Casting around for a ready excuse, Delta found none. Hendricks agreed to stop by the telegraph office and to give her time to post her article to Hollis.
At Captain Kaney’s prodding, she accepted the councilman’s invitation, but the instant she stepped off the gangplank, escorted by this obviously prosperous councilman, she was gripped by a great sense of longing. She should have expected as much, she rebuked, turning to scan the showboat. No sign of the beloved figure of whom she desperately sought even a fleeting glimpse.
Zanna spoke from Delta’s other shoulder. “Where’s Brett?”
The shock of hearing his name spoken brought a lump to Delta’s throat. She dared not trust her voice to answer, so she shrugged.
“I thought you two were getting close.”
Delta put on her best imitation of a smile. “No.”
Zanna let it pass with no more than the comment, “When a relationship isn’t going to work, it’s best to find it out early.” But she left the parade in Albert’s charge and accompanied Delta and the councilman to the caves as though she regularly relegated such authority to others.
The depth of friendship this expressed lit a tiny flame inside Delta, but she knew the only thing that would thaw her frozen heart would be for Brett to come to her, accept her help, her love, and her presence in his life. That, she knew was not likely to happen.
The caves were impressive in the dismal way the rest of Vicksburg was impressive. Everywhere she looked, the ravages of war remained as evidence of the high cost of six weeks of bombardment—buildings destroyed, trees cut down as if by lightning, streets pocked with mortar holes, and the caves—the natural caves, hundreds of them, had been dug deeper into the clay banks by citizens seeking shelter from what Councilman Hendricks called “iron rain.”
“See how they Y back from the entrances?” He motioned the ladies to peer into the back of the dark tunnels.
“The city was completely cut off from all commerce,” he told them. “For six weeks the three thousand civilian inhabitants of Vicksburg, mostly women and children, lived in fear and increasing need, surrounded by upwards of thirty thousand military men. Several folks kept journals. If you care to read them for your report, Miss Jarrett, come by my office tomorrow.”
By the time they returned to the boat, Albert led the cast in setting the stage for the evening’s performance. As with other stops the first performance in Vicksburg would be on the docks, the last in the grand salon, the latter allowing the Mississippi Princess to slip quietly into the river current as soon as the guests departed, assuring an early arrival at Natchez the following day.
With half a heart Delta watched Albert and Frankie assemble the set for the melodrama.
“Vicksburg has seen so much tragedy,” Zanna observed, “I hope our performance brings the citizens a laugh or two.”
Then Delta spied Nat. As Brett had predicted, the bounty hunter had found his way back to the boat. Their gazes locked for an instant before his eyes darted behind her, then from side to side.
She stood perfectly still, knowing he searched for Brett. Well, let him. He wouldn’t find Brett with her. But she did intend to question him about his lie. He had no business making up that story about being after a man who had murdered his wife, when it was Brett he wanted all along.
He sauntered toward her, calling, “I have a bone to pick with you, Delta.”
“And I with you.” Eyeing him with distaste, she stood her ground and waited for him to approach. Suddenly the lively strains of Gabriel’s fiddle filled the air. As on a dime, Nat turned on his heel and vanished up the gangplank.
She pivoted in place, staring at the fiddler, who ignored her, playing to the crowd, as always.
She wasn’t surprised when Brett didn’t appear at dinner. She hadn’t felt like going, either, but she did. In the end it was preferable to staying alone in a stateroom that reminded her so much of him.
She even considered asking Captain Kaney to move her to another cabin, but the questions such a request would raise prevented her from doing so.
Nat didn’t appear at dinner, either, and since she hadn’t planned to attend the performance, she gave up the idea of confronting him until morning. Then, returning to her stateroom after the meal, she found Nat lounging against her hand-painted door.
“Invite me in?”
She was tempted to slap his impudent face. “Certainly not.”
“You invited that gambler in, though, didn’t you? Is he in there now, waiting for you?”
“Of course not. And I’ll thank you to keep such unseemly comments to yourself.”
He laughed. “When you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”
“I won’t see him.”
“No?”
“No.” Since he didn’t appear to believe her, she added, “Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. And while we’re on the subject, why did you lie to me?”
“Me? I didn’t lie to you.”
“You told me you weren’t after Brett Reall.”
“I’m not.”
She ignored his denial. “You said you were after a man who murdered his wife, when all the time it’s Brett’s alleged smuggling—”
“Brett’s alleged smuggling? What kind of bull has he been feeding you?”
“Nothing,” she hurried to say. “Everyone knows you’re after him. You aren’t a master at disguise, you know.”
“Everyone, Delta?” He lowered his voice, continuing in a threatening tone. “Or just the journalist who searched my room?” He grabbed her arm and shook her. “What did you do with my wanted poster? The one of Anatole Dupré?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. I think you took my poster. Anatole Dupré. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.”
He studied her carefully. “I didn’t think it would. He wouldn’t be that stupid. But just you wait. He’ll make a mistake. And when he does, I’ll be there waiting.”
Suddenly from around the corner near the stern-wheel came the sound of music—fiddle music. Giving her arm one last shake, Nat left with the excuse that the drama was about to commence.
The next morning Delta rose early and accompanied the councilman to the national cemetery, as planned. Again Zanna rode with them.
“I’m probably not the company you’d like, but it looks like I’ll have to do.”
Delta hugged her. “You’re exactly the company I want.”
The ride out of town relieved the dull headache she had awakened with. Her nightmare had returned. The same old nightmare of the pirates making love on a tossing ship, except this time it was more poignant, more personal, and she had awakened with a throbbing head.
And an ache in her heart that even the ride in the country did not relieve. While the eager councilman pointed here to a site ravaged by the war, there to a site restored to its original grandeur, she struggled to concentrate on his monologue.
The national cemetery sat on a hill overlooking the river and a broad expanse of natural parkway. Flowering shrubs and trees lent the area a peacefulness that belied the battle fought in and around these hills. The councilman paused so she could record the inscription on the gateway: “Here rest in peace 16,600 who died for their country in the years 1861 to 1865.”
They followed the winding road through wooded hills and ravines. At times the roadway was cut so deeply into the earth, they seemed to be riding through a tunnel with only the vast blue sky for a roof.
The same sky that looked down on Brett, wherever he was, whatever he was doing.
On the way back to town the councilman talked about the railroads and pointed to the many fine residences that had been restored since the war. “Make us sound prosperous,” he appealed, reminding Delta of Cameron’s like comment about Memphis.
“The war did enough damage,” she told him. “I’m looking for the bright side.”
But the bright side of her private life was as hard to f
ind as that of this war-ravaged city.
That evening she again decided to forgo attending the theatrical. But recalling Nat’s unwelcome presence the evening before, she persuaded Zanna to accompany her to her stateroom before the show began.
“Is he bothering you?” Zanna questioned.
“Who?”
“Brett Reall?”
“Oh, no,” Delta hurried to assure her. “I haven’t even seen him since we arrived in Vicksburg. And I won’t.” She turned the key in her lock. “Have you?”
The moment the question escaped her lips, she hated having asked it, but she had been so desperate to see him, to hear word of him.
Zanna squeezed a comforting arm around her shoulders. “No, but I hear he ventured into Vicksburg. That man of his, the big one, was seen wandering about outside Brett’s stateroom this afternoon, so he must have returned aboard. The captain’s miffed that he hasn’t been attending the ti’ games with those little ladies.”
Zanna left and, once inside her cabin, Delta lighted the lamps and poured herself a glass of sherry. Her gaze drifted over the dressing table and every other flat surface in turn, searching for a message left by the cabin boy. Meet me tonight, it would say. Or, Leave the door unlocked for me.
But of course she didn’t find such a message, and tempted though she was, she did not leave her door unlocked. After bathing off in violet-scented water, she dressed for bed and sat down to write her article on Vicksburg, to post when they arrived in Natchez the following day.
The sherry warmed her inside, turning her heartache to a bittersweet reminder of the happiness she had experienced with Brett in this room. It had become a home, a haven, this room, the one place that was theirs and theirs alone. How could she bear to leave it when they arrived in New Orleans?
It was only after she risked turning out the lamps and lay snug in her bed that she realized she had spent the better part of the day anticipating this night. If she couldn’t be with Brett in the flesh, she could love him in her dreams. As she was drifting off to sleep, the last vision to flit through her brain was of his beloved face. Then it was gone.
The pains started late at night, although in the eternal darkness of the cell, time was an uncertain thing. Not so with labor pains.
Although she had never experienced them before, she knew the moment the heavy pains started in her lower back that the time had come.
She’d been waiting for it, it seemed like forever.
“That’s it, all right,” remarked Mary Read, her fellow pirate and cell-mate. “Some things never change, like labor and death.” Mary had birthed her babe a fortnight back, a stillborn, and Mary now awaited the hangman’s noose along with Anne.
They would swing together, or so their jailers promised, as soon as Anne delivered the babe. Together, as they had plied the tropical waters of the Caribbean together.
Some things never changed.
Like friendship. Like death.
Anne gripped her lower belly beneath the bulge that had taken on an ever-moving shape of late, a shape that undulated inside her belly, the way the child would move in someone else’s arms—soon.
Very soon. The pain lessened. She leaned back on the squalid pallet to await its return. Mary’s birthing had been an education in things of the kind. The pain, the terrible pain.
It returned, convulsing, pressing, bringing beads of perspiration to her forehead. Perhaps it was false, this labor, a spurious attempt to frighten her that her time was near.
But the pains continued intermittently through the next hours, how many, she had no way of surmising. When at length she felt a rush of water between her legs, she knew the time had come.
Struggling to her feet, she worked her way to the iron door of the rat-infested cell. One promise she would keep. One promise. That her babe would not die as Mary’s had done. Her babe would live, but to do so, it must not be born in the squalor of this cell.
Fiercely she pounded on the iron door. “Hear me, hear me! My time has come, you miserable curs, come help me!”
No one came, of course, not until the jailer brought their meager bowls of gruel at daybreak, and by that time Anne Bonny had delivered a baby girl.
The babe cried, so Anne knew it was alive. It wailed, so Anne held it close, brushing straw and debris from its tiny damp body with trembling fingers.
Held against her the babe felt like a part of her own flesh, and when she offered the tiny thing a breast, it began to suckle. Afterwards it fell quiet, and soon its little body had been bathed by the flow of Anne’s tears.
She was a mother. She had borne a babe from her womb. She had suckled her babe. That she would be hanged at daybreak for piracy on the high seas no longer mattered.
She was a mother.
They came at daybreak, to the jailer’s summons, and led her away. She cradled the babe tightly against her breast, refusing to relinquish it to the grasping hands, the clutching hands of all she passed along the rock-floored corridor and out into the bright sunshine.
They led her toward a scaffold that had been erected in the courtyard. From the top of the walls and from every rooftop, people cheered. She glanced around. It was the first time she had been outside in—how long?
“Is that your babe, Anne Bonny?” someone called from the rooftop. “What’re ye to do with it?”
She held the babe aloft for all to see, as though it were a wee queen born this day. And indeed it was. “Queen of the pirates!”
“Queen of the pirates!” echoed the cry. “Queen of the pirates.”
Again someone tried to take the babe from her, but she held fast. Climbing the steps to the top of the platform, she tripped on the frayed bottom of her skirts, but still she held fast to the babe in her arms.
Led to a noose hanging from the center of the scaffold, Anne once more refused to relinquish her babe. She squeezed the child to her bosom with a fierceness she had previously felt only in battle, but never as strong as at this moment.
Lifting her face, she looked at the blue sky overhead. Lowering her gaze she studied the faces of those assembled, eager faces of men and women hungry to see her death, anyone’s death.
The hangman tried to cover her face with a hood, but with one hand she ripped it away. And when he slipped the noose around her neck, she stared down into the wee one’s sky-blue eyes, seeing her child clearly for the first time.
“’Tis time, ma’am,” came a quiet voice. A chant rose above the crowd noise, and Anne heard the priest for the first time. Vaguely she recalled him offering to hear her confession, to absolve her of her sins.
Her sins? Hers? Anguish rose inside her, fierce and hot. Lifting her head, she began to scream to the vultures on the rooftops.
“Murderers! Murderers! Don’t kill my little girl!”
Someone reached for the babe.
She clutched it to her breast.
The scaffold floor moved beneath her feet. She stared into the blue eyes of her babe. The girlchild began to wail.
“Don’t murder my babe! Don’t kill my little girl!”
Chapter Eleven
Delta awoke from the dream, her body laved in perspiration, her pillow clutched to her bosom. For a time, melancholy overwhelmed her. She lay as though frozen in time and space, reliving Anne Bonny’s hanging. Her arms tightened protectively around the pillow, crushing it to her body, while tears streamed from her eyes.
After a while reason returned and she began to question the meaning of the dream. Although she knew with some certainty that Anne Bonny had not been hanged and definitely not clutching her newborn infant to her bosom, the dream’s portent was clear—someone was in trouble, desperate trouble.
The possibility that it might be herself dawned slowly. When the thought finally took form, she threw aside the pillow and cradled her own belly, much as the pirate queen had done in her dream. Could it be?
Could she be carrying Brett’s child? The idea filled her at once with a mixture of joy and melancholy. In an inst
ant she knew that nothing would make her happier than to bear Brett’s children.
But the thought had never crossed her mind. Even that afternoon by the river in Memphis when Brett had expressed such horror at the prospect, she had not considered such a possibility.
Why would she dream of a pregnancy she had never considered? As far as that went, why did she dream of pirates and crying babies? How could she have dreamed of a man before she even met him? None of this was possible, yet obviously none of it was impossible. Certainly not a pregnancy. She could well be carrying Brett’s child.
Or she could have missed the message of the dream entirely. She knew only one thing for certain—these dreams held messages, desperate messages, cries for help.
Someone was in trouble. Someone needed her.
A loud knock at the door startled her out of her stupor. Quickly she tossed aside the pillow, grabbed a robe, and tried not to hope.
But when Zanna answered her question, “Who’s there?” she knew hope was yet another thing totally beyond her control.
Zanna entered the room, explaining, “We’re due to dock in Natchez within the hour. I thought we could have breakfast together before then.”
The image of sharing a sunrise breakfast with Brett surged like an ill wind through Delta’s mind. “I’m not hungry.”
“You will be before lunchtime. I’ll wait while you dress. The dining room won’t be crowded if we hurry.”
The dining room. Not the deck outside the paddlewheel lounge. “I’ll hurry.”
While Zanna chattered from one corner of the room, Delta dressed hastily, concentrating on the fall of her simple brown skirt over her bustle, on adjusting the lace on her cuffs just so, on tying her hair back with a large brown ribbon.
“Come here,” Zanna bid. “Let me do up your buttons in back. I don’t know how a woman’s supposed to dress herself in clothes like this.”
“That’s why I haven’t worn this blouse since I left home,” Delta admitted, while her brain played tricks with Zanna’s fingers on her back.
Twice during the meal that followed, Zanna had to draw Delta back to the conversation and repeat herself.
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 19