Night Winds

by Gwyneth Atlee

  *

  If Phillip could have heard Shae, he might have been shocked, for she alternated between her mother’s most fervent prayers and her father’s fiercest curses as she walked. She thought she could make out East from the sun, which continued its warm climb. But since she had so little idea of her landing place, that one fact didn’t help choose her direction.

  She walked roughly south along the shoreline, for no better reason than that the beach’s curve would keep the sun out of her eyes. She picked her way carefully in an attempt to avoid broken glass and masonry that would cut her feet, but as she continued, she wondered whether she was traveling to or away from help.

  Thirst assailed her so violently that she knelt beside a streamlet draining muddy water into the gulf. She moved upstream from a sodden rooster’s carcass to taste the liquid and nearly wept to find it far too brackish to choke down.

  Perhaps, if she walked further inland, she might find some fresh puddles of rainwater, she decided. She hated to leave the shoreline, where she felt someone more likely to come upon her, but the chance of a drink persuaded her to try.

  She followed the narrow stream in its westward course through silt-crusted dune grass and downed trees. She passed timbers that might have washed ashore, as she had, and in the distance, she thought she glimpsed the body of a small blonde girl.

  She didn’t even have the strength to struggle closer, but she marked the spot in her memory. If any members of the girl’s family survived, they would want to find the body. Shae began to wonder if she would ever find Port Providence again, or how long she might survive without food or fresh water.

  She’d nearly decided to turn back toward the shoreline, when she spotted, in the distance, a wrecked schooner. She wondered that the storm had washed it so far inland. Lying on its side, the huge vessel didn’t look too badly broken, though half-sunken in the mud, it would be a total loss.

  Relief flooded through her as she thought of the provisions she might find in its holds. The casks of water that might yet lie there unbroken. The stores of food that might yet nourish her.

  She sank to her knees in mud as she began to struggle toward that promise.

  *

  If he had weeks to compose a letter, Phillip knew he could not begin to describe the city’s devastation. The farther he walked, the more wrecked buildings he encountered, each one testimony to a set of shattered lives.

  If their owners yet lived. For many, it appeared, were not so fortunate. Here and there, he glimpsed a foot sticking from a pile of debris, hands sprawled above a corpse, already bloating. Many beasts had died as well. Everywhere he looked, he saw them, cattle, horses, dogs, and cats. Even the creatures of the Gulf had not been spared. The miasma of rotting fish hung heavily, despite a light breeze, and he saw several carcasses that looked like dolphins.

  The stench would be intolerable shortly. Men must be organized to help clear bodies from the streets. Otherwise, not only would their noses suffer, but their health as well. Pestilence would claim whatever last night’s raging seas had not.

  Already, he realized that the dead were too numerous, the risk too great, to identify the bodies. They would have to be disposed of quickly, of necessity.

  It was altogether possible that he would never claim Shae’s body, would never see it buried properly. He might never even know where or how she’d died.

  Or whether. Though he knew, logically, she could not have lived, he’d seen enough families of lost sailors to know he’d have no peace. Sometimes, even years after, they clung to the threadbare hope that their loved one yet lived upon some lonesome stretch of shore. Without a body, peace came slowly, if at all.

  He almost wished that the assassin’s attempt two days before had been successful.

  *

  The Marlin, Shae read on the schooner’s shattered bow. Beneath it, in gold letters, she could just make out the edges of a logo she’d seen many times before: Lowell Shipping.

  The ship was in worse shape than it had appeared from a distance. Shreds of filthy canvas and tangled lines covered much of it. But not so much that she couldn’t see the hull was breached and two masts broken. She wondered what had happened to the crew.

  One break, on the starboard side, was wide enough for her to squeeze through. A narrow shaft of sunlight illuminated splintered crates and jumbled wreckage, obstacles that might mangle her only way to search for Phillip, her bare feet. She hesitated, loathing to push herself inside, where most of the hold remained in darkness. Still, the possibility of fresh water drew her powerfully, until she felt that she had no choice but to take the risk.

  She whispered a prayer that there might yet be unbroken casks and pushed through the gap. Quickly, she shuffled to the left so her body would not block the precious light. She stood still for a long time, until her eyes adjusted to the dimness beyond the rivulet of sun.

  She scanned the hold for any curve, which might well indicate the presence of a container of some liquid. But what quickly captured her attention was the huddled body of a man.

  Until today, Shae had seen death only at its most carefully arranged, in family visitations held inside well-ordered parlors. But the raw truth of it, she saw, was so stark, so ugly, it made her doubt her earlier notions of a long and blissful sleep. Thankfully, she could see little of this poor man, for his finely stubbled face was nearly covered by his disheveled brown hair and one long arm, which was folded over both eyes as if he didn’t wish to see his fate.

  The arm moved, and he groaned.

  Shae screamed, her heart thudding wildly. After all the bodies, both animal and human, she was shocked by the presence of another living person. Especially one who had appeared so very dead.

  The man’s arm slid completely off a surprisingly young face, and he stared at her, his eyes widened in surprise or fear.

  “Sweet Mother Mary. I’m not dead after all.” His accent was distinctly English.

  She shouldn’t be surprised. After eight years in Port Providence, she’d learned a sailor might come from nearly anywhere. She shook her head in answer to his question. “I thought you were. You scared me when you moved.”

  “What’s happened? How’d you get on board? Them boys haul you up out of the storm? It’d be just like ‘em to try to keep the likes o’ you from me.” He sat up and swung a thumb toward his broad chest. “Y’see, I’m the ladies’ man on ship.”

  Shae decided he only barely qualified for the “man” part of the statement. He might be nineteen or twenty at the most. She tried to explain their situation. “This ship it isn’t in the water.”

  He unfolded gangly-looking legs and hooted with laughter, then rubbed the back of his head, as if the sound had hurt. “Are you daft, girl? It’s a bloody ship, it is. Where else would it be?”

  “Come look.” She gestured toward the opening.

  He stood and came close enough to see that she’d been right. Then he turned to stare at her once more, with large blue eyes. “Maybe I’ve gone to Davy Jones’ locker after all. This ship might look like hell, but I’ll be keelhauled if you don’t look like sailors’ heaven.”

  He must have been at sea a long time, Shae decided, if he thought anything as bruised and bedraggled as she was held appeal. Apparently, he fancied himself a young Don Juan, and he felt obligated to keep in practice. Despite the circumstances, he’d doubtless flirt with her even if she looked like Aunt Alberta. Shae ignored the comment and moved on to the most pressing matter.

  “I washed ashore near here as well, but I came to find fresh water. Please, could you help me look?”

  “But where’s me mates?” he asked, ignoring her. “We had a crew of eight aboard.”

  “They could be nearby, I suppose. Why don’t we look for them while we’re searching for some water?”

  He nodded his agreement and started moving through the hold. Occasionally, he paused to shout, “Cap’n! Cap’n Stanley! Gil! Where are ye, mates?”

  There were other names as we
ll, but no one answered. Shae was relieved that neither did they find the seamen’s bodies. She was grateful for whatever respite this ship offered from the squalid face of death.

  The Englishman’s next words made her skin prickle with a thrill of hope. “Here’s your water, Missy.”

  Several casks lay amid the debris in the hold. Two were broken, but, thankfully, a full one had survived. He searched until he found a ladle, which he filled for her. She drank greedily, not caring about her noisy slurps. He refilled the ladle for her several times before he, too, drank his fill.

  “You were thirsty, weren’t you?” he asked afterward.

  At her nod, he continued. “I guess me mates’re dead, then. It’s a hard end to a good life. On the sea, that is. This ain’t me first time shipwrecked. I’m Harry, by the by.”

  “Shae,” she offered. “If you’ve been shipwrecked before, maybe you know what to do. I was in Port Providence before the storm washed me out into the gulf. I have no idea where we are now, but I have to get back home. There’s someone there . . . someone I must find.”

  “Yer beau?” he guessed.

  She nodded.

  He shook his head, and chagrin stretched his handsome features. “Aye, that’s the way of it. The pretty ones’re always spoke for. But I’ll help. Me next best skill, besides fer pleasin’ the fair ladies” He interrupted with a wink. “ has always been for navigatin’ me way out of unknown waters.”

  “All right then, Harry,” Shae said. “Let’s see if you can do as well on land.”

  *

  “Your carriage is ready, Mister Lowell,” Maxwell announced crisply. Half the city was supposedly in ruins, yet his driver’s mustache did not have a single bristle out of place.

  Looking around Fairwater Haven, Ethan could almost pretend that yesterday’s hurricane had only been a routine late summer squall. The mansion, as Cullen had predicted, had taken on a bit of water. Wood floors had been ruined and some walls would warp and bow, yet despite these inconveniences, most of the family’s treasures had been saved.

  Except his Rachel, the woman with whom he’d planned to build his life. His stomach clenched with the bloodsoaked memory of her ruined face, the weight of her limp, wrapped body as he’d helped carry it inside. He forced his attention back to her father. With Maxwell’s assistance, he helped guide the wounded man out the front door.

  His own father looked annoyed. “You’re certain this infirmary trek is absolutely necessary, Maxwell? We’ve always been able to get physicians to come here before.”

  The coachman looked unruffled. “As I explained, sir, the doctors are overwhelmed with injured. Mr. Tisdale will be seen much more quickly if we go there.”

  Augustus Lowell raised an eyebrow, as he often did when he was irritated. “You told Dr. Tuttle he was wanted here?”

  “I did, and by you, sir.”

  “Youah encouraged him, no doubt?”

  Again, the driver nodded dutifully. “Neither bribe nor threat would move him or any of the others.”

  Raymond Tisdale picked that moment to slump. Both Maxwell and Ethan tightened their grips on his arms to hold him upright. From the bruising and swelling around his eye, Ethan guessed he’d been struck in the head by one of the same bricks that had killed his wife and daughter.

  Ethan looked up at his father. “I’d suggest you stop arguing with Maxwell and let us get this man some help.”

  He felt quite satisfied when his father relented and even helped them to the waiting coach. Though Ethan wasn’t especially fond of Tisdale, he felt that, at least for Rachel’s sake, he ought to do his best by the old man.

  Augustus Lowell did not follow his son inside the coach. “I would go, of course, but I must check on our ships and property. We’ll have sailors and schooners scattered from Hell to Havana with this storm, and the docks will be in ruins.”

  As they drove past a wrecked church, Ethan thought once again of Rachel. He didn’t delude himself that the two of them had been in love, but they had been especially well suited for each other. He’d admired her cunning and cool beauty; she’d seen him in a way no other had, as pure potential. With Rachel’s intelligence behind him, he could have been his own man, a success apart from Lowell Shipping.

  He swore to himself that he still would be, that he would force his father to see him as something more than a parasitical presence, a son who need do nothing useful to inherit well. Someday soon, he’d bring Father Payton Enterprises on a platter, and he’d bring it for a fraction of its value. Perhaps after this storm, Phillip would lack the capital to properly repair his holdings. That, coupled with the pressure that resulted from his earlier decision about the Negroes, would force his former friend to sell the brokerage at last.

  Ethan imagined himself running Payton Enterprises on his own. An infusion of Lowell money would enable him not only to mend but expand the brokerage properties. Phillip would be forced back into workaday world of medicine to support himself and his family. Villa Rosa would be sold at a tremendous loss. Both his father and Shae Rowan would finally realize that Payton was a failure. Perhaps, she could even be persuaded to return to him.

  Yes, perhaps she could at that. He smiled, even as Old Man Tisdale sagged and leaned against him more heavily.

  “Hurry up, Max,” he called out to the coachman. “I don’t want him puking on me!”

  Tisdale’s gaze caught his and tried to hold it, but Ethan looked away. He couldn’t stand the pain in those dark eyes. He wished that Max would move the horses at a decent clip.

  Everywhere Ethan looked, he saw more signs of devastation. The storm surge had piled beams from crushed buildings like mammoth stacks of toothpicks. On top of one sat a lithe-looking yacht, its thin bow pointed like an arrow to the sun, its main mast snapped in two. Though he saw many corpses as they picked their way past debris, it was that ruined yacht, and the realization that the El Dorado might have perished, that finally brought tears to his eyes.

  *

  Phillip had meant to leave St. Michael’s as soon as he’d determined that his sisters were both here and safe. Though Lydia’s formerly private room was now crowded with refugees from the storm, her bright eyes and liveliness quickly reassured him she was feeling better. He spoke with her in low tones, so as not to disturb the sleeping women and children huddled all around.

  After several minutes, John Frindly’s haggard face appeared in the doorway. He looked rumpled, but altogether neater than did his mud-stained employer.

  “I’m so sorry about Miss Rowan,” Lydia told Phillip. “Justine told me that you’d planned to marry her.”

  Phillip nodded, his throat too tight to speak, then kissed her cheek and stepped out into the corridor. With an effort, he collected his emotions for a moment when he might deal with them in private. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Frindly.”

  John pumped his offered hand. “Glad to see that you’re all right as well. When I stopped by Villa Rosa and found you hadn’t been there all night, I’m afraid I feared the worst.”

  During the brief course of their conversation, Phillip learned that Frindly, his wife, and their three grown sons had passed the night in their house’s attic. He learned, too, that his own house and servants had fared well in the storm.

  “Will you need to take the day off?” Phillip asked him.

  John shook his head. “My sons are helping. I thought I’d be needed at the business. You haven’t even asked about it.”

  “Very well. How bad is it? Do you know?”

  “Certainly, there’s damage. Even on the bay side, the water came quite high. The current inventory is gone for certain, but as for the structures, I don’t know. I’ll get started on it right away.”

  Phillip thanked him before excusing himself to find Justine. When he did, he could not have been more surprised if she’d sprouted wings.

  A line of wounded people snaked out of each of the three examination rooms. Some stood in puddles of their own blood, for many
had cut bare feet in the wreckage. Others lay down on the filthy floors, too badly hurt to stand. Their groaning and weeping formed a wretched harmony, as a pitifully inadequate number of doctors, students, nuns, and civilian nurses moved among them and tried to determine which ones might be saved.

  In the midst of the hideous disorder, Phillip was shocked to see Justine at work. Instead of being unnerved by the presence of so many strangers, she seemed to forget her own infirmity. Though she still leaned on her cane, she moved quite capably to retrieve bandages and instruments for a bespectacled older nun.

  Dr. Tuttle glanced up as Phillip entered the room. “About time you got here, Phillip. We’ve cleared a couple of small offices to give ourselves somewhere to rest in shifts. One is mine; I keep some spare clothes there. Go put them on, and then get back here and pitch in, for God’s sake. We don’t have any room for gawkers.”

  “Good to see you, too, Hiram,” Phillip told him, but the hopeless faces of the children moved him quickly to comply.

  As much as he wished to find Shae’s body, here, at least, he might do some good. Here, he might save someone else the crushing grief that he now felt. He felt certain Shae would have approved of his decision.

  *

  By the time the carriage reached the red brick infirmary, Raymond Tisdale had lost consciousness again. Ethan wondered if the banker had decided to follow his wife and daughter to the grave.

  Maxwell ran inside and tried to borrow a stretcher, but came back empty-handed. “Every one’s in use,” he explained. “We’ll have to carry him, and then I’ll come back and move the coach.”

  Ethan nodded, frowning. This whole escapade was getting tiresome. Surreptiously, he pinched Tisdale, to see if the old man could be roused. No luck.

  Well, then, there was nothing else to do but haul the man’s limp bulk inside. He called away a couple of Negroes who were helping set up rows of tents and persuaded them to help. Fortunately, Tisdale was a much smaller man than his own father, so Maxwell and the two black men had little difficulty, especially since Ethan held the doors.