His arm tingled to the tips of his fingers recalling how Amy Baker had fallen into the crook of his arm. Her delicate ribcage and fluttering heart had reminded him of a wild bird he’d once caught. It had beat its wings against his hands as helpless as a moth before he’d set it free. Amy was spunky yet vulnerable like that bird. It insulted his sense of justice to think she had no one fit to watch over her.

Too bad her rattlebrained brother had lost their money. Lord, the man’s luck at the gaming table had been the worst! If Jeb was any indication of the Baker family’s humble roots, his sister, at least, was making an effort to overcome them. She’d had schooling, apparently, while her brother was no doubt lucky if he could sign his name.

At first, he’d taken the girl for a spy—she’d worn her shabby clothing with the air of a debutante. Then, noting her reticence and naivete, he’d dismissed her as inconsequential in the scheme of things. Young and pretty, to be sure, with most of her blonde hair twisted up somehow under her bonnet, and little curls dangling on each side of her delicate face. Her voice was low, he remembered—more the dove than the warbler. However, he’d judged her to be meek and empty-headed until he saw the fire in her blue eyes.

He paused near the railing for a breath of cooler air but the mugginess lay everywhere like soggy cotton. Along the shore, bracken and tangled brush melted into marshland; eddies swirled and sucked at the mudbanks below. The smell of mud and decaying vegetation thickened the sultry air.

No sign of civilization.

Exasperated, he swore under his breath. The small shabby steamboat, which hauled mostly freight and offered accommodations to no more than two dozen passengers, would have been in New Orleans by now if she hadn’t hung up on every shoal and nosed up to every rivertown dock between Natchez and Baton Rouge. If he arrived late in New Orleans, every part of his plan would suffer.

He turned and headed for the stairs to the hurricane deck, hoping the captain, at least, had done what he’d agreed to.

my tightened her grip on the railing as the Missouri Belle wallowed past a small island in the Mississippi River. Dread knotted her stomach. The trip that had held such promise when she left St. Louis two weeks before had suddenly taken a bad turn.

“Amy, don’t worry! It’s nothin’.” Jeb slouched against the railing beside her, chewing tobacco and directing sidelong glances at her face.

She didn’t answer. What was there to say? She’d thought he shared her hopes and dreams born the day poverty forced them off their dry Missouri farm. Their father had salvaged nothing, just packed up one day and abandoned the shriveled corn and stunted indigo. Her tears had left no trace in the swirling red dust. Thank goodness Mama had no longer been around to suffer it. The terrible loss had nearly crushed Papa’s spirit, still he’d scrimped and saved for years afterwards, hoping to start over on land with fertile soil and lots of water.

Now Jeb was throwing all the money away.

She struggled to keep her voice calm. “He suckered you, didn’t he, Jeb?”

“No! Jackrabbit didn’t cheat me. I just had a little streak of bad luck, that’s all.”

“So it’s true.” Her heart shrank to a small cold lump in her chest. “You risked our money playing poker. How much of our inheritance did you lose?”

He worked his chaw of tobacco around in his cheek as he often did when he pondered a question—or when he evaded it altogether. She suddenly wondered how well she really knew him, this brother she’d seen so seldom in the last few years. They’d always had their differences, but the contrast between them had widened considerably during his prolonged absences. While she had the fair hair and fastidious nature of their mother, Jeb had Papa’s wild red hair and rake-hell attitude. He wore a filthy buckskin shirt over homespun trousers, an outfit he’d picked up during his last trip out West and hadn’t bothered to change since. He went around smelling of wood smoke and horse sweat and who knew what else. On the frontier he might have gotten by, but not in polite society. Only twenty-two years old, and already his face between hat and beard had baked brown from the desert sun; already little lines creased the skin around his piercing blue eyes.

He looked and acted more like Papa every day.

With more force than needed, she popped open her parasol to shield herself from the blistering rays of the late morning sun. “I thought we were going to pay off debts, Jeb. I thought we were going to set ourselves up in trade and save for that ranch Papa wanted for us. How could you risk our money? Why?”

He leaned on the railing and spat tobacco juice over the side. The golden droplets tumbled lazily through the air for a long moment before joining the Father of Waters. He wiped his mustache on a grubby sleeve. “Pa said a man would have to be a rich cotton planter afore he could even start as a poor sugar planter. It got me to thinkin’—we don’t have enough money to do what we want. That’s why I was sittin’ in the games, to build our stake up.”

“But that’s stupid!” Amy’s parasol suddenly became too heavy to hold upright; it swayed, then sagged toward the deck. “You should know better than to think you could get rich that way.”

Mrs. Abernathy, with all her frills and jewelry, strolled by with her husband arguing about which opera would play that night at the Theatre d’Orleans. The up and down glance she gave Amy matched the one she’d given the half-cooked catfish at breakfast. Amy squirmed inside. Compared to the woman’s full, wide, multi-layered gown, her own narrow muslin skirt and embroidered bodice looked far behind the fashion. Wistfully, she thought of the new dresses she’d hoped to buy in New Orleans.

Leaning closer to Jeb, Amy lowered her voice to a vicious whisper. “We don’t need a big plantation. Just a piece of ground with a decent house and a barn—something better than where we grew up scratching a living out of a patch of shriveled-up corn!”

Jeb stared gloomily at the swirling river water.

“Talk to me, Jeb! And you can start by explaining that business with the U.S. Army—what was that all about?”

“Pa wanted to make some easy money.” He glanced at her accusingly. “For that ranch you want so bad.”

“Doing what?”

“We agreed to spy out Santa Fe last time we was there.”

“Spying? On who, for what?”

“Oh . . . how big their army is, what kind of weapons they’re bearing, and such like. And now he wants us to haul a bunch of muskets down there to help with the Revolution.”

“But we aren’t at war with Mexico—Texas is.”

“So? It was easy money. Leastways, it would have been. Except I can’t put the information in writing. Why he needs it written down, I don’t know. He’s got ears, ain’t he?”

“Papa intended to meet Major O’Donnell here?”

“That was the plan.” Jeb drew a deep breath. “Only as soon as we got back from Mexico, everything went plumb to hell! And once things started going downhill, it was like a rock slide over a cliff! No way to stop it. First, American Fur refused to buy the beaver pelts we picked up at Rendezvous—that was purely a back-stabbin’ thing to do—and after that Pa couldn’t get no more credit at the bank. And then he took that bullet . . .”

“Was that an accident?”

Jeb’s lips twisted into a bitter line. “Nothin’ to prove otherwise.”

Bells clanged and the steam engines lugged down. The captain in his neat blue uniform appeared on the wing deck above. “Hard right! Half ahead!” The planking rumbled underfoot at half-speed. A roustabout scrambled down a ladder to the boiler deck. The captain glanced Amy’s way, nodded, and touched his cap before disappearing into the pilot house.

Thoughtfully, Amy watched him go. “I wonder what Captain Stott would say if he knew a crooked gambler fleeced passengers aboard his steamboat . . .”

“Don’t even think about goin’ to him with that. You don’t know anything about it.”

“That’s just it! I don’t know a lot of things. Isn’t it about time you explained yourself? I have a right to some answers.”

“Stop ridin’ me! It’s none of your affair what I do. Pa put me in charge.” His sullen expression closed up like a coyote trap.

She bit her tongue, knowing from experience that locking horns with him would only make him dig his stubborn heels in deeper. Struggling for composure, she watched the roustabouts on the boiler deck below attack a floating snag with long poles, shoving it away from the starboard paddle. After a few minutes, the Missouri Belle, under a fresh head of steam, charged the river once more and the paddle wheels continued to pound the collected snow and rain of countless storms.

She drew a steadying breath. “No more gambling, Jeb. Promise?”

“I can’t promise that. I gotta get back the money I lost.”

Her patience snapped. “If you’re going to be so bull-headed, I don’t see any other choice but to demand my share of the inheritance.” She pushed herself away from the rail. “I’m sorry, but someday, when you come around flat broke and hungry, maybe I’ll cook you supper and give you a quilt to sleep under. Because I know, sure as I’m standing here, you won’t have any of your own.”

“Now, Amy . . .”

She returned his gaze without flinching. Let him try to wheedle her into overlooking his folly; it wouldn’t work. She was right and she knew it. Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth, but if her tears were to spill over, she might lose the battle of wills.

He broke contact first and rolled his eyes upward as though beseeching some higher power. “Now, listen. It just ain’t possible. Except for that chest of Mexican silver, there ain’t no way to split our inheritance down the middle ’til we sell off those furs in the warehouse. And we can’t split three freight wagons, now can we?”

“But I trusted you, and look at the mess we’re in. Somebody shot Papa, the Army is hounding us, a gambler stole our money. We have no place to live. We could starve!” Despair dragged her down, down to a place as cold as the murky river bottom where she could hardly breathe. The plans she’d made for the future floated out of reach like air bubbles popping to the surface. She blinked rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes, cursing the sign of weakness that would make him think she lacked a backbone.

“Ah, don’t cry.” Her brother’s expression softened. “Our money’s not all gone. Tell you what. I’m still plannin’ to buy you that new dress when we get to New Orleans. I’d never hold a few hard words against you.”

Angrily, she dashed her hand across her eyes. Couldn’t he tell that her tears signified anger, not surrender? “How very gracious of you!”

“Think nothin’ of it. Come on, let’s head down to my room, and you can write that report for me.”

Stalking down the promenade after him, Amy’s every footstep fell in cadence with a grim litany in her mind—no money, no prospects, nothing! Why had she allowed herself to expect anything else? After her menfolk had abandoned her years ago at the boarding school in St. Louis, she had little reason to trust them anymore. Depending on others was futile, she’d learned that much. What she needed was absolute independence. No one to bully her, no one to make choices for her, no one to overrule her decisions. If she didn’t do anything else this summer, she would gain control of her life.

s he climbed the stairs to the hurricane deck, Tyler O’Donnell patted his chest before he caught himself. The packet of confidential orders and sealed letters nestled as safely as ever inside his coat. He chided himself; the need for reassurance had become a bad habit—a smart soldier didn’t call attention to the fact that he carried important papers.

He stopped when he reached the top and swabbed his brow with a handkerchief, then ran it inside the standing collar of his blue dress uniform. This blasted Louisiana heat could pop the skin on a sausage! He would have changed into his casual lightweight uniform if President Jackson hadn’t insisted that a strong military image would open doors for him in New Orleans.

Things could be worse, he supposed, considering the unpleasant alternative to this assignment. If he thought it was humid here, it would be steamier than Hades for many of the West Point graduates fighting and perishing in Florida in the bloody Seminole War. A fate he had narrowly missed . . . .

On the top deck, the sun glared off the white walls of the officers’ cabins, striking Tyler’s eyes like a bright saber. Above the cabins soared the pilot house, sparkling with glass and gingerbread.

Captain Stott came down the companionway to meet him with a broad smile. “Major O’Donnell, my boy picked up a copy of the Baton Rouge Gazette for you. It’s in my cabin. I hope it’s what you need.”

“That should do fine, thank you.”

“Come up to my quarters—we’ll have a mint julep.”

The stocky gray-haired captain turned to lead the way, and Tyler fell into step behind him. Maybe the president was right after all—Tyler was getting all the respect and cooperation he could ask for.

As the steamer churned down the center of the Mississippi, huge paddles on either side slapped the water into a boiling froth, throwing up veils of spray crowned by a rainbow. Beyond lay a grand view—a solid wall of green forest stretching across the horizon. Toward the south, Tyler searched in vain for a glimpse of a settlement.

“How long until we dock at New Orleans?”

The captain glanced around. “Ought to arrive by late afternoon.”

Tyler frowned. The last time he’d inquired, midday had been the estimate for arrival, but he didn’t bother to mention it. In the captain’s stateroom, he shifted his scabbard to a safe angle with a practiced hand before lowering himself onto the settee. He accepted a mint julep and the newspaper which he unfolded to the front page.

TEXAS ARMY VICTORIOUS AT SAN JACINTO.

Nothing new there—he’d known that much since he’d left The Hermitage with Jackson’s blessing. He scanned the small print, searching for something he hoped he wouldn’t find.

His host sank into a chair across from him, sipping his drink. “They say the Texas Revolution is over—but that’s what they said after the battle at Bexar. Drove the damn Mexicans south of the Rio Grande, then here they come again like a swarm of hornets. What do you think? Is it over this time?”

Tyler shook his head and kept reading. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“What puzzles me is how Houston managed to pull the fat out of the fire. He’s been running like a scared rabbit across Texas for months. Outnumbered two to one, he suddenly turns on Santa Anna like a wolf. How did he do it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” The questions distracted Tyler; he focused harder on the printed words. Then his eye fell on the last paragraph and he flinched. There it was, just as he’d feared—the story was out. He bit back an epithet. So much for sneaking into New Orleans, accomplishing his mission, and slipping out again quietly.

Glancing up, he found himself under the captain’s careful scrutiny. Well, why not appease the man’s curiosity? Discretion on the matter was pointless now, and he just might be able to stoke up the fires under the boilers on this tub. He wouldn’t have to tell him everything.

“May I take you into my confidence?”

“But of course, sir.” Captain Stott leaned forward. “Your words shall not leave this room.”

Tyler rose and strolled to the window. “I am on a mission for the President of the United States. And I’m far behind schedule—not that you are to blame.”

“Yes, sir. That is, we’ve certainly had our share of delays. First, the mechanical problems. Then, of course, high water always carries a lot of snags down. Half a day sparring her off a sandbar didn’t help—”

“I must reach New Orleans without further delay.” Tyler gave him the stern and forbidding look he’d perfected while teaching classes at West Point.

The captain sloshed his drink setting it down on a side table. “What could slow us down now? We’re almost there. May I venture to ask—”

“General Houston is due to arrive in New Orleans today or tomorrow. He’s been badly wounded. The doctors on the battlefield weren’t equipped for that kind of injury—even if the surgeons here are as good as I’ve heard, it will challenge them to save his life.”

“The devil you say!”

“You didn’t read this?” Tyler tossed him the paper. “See for yourself. My orders are to meet him and extend every service available for his safety and well-being. Now that the papers are spreading the word, arranging protection for him will be a nightmare. I could use your help.”

The captain straightened the paper and scanned it. “By all means, Major. I had no idea.”

Tyler rubbed the back of his neck. “The newspaper’s been out two days. I know the general boarded a trading schooner at Galveston as late as the eleventh. He hadn’t yet arrived in New Orleans when this paper went out, obviously. So if he was bouncing around the Gulf during those storms we had last week, it’s just possible we can still beat him to New Orleans.”

The steamboat official hesitated. “I had a few stops scheduled for unloading cargo—a couple of plantations and a small town—but under the circumstances, I’ll make the deliveries on my way back upriver.” He sprang suddenly to his feet and stood at attention. “This patriot fought at the Battle of New Orleans and he’ll charge again to Old Hickory’s bugle!”

Tyler smiled. “The United States of America thanks you, sir.” He lifted his glass in a toast and took a big swallow of his drink. The fresh mint sizzled in the fire of the bourbon. The tension subsided in Tyler’s neck and shoulders, either from the effect of the liquor or from the promise of action, he wasn’t sure which.

“Captain, before I go, I’m curious about something. One of your passengers, Jeb Baker—”

“That dim-witted stooge!”

“Beg your pardon?”

The captain gave a disgusted snort. “He hasn’t the brains God gave a sea biscuit, and that’s a fact.”

“Then you know he’s losing his shirt at the poker table?”

“It’s hard not to notice!”

“What are the chances the game is crooked?”

“If you think I’ve got any real pull around here, you’re wrong. Do you think I own this smokepot? The owners operate out of Natchez-Under-the-Hill, if that tells you anything.”

“Not really . . .” The implication hit Tyler. “You mean they hire him for the purpose of fleecing passengers?”

The captain flashed him a wry smile and a silent yet meaningful look.

“And you allow this?”

“Until I save up enough money to retire, I do what I’m told.” The captain tossed off the contents of his glass and arose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Major. You said you were in a hurry to reach New Orleans. My boys do love a good race!” He strode briskly to the door and disappeared.

Tyler wandered to the doorway and paused to finish his drink. A shame he couldn’t have done more for Baker, but the young man’s predicament was more severe than he’d imagined. Maybe he’d be wise to cut the young trader out of his plans after all. He frowned into his drink, facing a quandary. Nothing infuriated him more than injustice. On the other hand, he didn’t have time to champion a gullible dupe right now. His dedication to duty had to come first.

So why, then, did his spirits sag, leaving him cold and lonely inside? He had more than enough on his mind without taking on an additional crusade. Not even for the sake of a maiden with blue eyes like shimmering windows to her soul.