4 

As Skypilot packed the few items he would need for his journey, he felt no excitement about the trip. None at all. Thanks to Penelope’s letter, he had not slept well. Memories of Richmond and the life he had once lived plagued him on and off all night.

He could see the harbor from his window. The bay was peaceful. The sky was a brilliant blue. It had been warmer than usual, and the ice had broken up on the lake two weeks earlier than expected. There was a carnival atmosphere down at the docks because of the early arrival and departure of the steamboats taking supplies from Detroit to the far-flung settlements farther north.

He should have been raring to go, but not after that letter. He felt like he needed to rescue her, much like he’d once rescued slaves who had run from men like her father.

Could he become a successful farmer? He didn’t know. Would he want to preach for that church again? Probably not. Some wounds went too deep.

Could he spend the rest of his life with Penelope?

Ah, that was the real question. The woman who had penned that letter? Maybe. The woman who had put her nose in the air and flounced out without a backward glance while he was standing in the pulpit trying to reason his congregation out of a terrible war? No.

He had loved her once, though, and hated to think of her sitting there at her elegant spinet desk, writing this letter, hoping it would reach him. Wondering what he would say. She would have to wonder awhile longer, however. The boat would be leaving soon, and he could not pen a letter in such a short time. Especially when he had no idea what to say.

The Belle Fortune was one of the smaller steamships, and as Skypilot and Moon Song boarded, he tried to push his concerns about Penelope’s letter aside. They were having fine spring weather, and he was determined to enjoy the trip.

This was the first time he had ridden on one of these ships, and the mechanics fascinated him. He intended to get Moon Song and little Ayasha safely tucked away in their room and then roam around and see if he could figure out how the thing worked.

In the beginning, steamships had the reputation of being unsafe, but he had not heard of an explosion, wreck, or fire for at least a year now. Hopefully, the wrinkles had been ironed out and all would be well from this point on.

The captain was waiting on the deck to greet the passengers. “I’m Captain Fowler.” He shook Skypilot’s hand. “And you are?”

“My name is Isaac Ross. My employer, Robert Foster, made the arrangements for us.”

“Ah yes. He reserved the last two rooms.” The captain glanced at Moon Song standing beside him. “And this is, um, your . . .”

“This is my friend Moon Song. I’m accompanying her back to her home on the Keweenaw.”

He supposed he could forgive the captain for staring. As usual, Moon Song was an interesting sight in her clash of brightly colored white-women clothes and Indian comfort. At the moment, she was also wearing eight-month-old Ayasha in a cradle board on her back.

“And is this your . . . son, ma’am?” The captain craned his neck to see around her. Moon Song obligingly turned completely around so he could see her pride and joy.

Like most cradle boards, Ayasha’s had a strip of wood that curved around his face for protection. From it, Moon Song always tied interesting small objects with which to entertain her baby. A tiny pair of intricately beaded moccasins dangled from it now. These were new. Yesterday she had seemed worried about getting them finished before the trip. She must have been up half the night sewing those beads on.

It occurred to him that perhaps it was more important to her how she and her baby appeared than he’d realized. He was grateful when the captain took notice.

“What lovely workmanship on these little moccasins,” the captain said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen finer.”

Moon Song beamed.

Yes, it mattered to her. It mattered very much. She wanted people on the ship to know that she was a good mother to her son, and she had chosen to work diligently in order to prove it.

“This is little Ayasha,” Skypilot said. “Moon Song stayed at our lumber camp last winter after her husband died. I’m accompanying her back to her people.”

It was more than he needed to say, but somehow he wanted the captain to know that Moon Song was a respectable woman.

“Welcome to my ship, ma’am,” Captain Fowler said. “Dinner will be at six.”

Skypilot decided that he liked the captain very much.

He helped Moon Song deposit the few bundles she’d brought with her into her room and get settled for the next two days. He tried to ignore the look of fear he saw in her eyes as she turned toward him after entering the tiny stateroom.

“I cannot breathe. This room is so small.”

“Nonsense, Moon Song,” he said. “You’ll be able to breathe quite well in here.”

Her eyes grew wider. “I cannot breathe!”

He gave a sigh. He cared deeply about her, but she was such a child sometimes. He guessed he would have to bring her and the baby along with him as he looked around the ship.

“Come along,” he said. “We’ll get you some fresh air.”

There really wasn’t anything “fresh” about it when they came back out on deck. The bay was so filled with boats that the smell of fire and smoke from the belly of all the steamships was all around them.

It was invigorating, though. The crowded bay, the shouts and calls of various sailors, the creaking of the great wooden sailing ships anchored farther out in the bay. Over all was the perpetual smell of fresh pine. That scent seemed to cling to everything in Bay City, from the sawdust sprinkled in the streets, to the lumber camps situated all around, in the very air that they breathed.

Another couple came on board. The woman was dressed impressively in a gown the color of sunshine that showed off her mane of chestnut-colored hair perfectly. The man wore a military officer’s uniform. The woman carried an infant who appeared to be not much older than Ayasha. As she held her infant, the white, lace-edged baby blanket fell gracefully over her left arm.

The woman was not especially beautiful, but she was so exquisitely turned out that it was hard not to stare. He tore his gaze away and looked at Moon Song instead.

That was a mistake. The poor girl certainly suffered by comparison. Her skin wasn’t the lovely, pale white that was the fashion, and the clothing she wore seemed all wrong. Moon Song’s clothes seemed ill-fitting and rumpled beside this woman’s perfectly coiffed, professionally tailored loveliness.

Then, there was that cradle board she insisted on carrying Ayasha around in. If anything made a woman look like a squaw, it was that cradle board. The woman in yellow velvet holding the baby in her arms looked so graceful in comparison.

He saw Moon Song glance at him, then at the woman, then back to him. She must have seen the admiration on his face. He hoped she had not been able to read his thoughts. He would not deliberately hurt Moon Song for the world. In fact, he loved her like a little sister.

Seeing this elegantly dressed woman caused his mind to float back to the letter he continued to carry around in his pocket. Imagine. Penelope had actually humbled herself enough to write and apologize for her actions and invite him back home. He felt an unexpected pang for the gracious culture he had once been part of, one to which Penelope held the key.

He was tired of living in lumber camps, around men whose idea of pleasure was to get drunk and stomp each other senseless. The war was over. Everyone had learned their lesson. Maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones.

The idea of sitting in Penelope’s father’s library, reading from the man’s vast collection of leather-bound volumes, a soft-spoken, grateful wife bringing him coffee, while all around him were rich fields producing food for an impoverished South was a heady one.

He brought his thoughts up short. The plantation would no longer be the graceful oasis it had once seemed. Most of the land was no doubt overgrown with weeds from lack of field hands; the leather-bound volumes were probably musty from neglect; and the soft-spoken wife of his daydream did not exist. Penelope had never been particularly soft-spoken unless she was trying to impress the older women who ruled her social world.

Deep down, he had a nagging suspicion that Penelope was less in love with him than that he was her desperate last chance at a normal life. The war had been so utterly brutal that most of the young, able-bodied men who had once ruled the South were lying now beneath the earth. Left behind were thousands of women longing for homes, husbands, and children. A man who still had his legs, arms, hands, and senses intact was a prize indeed.

There was every chance that Penelope felt nothing more for him than her father would have felt while choosing a prize stallion. She knew he had not fought in the war, so she would be gambling on the chance that he was still healthy and strong. She was also gambling on the chance that his great love for her would pull him back to her if she crooked her little finger.

The problem was—she was not entirely wrong. He had loved her once and deeply. After all that had happened, even he was surprised that the pull to go back to her was so strong.