Forsaken Dreams Read online

  Sailors, ropes tied about their waists, crisscrossed the deck in a tangled fury. By the foredeck, Hayden, their stowaway, his long dark hair thrashing around his face, held fast to a line that led up to the yards. In the distance, Eliza made out James Callaway clinging to the ratlines as he slowly made his way up to the tops. How could anyone hold on in this wind? Especially James, who was a doctor, not a sailor.

  But where was Blake … Colonel Wallace? Fighting against the assault of seawater in her eyes, she scanned the deck, the tops. Dear God, please. Please let him be all right.

  She must find him. Or discover his fate. She must talk to the captain. If they were going to sink, she’d rather know than cling to false hope. Bracing against the wind and rain, she rose to her knees, struggling against her multiple petticoats and crinolette. Inconvenient contraptions! If she stayed low, she may be able to crawl to the quarterdeck ladder and make her way up to the captain.

  The ship rolled then plunged into a trough. The timbers creaked and groaned under the strain. Rain stabbed her back. Wind shrieked through the rigging like a death dirge. A massive wave rose before the ship. The bow leaped into it. Eliza dropped to the deck and dug her nails into the wood. Oh God. No! The ship lurched to near vertical. Lightning etched a jagged bolt across Eliza’s eyelids.

  She lost her grip. Tumbling, tumbling, like a weed driven before the wind. She threw her hands out, searching for something to grab onto. Anything. But the glassy wood slipped from her fingers, leaving splinters in her palms.

  And terror in her heart.

  Her body slammed into the railing. The ship canted. She rolled over the bulwarks, flung her hand out in one last effort to save herself. Her fingers met wood. She latched on. The salivating sea reached up to grab her legs, tugging her down.

  Her fingers slipped. Pain radiated into her palms, her wrists. The brig heaved and canted again like a bucking horse.

  God, is this how I am to die? Perhaps it was. She’d run from God long enough.

  Rain slapped her face, filled her nose. She couldn’t breathe. Her fingers slipped again. She couldn’t hold on much longer.

  A strong hand grabbed her wrist. A face appeared over the railing. “Hang on! I’ve got you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  May 10, 1866

  Nineteen days earlier

  Charleston, South Carolina

  The hand that gripped Eliza’s was strong, firm, rough like a warrior’s, yet gentle. He lifted her gloved fingers to his lips and kissed them while eyes as gray and tumultuous as a storm assessed her. “Welcome aboard, Mrs. Crawford.” The voice equaled the strength that exuded from the man. No, not any man. A colonel, she had heard, a graduate of West Point. Though he was not broadcasting that fact to the Union authorities scouring Charleston.

  “I’m”—he coughed into his hand—“Mr. Roberts, the overseer of this expedition. You are a nurse, if memory serves?” He assisted her from the plank onto the deck of the brig, where the scent of perspiration, tar, and aged wood swirled about her.

  Mr. Roberts, indeed. She knew his true identity to be that of Colonel Blake Wallace, a decorated hero of the war, but his secret was safe with her. She smiled. “You are correct, sir.” Thankful for his firm grip, Eliza steadied herself against the motion of the ship. Her heart needed steadying as well, as the colonel continued to gaze at her as if she’d sprouted angel wings. A flood of heat rose up her neck, and she tugged from his grip.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Crawford.” He shook his head as if in a daze and turned to welcome another passenger on board, giving Eliza a chance to study the man who’d organized this daring adventure. In the early morning sunlight, his hair glistened in waves of onyx down to his stiff collar where the strands curled slightly. Drawn along the lines of a soldier, his body displayed a strength only hinted at by the pull of his white shirt and black waistcoat across broad shoulders. Matching trousers stretched over firm thighs before disappearing inside tall leather boots. He turned and caught her staring at him. And then smiled—a glorious smile that was part rogue and part saint, if there was such a thing. Either way, it did terrible, marvelous things to her stomach. Or was that the rock of the ship?

  Oh fiddle! He was heading her way. With a limp, she noticed. A slight limp that tugged at her heart.

  “Do you have luggage, Mrs. Crawford?” Dark eyebrows rose over those stormy eyes, and Eliza thought it best not to stare at the man any longer. She was a widow, after all. A single woman. And she wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression of her character. “Over there.” She pointed her gloved finger to a large trunk perched on the edge of the dock.

  “Very well.” Turning, he shouted to a man standing by the railing. “Mr. Mitchel. Would you bring that trunk to the master’s cabin?”

  “Aye, aye.” The man darted across the plank.

  The colonel nodded toward her and seemed about to say something when a burly man with a tablet stole his attention with a question.

  Another man sped past Eliza, bumping into her and begging her pardon. Clutching her pocketbook, she stepped closer to the capstan, out of the way of sailors who scrambled across the deck of the two-masted brig, preparing the ship to sail and helping passengers and their luggage on board. The squawk of seagulls along with the thud of bare feet over the wooden planks accompanied the shouts of dockworkers and crewmen. Beyond the wharf, a group of citizens huddled on shore watching the goings-on from Bay Street.

  Furniture, sewing machines, and a plethora of farming implements, along with trunks, lockers, and crates were soon hauled aboard. A pulley system, erected over the yards above, lowered a squealing pig through a hatch into the hold below.

  Adjusting her bonnet to shade her eyes from the rising sun while fanning herself against the rising heat, Eliza studied the oncoming passengers. An elderly couple, dressed far too elegantly for sailing, boarded with a lady about Eliza’s age whom she assumed to be their daughter. Wearing a pink taffeta gown with a low neckline trimmed in Chantilly lace, the young woman drew the attention of nearly every man on board, including several sailors who stopped to gape at her. Eliza couldn’t blame them. With hair that rivaled the luster of ivory and skin as creamy as milk, she was the epitome of a Southern belle. Only her red-rimmed eyes marred an otherwise perfect face. That and her frown. She seemed oddly familiar to Eliza, as if they’d met before. Behind them, a young Negress, bent beneath the burden of a large valise, dragged a portmanteau as she struggled to keep up.

  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.”