Amelia and the Captain

by Lori Copeland

  When breakfast was over, Amelia helped Izzy and Enry clean off the long tables. Later she offered to dry while Izzy washed. “Enry is very nice. How long have you been married?” He was very nice, but Amelia couldn’t look at anything but his big teeth. How did Izzy overlook them?

  Izzy turned to look at her. “Who’s Enry?”

  “Enry. Your husband.” Poor thing. Her mind was getting a bit feeble. And why not? Sister Agnes said of everything she’d lost, she missed her mind the most.

  Izzy reached for a bowl. “I don’t know Enry. Henry’s my husband.”

  “Henry?” Her gaze flew to the man sitting beside Izzy. Enry.

  Izzy shook her head. “Henry has a bit of an accent. Got a lot of Celtic in his blood. His ancestors came from Europe.”

  “Oh.” Amelia’s cheeks felt hot. Oh my goodness. She’d called the man Enry from the moment she’d boarded the boat. He must think her daft!

  When she left the galley, the sun was full up, and the day promised to be nearly perfect weather. When she passed Elizabeth on the deck, she looked one way and Elizabeth looked the other.

  Pilar was sitting on the bed in the first cabin, hands crossed, staring out a porthole when Amelia found her.

  “Hi,” Amelia said softly.

  “Hi.”

  “Why are you sitting in here on such a lovely morning?”

  “Thinking.”

  Amelia sat down to ponder with her. Izzy had said it would take well over a week to reach New Orleans. Other, newer vessels could go faster, but the Mississippi Lady was old and cantankerous sometimes. Crossing her hands, she studied the wall. It was going to be a long journey.

  “It was nice of you to help Izzy with breakfast,” Pilar offered.

  “Do you know that she is ninety? Damp weather has her lumbago fired up again.”

  “Everybody’s old around here. I wonder why?”

  “Izzy said the crew has been together for years. They are more like family than employees. Seems Captain Jean Louis cares for each one and sees to their needs.” Settling back on the bunk, Amelia recalled her earlier conversation with Izzy. “A long time ago, Captain Matter used to captain a big passenger steamboat named the Lucky Lady. Izzy and Enry—do you know that Enry’s name is actually Henry? Anyway, the captain and Henry worked together on that boat for a long time. A few years back, Captain Matter decided he was restless and didn’t care to work so hard, so he stopped hauling passengers on the Mississippi Lady and started carrying cargo instead of people. Niles said he wanted to work for Jean Louis regardless. Well, Captain Matter said he didn’t mind; in fact, he’d be right glad to have him.

  “Now, Henry said he didn’t want to work on the Lucky Lady without Niles. Jean Louis wanted Henry to move to the Mississippi Lady, because, like the rest of the crew, he was getting on in years and Jean Louis figured his crew was part of his family. Henry said he guessed he would move to the new boat if Captain Matter really wanted him. Captain said he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it.

  “Then lo and behold, it turned out that Ryder, who had worked on the Mississippi Lady too, didn’t have family, so he said if Henry was going to stay, he guessed he would too.” Taking a deep breath, Amelia glanced at Pilar. “That’s why everyone’s so old.”

  Pilar stared back at her round-eyed. “Where did Izzy come in?”

  “When she married Henry. The two had worked together for years, and she guessed she wasn’t getting any younger, so when Henry proposed, she accepted. She told me it wasn’t the way a man looked that made him special; it was his heart that made him exceptional.”

  “Where is Captain Jean Louis’s wife?”

  “He doesn’t have one. Seems he and Morgan Kane have been longtime friends, and neither man has chosen to marry.”

  The two girls sat for a moment, each lost in thought.

  “Where are the others?” Amelia asked.

  Pilar frowned. “I don’t know. After breakfast I came straight back to the cabin. I didn’t want to get in anybody’s way.”

  “Did you see how Elizabeth was making such a fuss over Morgan this morning at the breakfast table?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t think he’s infatuated with her. I mean, not in a romantic way.”

  “Ha!”

  Pilar sighed. “Men will be men,” she said. “But he doesn’t look at her the way he…”

  “The way he what?”

  “Looks at you.”

  “Me? He looks at me?”

  “When you’re not looking, as though he’s trying to understand you.”

  “Ha. He thinks I’m a silly twit. And truthfully, I’ve behaved like one. I have not made the wisest decisions since we met. I am nothing but an annoyance to the man.”

  “Well, it seems to me that since you’ve had sort of a short acquaintance, you shouldn’t judge one another. You barely know the man, but you’re awfully critical of him at times.”

  “In the brief time we’ve been together, we have been through a lot, Pilar. When you’re running for your life, you develop a mutual admiration simply trying to survive. Until I met the captain, I really didn’t care for men. I know we fuss at each other, but the captain is a good man. I won’t give him any trouble.”

  Pilar flashed a yearning smile. “Everybody’s nerves are frayed.” She sat in silence and then said, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to marry and have a real home.”

  “Your family?”

  She shrugged. “They left me on an orphanage step when I was a week or two old.”

  Amelia reached to give her a hug. “We have a lot in common. A group of nuns took me and my two sisters in when we were very young.” She smiled. “I understand the hunger you feel for a real home. I have two sisters, Abigail and Anne-Marie, so I have family, but I don’t have a real home. A real home is special.”

  She often imagined a home with a mother and father. Mother would roast a big turkey on Christmas and make raisin pies. After they’d eaten, they would gather around a tall, freshly cut cedar trimmed in garlands the girls had made and sing songs. Then Pa would take the fiddle off the mantel and play “Amazing Grace,” while Ma would work on hand-stitching a pillowcase before a blazing fire. Outside it would be snowing. Amelia’s part of Texas didn’t get snow, but she could dream, couldn’t she? For those special nights, the world would be a small piece of heaven.

  The nuns tried to provide festivities for the young sisters during the holidays, but most of their hours were spent in prayer, which was all right, since prayer was more important than parlor games. But every so often Amelia longed for just one game, a half hour of fun and laughter.

  Getting up from the bunk, Amelia lifted her skirt, exposing her bare legs. “Tell me the truth. Is there anything wrong with my legs?”

  Pilar seemed puzzled by the question. “Your legs?”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Turning to the right and then to her left, Amelia waited for the verdict. “Too chubby?”

  “No, nothing. They are nicely shaped. Not too plump but not too thin.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, Amelia thrust her chest forward. “What’s wrong with these?”

  Pilar’s face flamed. “Amelia!”

  “Yes. These.” The sisters referred to the girls’ endowments as “peach buds.”

  Pilar studied the body part. Finally, she shook her head. “Nothing. They look fine to me.”

  “They look fine to me too.” Amelia hadn’t considered her body often, but it appeared she was no different from other women her age. So why did Morgan find Elizabeth more appealing than her?

  Pilar frowned. “Why are you worrying about your legs and…peaches?”

  Turning to the side, Amelia sucked in her stomach. “It’s my waist, isn’t it? Too thick?”

  “Not at all. You’re practically skinny.”

  “It was smaller before I ate,” Amelia admitted. Three pieces of bacon and three biscuits, she could admit, aggravated the situation.

  Pilar
nodded. “Mine too.”

  “My waist is smaller than Elizabeth’s?”

  Pilar thought for a moment. “I’d say they’re about the same.”

  Releasing her breath in a whoosh, Amelia dropped back onto the bunk. “Then why does he prefer her?”

  “He who?”

  “Morgan. Why does he prefer Elizabeth? Why does he always hang around Elizabeth? Why does he always look at her?” She didn’t know why his interest should worry her, but it did.

  As Pilar pointed out, the two barely knew each other, and yet Amelia felt as though she’d known Morgan Kane a lifetime. She knew that he preferred wild game to beef. That he rose very early to watch the sunrise. That he believed in God and wasn’t a drinking man, because if he was, he would have spent the past few days drunk. She knew his protective instincts often threatened his logical sense. He was a man of his word and a man of integrity. So much so, he would risk his job with the government to prevent eleven helpless women from being sold into slavery.

  What was there not to like about Captain Morgan Kane?

  “Maybe he doesn’t prefer Elizabeth’s company to yours. I don’t see him paying much attention to her or any other woman. Maybe you’re imagining his intentions.”

  “I didn’t imagine it when he sent for Elizabeth on the clipper.” She witnessed that plain as day. That wretched Austin Brown had come for Elizabeth and announced to the world that “Dov Lanigan” was in need of female companionship. Well, she might be naive, but she knew what that statement meant.

  “You didn’t imagine that, but maybe there were so many of us to choose from, Captain Kane decided to take potluck.”

  “Potluck, Pilar? Potluck!” Not only did Morgan not notice her, but she’d just been reduced to a picnic dish.

  Pilar lowered her eyes. “Does it matter?” she asked softly. “Maybe Elizabeth didn’t want to go. After all, she’s as helpless in this matter as we are.”

  Sobering, Amelia pondered the observation. Was Morgan Kane the kind of man who would force himself on a woman? She could not imagine that he would. He had maintained a respectable distance with her, even when he could have easily taken advantage of her.

  Amelia stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of her dress. “I’m going fishing.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “No, I need to think. I think best when I fish alone.”

  Days started to creep by. Captain Jean Louis had told Amelia stories about Morgan’s childhood that made her laugh and wish she could have been there to see him. Before long, she began to feel as if she knew everything about Morgan Kane. Silas and Laura and Morgan’s wonderful life growing up in an apple orchard. She felt she knew everything except his role in the war. Even Captain Jean Louis remained vague about his friend’s occupation. It was important, Amelia was certain of that. A man like Morgan wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t worthwhile.

  To her surprise, when she visited the wheelhouse one night, she saw Morgan sitting in the captain’s seat. She turned in her tracks and started to leave when his voice stopped her.

  “Looking for Jean Louis?”

  “Yes. I thought I’d visit awhile.” She’d taken to dropping by the wheelhouse after supper. Captain Jean Louis was a fascinating man with fascinating stories about whalers. He had read one report to her.

  “Two points on the weather bow!”

  “How far off?”

  “A mile and a half!”

  “Keep your eye on her!”

  “Sing out when we head right!”

  It turned out that three whales were descried from aloft in different parts, and in a short time, when we were deemed near enough, the captain gave orders to “Stand by and lower” for one a little more than half a mile to windward.

  Three boats’ crews pulled merrily away, glad of something to stir their blood, and with eager hope to obtain the oily material wherewith to fill their ship and make good their “lay.” The whale was going leisurely to windward, blowing every now and again two or three times, then “turning tail,” “up flukes,” and sinking. The boats “headed” after him, keeping a distance of nearly one-quarter of a mile from each other, to scatter (as it is called) their chances.

  Fortunately, as the oarsmen were “hove up,” that is, had their oars a-peak, about the place where they expected the whale would next appear, the huge creature rose hard by the captain’s boat, and all the harpooner in the bow had to do was to plunge his two keen cold irons, which are always secured to one towline, into the monster’s blubber-sides. This he did so well as to hit the “fish’s life” at once, and make him spout blood forthwith. It was the first notice the poor fellow had of the proximity of his powerful captors, and the sudden piercing of the barbed harpoons to his very vitals made him caper and run most furiously.

  The boat spun after him with almost the swiftness of a top, now diving through the seas and tossing the spray, and then lying still while the whale sounded; anon in swift motion again when the game rose, for the space of an hour. During this time another boat “got fast” to him with its harpoons, and the captain’s cruel lance had several times struck his vitals. He was killed, as whalemen call it, that is, mortally wounded, an hour before he went into “his flurry,” and was really dead or turned up on his back.

  The loose boat then came to the ship for a hawser to fasten round his flukes; which being done, the captain left his irons in the carcass and pulled for the ship, in order to beat to windward, and, after getting alongside, to “cut him in.” This done, and the mammoth carcass secured to the ship by a chain round the bitts, they proceeded to reeve the huge blocks that are always made fast for the purpose to the fore and main mast head, and to fasten the cutting-in tackle. The captain and two mates then went over the sides on steps well secured, and having each a breast-rope to steady them and lean upon. The cooper then passed them the long-handled spades, which he was all the time grinding and whetting, and they fell lustily to work chopping off the blubber…

  Soon after we had finished cutting in, about eight o’clock in the evening, the wind increased almost to a gale, making it impossible to try out that night. But today, while the ship is lying to, the business has begun in good earnest; the blubber-men cutting up in the blubberroom; others pitching it on deck; others forking it over to the side of the “try-works”; two men standing by a “horse” with a mincing knife to cleave the pieces into many parts for the more easy trying out, as the rind of a joint of pork is cut by the cook for roasting: the boatsteerers and one of the mates are pitching it into the kettles, feeding the fires with the scraps, and bailing the boiling fluid into copper tanks, from which it is the duty of another to dip into casks…

  The whale now taken proves to be a cow whale, forty-five feet long and twenty-five round, and it will yield between seventy and eighty barrels of right whale oil. This is about the ordinary size of the New Zealand whale, a mere dwarf in comparison with that of the northwest, which sometimes yields, it is said, three hundred barrels, ordinarily one hundred and fifty, or one hundred and eighty.*

  Sighing, Amelia said, “The captain has so many thrilling stories to tell.”

  “Yes, Jean Louis has lived a varied life,” Morgan said. “I’m taking the wheel for a spell. The captain is having a second piece of pie with Izzy tonight.”

  “Oh my goodness.” Amelia knew how the man would hate himself in the morning. “I told Izzy she shouldn’t have baked pies today.”

  “You can visit with me,” Morgan invited.

  “Oh, no, thank you. I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Since when has that become a consideration?” He patted the seat beside him. “You want to pilot the boat for a while?”

  “Pilot the boat?” Amelia was astounded. She couldn’t think of a thing she’d like better—except that he would pay more attention to her than Elizabeth.

  Morgan scooted over, making room for her on the warped bench.

  Amelia perched on the edge of the seat, feeling terribly self-
conscious sitting so near to him. She detected the faint scent of soap and decided that he’d bathed at the rain barrel earlier.

  “Here,” he said, closing her hands over the wheel, “get a firm grip.”

  Before she realized what was happening, he’d slid behind her, his powerful arms bracing hers, his sure hands wrapped over her fingers, his firm chest supporting her back. He was so near that his breath tickled her ear. She could hardly breathe. She’d dreamed of being in his arms, but now that it was happening and so unexpectedly, she was stunned into silence.

  Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the wheel tightly, trying to concentrate on steering the boat.

  “Easy,” he murmured, massaging her fingers. “Your hands will go numb. You don’t have to take me so literally.”

  She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “But the current,” she whispered, her voice husky. “It’s so strong. It keeps pulling at me. I can feel it through the wheel.”

  “Hold steady,” he said next to her ear. “Don’t fight it so much. Like this. You work with the pull, assessing how much resistance you need to apply.” His fingers guided the pressure of hers against the wood. “Give and take. That’s the secret. If you fight it like you were, you’ll wear out in no time.”

  “Yes, that’s better,” she murmured. “There’s so much I don’t know.”

  There was a smile in his voice. “It’s not so hard to learn when you want to.”

  She sighed. “I guess I’m a slow learner. I want to change, but old habits stick, and I forget to think.” It was hard to concentrate when she was feeling his strength wrapped protectively around her, savoring the measured beat of his heart behind her shoulder.

  “Keep your mind on what you’re doing,” he reminded.

  I wish I could. How she wished she could confide in him her deepest longings and her greatest fears, and he would explain them.