah clung to a lifeline and hung out over the bow, agile as a cat, his gaze sweeping the angry water, calling out to the oarsmen who leaned on the broadhorns.

As she clung to the rail, fearing for her life, a bundle of meager possessions at her feet, Jemma wished she had stayed. But she knew it was too late for wishes.

Over the bawling of a frightened milk cow in the stern and the excited shouts of some of the other passengers, Noah bellowed commands at the oarsmen. She watched and wondered at the change in the strong, silent man. As soon as the flatboat left the shore, he had become one with the movement of the boat, the flow of the water. She now knew why he was legendary for his skill as a river pilot.

The boat lurched and lodged, one of its corners caught on a sandbar, perilously close to having its bottom ripped out and sinking everyone’s dreams. As forward motion stopped and the craft swayed in the river, one of the women inside the cabin screamed, which set the children wailing.

Jemma was torn, wondering whether she should try to work her way inside to help calm the frightened children or prepare to jump overboard. She had tasted the waters of the Homochitto and had no desire to launch herself into the mighty Mississippi. The woman’s shrieks had subsided to mere howls. The children were still crying. The cabin was not that far away. If she was careful, she would get there.

Grabbing hold of a cask and an upright wagon wheel hemmed in beside it, she started for the door of the rectangular box built atop the flatboat.

A crate full of chickens slid off the top of the cabin, hit the rail with a crash and a riot of fitful squawking, and fell overboard into the raging torrent. Crate, chickens, and all were swallowed by the river. Aghast, the terrified passengers watched for some sign of the ill-fated fowl, but not even a feather reappeared anywhere near the flatboat.

Yellow-brown water lapped perilously close to the rail. She told herself to stay calm, that Hunter Boone was out of the savior business and wouldn’t be here to rescue her if anything happened. She was on her own.

The men atop the cabin gave a mighty thrust against the oars and once again the flatboat started racing downriver. Jemma looked back and could still see the post, high above the river on the bluff. Her friends were gathered on the shoreline, a small huddle of humanity and love banded together on the riverbank. They were still waving, still wishing her well.

She waved good-bye in return, but could not for the life of her muster enough joy to smile. They rounded a bend and Sandy Shoals disappeared, suddenly, irrevocably.

Hunter’s three-day ride had lengthened to six. Preacher Childress and the Evanses had the habit of wanting to stop and set up camp early, not to mention insisting on eating three meals a day. Hauling Jemma up the Trace had been nothing compared to the last few miles of his journey home. It called to mind the trek from Ohio with Luther and Hannah and the others—but at least they had been as anxious to reach their destination as he. Since the Evanses had no notion of where they were going, they saw no reason to hurry.

Frustrated, fighting to keep his temper even and his patience intact, Hunter had almost persuaded himself to leave them with a well-detailed map when Little Artie fell off the back of the wagon and broke his arm. Diana became hysterical, her nerves frayed, her spirit understandably low after a winter on the Ohio River. It took Hunter, Tom, and an hour of prayer and persuasion by her brother to convince her that they had to move on. An entire day of travel had been lost.

Finally, the end of the trail was in sight. Sandy Shoals was less than a mile away. Hunter had been consumed with thoughts of Jemma, of their reunion, of the possibility that she was no longer in Sandy Shoals at all. He didn’t want to think about what his life would be like without her, not after his weeks alone up the Missouri.

He left the Evanses behind and headed for Sandy Shoals alone. Preacher Childress followed on a slow-minded mule. Hunter nearly reined in when he passed a new homestead and the cleared land around it. On the edge of the clearing, a hickory stump was still smoldering. A man Hunter had never laid eyes on paused behind his plow to raise his hat and wave. Hunter stared, then gave a quick salute and pressed on. What other changes had occurred while he’d been gone?

A covey of quail burst out of the undergrowth along the trail and startled his horse. Determined that nothing was going to stop him now, Hunter hung on, nearly losing his hat, and kept going.

He passed the path that veered through the woods toward Noah’s strange pole house in the swamp. He was almost home.

When he was in sight of the tavern, he could see the smoke pouring out of the kitchen chimney, but no other sign of life. Once he cleared the trees, one glance at the river told him all he needed to know. A flatboat, two keel-boats, and a canoe were docked at the landing.

His horse was still moving when he slid out of the saddle and hit the ground running. The winded animal shook its head in protest when he tied it up at the hitching post. He quickly shouldered his way through three men loitering outside the door, discussing the price of tobacco, and stepped inside. The place looked different, cheerful, somehow more welcoming.

Scanning the crowded room, he searched for Jemma but didn’t see her. A flash of color caught his eye. He looked up and saw some of Nette’s quilts hanging from his loft. They looked nice and cozy hanging there, brightening the room. A card game was going on at the end of one table. Further along, three women sipped coffee and chatted about the abundance of doves they had seen on the way downriver. There were empty bottles with spring wildflowers here and there on the tables.

Luther was serving drinks at the counter while Lucy spoke to a portly bald man after handing him a package. As the man walked away, Hunter wondered what in the hell Lucy was doing carving a notch in the edge of the bar. Her hair was wound up in the fancy style she had taken to wearing before he left, and she had on the pink gown that Jemma had made. Her smile was gone, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

Nette, Hannah, and Jemma were nowhere to be seen, but from the aroma drifting in from the kitchen, he knew they were cooking. Lucy was his first concern. He crossed the long cabin, nodding a greeting to anyone who managed to catch his eye.

Lucy was crying. Silent, slow tears ran down her cheeks, but she merely swiped them off with the back of her hand and continued to wipe spilled whiskey off the bar. No matter how badly he wanted to rush off to the kitchen and find Jemma, he needed to see what was wrong with Lucy first.

Jemma would understand.

Lucy didn’t see him step up to the bar. He asked, “What are you doing carving up my counter? And why in the hell are you crying?”

The girl looked up, startled. She went white, as if she were seeing a ghost; she didn’t move until Luther shouted, “Hunt!”

Lucy laid down the paring knife and darted around the end of the counter toward him. Hunter thought she was going to hug him to welcome him home, so he smiled and spread his arms wide.

She walked up to him, drew back her fist, and punched him square in the gut. The wind went out of him with a loud grunt and he staggered back against the bar.

“What … was that for?” He barely gasped out the words.

“
That
was for my friend Jemma. She waited for you, Hunter Boone. Waited until she couldn’t stand the hurt you’d dealt her anymore, and then she left.”

The words hit him like a bucket of icy water. He found out what it meant when someone said their knees went weak. He grabbed Lucy by the upper arms, held her still. “Jemma’s gone?”

Lucy thrust out her chin. “What did you think? That a woman like Jemma would wait forever? Do you know she’s had twenty-five proposals of marriage since you’ve been gone?”

He let the girl go and had to reach for the counter.

“And?”

“She’s left, no thanks to you.”

“Lord, Lucy, don’t be so hard on him.” Luther had come around the bar to stand beside him. He pounded him on the back in welcome. “Jemma left three days ago.”

Proposals?

“Is she … is she getting married?”
Not to someone else. Not now
. He felt like getting down on his knees, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall one single saint Jemma had ever mentioned.

Luther went on. “Noah piloted the flatboat she was on and he’s already back from where he gets off at the ferry, so by now she’s well on her way south—”

They were interrupted by the sound of Nette’s voice booming across the room. “Hunter Boone! As I live and breathe, I never thought I’d see you again in this lifetime!”

Nette headed in his direction with a platter of pie slices, when she collided with Devon Childress as the young preacher cleared the threshold. Plates and pie rained down, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“Who is that, Hunter?” Lucy wanted to know, suddenly rooted to the floor.

“A preacher. Picked up him and his family a ways back. I’d have been here to stop Jemma if I hadn’t.” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his tone.

“You came back for Jemma?” Nette left the preacher scraping up pie, and walked over to join Hunter and the others.

Hunter nodded to her, not ashamed to openly admit what a damned fool he’d been. “I did. Did she leave any word for me?”

His heart sank to his gut when she shook her head. “You broke her heart, Hunter. She moped around here for weeks, then she got a letter from her father, badgering her to go home.”

“Home? Home to Boston?” It was half a world away, but no farther than he’d already been. If he had to, he’d go and beg her to forgive him.

“She headed for New Orleans. Her pa’s set up his new business down there. Has a new house, too.”

“So she left.” He closed his eyes.

“It weren’t easy for her.”

He could feel Nette and Luther watching him, waiting. He looked at Lucy, who was helping the preacher wipe up sweet-potato pie.

“Go get her, Hunt,” Luther advised. “Before it’s really too late.”

Hunter slipped his hand over his possibles bag. Inside lay the tarnished pendant. Just when he thought he knew who he was and where he was headed, fate had pulled the rug out from under him.

“You really think she’ll have me now?” He focused on Luther, avoiding Nette’s silent censure.

“You’ll never know until you ask her.”

Chapter 19

New Orleans, A Few Days Later

Clutching her bundle of possessions, filled with pride and foreboding, Jemma stood on the deck of the flatboat in New Orleans, staring up at four-foot-high lettering emblazoned on the riverfront side of a huge wooden warehouse. O’HURLEY IMPORTS. She had found her father without having taken a step on dry land.

“He’p you over, ma’am?” A Negro stevedore stood waiting to assist her onto the dock. Nearly everyone had already disembarked and the men were waiting to unload the livestock.

She nodded and gave him her hand, balancing her bundle as she lifted the tattered hem of her skirt. The trip downriver had been fairly uneventful after the near-catastrophe on the shoals. After Noah disembarked, she had made acquaintance with some of the others aboard. From then on her days and nights on the river were spent in conversation or quiet contemplation as she watched the passing shoreline, thinking of all the dear friends she had left behind.

And of Hunter. Always Hunter.

Knowing full well that she could never forget him, she also knew that she had to go on. The first step toward a beginning would be to make peace with her father. She took the bundle from the stevedore and thanked him. Dodging carts loaded with goods and horse-drawn wagons heavy with crates, she picked her way across the bustling, teeming road that ran along the levee.

When she reached the open double doors of the warehouse, she paused to stare into the dim interior. Crates and barrels were piled from floor to ceiling, separated into aisles to allow passage between them. Tantalizing spices rode the air. Black markings labeled the boxes in every written language, some familiar, others so foreign that they resembled odd scribbling. The sight called to mind Grandpa Hall and his stories of exotic ports of call, adventure, danger, and new sights, sounds and smells.

Jemma smiled. Seeing the boxes gave her no desire to escape to parts unknown. Instead of the old, familiar longing for new sights and sounds, a quiet serenity helped her marshal her courage as she stepped inside the cavernous building to locate her father’s office. Not two strides inside, she was nearly bowled over by a harried-looking young man carrying a sheaf of papers as he turned a blind corner.

“Excuse me, miss.” He began to apologize until he took in her bedraggled gown, mud-stained moccasins, the bundle in her arms, and her tangled hair. What had been a polite smile quickly faded. “We don’t give handouts,” he said, shooing at her with the papers as if she were a pesky fly. “Get along.”

“I’m not here for a handout.” She pulled herself up to her full height and met his stare straight on. “I’m here to see Mr. O’Hurley.”

He cut her off. “He doesn’t have time for the likes of you. Why don’t you mosey on over to Tchoupitoulas Street and try to dram up a little business over there?”

“I’m certain that if you tell Mr. O’Hurley,
my father
, that his
daughter
, Jemma, is here, he’ll be more than happy to see me.”

The color immediately blanched from the rude man’s face. He swallowed twice, mumbled an apology, and took off down an aisle between the crates. She could hear a door slam in back of the warehouse, the sound reverberating in the high, cavernous building. Tapping her toe, she glanced over her shoulder and contented herself with watching the passing crowd outside while she waited for a summons from her father.

“Jemma!”

At the sound of her father’s voice, she turned. He was racing up the aisle toward her. The death of his partner and the move had taken its toll. He looked older. His mouth was drawn into a stern line. The creases beneath his eyes had deepened, but he moved with the old familiar determination and energy that had made him such a successful businessman. Dropping her parcel, she started slowly toward him and then stopped a few yards away.

He stood still. His gaze swept her, staring as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Bracing herself for censure, she tilted her chin and met his gaze. She expected anger. She expected a scene. She was prepared for anything but watching him open his arms to her in welcome.

It was a moment before she realized he was waiting for her to respond to his warm gesture of greeting. Jemma couldn’t swallow around the lump in her throat. With tears blinding her, she ran to her father and, for the first time that she could ever recall, she felt his arms close around her as he held her close.

It was the dream of a lifetime. The smooth, cool satin of his waistcoat was soon stained with her tears of relief. She felt him awkwardly patting her back, murmuring, “There, there now, Jemma. Everything is all right now.”

Finally, when her tears were spent, she pulled back and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Thank you, Father. I certainly didn’t expect you to forgive me so easily.” Behind them, startled stevedores and clerks watched the reunion. Jemma lowered her voice. “When I arrived last October and found out Alex Moreau was dead, I … decided to take advantage of my reprieve. I truly never intended to be gone so long—”

“Thank God you didn’t marry Moreau’s grandson. I can’t begin to tell you everything, but the girl you exchanged places with was nearly hanged for murdering a young man a few months ago.”

“Oh, no!” Jemma was horrified to think that something so terrible might have happened to the beauty with the startling amethyst eyes she had encountered that fateful night at the cathedral.

“Yes, but all is well, and she and your would-be groom are living on St. Stephen’s Island in the Caribbean. Marrying him would have been the worst possible thing for your standing here in New Orleans. His reputation as a drinker was well known; in fact, they even say he was responsible for his cousin’s death. But enough of that,” he said, hooking his arm through hers. “Let’s get you home and settled. I hope you like the house.”

The laborers around them slowly drifted back to work. Because his words had given her pause, before she took another step, Jemma wanted her future settled once and for all.

“Before we go anywhere, I want you to know that I’m not the same naive girl I was when I left.”

“I’m sure you’ve much to tell. When I think of you being exposed to the perils of the journey north, it terrifies me.”

“That’s behind us now. I want things to be different between us, Father. I’ve learned so much about myself, about who I am and what I can do.”

She knew he was too astute not to notice the state of her dress and her hair. She was surprised he had nothing to say on the matter. Surprised and grateful. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he was not saying.

“I hope you realize I won’t be pushed into marriage, Father. If you still have any notion—”

He responded before she even finished. “I certainly won’t make the same mistake I did before,” he assured her, straightening the watch fob on a gold chain draped across his vest. Then, with another smile, he called for his carriage to be brought around, took hold of her elbow, and steered her toward the door. He called out to one of the clerks, “I’m taking the rest of the week off.”

They were going home together. There would be time to tell him of Hunter, time to explain all she had experienced, of her love for the backwoods “Kaintuck” who had stolen her heart and carried it with him into the wilderness. But not yet. Not yet.

She would know when the time was right. First, she wanted to bask in the warmth of her father’s love, to put to rest any doubt of his sincerity. And she wanted to hold the memory of Hunter and her time in Sandy Shoals in her heart for a while longer.

Hunter cursed the summer squall, the river, and the streak of bad luck that had kept him from heading for New Orleans. Standing beside Noah at the bow of a keelboat, he let his gaze sweep the river for debris. Rain dripped off the brim of his hat and sloughed into his collar. His buckskins were soaked, his hair plastered to his back, but nothing could dampen his determination. He was going to find Jemma if he had to track her halfway around the world.

His departure had been delayed a week because Lucy had taken it into her head to fall head over heels in love at the first sight of Devon Childress. After knowing him a day, she wanted to pack up and go south with the preacher to the unsettled Texas territory across the Mississippi. Hunter had immediately declared her too young. They fought bitterly. Her resultant tears and pleading, coupled with his own stubbornness, had kept the situation stirred up until Nette negotiated a truce.

Lucy and Devon promised to wait until Hunter either returned with Jemma or sent his permission in a letter. Devon refused to go on without Lucy. Hunter hoped that after the two got to know one another, the infatuation would cool.

Wind churned the water. Spray from the boat hit the chop that misted the air. Noah, his red shirt and black pants sopping wet, hanging precariously from a guide rope, balanced barefoot on the rail like a nimble-footed pirate. He watched the river, looking for hidden sandbars, pointing out directions to the deckhand manning the tiller.

“There’s a cove not far from here where we can take shelter,” Noah shouted over the howling wind. “I don’t like the color of the sky.”

Hunter didn’t like the threatening yellow-green underbelly of the sky either. A flash of lightning ripped the clouds and then, a few seconds later, thunder rocked the air around them.

“Go around back and make sure the animals are secured,” Noah called out. Hunter hurried to do as his friend bid. When Noah hired on as a pilot, it was an unwritten rule that he took command until he had seen the passengers safely through the shoals.

Hunter skirted the cabin and was already headed toward the stern when the flatboat suddenly rammed into something with a force so great it knocked him off his feet. The frightened screams of two horses aboard, as well as cries of terror from inside the cabin, mingled with the shuddering of the craft. With a horrendous groan, large portions of wood and nails were torn asunder.

All forward motion stopped. Hunter lurched to his feet and struggled against the pitch of the boat. With one glance at the empty bow, he knew that Noah had been ejected into the water. Hunter shut out the desperate calls of the other men aboard and leaned out over the quickly disintegrating bow. He thought he saw a flash of Noah’s red shirt in the muddy water, and was reminded of the day he had nearly lost Jemma to the water. He doubted that his luck would hold a second time, but without considering the consequences, he dove.

As soon as he surfaced, he spotted Noah clinging to a twisted log that was being swept downstream. He began swimming in that direction, gauging the distance between them as it began to close. When he was close enough to reach out and grab the log, he realized that the left side of Noah’s face was torn open, streaked with blood and rain.

His friend was only semiconscious, barely able to hang on. Hunter draped one arm over Noah’s back and held on to the tree with the other. Unable to battle the current with the injured man, he hoped it wouldn’t be too long before the log jammed against other debris along the bank.

A macabre parade floated by. Passengers aboard the wrecked keelboat struggled against the current. The body of a youth with barely the first fuzz of beard floated past. Crates and barrels bobbed along, crashing into victims. Some crates had broken open, their contents already vanished beneath the rushing water. Screaming horses struggled to keep their heads out of the water as they swam toward shore.

Finally, one end of the branch caught on a logjam and they stopped in a small eddy. Hunter furiously blinked water out of his eyes and tugged on Noah’s arm. When his friend was free, Hunter rolled him onto his back, hooked his arm across Noah’s chest, and began to swim toward the bank a few feet away.

It wasn’t until Hunter had Noah on shore and could examine the extent of his injury that he realized how seriously LeCroix had been hurt. The left side of Noah’s handsome face had practically been torn away, the wound gaping close to his eye, which was mottled with blood. Hunter ripped off his own shirt. He swallowed, plumbing the depths of his courage as he reached for the torn skin along Noah’s cheek. Then, gingerly, carefully, he tried to smooth the ragged edges back together.

Noah moaned, but didn’t gain consciousness. Once Hunter had bound the man’s head with torn shreds of his shirt, he dragged him into a copse of trees and waited for the rain to stop. There was no dry tinder, nothing with which to start a fire. His only hope was to sit with Noah and watch the river. Sooner or later, if and when someone from the ill-fated keelboat made it to shore and found help, then word of the accident would spread up and down the river.

He closed his eyes and thought of Jemma, hoping she was safe and that she had reunited with her father. He cursed himself for ever leaving her, and hoped to God she had made it downriver and had not fallen victim to the Mississippi’s whims. He thought of what he would say, what he would do when he found her. As the wind lashed his wet hair against his cheek and the rain stung his eyes, he swore to himself and the Almighty that he was never going to let her out of his sight again.

He had lost everything: his hat, his rifle, his bag of clothes. All he had left was the possibles bag at his waist and the powder horn around his neck. He opened the possibles bag and felt inside for the heart pendant. Relief swelled when he touched it. The trinket he had been carrying to Jemma was still there. It gave him hope.

Noah stirred. Blood was still oozing down his torn face. Hunter felt utterly helpless, afraid to go in search of help and leave his friend to the elements and creatures that dwelled in the forest along the river. If he was lucky, a search party looking for victims would find them soon; but he knew it was a big
if
, especially the way his luck had been going.

Sitting on his haunches, shirtless, hatless, and soaked, he felt a tug on his hand and looked down. Noah had his eyes shut, his face contorted with pain.

“Leave me here.” The words were barely audible.

“I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“I can’t see, Hunt. What good’s a man like me who can’t see?”