Okay, so maybe I over reacted by throwing the lamp, but I’m in a strange place and the man took my clothes. If that’s not bad enough, he says we’re on board the Arabia and I can’t come to terms with that. I’ve spent my entire life in Boston, in the midst of history, and am more than familiar with antique furniture and the accessories of the past. And the thing is, everything around me screams vintage – the clothespress instead of a closet; a porcelain bowl and pitcher in place of a bathroom sink; the glass chimney lamp I threw across the room. If what this man says and what I see are true…
Bri woke to darkness except for the weak glow of a lamp on the dresser – far across the room from where she lay. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she breathed a sigh of relief to realize she was alone. She looked toward the small rectangular window but it was dark. Cautiously, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, leery of becoming dizzy again. She looked at her bare body as the sheet slid down her curves.
Things came back to her in a rush and she jerked her head to the left, reaffirming that she was in bed by herself. The man—she couldn’t remember his name though she was sure he had told her--was nowhere in the room. His presence when she had awakened the first time had been so strong, so assured, that he overpowered her. Finding herself stripped naked and in a room with a stranger was totally out of her realm of understanding.
He had undressed her. Okay, so it had been in the interest of getting her warm, but still. A quick glance around the room assured her that her clothes hadn’t been returned. She needed to get dressed. She could think more clearly with clothes on. And she really, really did need to figure this out. Mentally assessing herself, she didn’t think she would faint again, but there was a heaviness to her body like a weight bearing her down. She couldn’t tell exactly where it originated – it was all over. Even her arm felt heavy as she lifted her hand to the knob on the clothespress.
Well, one good turn deserves another, she thought as she slowly opened the door and surveyed an impressive array of shirts and trousers. Since he had taken her clothes, whatever the reason, she would use his. His shirt was too large for her, but she turned back the cuffs. He was slim, and she had long legs, so when she pulled a pair of his trousers over her hips, they were snug but fit her just right in the length. She smiled as she buttoned them. She had taken what looked like the most expensive pair.
A vest buttoned up the front would conceal the fact she didn’t wear a bra, but his shoes were far too large so she decided to go barefoot. Padding over to the dresser, she used his hairbrush and comb to bring some semblance of order to her hair. She managed to wrap a few strands around the whole to form a pony tail at her nape. Wearing clothes too large was enough, but if her hair was flying all over, people would notice.
She only had a fuzzy recollection of the man who had brought her to this room and even less recollection as to why. He was tall, broad shouldered but slim in the hips. Dark hair had curled around his ears, but in her mind his face was indistinct. She didn’t think he had taken advantage of her, regardless of the fact she was naked and the comments he had made about not paying for a woman.
All she could remember well was that it had started raining hard at the dig site and she had tried to get to the ladder for someone to pull her up and out of the pit. Everything else seemed like a bad dream. Why Simon, or anyone from the dig site, would have taken her to a hotel instead of her apartment, she couldn’t fathom. If she had been hurt, it would have been a hospital, and this room certainly wasn’t that.
She decided not to wait around for anyone to return. Her head hurt as she dropped the comb back onto the dresser and rubbed her temples. Since she had awaken and for the entire time she was dressing, something nagged in a dark corner of her mind, demanding attention, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what. The constant chug-chug noise wasn’t helping her headache either. She certainly wouldn’t recommend this hotel to anyone, although there was an antique flair to the furnishings. She ran her hand along the beveled edge of the dresser as she wandered to the door. Reproduction, no doubt.
Opening the door with care, she peeked out to discover not a hall, but a deck. That can’t be right, she mused, warily taking a few steps beyond the door. She was in a hotel somewhere in Kansas, not on a boat. She reached the railing and grabbed hold with both hands, staring into the gloom which was dissipating as day broke. Her heart began to pound and her headache worsened.
What had that man said? Something about working on the Arabia? She suddenly didn’t think he had meant working on the excavation of the Arabia as she had. Disbelief had her knees shaking even as she leaned over the railing. Below was a wider deck, crammed full of people and cargo, cords of wood stacked as high as the railing where she stood. Gruff words floated toward her as people awakened to a new day. A bell clanged in the distance and ever so slowly, the boat began to move away from a dock.
“No. I have to get off. I don’t belong here.” She spun in a circle but sank, her knees giving way and her bottom hitting the wooden deck with a jar. Something was terribly wrong. She brought her legs up, hugging them tight and dropping her head to her knees. She closed her eyes and tried to think but there was this black hole in her memory. She gave a self-decrepitating laugh – it wasn’t her memory; her entire body had been sucked down a black hole.
“What are you doing out here?”
The agitated question brought her head up but all she saw were dark trousers. She tipped her head further back. The sides of a long coat were swept back with hands planted on hips. The fingers were long, nails clean and trimmed, and Bri got the impression this man didn’t have a manual job. By the time her gaze slid the rest of the way up his body, she found him scowling at her. The sun had risen just enough behind him that his features were in shadow, but there was an aura around him. Was he her guardian angel?
“Did you have to steal my best linen shirt and trousers?” Now frustration edged the agitation. No, he was definitely not any one’s angel.
What right did he have to be …anything? Bri thought. She was the one who didn’t have the foggiest idea of what was going on. At least he appeared to know his way around; to belong here.
She surged to her feet, swayed, then grabbed the rail with one hand to steady herself; putting the other out when he would have reached for her. With precarious balance, she turned when he opened the cabin door and carefully walked back into the small room. As soon as she felt capable, she turned on him.
“You…you…” Her brain was a mess along with the rest of her and she couldn’t think of what she wanted to tell him.
She looked down at her hands where she was absently twisting a ring on her pinkie finger. It was an artifact she salvaged that day, just as the rain came. It was rather plain in design with a small flat square in the center and some scroll work on either side. She remembered putting it on her finger to keep from losing it in the rain. Now, she jerked it off and flung it across the room.
Nothing happened. She wasn’t again standing in a downpour waiting to be hauled up and out of the pit. She didn’t return to the present. “I don’t want to be here! I’m not supposed to be here!” she shouted, dropping to her knees and sobbing. Her mind processed her fear in the only way it could. It blanked, allowing her to tip over in a faint.
* * *
Bri awoke to find herself once again in bed. She really had to quit doing that.
“You probably wouldn’t be hysterical, or keep fainting, if you ate something. Unless, of course, you are in the family way.”
She shook her head slightly, not even bothering to look in the direction of the voice. “If I was pregnant, why do you think I would have ended up in the river?”
“That is not my concern. My unease stems from the fact you keep ending up in my bed and I don’t even know your name.”
She did glance his way at the humor in his voice and found a very sexy, totally masculine smile gracing his lips. “I suppose that’s a natural occurrence for you.” She tried to give him the evil eye, but his smile just grew.
“When I wish it.” His left shoulder lifted in a shrug. It made her notice the width of his shoulders and how defined his body was in the white linen shirt. He turned and began to remove covers from several dishes on a cart.
“I appreciate what you have done for me, Mr…,” she hesitated, not remembering his name. There were so many holes in her recent memory.
“Jake. And you are?”
Who was she? Was she the same Briana she had been a day ago? A week? She certainly wasn’t about to give away too much information until she knew what was going on and where she was.
“Brianna Blake.” At her pronouncement, he nodded slightly in acknowledgement but made no response.
“Well, Miss Blake. I would suggest that if you don’t want to end up in my bed yet again, you partake in some breakfast.”
It was then the smell of coffee reached her and her stomach growled. How long had it been since she had eaten?
She slowly stood. Though a little lightheaded, she felt she wasn’t about to faint again. Her mouth watered as she sat in the chair he had pulled out by a small table. Delicious smells of bacon and ham made her nostrils flair. She began eating as soon as he set a plate before her and was nearly done before he sat with his own plate.
“Eating too much too quickly when you haven’t had substance for a prolonged period can cause stomach cramps or vomiting.” He stopped abruptly as though angry – at her or for having spoken?
She finished her eggs and carefully put her knife and fork across her plate. “Are you a doctor; a nutritionist?”
“No, of course not,” he snapped almost before she had finished speaking. An intense frown marred his handsome features.
“Fine. I’ll leave you to eat your breakfast leisurely.” She stood, grabbing some apples out of a bowl on the table and shoving them into her pockets.
“Like I said, thank you for your help, but I need to be on my way.” She had opened the door and stepped through when she paused at his parting words.
“The hurricane deck is at least respectable, whereas the decks below are for those who cannot pay full fare. Most often they are made to feel the degradation of poverty, even if they have occupation and means. Beware of the petty officers for they have been known for brutal and disgraceful treatment.”
Bri quietly closed the door behind her. She could take care of herself, couldn’t she?
* * *
After hours of walking around the steamboat, Brianna could only conclude as true what the recesses of her mind and niggled at all day. She was indeed on the Steamboat Arabia as it plied the waters of the huge river. The Arabia was a side wheeler, which she had known, but to see the huge paddle wheel slowly revolving through the water was beyond her imagination. She knew it could travel at over five miles per hour, yet as she stood by a railing it felt as though they weren’t moving at all.
She couldn’t recall how many passengers the boat carried on this particular trip, but they were all over. The main deck held clusters of people scattered among the boxes and barrels of cargo. There were high stacks of logs the boilers and engines would use to convert river water to steam.
As she walked along the upper deck she peeked through a window to an eloquent salon. Nicely dressed women and men sat at tables or on small couches enjoying conversation. She sadly glanced down at her oversized borrowed clothes and felt totally out of place.
On the upper deck, women were in long dresses and carried parasols and the men were in what she would call formal attire, but for them it was probably just normal dress. All wore long black coats and trousers. White shirts with stiff collars were circled with some sort of black tie. So very unlike the tee shirts plastered with slogans, khaki shorts and sandals she was used to seeing. People walking along the promenade stared at her strangely. She looked down. Well, who wouldn’t? Though the vest covered her shirt and she had tucked her hair up, it was still obvious she was a woman. She had even stooped to borrowing a pair of ladies shoes set outside a door but regardless of how tight she laced them, they still made a clomping sound.
Jake had been right about the treatment of people on the lower decks. They had no shelter from the wind or sun. If they were sitting, it was on their own luggage, as there were no chairs or benches. There was the stench of unwashed bodies that even the river breeze couldn’t dissipate. More than once a gruff voice beckoned her with crude names, but she kept her eyes forward and didn’t acknowledge anyone until she moved beyond the ruffians to where there were more women. Children shifted restlessly near mothers, as there was no place to run and play. She tried to make conversation, but no one seemed inclined to talk, until she pulled out the apples.
“Would your little boy like an apple?” she asked the haggard looking woman trying to keep a hand on the boy while she held a tiny infant on her lap. Before she could decline, the boy snatched the apple from her and began eating.
“Mind your manners, Mathew,” his mother scolded.
“Thanky, ma'am.” The boy gave her a toothless grin.
“And give your sister a bite.” Another tow-headed youngster peeked from around her mother’s side. With a sigh, Mathew complied, keeping his fingers wrapped around the apple so she couldn’t get much of a taste.
Bri handed the little girl an apple of her own.
“That’s very kind of you, missy,” the woman said.
Bri shrugged. “They were in the cabin and I can’t eat them all and Jake doesn’t seem to…” She realized she was babbling.
The woman stiffened her spine. “You’re in a cabin up’bove?” She looked her up and down. “Don’t look like you belong in one of them.”
Bri flopped down cross-legged on the deck, trying to be less conspicuous. She knew she didn’t look like even the lowliest female traveler. She longed to confide in someone, but what could she say that wouldn’t make people look at her even more strangely. “Look, I don’t know for sure where I belong. It was raining, and suddenly I was in the river and—”
The woman gasped. “You’re that woman my Mathew told me about? Some man jumped in and pulled a body out, then gave Mathew a penny to follow him with the clothes up to a stateroom.” She scrunched her eyes at Bri. “Didn’t know it was a woman ‘til my boy came back. Said that man carried a body like it was light as a feather so he figured it had to be a woman.” She leaned closer. “’Sides, Mathew’s small enough he gets around this steamer like nobody notices him and he hears things.” She nodded sagely.
Bri hung her head. Is that why so many people were eyeing her strangely?
“Are you a kept woman?”
Bri was from the twentieth century but she knew what that meant. “No. I just have no place to go at the moment.”
“We’ll be reaching Gasconade before nightfall. You can get off there.”
And do what, Bri wondered? At the moment her only link to…herself, really, was the Arabia.
“I’d better go. Thank you for your time…” Again she was at a loss for names.
“Maggie Miller,” the woman said with a smile. “You know Mathew, and that’s his sister, Rebecca, and this is Sally.” She nodded to the infant. “We’re off to see their father in Omaha. He’s been gone nigh on eight months getting us a home ready.”
Bri felt sadness wash over her at the thought the Arabia would never reach Omaha. She stood, reminding herself that while she didn’t know her reasons for being here, she couldn’t tell this woman to get off and take the stage to Omaha. Not only would the woman not believe her without a reason, but Bri felt intuitively that she had better not interfere with history.