You’ll not be thinking of home, for you can’t go back. Your life is here now.
She’d barely slept a wink for all the noise. Trains blowing like lost, lonely souls, chugging and clacking as they picked up speed. Bursts of laughter from the gaming rooms below and occasionally the sound of a fracas outside as revelers left one of the drink houses along the waterfront. She’d been in this country for more than a week now. You’d think she’d have grown used to all the noise.
Ila had given them her bed for the night, saying she’d as soon sleep up on the top deck in Mr. Tyler’s room as he wasn’t here.
So many names to remember. Miss Aster and now a Mr. Tyler. She had sorted them out as father and daughter, not husband and wife. According to Ila, Aster was a rare tartar. Katy thought tartars here were the same as tartars back in Ireland. Quick-tempered women with sharp tongues. She’d just as soon be gone before the Tylers came back.
Ila, however, was a lovely woman, for all she frowned and fussed. It was only her way. There were several old men and a few boys, and those fancy gentlemen and ladies who worked in the gaming rooms. Tara knew all their names by now, but Katy still had trouble sorting them out.
She was going to have to set out today and find a place so that they wouldn’t have to stay here. She hated being beholden, especially to someone like Galen McKnight. He was far too kind to say so, but it had been plain from the first that he didn’t want to be bothered with them.
It was too easy to blame Tara, but Katy knew she was as much at fault as anyone. She could have said no, but she’d wanted a better future for the child than Skerrie Head could offer.
And so here they were, and here they could stay. It was up to Katy now to make a place for them.
She yawned, stretched, pushed the ruffled curtains aside and stared out at the busy waterfront. Men were everywhere, swearing, laughing, spitting, and scratching. Men of all descriptions, dark and light, busy loading and unloading, some onto mule carts, some onto handcarts, some onto shoulders wide as a barn door Lumber, bales of cotton, crates of fruit, barrels of what might be molasses, or rum, or even salt fish.
It was a dangerous place for children to play, yet there were a number of ragged, skinny little boys, darting in and out between carts and cargo, earning kicks and curses. Not so different from home, after all. Two moth-eaten dogs trotted down the wharf as if they owned it. An old man taking the morning air on a bench in the sun called out to one of the boys, who made a rude gesture back at him. The old man cackled and the boys laughed and skipped along until they were out of sight.
Even here, she thought, amused, the old looked after the young, who considered themselves far too old to need looking after. Some things were the same the world over.
And then she heard a familiar voice. Galen was up and about. She felt a strange fluttering feeling in her chest and put it down to anxiety. If she was going to spare him the trouble of wasting another day looking for a place to send them, she’d better hurry.
“Tara, wake up, we’re going exploring.”
“It’s too hot,” Tara mumbled sleepily.
“That it is, and bound to get hotter,” Katy said cheerfully. “Come along now, Miss Ila will be wanting her room back.”
“I wonder what Mr. Tyler’s cabin looks like. Do you suppose we could peek inside?”
“That I do not. Up you go now, for I’ve a feeling we’ll be moving into town today.”
“Did you see us there?”
She swatted her younger sister playfully with the towel she held in one hand. “No, I didn’t see it, missy, I’ve something more reliable than that to go on.”
Tara sat up in bed, bony knees drawn up under her chin. With her red hair standing on end and her face flushed with sleep, she looked so young, so very vulnerable, caught between two worlds, in more ways than one. There were times when responsibility sat like a stone on Katy’s heart.
“Then how do you know we’ll be moving?”
“Because we must, for we can’t stay here. And because Miss Ila said the man on the boat next door is needing workers.” Katy picked up the ivory-backed brush that had belonged to her mother and began brushing the tangles from her hair. “I’ve a notion to present myself there and see what kind of work’s to be had before we go looking for a room in town.”
“His name is Mr. Bellfort. Johnny the knife boy says he has fiddlers and everything. You could go for a lilter.”
“That I’ll not. Who’d pay good money to hear a hen cackle? Out of bed now, before I empty the washbowl over your head.”
By the time the housekeeper rapped on the door and stepped inside, both sisters were dressed, washed, and brushed. Katy might wish her best shirtwaist were a better match for her best skirt—one was the color of peat stains, the other of overbaked bread—but no one would know it by her smile. She had brushed her hair until it gleamed, then drawn it back so tightly that her eyes were drawn halfway up to her temples.
“Katy’s going for work,” Tara announced as soon as the older woman stepped inside and hung her nightgown on a hook behind a locker door. “Is it time for breakfast? We had cold fish cakes and ginger cake with lemon sauce last night after supper, but I’m still hungry.”
“Hungry again,” Katy corrected, but she smiled when she said it, for the child was always hungry, still and again.
“Captain Galen said I could—” Tara began, but Katy interrupted to tell her to gather up her nightgown and pack it away.
She didn’t want to hear about the captain now. She had better things to think about. Once she’d secured employment and a place to stay in town, it might be safe to think about him, to wonder why it was that a man she’d known for such a short time could scatter her wits and make her breath catch, and put all sorts of strange notions in her head.
Smoothing the last wrinkle from the newly spread bed, she sighed, thinking of what she steadfastly refused to think about. Of the way they had both reached out at the same time to right the basket of mending, and their hands had touched. For a single moment it was as if someone had spilled fat into the fire, and it had blazed up, all sparkly and dangerous.
*
Now that she’d set her course for the day, Katy didn’t want to take time to eat, but she knew she’d feel better for a cup of tea and a bit of toasted bread. She had a lot to accomplish today, and she couldn’t afford to have her belly embarrass her by rumbling at the wrong time.
Several people were seated at the bare wooden table. Every sound stopped the minute she stepped through the door. She offered a timid smile all around, and one by one, they began eating and talking again.
Tara made a place for her between two burly gentlemen in striped jerseys. “Katy, this is Oliver. He’s a pumper, but he helps out with the painting. Katy’s my sister. She’s going to find a job today.”
There were nods and murmurs, and someone offered her coffee.
“I don’t suppose I could have a bit of tea?” she said hopefully.
There was no tea made. Rather than wait, she accepted a cup of coffee from the boy who passed along the table with the blue-speckled coffeepot, then shyly asked the man seated beside her to pass the bread basket.
Grinning broadly, Willy himself heaped a plate of fried meat, eggs, stewed tomatoes, and some mushy white thing smothered in brown gravy, plopped it down in front of Tara, and said, “That there ought to hold ye for a spell, young’un.”
Between huge forksful, Tara introduced Katy to the rest of the crew and explained that there were no engineers or fireman to keep the boiler going, for the Queen never left port, and no roustabouts, for she carried no cargo. Most of the men were deck hands. Chief among their duties was to keep the bilges dry, or as dry as possible.
Next, she was introduced to an old man with a straggly gray pigtail and a half grown boy missing three front teeth, whose duties, she was told, were to swab down the decks, empty the slops, and keep the brass gleaming.
Katy smiled and said she was pleased to meet t
hem. She sugared her coffee, tasted it, added milk, wondered where Galen was, and if he took breakfast with his crew, tasted her coffee again, and grimaced. The man beside her took his straight from the pot. She wondered why his insides hadn’t rotted away, thought some more about Galen, and decided he wasn’t coming.
She was glad.
Tara explained between bites that there were five main dealers and three relief dealers and Oscar, who had a glass eye and was learning to tend bar, but all except Pierre and Oscar lived in town, and that until a few days ago, Maggie the general maid had done most of the cleaning, but her mother had got bit by a black-widow spider in the privy and needed her at home.
Katy wondered how on earth the child could learn so much about so many people in such a short time. It wasn’t the sight, it was that blessed curiosity of hers.
“Maggie’s only a wee bit older than I am, so if Miss Ila will let me, could I please take her place?”
Thankfully, Katy was spared having to answer when two of the girls came in wearing only slippers and wrappers, their faces bare of paint. They looked tired. Ila called them her girls. To Katy, they looked more like women, and no longer in the first blush of youth.
“Lordy, me feet hurt,” said the one with startlingly red hair.
The other one—Sally, she thought—sat down, turned green, then bobbed up and hurried out again. No one appeared to notice. Katy was about to ask if she could help when the sweeping boy came in, begging scraps for a dog, and then two more men came in and Tara asked the sweeping boy if she could help feed his dog.
Katy had had enough. Enough of talk, and enough of the awful coffee. She was tense enough as it was, knowing how much rested on her securing work. Leaning over, she whispered, “Remember now, you’re to keep out of the way until I get back. Lend a hand wherever it’s needed if Miss Ila asks, but whatever you do, don’t go near the gaming rooms.”
“I will, I will, and I won’t.”
“And you’re not to be fresh,” Katy scolded, but she smiled, for there was no wickedness in the child, only high spirits. “I’ll be just down the way if you need me, aboard that other big fancy boat. Wish me luck.”
Eyes half shut, Tara began to sway until Katy squeezed her shoulders. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, not now! There’s work to be had, and I mean to have it, so keep your seeing to yourself, if you please.”
Katy would just as soon not know in advance, for if Tara saw her coming away with a long face, she might not have the courage to apply.
A few minutes later she was strolling along the wharf as if she hadn’t a care in the world, dodging sweaty, muscular roustabouts, carts, little boys, and all manner of freight. One of the workmen turned to send her an admiring look, which she pretended not to notice, but she was pleased all the same, for it bolstered her courage.
An old man, one of several taking their ease in the morning sun, looked up from a checkerboard and called out a greeting. She beamed him a smile. Faith, and it was a fine day. There was work to be had, and a strong, sensible, practical woman who could turn her hand to most anything was seeking it.
To be sure, the man would be a fool not to hire her.
*
Jack Bellfort, owner, manager, and captain of the Albemarle Belle, leaned on the ornate railing of the upper balcony, watching the slight figure hurrying along the wharf between Aster’s boat and his own.
Technically, the Queen was more McKnight’s boat now, but he still thought of her as Aster’s. He’d come to enjoy his ongoing battle with Tyler’s daughter over whose boat would rule the river.
Not that there was any real competition. His Belle came out the winner on all fronts. She was some older, for she’d seen service on the Mississippi before he’d bought her off a broker in Mobile, but he’d stack her up against any excursion boat operating in the area. Tyler’s Queen, for all her brass and fancy millwork, was as landlocked as the County Courthouse over on East Main.
It was no longer about business, this contest between him and Aster. It was personal, only he wasn’t about to give her the upper hand by admitting it. She’d been jealous of the Albemarle Belle ever since he’d first brought her up the canal and gone into business.
And though it galled him to admit it, he’d been attracted to Aster almost as long, the same as any male between the ages of sixteen and sixty would be to any reasonably attractive female.
The woman was more than reasonably attractive. The first and last time he’d invited her to have dinner with him in his private quarters, she’d countered by inviting him to dine aboard the Queen.
“Can you match my French chef?” he’d asked, knowing damned well she couldn’t.
She’d huffed up, her bosom swelling against her fashionable low-cut gown, and said, “My William can cook circles around your Frenchman any day. What’s more, he doesn’t depend on fancy sauces to disguise the taste of badly cooked meat.”
“Isn’t he the same fellow your old man hired out of that hotel that burned down a few years ago? Better watch him around matches, darling.”
He’d pushed her as far as he dared, for the sheer pleasure of watching the sparks fly. She’d got in the last word—something about all his fancy women—and flounced off. He’d rather watch her flounce than watch any other woman strip stark naked. Seeing her march off down the wharf, bustle twitching, elbows pumping, he let his imagination off the rein. One of these days, he promised himself, but he was in no great rush.
She’d been the one to draw the battle lines. All he’d done was follow her cue. A few weeks later, when he’d hired that troop of players from Virginia, she’d done all but turn herself inside out trying to come up with some way to outdo him.
Noticing her watching from the upper balcony of the Queen, he’d taken to entertaining a few ladies—and a few who weren’t ladies—on his own private balcony. Even if she didn’t see him, word of his activities would get back to her. The waterfront community was a small one. Privacy was hard to come by.
But then McKnight had showed up, and Aster had taken to flaunting him at every opportunity as if he were a personal trophy. Jack knew better. Hell, he even knew what cards old Tyler had been holding when he’d lost the Queen to McKnight.
Aster and McKnight?
Forget it. They were too much alike. Too much fire in both their bellies. McKnight’s fire might be banked for the moment, but Jack knew men. His livelihood depended on it. There was one hell of a lot more to the new part-owner of the Pasquotank Queen than met the eye, he’d lay odds on it. One of these days Aster was going to push the man too far, and when she did, all hell was going to bust loose. Jack had made up his mind a long time ago that when it happened. he’d be around to pick up the pieces.
Meanwhile, he’d continued his weekly scheduled cruises, even though the overhead was brutal. He’d have made far more money staying tied up the way McKnight did and catering strictly to gamblers, but Aster didn’t have to know that. Let her steam. Let her wear herself out fighting straw dogs. At least it kept her attention focused on him.
Taking his lead from the new Opera House that had opened in town, he’d hired a muralist to come and paint a woodland scene complete with overblown nudes, and made the room off-limits to the ladies, which had pleased the gentlemen. At the same time, he’d set aside a ladies’ parlor with fancy velvet couches, a pianoforte, and a bookshelf full of the kinds of books ladies liked to read. It had cost him more than it was worth, but so far she’d been unable to come up with anything to top it, thanks mostly to McKnight’s keeping her on a tight rein.
He happened to know she’d be back today, and when she arrived, he intended to have a fine welcome waiting for her. It had come to him when that meddling old do-gooder had tried to hand out her salvation fliers at the foot of his gangplank. He’d bundled the things up, intending to throw them away, when it had struck him. Why not hire one of the young hoodlums who lived in the alleys between the warehouses to hand them out to the Queen’s customers?
“Cap’n
Jack, lady to see you,” said one of his boys, poking his head out onto the balcony.
“Do I know her?”
“Don’t think so, sir. She come off the Queen, says she’s looking for work.”
*
Katy could hardly wait to tell Galen about her new job. It was only for today, but it was a start. According to Ila, he’d gone out again to see if he could find work for her in town, and a place to stay. For all his good intentions, she didn’t need his help. This would prove it. She’d been hired at the very first place she’d applied.
Not that she was particularly looking forward to standing about among all the men working on the wharf, which was why Captain Bellfort had suggested she stay close to the Queen’s gangplank, where she would feel safer.
But two whole dollars! She wasn’t about to turn down the chance to earn all that for no more than handing out sheets of paper. She’d thought about taking Tara with her, but Ila said, “There now, don’t you worry none about that young’un. I’ll see she don’t get up to any mischief. Found yourself work already, have you? Bless my soul, two dollars for handing out fliers? I might be interested in a job like that myself.”
Katy thought she was teasing. She hoped so. “It’s for a worthy cause. Shall I ask Captain Bellfort if he needs someone else to hand out fliers? He might like to have someone on his own boat.”
“Lordy, no, not and stand on my feet all day. Run along now, but you make sure you come inside if you get to feeling weak. Captain Bellfort don’t expect a lady to be out in the heat of the day.”
So Katy stationed herself beside the red-carpeted gangplank. There was no one about at the moment. Most of the roustabouts were working closer to the railroad wharf. She fastened a hopeful smile on her face, ready for her first customer.
Still waiting, she wondered if the fliers advertised a local attraction. There was a market across the harbor. She could see it from here.
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