Chapter 20
Stormy almost wished she’d listened to Blade and returned home. The days and nights turned as slowly as the paddlewheel at the back of the Snagger II.
She offered to peel potatoes and scrub pots, but Trimble Senior swore hell would have to freeze over first.
Clifford Benjamin was good company until they docked at Dakota City for supplies. He invited her to accompany him into town, but after Blade had a private talk with him, he kept his distance.
Sometimes, old Mr. Fitch chatted when he wasn’t on duty tending the big boiler. Once he understood she liked wearing jeans and shirts, he gave her a spare set of his clothes. He was a slight man, and she was grateful to have something to change into.
Blade and Mouse worked long hours. During the day, when they weren’t in the water hooking snags, Stormy sat cross-legged on the deck and watched them saw trees into four-foot bolts. Blade’s muscles rippled as he pushed and pulled on his end of the big two-man saw. He was so strong and handsome. She still couldn’t believe he was hers.
This was the real reason she’d insisted on coming along. Down deep, she was afraid he’d forget about her, or change his mind about wanting to marry her. Except for her land, she wasn’t much of a catch.
Real ladies carried parasols and sipped afternoon tea out of fancy china cups. She built fences and herded cattle.
Desirable girls like Aimee and Marie knew far more about pleasing men. Her skin was tanned, not milky white, and she wore work gloves, not lacy whites. The only dress in her wardrobe was the one Blade had ordered from Mrs. Boe.
She’d put on his ring, but she’d also turned him down, and he hadn’t asked her to marry him again. Officially, that made him an eligible bachelor. Plus, his father owned an investment bank. When Blade returned to St. Louis, rich Society mothers would throw their pretty daughters at him.
She didn’t know anything about the fineries of balls and dinner parties. Was he dreading how his family and friends would laugh when they met her? He’d barely spoken to her since they’d boarded the Snagger II.
Mouse touched her shoulder. “We’s done for the night, Missy. I’s got to sharpen the saw, and you’s got to get ready for bed.”
“Where’s Blade?”
Mouse pointed toward her cabin.
Blade lay on his pile of burlap sacks, eyes shut, limbs unmoving.
Her heart leapt into her throat. “Is he all right?”
“He’s just wore out, Missy. I told him to rest, that I’d watch over you tonight.” He helped her up and escorted her to her cabin. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Thank you, Mouse. Could I stay out on deck with you for a while?”
“Sure. I knows it’s mighty hot inside.”
She smiled with gratitude and leaned back against her doorframe, like Blade always did.
Mouse handed her a jug of water and settled close by. “They say trains is going to put riverboats out of business. They’s laying tracks across Missouri and beyond.”
“I’ve read it in the papers. If that comes to pass, what would you like to do?”
“Me? I just take each day as it comes.”
“I’m serious, Mouse. If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be?”
He was silent for a long while, and then he smiled sheepishly. “I’d raise fruit trees. I’d build me a little house and put a white fence all around it to say that everything inside belongs to me.”
“Where would you put this fruit tree farm of yours?”
He laughed quietly. “Shucks, Missy. Don’t get me going. Someone like me can’t afford to have dreams.”
“How much have you saved up from being a rat?”
“Some,” he said evasively. “I don’t spend no money.”
“Blade could help you find a place. Or, maybe there’s a spot in the section we just fenced. Would a north-facing slope be good? There’s a seamstress you should meet. She’s a widow.”
~ ~ ~
Blade woke to the sound of a high-pitched, menacing hiss. He jumped up and ran to the engine room.
The metal boiler groaned with internal pressure, and the main gauge read an explosive 175 psi. The bleeders weren’t letting steam out fast enough. His worst nightmare was coming true.
Last night, they’d docked for a few hours in St. Joseph. Clifford Benjamin had gone into town. Now he was passed out in a corner, an empty bottle of whiskey beside him.
“Shut it down!”
“I’m trying,” Big John yelled from the furnace room. Sweat dripped down his face as he scooped out red-hot coals and dumped them into a big steel ash pan. “She’s real hot. I think she’s gonna blow!”
Rufus Trimble appeared in the doorway, wearing a nightshirt and screaming a stream of profanities. He took one look at the gauge and backed away.
Blade followed and saw him dart into cabin one.
Trimble emerged carrying a moneybox fastened with a large padlock. He pounded on cabin two until Trimble Senior came out.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Trimble Senior shouted. “It’s that female’s fault.” Both men headed for the side of the ship and jumped into the water.
Mouse pushed Tom Little out of cabin four.
Stormy appeared in her doorway. Her eyes were wide with fear. “What should I do?”
“Get my saddlebags,” Blade shouted. “Mouse, take her and jump overboard. Head for the Missouri side.”
He sprinted back to the engine room. Big John was nowhere in sight. He picked up Clifford Benjamin, threw the lad over the side, and jumped.
As his feet hit the water, the boiler exploded with a deafening boom, shattering the freighter into a million pieces. He curled into a ball and hid below the river’s surface until his lungs were ready to burst.
When he surfaced and drew a desperate breath, the river and both shores were littered with jagged pieces of wood and iron. Snag trees and cut bolts bobbed in the muddy water. Trimble Senior’s big, stained coffee pot floated an arm’s length away, its lid still on. Someone’s shirt hung like a ghost in a tree. A rounded section of the boiler sat on the bank like a riverside bathtub.
Paddling carefully through the flotsam, he recognized Clifford Benjamin, clinging to a section of boiler stovepipe.
“Help,” Benjamin bawled. “I can’t swim.”
Ignoring the lad’s slurred questions about what had happened, Blade hauled him to the Missouri shore. Then, he waded back into the river and tried to gauge how far it had carried him since he’d ordered Mouse and Stormy to jump overboard.
A steamer rounded the downstream bend and chugged towards the disaster. Its whistle sounded the five short blasts of distress. Men held out poles with hooks and looked for survivors and bodies.
If Benjamin survived, Stormy and Mouse had to be alive.
Blade slogged his way upstream along the river’s edge, cursing the muck that sucked at his boots and slowed his progress. His anxious gaze swept the opposite shore, in case they’d ended up there.
He should have asked Stormy if she could swim. If she’d panicked in the water, and Mouse was hurt, she could be . . . Dread blurred his vision.
“Blade!”
He looked up. About a hundred yards ahead, Stormy waved her arms over her head.
He forgot how tired he was and scrambled toward her, whooping with joy. He wrapped his arms around her, and as soon as he caught his breath, he asked, “Where’s Mouse?”
“Back a ways,” she said. “Something hit his head and knocked him out. I towed him to shore. He’s awake now. I told him to stay put while I hunted for you.”
“Hoy there,” a voice called. Forty feet inland, a man wearing a straw hat reined up his horse-drawn wagon. Seven children sat behind him in the wagon’s bed. “You off the boat that exploded?”
~ ~ ~
Blade sat between Stormy and Mouse in the back of Johann Teller’s produce wagon. Teller’s family, and many others who lived nearby, combed the riverfront for spoils from the wreck. Small boats plied the muddy water, their occupants salvaging everything that could be snagged.
He’d negotiated a deal with Mr. Teller: they would help pick, wash, and sort vegetables for tomorrow’s market in exchange for supper, a straw bed in the barn, and an early morning ride into Kansas City.
He’d also schemed a way to St. Louis. His plan required some bravado, and he’d have to talk Mouse into posing as Stormy’s bodyguard. Once he had them decked out in new clothes, the rest would be easy.
He looked down at Stormy, dozing beside him. Matted hair stuck to her head, and dirt streaked her cheeks. She didn’t look like a catch, but she really was. She’d risked life and limb chasing after him. A man couldn’t need more proof of love than that. If his parents didn’t embrace her, he’d write them off forever.
A boater fished a long leather coat out of the water.
“That looks like yours, Mr. B,” Mouse said.
Blade sighed. He’d bought that coat the summer he got Belinda. “Took me two years to break it in. Now I’ll have to start over. Speaking of starting over, if you’ll come with us, I’ll give you a job.”
“How you’s gonna pay me?” Mouse scoffed. “You was snagging for your passage and Missy’s.”
Stormy blinked and sat up. “His father owns a bank, and that’s where they keep the money.”
“Truly?”
Blade nodded. “There are times when being a rich man’s son has its advantages.”