Forsaken Dreams (3 page)

A tall man with light, wavy hair and wearing a gray three-piece suit, round-brimmed hat, and a pleasant smile on his face leaped from the walkway onto the deck and glanced over the ship, followed by a young couple with a small child, a foppish man all dressed in black with dark sideburns and a goatee, and finally a pregnant woman. Alone, with no husband at her side.

All strangers, yet soon they would become her bunkmates, her neighbors, her companions—perhaps even her friends.

That was, if she could keep her past a secret.

The colonel turned her way again, snapping his fingers at another man crossing the deck. “Forgive me, Mrs. Crawford. Max will see you to your cabin, where”—he scanned the deck—“I believe Mr. Mitchel has already taken your trunk. I trust we shall have a chance to become better acquainted after we set sail?”

She wanted to say she would enjoy that, but that would be too forward. Instead, she merely smiled and thanked him as the man led the way below deck. Standing at the companionway ladder, Eliza cast one last glance over her shoulder and found the colonel’s eyes still on her. Ah, so he had taken note of her. As if reading her thoughts, he chuckled, coughed into his hand, and limped away.

Eliza had never been on a ship before. Born and raised in Marietta, Georgia, she had no reason to take to the sea. As a war nurse, she’d traveled on a train or a coach. Now as she descended below deck and the sunlight abandoned her and the halls squeezed her from both sides, her nerves spun into knots. And they weren’t even out at sea yet! Her skirts swished against the sides of the narrow corridor, and she pressed them down, lest she snag the fabric on the rough wood. They passed another hatchway leading below, and the scent of something altogether unpleasant filled her nose. Thankful that the man didn’t take her in that direction, Eliza followed him to an open door.

“Here ye go, miss. Used t’ be the master’s cabin, but the cap’n reserved it for the single ladies on board.” Max pressed down springs of unruly red hair that circled an equally red face while he allowed liberties with his gaze on Eliza. She took a step back, unsure if it was safe to enter the room with this man in tow. His body odor alone threatened to stir her breakfast into disorder.

“That’s very kind of him. Thank you, sir.” She hoped her curt tone would drive him away. It did. But not before he winked above a grin that revealed a jagged row of gray teeth.

Sunlight filtered in from a small porthole, casting oscillating shafts of light over the cabin as small as a wardrobe. A woman, sitting on the only chair, looked up as Eliza stepped inside.

“Hello, I’m Angeline Moore.”

“Eliza Crawford.” Untying the ribbons beneath her chin, she eased off her bonnet. “Pleased to meet you. I suppose we shall be bunkmates?”

“Yes, and one other lady, I believe.” Angeline stood. Copper curls quivered about her neck. Her smile was pleasant, her cheeks rosy, and her violet eyes alluring. And what Eliza wouldn’t give for such feminine curves as hers. Or would she? Despite her dalliance with the colonel above, she had no interest in attracting men. She’d already tried her hand at marriage, and that had ended miserably.

“One more lady … in here?” Eliza glanced at her trunk, which took up nearly half the room. “With your luggage and the other lady’s, we will be packed in here like apples in a crate.” Her stomach tightened at the thought.

“I don’t have a trunk. Everything I own is right in here.” Angeline pointed to a small, embroidered valise on the table beside her.

Eliza thought it strange to have so little, but she didn’t want to pry. Setting down her pocketbook, she planted her hands at her waist. “But where are the beds?”

Angeline pointed to three pairs of hooks on the deck head. “Hammocks, I believe.” Her lips slanted.

“Oh my.”

“We are better off than most.” A voice coming from the hallway preceded a brown-haired woman with a belly ripe with child. A ray of sunlight speared the porthole and struck the gold cross hanging around her neck, causing Eliza to blink.

“Aside from those who can afford it, most passengers sleep together in the hold,” the woman continued as she set down her case, pressed a hand on her back, and gave both of them a wide grin. “Good thing we are all single women. I’m Sarah Jorden.”

Pleasantries were exchanged between the ladies whom Eliza hoped would soon become good friends.

“I am a nurse,” Eliza offered, sitting down on her trunk. “And you, Mrs. Jorden? What brings you on this adventure?” She patted the spot beside her.

“Please call me Sarah. And I am the teacher.” She smiled, sliding onto the seat. Brown hair drawn back in a bun circled an oval face with plain but pleasant features.

“Are there children coming aboard?” Angeline asked.

“I believe so. Several, in fact,” Sarah said.

Angeline returned to her seat and began fingering the embroidery on her valise. “A teacher and a nurse.” She sighed. “I fear I bring no such useful skills to our adventure. I am only a seamstress and not a very good one at that. In fact, it is unclear why I was even accepted for the journey.”

“Oh rubbish, dear.” Sarah tugged off her gloves. “We shall simply have to discover what talents God has given you.”

A wave of red washed over Angeline’s face. Odd. Perhaps she was just nervous about the journey—the unknown, the new beginning in a strange land. Certainly, being a single woman all alone made it all the more frightening. Or it should. Yet Eliza felt more excitement than fear. The sparkle in Sarah’s eyes indicated she felt the same.

Reaching over, Eliza pulled the pamphlet out from her valise. The pamphlet she’d read so many times during the past two weeks, she knew it by heart. The pamphlet she had prayed over, thought about, agonized over.

Brazil! Brazil! Land of dreams. Land of hope. Land of beginnings! Fertile land available at only 22 cents an acre. Farmers, bring your tools; bring your implements, household items, and furniture; bring as many varieties of seeds as you can. People of every age and skill needed to recreate the Southern utopia stolen from us by the North. Become wealthy in a land of plenty, which Providence has blessed more than any land I have seen. Brazil welcomes you with open arms, a land of mild temperatures, rich soil, and perfect freedom. A land where dreams come true
.

From the first time Eliza had read the pamphlet handed to her by a man on the street, three words continued to leap out at her, sealing her decision.
Dreams
. She’d had so many of those as a child. None of which had come true.
Hope
. Something she had lost during the past five years.
Beginnings
. A place she could go where people didn’t know who she was—didn’t know what she had done. A place where she wasn’t shunned, hated, insulted, and rejected. Where she could start fresh with new people. A new society. A Southern utopia.

Was there such a thing outside of heaven?

Blake Wallace squeezed his eyes shut, not only to block out the sight of the port authority officer but to give himself a moment to think. He wanted another five hundred dollars?

That was nearly half of his remaining savings. He couldn’t very well ask his passengers to pay more than the forty-two dollars he’d already charged them for the trip. Most of them were as poor or poorer than he was. In fact, many of the wealthiest families in the South had been stripped of their money, their belongings, even their property. Their homes had been ransacked and burned, their servants and slaves scattered, their dignity stolen. His jaw bunched at the memory of his own white-columned, two-story family home in Atlanta burned to nothing but ash and debris. And then two months ago, the land purchased by Yankees for pennies.

His family dead.

Most people had nowhere to live and little food to eat. They sought refuge under trees or in borrowed tents. Railroads were torn up, schools closed, banks insolvent, towns and cities reduced to rubble, and jobs nonexistent.

Now as he stood before this Yankee port authority officer in his fancy brass-buttoned jacket, it took all of Blake’s strength, all his will, not to strangle him on the spot.

“There is the alternative.…” The man’s voice was as slimy as his character.

Blake opened his eyes. A drop of tobacco perched in the corner of the man’s mouth.

“And that is?”

“I could inform the new lieutenant colonel in town that you are a Rebel officer.”

Though his stomach churned, Blake allowed no reaction to reach his stoic expression. Was it that obvious?

“Yeah, I can tell.” The man spit a wad of tobacco to the side. “I can spot you Reb soldiers a mile away, and you officers give off a certain stink.” He scrunched his nose for effect.

Blake narrowed his eyes, flexing his fingers at his sides to keep them from fisting the buffoon. A drop of sweat trickled down his back.

The port officer shrugged. “Have it your way. The new colonel in charge of Charleston won’t rest till he ferrets out all you Rebs and either imprisons you or, better yet, hangs you.”

Blake resisted the impulse to rub his throat. He didn’t relish dangling at the end of a rope or rotting in a Union prison. And he knew if he stayed, that would be his fate. He’d been too visible in the war, had inflicted too much damage on the enemy. So it had been no surprise that a month ago, his name had appeared on the Union’s most-wanted list for war crimes.

Which was why he changed his name, moved to Charleston, and decided to leave the States. Organizing and leading an expedition to Brazil, where he hoped to start and head a new colony, seemed the opportunity of a lifetime. And his last chance at a new life. At a good life. If such a thing even existed anymore.

Blake counted out the gold coins into the man’s hand, clamping his jaw tight against a volcano of exploding anger.

“Where do you think you’re going anyway, you and your pack of mindless Rebs? ‘Specially in that old ship?” The port master jerked his head toward the brig. “You ain’t even got steam power.”

“Brazil,” Blake said absently as he watched a dark-haired man hobble over the railing of the
New Hope
and drop below. Probably one of the passengers. Regardless of its age, the ship was a beauty. Fine-lined and sturdy, a square-sailed, two-masted brig of 213 tons, refitted with extra cabins for passengers, and owned and sailed by a seasoned mariner, Captain Barclay, an old sea dog to whom Blake had taken an immediate liking.

As he scanned the deck, Blake caught a flicker of brown hair the color of maple syrup. Mrs. Eliza Crawford stood against the larboard railing, the wind fluttering the ribbons of her bonnet.

“Brazil! I hear there’s nothin’ there but mosquitoes and malaria.” The port officer’s caustic voice drew Blake’s gaze once again. “Not to mention everyone knows Brazilians are crossbred with Negroes!” He shook his head and chuckled. “Poisonous insects, scorching heat, too much rain, diseases like leprosy and elephantiasis—no wonder we won the war. You Rebs are dumber than a sack of horse manure.”

Ignoring him, Blake finished counting the coins. “This is robbery, and you know it.”

“You’re the ones that robbed our country of her young men. Seems fittin’ justice.”

Sunlight glinted off something in the distance, temporarily blinding Blake. Two Yankee soldiers strolled down Bay Street, their dark blue uniforms crisp and tight, their brass buttons and buckles shining, and their service swords winking at Blake in the bright light. His heart lurched.

A nervous buzz skittered up his back. “Are we settled?”

“Yes, sail away, dear Rebel, sail away!” the man began to sing, but Blake didn’t stay to hear the next chorus, though it haunted him down the wharf.

“Good riddance to ye, ye Rebel, sail away!”

Halfway to the ship, Blake sneaked a glance over his shoulder.

The soldiers had stopped to speak to the port authority officer. Would he turn Blake in? Of course he would. And keep the reward money as well as Blake’s extortion fee.

Blake rubbed his neck again at the thought of his impending fate. He tried to swallow, but it felt like the rope had already tightened around his throat. Even so, hanging would be a kind sentence. The Union had done far worse to some of his fellow officers. Which was only one more reason for Blake to leave his Southern homeland.

That and the fact that everyone he knew and loved was dead.

The memory stabbed a part of his mind awake—the part he preferred to keep asleep. The part that, like an angry bear, tried to rip the flesh from his bones when disturbed. This bear, however, seemed more interested in tearing Blake’s soul from his body as clips of deathly scenes flashed across his mind. Cannons thundered in his head, reverberating down his back. Men’s tortured screams. Blood and fire everywhere.

No, not now!
He gripped his throat, restricting his breath. He must jar himself out of the graveyard of memories.
Think. Think!
He had to think. He had to focus!

But his mind was awhirl with flashes of musket fire, mutilated body parts, the vacant look in a dead man’s eyes. He stumbled. Shook his head. Not now. He could not pass out now. His passengers needed him. They’d put their trust in him to lead them to the promised land. Besides, he wasn’t ready to die.