CHAPTER
33 
Black smoke belched out of the smokestacks as the Grand Republic steamed out of Saint Louis and down the Mississippi. Kindle and I stood at the aft railing, watching Saint Louis disappear around a wide bend in the river. Everything had happened quickly after Charlotte’s letter. A telegram had arrived within a week, with the sailing date from New Orleans two short weeks from then. Kindle and I owned little enough that our possessions fit into one trunk, but it was the separation from people we’d grown fond of that was the most difficult part of leave-taking.
Mary and I had fallen into a routine of sitting down to coffee in the late afternoon after my classes were over and before she made her rounds to check on the other nuns and their charges. During our last meeting, Mary had seemed to steel herself for a dreaded conversation and said, “I would like to thank you.”
“Heavens. What for?”
“Thank you for seeing what I did not in Sophia. When I think of what kind of life I was sentencing her to, the lost possibilities … Sometimes, it’s enough to make me consider resigning. If I did that with her, how many other children have I misread?”
I sipped my coffee. “Sophia’s afraid you’re going to place her in service when we leave. I assured her you wouldn’t.”
“No. I expect the orphanage to make a little money from her midwifing skills. She will get a portion, of course.”
“Don’t be afraid to give her responsibilities. It will give her purpose and importance. She thrives on both.”
“I will. I expect she’s going to be quite worthless for a few days after you two leave. We will be here when you and my baby brother return. Maybe with a niece or nephew in tow.”
“We’ll see.”
Now, the day after our parting, I shielded my eyes against the Western sun and squinted up at Kindle, debating whether to tell him the dark days hadn’t come that month. In the whirlwind of getting ready to leave, we’d both forgotten about it. It wasn’t until Mary mentioned it the day before that I realized I was a week late, and that my breasts were tender. It was too early and there were too many possibilities for disaster to tell Kindle and get his hopes up. I determined to remain silent, and felt guilty for it.
“What is there to do on a steamboat besides watch the world go by?” I said.
“Gamble. Eat. Socialize.”
“I don’t think socializing is in our best interest.”
Though months had passed since Henry’s story of our deaths in Indian Territory at the hands of Lorcan Reed, Kindle and I decided it was best to be as inconspicuous as possible.
“I suppose that means we will have to spend most of our time in the cabin.”
I shook my head and chuckled. “You do realize we have the rest of our lives to discover new and interesting ways to copulate?”
His one eye raked over me in the most inappropriate way. “Have you tired of me already, Slim?” He squeezed my hip.
A cabin boy holding a footstool walked by. I stepped away from Kindle a little. The boy lit the nearest gas lamp, picked up his footstool, and moved to the next. A few couples walked by arm and arm, taking the air before dinner in the long salon.
“Do not forget how thin our cabin walls are,” I said. I pulled Henry Pope’s gambling chip from my purse.
“Where did you get that?”
“From Henry all those months ago. I wonder what Henry’s doing.”
“Probably losing every dime he makes off Sawbones in the gambling halls and the whorehouses.”
“Don’t forget the pubs. I miss Henry.”
“So do I,” Kindle said. “You trust me to gamble?”
“I want to see you glare at your opponent with one eye, and put the fear of God in them.”
Kindle laughed. “What a picture you paint. Too bad they don’t let women in the gambling rooms.”
“What?”
“They don’t let respectable women in.”
“I’m not respectable.”
Kindle drew me to him and kissed my forehead. “Yes, but I’m the only one allowed to know that. You must know sashaying into a gambling den on my arm would bring unwanted attention to us.”
“I’ve never sashayed in my life.”
A nearby boat’s horn sounded a warning to a small flatboat struggling upstream against the powerful Mississippi current. Laughter and voices from a steamboat docked nearby carried across the water. There was a shot, then a cry followed by a plop into the water.
“Was that a gunshot?” I looked around.
“Good heavens.”
Kindle laughed heartily. “After all we’ve been through, a gunshot on the river is scandalizing you?”
“I suppose I’ve gone soft these past few months.”
“This is the river, darlin’. Danger at every turn.” Kindle gave me his arm and we started down the starboard side of the boat. “There’s probably a bridge game in the women’s salon you can get in.”
“I’d rather be on the receiving end of that bullet. I prefer faro,” I said, expertly flipping the coin between the fingers of my left hand. “I’m quite good.”
“I have no doubt.”
“Are you good at poker?”
“I know to quit when I’m ahead. I prefer gambling on events. Fights, races, which fly will alight first.”
I handed him the coin. “Don’t lose it all on the first hand.”
Kindle palmed the chip. “I will do my best,” he said, and kissed my temple.
“I don’t like you going without me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you realize how appealing that eye patch makes you to a certain type of woman.”
“Rest assured, you are the only type of woman I want. Let’s eat.”
We asked for and received a table in the far corner of the long salon, hoping to avoid prying, curious eyes. Kindle’s eye patch drew attention wherever he went, so he sat in the chair facing away from the other diners.
The salon was lavish almost to the point of bad taste. The walls were painted with a large mural depicting the story of the United States, from the founding of Jamestown to the final spike driven for the transcontinental railroad. I studied the mural while Kindle ordered for us.
When the waiter left, I said, “Did you know our great country was founded without one woman contributing? An astonishing feat.”
Kindle glanced at the mural and reached for my hand. “It seems the artist had an affinity for wars and exploration.”
I shook my head. “We’re going to be wiped from history.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, look.” I waved my hand at the mural. “Men are writing the history. They give no due whatsoever to the women who are beside them.” I leaned forward. “I know I agreed to become a midwife when we finally do settle down one day, and I’m not going back on the promise. But, it pains me to think that there will be one less woman breaking through into a man’s field. It’s almost enough for me to return to New York and clear my name.”
Kindle dipped his chin and glared at me. “We’ve killed too many people to go that route.”
The waiter brought a bottle of wine. I removed my hand from Kindle’s and sat back while the waiter served the wine to him. He was right, of course. The list of dead we’d left in our wake scrolled through my mind. Every one would be brought up in my trial and used against me as proof of my character and my ability to take a man’s life. The familiar sensation of loss returned. Whenever I thought I was finally resolved to giving up my profession, grief overcome me.
Kindle approved the wine. The waiter poured a small portion in my glass and a larger one in Kindle’s.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Please fill mine equally.” With a frown, the waiter looked at Kindle. “You don’t need his approval,” I said. “Fill my glass.”
“Fill it, please,” Kindle said.
I inhaled and glared at the waiter while he obeyed. Almost before he finished pouring, I took the glass and drank deeply, keeping my eyes on the waiter, who left in a huff.
“So much for being inconspicuous,” Kindle said.
“Thank you for allowing me to have more wine,” I said.
“It’s not like that, Laura. I didn’t want to cause a scene.”
I breathed deeply a few times. “I know. I just feel so helpless at times, restricted by other people’s expectations, and it angers me.”
“And, you’re used to barreling through and getting what you want.”
“I rarely get what I want. But, I always make my point.”
Kindle lifted his glass. “To my beautiful, strong-willed, fiercely intelligent wife.”
We drank and Kindle waited. He raised his eyebrow. “This is where you say something complimentary about me.”
“Yes, I know. I’m trying to find a way to say it so I won’t scandalize our fellow diners if I’m overheard.”
“Why don’t you save it until we’re alone?”
“With pleasure.”
The waiter brought our first course, refilled our wineglasses, and left. Kindle and I ate, occasionally catching the other’s gaze and smiling amid the clink of silverware on other diners’ plates, the murmur of conversation, and occasional laughter. “Do you remember—” I started.
“Yes.”
We laughed quietly together, reminiscing about the conversation about memorable meals we had during the first night of Kindle’s convalescence. “Who would have imagined what we would have to go through to get here?” I said.
Kindle lifted his glass. “Here’s to a lifetime of quiet dinners.”
I leaned forward. “Though probably not this lavish.”
“No, probably not.” He finished his salad and wiped his mouth. “Do you really not know how to cook?”
“Sophia offered to teach me, but I turned her down.”
“Why?”
“I know my limitations.” I drank my wine and didn’t meet Kindle’s eye, afraid he would read my real reason: a stubborn determination not to be sucked into a life of domesticity. “I can make biscuits. I watched Maureen make Irish stew enough that I might be able to recreate it.”
“I can make beans.”
“Frying an egg can’t be too difficult.”
“I suppose wherever we end up we’ll have to have chickens.”
“I draw the line at wringing one’s neck and plucking the feathers.”
“You can amputate a leg, but don’t want to wring a chicken’s neck. You’re full of strange contradictions.”
“Admit it. It’s one of the things you love most about me.”
Kindle’s eye raked over me in that familiar, inappropriate way. A tingle of anticipation shot through me. I absentmindedly looked over Kindle’s shoulder and saw a handsome, well-dressed man being led by the waiter to a nearby table. The man nodded at me absently, before recognition lit his eyes. He spoke briefly to the waiter and walked toward us while the waiter unfolded the extravagantly arranged napkin and laid it over the back of the chair.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
It was too late to warn Kindle, or tell him about the meeting that had been so inconsequential I’d forgotten about it until that moment. The gambler was beside our table, smiling at me in a friendly way that didn’t meet his eyes.
“Do I know you?”
Lyman’s brows furrowed slightly, but his smile never wavered. “I believe so. Last summer in Saint Louis.”
I shook my head and arranged my face in a puzzled expression. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“Hmm,” Lyman said. “My mistake.” He held out his hand. “John Lyman.”
“I’m Sophia Ryan. This is my husband, William.”
Lyman turned to Kindle and held out his hand, barely disguising his surprise at Kindle’s eye patch. Kindle stood and took the gambler’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” Kindle said.
“Likewise.”
“How do you think you know my wife?” Kindle asked. He was taller than Lyman by a good five inches, and with his eye patch and scowl most men would have faltered at the gruff question. Not Lyman. His full mouth curled into an amused smile and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Saying would hardly be complimentary to either of us.”
Kindle’s mouth hardened into a thin line.
“However, since you seem like reasonable man, and I was obviously mistaken, I thought I met her with a man named Henry Pope. Have you heard of him?”
“No.”
“Interesting man, Henry Pope. Lots of stories. Mostly lies, I imagine, like any newspaperman. Are you a gaming man, Mr. Ryan?”
“I play.”
“Join me for a game after dinner.”
“I don’t think—” I started.
“I’ll find you,” Kindle said.
Lyman looked between the two of us with an amused expression and nodded. “I look forward to it.” A woman dressed in an expensive green silk dress with a plunging neckline entered the dining room. Lyman lifted his hand in acknowledgment. She nodded and let the waiter seat her. “My dinner companion has arrived. Enjoy yours.”
I steamed while we were served our entrees. When we were alone, Kindle spoke before I could. “Do not speak for me like that.”
“He is a professional gambler, William.”
“Who did you think I would be playing on a boat like this?” Kindle said. “I’ve gambled for years, Laura. I know how to handle men like Lyman.”
I sighed. “Of course you do.”
“You met him with Henry?”
I told him about the brief meeting and Henry losing his money to Lyman. “What if he puts together who we are?”
Kindle reached across the table and took my hand. “He won’t. No one knows about William Kindle losing his eye. You don’t resemble your Wanted poster.” I bristled and tried to remove my hand. Kindle squeezed it. “You don’t resemble the stiff, serious, uncomfortable woman who sat for that picture.”
“But he suspects I know Henry.”
“Don’t worry. I can bluff and lie with the best of them.”
“I hope so.”
Kindle left with assurances he would play long enough to not raise suspicions and return to test my ability to restrain myself when surrounded by thin walls, something neither of us had to do while living in a secluded groundskeeper’s cabin.
I pulled a shawl from our trunk. My saddlebags and two extra dresses, Kindle’s clothes, and a few books he had taken from his family home in ’65 was the sum total of our worldly possessions. It wasn’t much, but somehow looked more diminished than when we packed it earlier that morning. I picked up my new medical bag and sat on the bed. Kindle had ordered the bag and had a tanner in Saint Louis put an extra layer of leather on the inside bottom to hide my mother’s necklace and money, if needed. He’d sewn the necklace in before giving it to me, and there it was still, beneath all the medical instruments and medicines necessary for a career as a midwife.
As thrilled and touched as I was with the present, a small part of me grieved for the absence of surgeon’s tools. Kindle was right when he alluded to the danger I would put myself—and him—in if I tried to expand my future practice beyond midwifery. I feared I would never lose the longing to return to my true profession. However, working with Sophia, seeing her blossom into a confident midwife and nurse had opened up a new idea for my future: I could help women just as well in the role of teacher and mentor as a physician and surgeon. Would my pride let me revel in others’ successes and not my own?
Out of the trunk I pulled a needlepoint hoop Mary had given me. I stitched until my fingers were sore and my eyes burned from fatigue, then threw the hoop aside. Where was Kindle? I’d long since lost my father’s pocket watch and had no way to know what time it was, but estimated hours had passed. He should’ve been back by now. What if something had happened to him? I thought of the gunshot and the sound of splashing water from earlier. I adjusted the shawl around my shoulders and left the room.
The splash of the paddle wheel drowned out the sounds of the river, but it couldn’t mask the mingled scent of mud and fish. The shore was a dark lump in the distance, too far outside of the gaslight thrown off by the riverboat to make out clearly.
The long salon was empty save the tables set with cloths and china for the next morning’s breakfast. I walked around the front of the stern-wheeler and down the port side to the main cabin. Men sat in groups at the low tables smoking cigars, talking, and laughing. A quick glance through the window showed Kindle wasn’t among them. The far wall of the main cabin was interspersed with curtains, one of which was partially open and showed a card game in the hidden room. I steeled myself for ridicule, found the door to the cabin, and entered. I went to the first curtain and pulled it back. Empty. I was able to pull two more back before the cigar-smoking men realized what I was doing.
“I say, you there!” one red-faced fat man with a walrus mustache called out. I opened the fourth curtain and surprised a faro game. No Kindle. The fifth compartment was behind the partially opened curtain and defended by four men, including the Walrus. I walked purposefully through and pulled back the curtain.
Kindle lay down his cards with a grin and raked the pot toward him. Lyman’s dinner companion sat on the arm of Kindle’s chair, ran her hand through his hair, pulled his head back, and kissed him deeply. To my astonishment, Kindle didn’t resist.
“William?” His name tumbled from my lips in a strangled cry. I hated myself for the desperation and uncertainty in my voice.
He glanced up in a distracted manner, and saw me. His expression flickered through so many emotions at once it was difficult to know which one to believe.
John Lyman sat next to Kindle. “Your wife has come to take you home.” His thin mustache quivered with amusement. The woman appraised me with a cool look of superiority.
A pair of strong hands grabbed me by the upper arms and pulled me out of the room. The curtain closed and the waiter who held me by the arms frog marched me out of the cabin. “Women aren’t allowed. Unless you’ve got something to sell. Do you?”
I glared at the man and returned to my cabin to wait for Kindle, sure he would be on my heels.