| |
Loggers Run, Pennsylvania
Kate Royston
Kate allowed herself to fall asleep on the final leg of her journey, because the station at Loggers Run was now the end of the line. The train tracks that had run down into the town in the valley and along the riverbank no longer existed. Knowing that there was no danger she would sleep past her stop and end up far from her destination, Kate was finally able to relax. She had been vigilant on the numerous small trains that had carried her up into the hills far beyond Pittsburgh. If she had missed her connection at any of those junctions, she would have lost a whole day or maybe even two days, but now she had reached the point of no return. She had no choice but to leave the train.
Although she had bought nothing to eat or drink, the dollar bills had dwindled as she’d purchased connecting tickets. She had no money left to stay at even a modest guesthouse or to purchase so much as a cup of coffee. She definitely did not have enough to pay for a pony and trap to take her up to the house. This was it. She was once again penniless, but at least she was almost home.
The conductor roused her from a sound sleep when the train puffed into the final stop on the branch line.
“This is Loggers Run, miss. End of the line. Train can’t go no farther.”
She awoke with a start. Her neck was stiff from the way she had fallen asleep with her head on her portmanteau. She felt a twinge of pain as she turned her head to look out of the window at the familiar little station. The great flood had not come this way, and the station looked the same as ever. As a girl, this railway had been her magic carpet, transporting her to the glittering world beyond her valley. These were the tracks that had carried her and her mother as they had embarked on the journey that would take them to New York to buy fine clothing for her eighteenth-birthday ball. Here was where she had come a year ago, fleeing in shame and horror.
She rose clumsily to her feet, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She stepped down onto the platform, and the conductor handed down her bag. “I doubt you’ll find a porter here, miss. The town’s in a pretty bad way. You know about the flood, of course. Washed away the rest of the tracks. We can’t go down into the valley.”
“Yes, I know,” Kate said. “Don’t worry. I can manage.”
Her bag was light and almost empty. She had a sudden memory of Joe Bayliss snatching the bag from her hand on the Carpathia.
“We’ll move faster if I carry this.”
She had been afraid of him then, of his lean, craggy face and his hard gray eyes. She had been even more afraid when Senator Smith had spoken. “The sheriff will take good care of your bag.” A senator and a sheriff!
That was how it all began, she thought. If Joe Bayliss had not taken her bag and forced her to wait for him, she would not be here now. She would have left with the Van Buren family to spend the night, and in the morning, she would have taken her wages and gone in search of another position.
She stood uncertainly on the sidewalk, not taking in her surroundings but chasing what-ifs around in her head. What if the Titanic had not sunk? Would she now be trying to make her way across Europe on her own? What if Great-Aunt Suzanna had been kind? Would she have stayed in Pittsburgh? If Eva Trentham had not broken her leg, would Kate ever have met Danny McSorley? What if Joe Bayliss had not helped her to pawn the pearl brooch? What if the train station at Loggers Run had been destroyed and she could not reach the town of Royston? What if her father had not taken his own life? What if there had never been a flood? What if the dam had been properly constructed?
A loud hiss called her back to reality. The locomotive was getting ready to shunt the train back out of the station and reconnect it to the main line. The train was going where she could no longer go.
She stepped away from the shady refuge of the train station and looked at the narrow road ahead. She stood on a high point here, and the road curved away downhill. From the corner of her eye, she could see a tangle of washed-out railroad tracks, the obvious reason why the train could not go on down into the valley. If she walked a few hundred yards, she would reach the bend in the road and see the town, or what was left of it.
She walked slowly, allowing the afternoon sun to warm her stiff limbs. Up here in the hills that constituted the “icebox” of Pennsylvania, spring was always a late arrival. In Washington the trees had been in full leaf, but here she saw only a few tentative buds and a slight misting of green on low-growing bushes.
She sniffed the air, her nose searching for something else that was not there. The pulp mill stood several miles away from the town itself, but even the lightest of breezes from the east would carry with it the sulfurous odor of the mill as it turned wood pulp into paper. For the people of Royston, the odor had been an everyday reminder that the mill was making money for their wages. Today she smelled nothing but budding foliage. The mill was not running. The town was dead.
She turned the corner and looked down into the valley. The water from the dam burst had drained away now, and Loggers Run was attempting to return to its original bed. It was now nothing but a harmless trickle of water wending its way through the ruined town, dividing to flow around the remnants of the remaining bridge pillars, and diverting around the sturdy brick foundations of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. What about the Catholic cemetery? What had happened to the dead buried there over the last century? Had they, too, been swept down the valley on the great wave of water? The Presbyterians, her people, had built their church and their graveyard above the dam. Kate’s mother would rest in peace in her grave, and her father would still be lying nearby, unmourned and unmarked.
Main Street was still clearly discernible as a ribbon of cracked pavement threading through the chaos. Despite the fact that many of the houses were sitting askew or lying on their sides, the street was clear of debris and crowded with pedestrians. The First Bank of Royston had suffered scorched brickwork, and its windows were boarded up, but the doors stood open and people moved in and out. A clumsily lettered sign revealed the presence of Klebbert’s Department Store, now housed in a makeshift barnlike structure. An old timber house leaning drunkenly askew declared itself as Royston Hotel. Kate lifted her eyes to the opposite bank of the creek. The floodwaters and the fire that had followed the flood had destroyed all signs of life on the hillside, replacing greenery and houses with mountainous piles of logs—the thousand cords of timber that had been intended for the pulp mill.
Kate reluctantly turned her gaze upstream, where once the cement dam had loomed over the town. She had never thought of the great wall of cement as anything dangerous, but she, of course, had lived above the dam. Her fine house stood alone at the far end of the lake, where she could enjoy the sight of weeping willows dipping their fronds in the water, and where her father kept a small sailboat for the entertainment of his friends. She had lived all her life in that house beside that lake without a thought for the millions of gallons of water held in check by one small cement dam.
The dam had not completely disappeared. Although great chunks of cement had broken away and crashed down into the valley, sections of the dam still remained, like great gaping white teeth in the tumbled landscape.
She let her gaze wander along the hillside. There had once been a path that skirted the main street and followed the contours of the land up to the Royston mansion. If it still existed, she could avoid walking through town, but what would that accomplish? Word of her return would spread quickly enough. She could see no point in hiding. You have to face your demons, Kate. You can never outrun them.
She lifted her bag and set off down the hill toward the town. In her plain overcoat, inconspicuous hat, and gray dress, she looked nothing like the elegant daughter of Philip Royston, but it would not take long for someone to recognize her. Strangers rarely came to Royston. She could see the road clear ahead and the path that would take her up the hill to her own house, or what was left of it. She wondered if anything remained of the elegant parlor, the wide, welcoming porch, and her father’s wood-paneled study.
March 4, 1911
He had been drinking all day, and Kate did not know what to do. The father she loved and trusted, the man who had built a business that sustained an entire town, had vanished, to be replaced by a disheveled madman who paced the floor reading and rereading the front page of the two-day-old Knox Courier.
Kate ventured out onto the front porch. The setting sun was casting a golden light over the pall of smoke that shrouded the ruined town. A light breeze carried the stench of the still-smoldering buildings and the inarticulate sounds of anger and grief. Her reluctant footsteps carried her down the terraced steps and across the lawn to the weeping willow beside the lake. The spring-green branches that had so recently promised new life fluttered in the acrid wind and bent down to seek the cool waters of the lake, but the lake was gone, and in its going, it had destroyed everything in its path.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the sounds rising from the valley gained shape and coalesced into an angry thunder of voices. Kate’s father stumbled out onto the porch, suddenly sober, suddenly the father she knew.
“Go to your room, Kate, and pack a bag. Take only what you can carry, and take your mother’s jewelry.”
She hesitated.
“Now!” he thundered. “Do it now. They’re coming for us.”
“Who?”
His eyes were wild again. “The dead and the living. They are all coming.”
Still she hesitated. “But it’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Can’t you explain?”
He waved a wild hand toward the valley and the rising chorus of voices. “They won’t listen.”
A year had passed since that night. Spring had returned to the valley, and so had she. She knew that she had no choice. She would no longer be the girl who ran away. She wondered what her life would now have been if she had never followed her father into the forest. She opened the vault in her mind where she kept her memory of that night, and she gave herself permission to examine it in the light of everything she now knew.
Her father had carried her bag into the forest just as Joe Bayliss had carried her bag on the Carpathia. From their hiding place, father and daughter had watched as people they knew, people who had always treated them with courtesy, rampaged through the house beside the vanished lake. When the first bright flames blossomed at the windows, Kate’s father led her deeper into the forest. She still thought she was safe. She still thought that her father would somehow make matters right. She had not expected the gunshot.
When morning came, she did not return to the house. Her father had left her alone, but she could not leave him—not yet. Whatever he had done, he did not deserve to be left for the wolves and coyotes, and so she crept out of the forest and up to the church door, where the Reverend Mr. Dayton would surely know what to do. An unmarked grave and a burial in the dead of night.
She took a deep breath. A year had passed since then, and she was no longer that frightened girl who ran away in terror. She set out along the main street, firmly resisting the temptation to break into a nervous scurrying. In a town where most people were walking purposefully, a silly girl skittering from shadow to shadow would only draw attention to herself. She decided to walk at a steady pace and hold her head high. She was Philip Royston’s daughter, but she had nothing to be ashamed of. No one had accused her of allowing faulty construction of the dam. She had been a child when the cement had been poured and the engineer’s warnings had been ignored.
She passed the bank, the store, and the hotel without being recognized. She approached a small knot of men in suits. One of them held up a large sheet of paper, a drawing or plan of some kind. They blocked her path as they stared up at one of the ramshackle buildings. The building’s stone foundation was still in place, but the rest of the building leaned precariously to one side. She recognized the color of the painted siding, and she could still make out some of the lettering. This had been the Sears and Roebuck Catalog Store, always busy with people coming in to purchase anything from baby clothes to cookstoves. The men spoke excitedly, and she felt a little of their excitement. They were rebuilding. The town of Royston was far from dead. She wondered if they planned to restore the pulp mill. She supposed that the mill now belonged to her, as her father’s sole heir. Why had she never thought of that? Was it up to her to restore the mill?
A figure broke free from the knot of men, and she recognized the Reverend Mr. Dayton, the man who had helped her to flee the drowned town. His long face first registered puzzlement and then recognition. She searched the faces of the other men. She knew them all by sight and most of them by name. They were the ones who had come to her house the morning after the disaster to accuse her father. They were the ones who had shown him the newspaper.
She dragged her mind away from that dreadful remembrance. The Reverend Mr. Dayton was still speaking. “We’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?”
Where have I been? Kate thought. How can I tell you of all the places I’ve been? I’ve sailed out on the North Atlantic to the very place where the Titanic sank. I’ve seen the survivors come on board. I’ve met the richest woman in America. I’ve fallen in love with a man who looked like a Viking and turned out to be a coward. I’ve done so many things that I cannot even list them, but none of them are important. The important thing is that I am here now, with the men who drove my father to suicide and burned my house, and I am going to face them. I am not going to run.
New York Harbor
Senator William Alden Smith
Nana clutched at Bill’s arm as they stepped out of the cab and stared up at the vast bulk of the Olympic. Bill could not repress a shudder as he saw the massive ship safely docked in the berth that had been intended for the Titanic. He remembered waiting on this shore in the cold, driving rain and seeing the Carpathia drop the Titanic’s lifeboats into the great gaping space that should have housed the White Star Line’s mammoth new ship. That had been just a few weeks ago, but much had happened since then, and now he was here to try to make sense of what the survivors had told him.
“How could she sink?” Nana said softly. “How could anything so magnificent just disappear beneath the waves? Is she really Titanic’s twin?”
“Almost,” Bill said. “There are a few minor differences, but basically the same hull and the same interior ... the same watertight bulkheads.”
Nana shook her head. “All that magnificence gone in a minute,” she said. “I suppose she’s just lying on the seabed now. It’s hard to even imagine. Beds, tables, people’s luggage, just resting on the bottom.”
“I don’t think it’s like that,” Bill said. “From what people have said, she broke in two as she went down. I imagine the wreckage is scattered.”
Nana shivered. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.” She looked up as a smartly dressed elderly gentleman approached along the busy quayside. “Do you suppose this is the man we’re supposed to meet?”
Bill studied the approaching stranger. He had expected a White Star officer in uniform, but maybe this was a civilian manager or one of White Star’s engineers, although he seemed rather too elderly for such a position.
“Senator Smith?” the man inquired.
“Yes. Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir, and madam.” The newcomer’s voice was almost aggressively British, with the slight drawl created by an elite education. To Bill, it was a voice that declared the speaker superior to all others. The man had hardly said more than a few words, and already Bill felt offended.
The man extended his hand. “Captain Godfrey Fowler,” he said. “I’m retired now, but I am happy to continue to represent the White Star Line. Captain Haddock would have welcomed you himself, but he is under considerable pressure preparing for the next departure.”
Fowler made a sweeping gesture to encompass the activity on the dock and on the decks of the Olympic. “Food and beverage,” he said, “coal, water, freight, trunks sent on in advance, livestock, all have to be loaded and tidied away before our passengers come aboard. I never commanded a ship of this size—we didn’t have one this size in my day—but the process is the same. Why don’t we go on board, and I’ll show you around? What in particular did you want to see?”
Bill stared up at the ship that towered above him. What did he want to see? All of it, he thought, but mostly I want to see what I can’t see. I want to see where the bridge officers put the ice warnings. I want to see where Bruce Ismay cornered the captain and told him to increase speed.
Fowler took Bill’s hesitation as an invitation to devise his own tour schedule. He gestured to a gangplank, the only one not swarming with workers. “We’ll go in here. This is the best way to reach the grand staircase and the first-class accommodations.”
As he led them up the gangplank, he pointed to a broad promenade deck, where deck chairs had already been arrayed. “This is B deck promenade,” he said. “On the Titanic, this deck was enclosed to make additional cabins. Sir Bruce Ismay had one of the parlor suites that were created in the remodeling.” He turned his head to look at Bill. “How is Sir Bruce?”
“I believe he is well,” Bill said stiffly.
Fowler nodded. “Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. Don’t know what will happen to him now. It’s just not on, you see. It’s simply not on.”
Bill assumed that the something that was “not on” was the fact that Ismay was still alive. He said nothing and allowed Fowler to lead them into the interior of the ship, where he stopped short in amazement. A stained-glass dome shed diffused light on a grand staircase ornamented with carved banisters and newel posts. The staircase led up to a landing, where it divided into two directions, leading, he thought, to the first-class cabins. He imagined how it would be every night at sea, when the rich and powerful, splendid in their evening clothes, descended to dine at tables set with crystal glasses, gleaming silverware, and starched linen tablecloths. He thought of Nana’s words. The twin of this floating palace was now lying on the seabed. In time, it would be consumed by the ocean, but for now, perhaps the crystal glasses were still intact and the silverware had only just begun to corrode.
Nana tightened her grip on his arm. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s so sad.”
Fowler turned to her and his expression softened. “It is indeed, madam. We have found some difficulty in filling the ship’s accommodations and even in signing on a crew. Assurances had to be made that such a disaster could never happen again.”
“How could you ever make such an assurance?” Bill asked impatiently. “Am I to assume that the White Star Line knows exactly what went wrong and therefore can avoid a repeat performance?”
Fowler shook his head. “No, of course not. Speaking from experience, I would say it is not just one thing that went wrong, but many things—a chain of events leading to an inevitable disaster. I have offered to give my opinion at the British inquiry. In fact, I will be sailing on this ship when she leaves New York.”
“And you’re not afraid?” Nana asked.
“No, madam, I am not,” Fowler said firmly. “The sea and I have an agreement.”
Bill fixed the image of the grand staircase in his mind. He had not come here to see stained glass and elaborate woodwork, but he was glad to have seen what he had seen, because now he could paint his own picture of the night of April 14, when this staircase had been crammed with passengers from all classes. Some would have been wearing life jackets, but some would have refused to believe that anything was wrong. Gentlemen, facing the reality that they would not be allowed in a lifeboat, would probably have turned here at the foot of the stairs and gone into the smoking room and bar. A steward, holding to his post in the face of disaster, would have remained behind the bar, serving drinks—maybe drinking something himself.
“I want to see the lifeboats,” Bill said abruptly. He suspected that Nana would like to peek into the cabins, but he felt an abrupt need for fresh air. Although the Olympic had already made a number of uneventful transatlantic voyages, he could not shake the shadow of the Olympic’s twin and the feeling that he was trapped in a magnificent coffin.
“The lifeboats,” Fowler repeated. “Yes, I suppose that would be pertinent. Follow me, and I’ll take you to the boat deck.”
Bill’s feeling of claustrophobia lifted as he emerged into the open air of the boat deck. From this position, he could see in through the windows of the bridge and the radio room. He glanced inside and saw no movement. No doubt all the officers were elsewhere, making sure everything was prepared.
Fowler pointed away from the bridge, toward a section of open decking where the lifeboats were housed. “This is our full inventory,” he said. “Fourteen standard lifeboats, two emergency cutters, and four collapsibles. We keep the two cutters in their davits, ready to be lowered in an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” Nana asked.
“Man overboard,” Fowler said, “or perhaps to take someone ashore. They’re rarely used.”
Bill looked at the lifeboats, gleaming, like everything else, under a fresh coat of paint. “It’s not enough,” he said. “How many passengers are on the Olympic?”
“Usually around two thousand three hundred.”
“But those boats would never carry two thousand three hundred people,” Nana said.
Fowler nodded his agreement. “No, of course not, madam. The lifeboats are only intended to ferry passengers to a rescue ship.”
“And if there is no rescue ship?” Nana asked.
“It is not something we usually envisage in this kind of vessel,” Fowler admitted. “The ship itself, with its watertight compartments and greater buoyancy, is its own lifeboat in a way.”
“In a way!” Nana sniffed.
A rather spiteful expression crept across Fowler’s face. “Alexander Carlisle, the original designer of these ships, suggested somewhere between forty-eight and sixty-four lifeboats per ship. I am told that Sir Bruce Ismay raised the loudest objection to such a thing. He said they would only be obstructions on the deck and the presence of so many lifeboats would make the passengers nervous.” He gestured at the lifeboats. “We have twenty, and that is more than is required by the law.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Nana declared. “There is something wrong with your law.”
Fowler raised his distinguished eyebrows. “The lifeboat requirement is based on the tonnage of the vessel and not the number of passengers.” He lowered his eyebrows again. “I think we should consider rewriting that law.”
“Oh, we will consider it,” Bill said.
The eyebrows were raised again. “It’s a British ship under British law.”
Bill could feel his anger rising. “It’s a British ship carrying American passengers and entering American ports. I think we have some say in the matter.”
Fowler shrugged. “Maybe so, Senator. I assume that will be within the purview of your committee.”
Bill stared in silence at the lifeboats while the words of the survivors echoed in his head.
The ship lunged forward, and a great wave rolled up over the bridge. I turned my back on the ship and dived forward into the icy water.
I didn’t get into a lifeboat. I waited. We were all there, waiting. Masses of us. Just hanging on until the last breath. And then I sat on the rail and I jumped.
I saw a pack of dogs running loose on the deck. They didn’t know what was happening, poor beasts. They were just running, you know, for the fun of it.
It was like being in a nightmare. People screaming and shouting, the steam whistle shrieking, ropes tangled, immigrants locked down belowdecks, lifeboats launched sideways and upside down, and some of them half-empty, and all those people left behind.
“Bill! Bill!”
He returned from his nightmare vision to see Nana’s worried face and realized that someone else was now standing beside Captain Fowler.
“This is Fred Barrett,” Fowler said. “I’ve had him brought up from the engine room to speak to you. I didn’t think your good lady would want to go down there among the oil and coal dust. Mr. Barret was on board the Titanic.”
Barrett removed his cap to reveal dark eyes and a head of dark hair. His overalls were grimy. He extended his hand and then pulled it back to wipe it with a red rag. Finally, still unhappy with the state of his hands, he offered Nana a slight bow and nodded his head to Bill. “Fred Barret, lead stoker,” he said.
“Oh my,” Nana said. “Are you really going back to sea after all that you’ve seen?”
“It’s my living,” Barrett said. “Not much choice.”
“I thought you would want to hear Mr. Barrett’s story,” Fowler said. “He had a very lucky escape.”
“Yes, I did,” Barrett declared. “I was right there, sir. I was right where that blooming iceberg came in. We were running hot, all but one engine fired up. I was talking to Mr. Hesketh, the second engineer, when the red light and bells came on, signaling us to stop the engines. I shouted to the men in the boiler room to shut the dampers, and then the water starts coming in, and pretty soon it’s pouring in.
“I did my duty, sir. I went to help with boiler five, and then I got the order to go back to boiler six, but I couldn’t, you know—the boiler room was full of water, all the way up. I heard the order for the stokers to go up topside, but Engineer Harvey told me to stay and get some lamps. So I got lamps, and by the time I went up, there were only two lifeboats left. I got into lifeboat thirteen, and we was going down the side when lifeboat fifteen came down on top of us, nearly drowned us all. I took charge for a while, being a crewman and all, but I think I passed out. I didn’t know nothing until the Carpathia came up alongside of us.”
Bill looked at Barrett and then at Fowler. What was he supposed to make of this interview? Barrett had told him nothing he didn’t already know. He had only confirmed that chaos had reigned, or perhaps there was more to it than Fowler was willing to say.
“You say you were running hot?” Bill said.
“Yes, sir. Sunday afternoon, we had orders to light up three more boilers.”
“And what does that mean in layman’s terms?” Bill asked.
“Full speed ahead,” Barret said. “We were doing seventy-seven revolutions.”
“And do you know who gave those orders to light up the boilers?”
“Orders from the bridge,” Barrett said. “All orders come from the bridge.”
Fowler stepped in to dismiss the stoker. “Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Safe voyage.”
“I should blooming hope so,” Barrett responded, replacing his cap and walking away.
“Have you seen everything you wish to see?” Fowler asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Perhaps I should ask you if you have heard everything you need to hear. Has Mr. Barrett explained the situation in the boiler room to your satisfaction?”
When Bill failed to respond, Fowler led them back to the dock. He stood looking up at the great ship with a wistful expression. “I would have loved such a command,” he said, “but Captain Smith had earned the right to the Titanic. He was retiring, you know. It was to be his last voyage. We all reach the point where we have to hand the reins to another, younger man. It is, as you can see, such a great responsibility.”
Bill wanted to speak, but he sensed that he would learn more if he said nothing.
“Ship captains are masters of their own kingdom,” Fowler said. “They give the orders. No one else gives the orders. No one!”
“So the order to light up the boilers came from ...”
“From the bridge,” Fowler said, “and from no one and nowhere else.”
He pointed to a heavy truck making its way along the dock to stand beside the ship. “That’s the mail truck. There will be seven postal workers on board Olympic, sorting mail throughout the voyage. The Royal Mail contract is a good contract. RMS means something. Royal Mail Ship Olympic. RMS Titanic. It’s a responsibility. It’s a contract to deliver the mail on time.” He gave Bill a long, steady look. “On time,” he repeated.
When Bill failed to reply, Fowler nodded to Nana. “I am glad to have met you, Mrs. Smith.” He offered his hand to Bill. “Keep up the good work, Senator. I think we would all like to see changes.”
“What on earth was that about?” Nana asked as Captain Fowler walked away.
“I think it was about speaking ill of the dead,” Bill replied.
Knox, Pennsylvania
Joe Bayliss
Joe’s patience, never his strongest suit, gave out when he stepped off the train at Knox and was informed that he could not take a train to Royston.
“Why not?” he growled. “The B&O in Washington told me this was the route, so why can’t I go?”
The ticket clerk, alarmed by Joe’s fierce glare, took a step back from the window. “You can go as far as Loggers Run,” he said, “but there ain’t no tracks after that. You’d think they’d know that in Washington.”
Joe tried not to growl again. “Well, they don’t,” he said.
“You can go by rail to Loggers Run,” the clerk said, “but then you’ll have to walk.”
“How far?”
“About a mile, I would say.”
“Okay, sell me a ticket to Loggers Run.”
The clerk scratched his head. “There ain’t no train today.”
“Tomorrow?”
The clerk shook his head. “Wednesday is the soonest. Only comes every three days. Not much call to go there since the flood, what with the mill being closed and most of the people gone.”
“I can’t wait until Wednesday. What am I supposed to do here until Wednesday?”
The clerk shrugged. “We have a hotel, and we have moving pictures showing at the Grand Theater. A man can spend a few days here without being bored.” He cocked his head to one side and reassessed Joe’s face. “Maybe not you,” he said. “Maybe you won’t find much to do. We’re quiet people.”
“What about a livery stable? I’ll rent a horse and buggy.”
The clerk pursed his lips. “Not sure about getting a buggy down that road. They’re still picking up the pieces, you know.” He shook his head and sucked his teeth. “Terrible business. The fellow killed himself, or so they say.”
“People say all kinds of things,” Joe said. “Doesn’t mean you have to repeat them. Point me to the livery stable. I’ll get a horse.”
An hour later, with the sun riding high in a cloudless sky, Joe was riding an uncooperative brown gelding on a narrow trail that threaded its way through forested hills in a generally northward direction. He sat deep in the saddle and exercised considerable patience in letting the gelding discover who exactly was going to be in control. He’d never seen the point of treating an animal harshly just because it had never been taught the right way to do things. With the sun warming his shoulders and birds warbling and cheeping from every tree, he was content for the moment to allow the gelding its head, so long as it continued to plod along the trail in the right direction.
At least the horse didn’t startle or buck at every creature that disturbed the undergrowth around them. As for the creatures themselves, well, their brains seemed to have abandoned them with the arrival of spring and the start of the mating season. Creatures that should have been hiding in the tall grass as he passed flung themselves carelessly across his path. Two squirrels blocked his way, chittering angrily at each other. Males, he thought, fighting over some girl squirrel, who was no doubt perched in a tree and looking down in satisfaction at the trouble she had created.
Making fools of themselves, he thought. That’s what we men do in spring. That’s probably what I’m doing, and I can no more stop myself than the two squirrels rolling and scratching each other on the dusty trail.
He detoured around the aggressive suitors and encouraged the gelding into a lazy canter. He didn’t have all day to wander through the woods and contemplate the foolishness of chasing after Kate Royston. A man like Jacob Astor could marry a girl half his age and be applauded by society, but there was surely something pathetic about Joe’s desire to take care of Kate. Even now he could not admit, even to himself, what he really wanted. He settled for telling himself that he only intended to make sure she was safe. He knew how much money she’d received for the pearl brooch, and he knew what the train journey had cost him. She was three days ahead of him, so by now she would be penniless again. She was going to need someone to take care of her and see her back to New York, where she would be safe with Eva Trentham. Despite her bitter remarks, he knew Eva would take her back. So perhaps he could help her reach New York, and if not New York, maybe Michigan ... maybe.
The gelding slowed to a halt as the path emerged from the forest onto a promontory overlooking a deep valley and a ruined town. Joe sucked in his breath. The devastation was astounding. He’d seen floods before, resulting from ice jams on the St. Marys River, but the damage they caused was gentle compared to what had happened to the town of Royston. Here the hand of God had been harsh and violent, and had smashed the community into matchsticks.
He looked away from the town. The report Myra Grunwald had found spoke of the Royston mansion being situated above the town and away from the flood damage. He could easily see where the dam had once been, not just because of the tumbled remnants of cement but because there was only one place where a narrow gap between the hills offered the perfect place to build a dam.
He turned back to the trail and was pleased to see that it did not lead downhill, but instead, it wended its way along a ridge, following a path that would take him above the ruined dam. He caught a glimpse of a brick building some way ahead and encouraged the gelding into a lumpy canter. Kate’s house had burned, but apparently, some buildings remained.
The path brought him to a solid redbrick church with a squat tower and clear glass windows. Unlike the devastation down below in the valley, this building appeared undamaged. He moved on past the church and realized at once that he was on a path that had once followed the shore of the lake that had been created by building the dam. A stand of weeping willows lowered their budding branches hopefully to the ground, but they would not be trailing them in the water this year. The water had retreated back into the original valley, leaving behind a wasteland of mud traversed by a meandering creek.
He could see the remains of a house on the far side of the dried-up lake. So this was the Royston mansion. He thought it had once been quite splendid, and even in its burned and ruined condition, it showed signs of the Italianate style currently favored by the wealthy. It had been built in the same red brick as the church, and although its bricks were scorched and the roof had collapsed, he could still discern a fanciful tower and even some intricate fretwork around what had once been the front porch.
Was it habitable? he wondered. Was Kate somewhere inside, among the ruins of what had once been her life? He urged the horse forward. If she was not in the house, he would have to turn back and go down into the ruined town. He thought she was probably unsafe in either place. If her father had been blamed for the devastation Joe had witnessed, she could not be safe among the people who had blamed him.
He saw a small graveyard set midway between the house and the church and bounded by wrought-iron railings. He caught a flash of color and movement among the white headstones. He knew her immediately, in the dark coat she had worn when he had first met her on board the Carpathia. It was not the color of the coat that had caught his attention but the flowers she was arranging on a mound of spring grass—a grave that bore no headstone. Her head was down, focusing on the flowers. Daffodils, he thought. Where had she found daffodils?
He dismounted, hitched the gelding to the railing, and approached her slowly, allowing his boots to crunch against the gravel path so that she would not be startled when his shadow fell across her.
She kept her head down. She would not look at him.