The Reluctant Debutante (23 page)

She smiled, radiantly. “Well, I do know a word or two of Ojibwa.”

“Have no fear. I will find your brother and Mr. Gray.”

As Joseph began to stride toward the wreckage, Ginger called out to him.

“
Gizahgin
!” She was finally able to declare her love for him, which she had not been able to do at the cabin before he had been wrenched away from her. Her eyes filled with tears again as she gazed at the proud man who had won her heart. His eyes blazed as he nodded once in agreement and tapped his heart with his hand, before going to assist in finding the remainder of the victims. For the first time since the disaster struck, Ginger sensed a ray of hope.

Joseph issued instructions to the men with him in a mixture of English and Ojibwa. The group began to walk toward the submerged railcars. Joseph’s brothers, Etienne and Gaston, had been close enough to hear Ginger’s declaration and to see Joseph’s reaction.

“
Gizahgin
? Joseph?” His brothers stared at him with open mouths.

“Raoul and I will tell you all about her when this nightmare is over. Right now, we have work to do.”

Joseph, his brothers, and the rest of the St. Louis men combined their strength and equipment to efficiently remove a mound of splintered timbers from the submerged cars. Joseph observed a few people moving about inside each car, frantically trying to escape. Deciding the best approach was to empty one car at a time, Joseph broke a window and lowered one of the St. Louis men down inside a car, which rested on its side.

The man inside the car began to hoist people up, while Joseph and Gaston pulled passengers out through the broken window. They handed the dazed and injured victims to men who waited in the cold water to carry these victims to the river’s edge. Most were severely injured, having sustained the full force of the headlong plunge into the icy river. More than once, Joseph was handed a body of someone who had not survived the fall.

He and his men worked systematically through the wreckage, without exchanging many words. They knew what was necessary and applied themselves as a team to accomplish their mission. The soldiers who had been performing the rescue operations since the train fell from the tracks took a much-needed break as the St. Louis men fell into place.

David and his crew sat beside the river, glad to finally rest. The farmers’ wives brought baskets of food, and the hungry grateful men made quick work of their offerings. Ginger helped distribute the food among the soldiers. When she got to David, she sat down, as weary as he was.

“Is your father still here?” he asked.

“No, he is walking to the hospital. We thought it best he leave and get out of this relentless rain.”

“A wise decision. You should get out of the rain, too. You’ve been working nonstop since this nightmare began.”

“As have you. But I won’t leave until Basil and Mr. Gray are rescued.”

They watched the recovery efforts in progress.

“Those men seem to know exactly what they’re doing.” David pointed. “Look at the man on top of the wreckage. He only needs one hand to lift people out. What strength!”

Ginger’s heart swelled with pride as the lieutenant praised Joseph.

“His name is Joseph. He’s extremely strong, yet gentle at the same time.”

David gazed at Ginger. In this unguarded moment, she made no attempt to mask her feelings. David knew the answer to his question even before he asked.

“You know him, then?”

“Yes, I know Joseph,” she replied softly. Her voice lingered over his name.

“But did you not just arrive from New York? Isn’t this your first trip west?”

“Yes, you are correct. I haven’t been to St. Louis before. But Joseph is, or at least was, a friend of my brother’s. They came to New York over the summer to spend some time with my family.”

“What happened while he and your brother were in New York?”

Ginger’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you automatically assume something happened in New York?”

“Because you just said he
was
a friend of Basil’s, implying he is not now. It seems odd that he joined your brother on a journey and now they are not friendly.”

Ginger considered what to tell this soldier. Her maid, Colleen, had given her some very good advice a few months back. As Colleen’s words of wisdom ran through her head, she knew what to say. The minute Joseph had run down the embankment and swept her off her feet, she acknowledged the forces beyond their control that were responsible for bringing them together again. She was not going to deny her destiny a moment longer.

“Joseph and I fell in love during his visit.” She turned to feast her eyes on Joseph, standing tall over the crumpled railcar.

“So why would falling in love with your brother’s best friend damage the relationship between your brother and him? You’d think your brother would be thrilled with the match.”

Ginger smiled impishly at the man sitting beside her. “It’s hard for him to approve of the match. He may never. Because, you see, Joseph has mixed blood. His father is French-Canadian. His mother is one of those pesky Indians you’ve been trying to eradicate from the face of the West.”

She turned back to watch Joseph work, knowing David was going to have a difficult time processing what she had just told him. She knew he had been thinking since they met that he had perhaps found his East Coast wife, and she was sorry to disappoint him. He seemed like a nice enough man. But she had decided to honor the path that had been chosen for her and Joseph years ago, long before they met.

• • •

One after another mangled body was lifted out of the railroad car and handed off to the waiting arms of the St. Louis men. As the tenth person was hoisted up from the second car, Joseph reached out to a familiar hand. He lifted Basil from the mass of twisted metal and passed him off to another man, standing in the river. Another man took over pulling people from the wreckage, as Joseph jumped down from the car and rushed to Basil’s side. He helped Basil out of the river.

Joseph and Basil grasped each other’s shoulders.

“It’s good to see you again, Joseph. You seem to always be saving me.”

“I am glad you have survived the fall with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises, from the looks of it. Ginger will be happy to see you. She has been frantic, waiting for you and Mr. Gray to be rescued.”

“Are Ginger and Father okay?”

“I understand your father is on his way to the hospital with a broken arm, but Ginger is still here. She is over on the bank.” Joseph motioned to the side of the river where Ginger was busy working on her latest patient. “She has been helping the wounded all afternoon. Are you able to stand on your own?”

“Yes, I’ll be okay.” He called and waved to his sister. She looked up from the gentleman she was tending to, and waved back at him, with a huge smile on her face.

“I fear, though, for Mr. Gray. He was in the car right behind the coal car when the bridge collapsed.”

“Are you certain?” Joseph asked. “We have not been able to get to his car yet.”

“It will be a miracle if he’s still alive. Let’s go try to find him.”

A few hours later, Charles Gray was finally pulled from the railcar nearest the engine. Of the seven people who were in the car, he was the only survivor.

“It’s good to see you men.” Charles Gray tried to smile as he was lifted out of the car.

“Take it easy, Mr. Gray,” Basil replied. “We’ve got you now. How are you feeling?”

“My legs are broken, so I guess I won’t be walking out of here,” he said, grimacing with pain but still retaining some shreds of his sense of humor. “And I am so cold from the hours spent in the water.”

“We’ll get you out of this rain and warmed up a bit, but it might be a rough time until you get to the hospital in Hermann. Father’s there already.”

“And Ginger? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, and has been acting as the head nurse since the wreck happened. You’d be proud of her.”

Basil and Joseph cautiously carried the injured man up the embankment. Although they moved as slowly and smoothly as possible, Mr. Gray gasped and moaned in agony as they climbed the steep hill. By the time they finally placed him in the hospital train, about to depart for Hermann, Charles Gray had passed out from the pain.

The rain continued all through the night and the next day, as Ginger, Basil, Joseph, and David worked together to carry the remaining survivors to safety. The soldiers loaded the dead bodies onto the freight cars the railroad sent out from St. Louis. The severely injured were at last in the hospital hotel in Hermann. The survivors and walking wounded were loaded onto passenger cars for the ride back to Hermann, stunned and overwhelmed by the tragedy. The same people who’d celebrated happily on the way out from St. Louis were now a forlorn and shocked group who couldn’t wait to leave the site of the disaster.

Finally, there was no one left to help. In little more than twenty-four hours, the passengers onboard the train had seen their lives upended. The event would go down in history as the worst train disaster in the country. The last of the rescuers boarded the passenger cars with the others.

The moment Ginger took a seat next to Joseph she burst into tears. She no longer needed to put on a brave face to help the others, who were worse off than she was. She finally broke down as she allowed exhaustion and shock to take hold.

The crash of the Pacific Railroad was the most dreadful experience she had ever lived through. Ginger shuddered as the image of the little boy who died in her arms flashed before her eyes. She had never before even seen a dead person, much less watched someone die in her arms. Listening to her patients’ stories and the misery they were all facing took its toll as well. She was grateful her family and Mr. Gray were safe, if not yet out of danger. She tucked herself under Joseph’s protective arm and cried herself out.

When Joseph realized her tears were coming to an end, he reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a piece of fabric. He handed it to her so she could dry her eyes. She looked at the cloth swatch, and then up at him, with a question in her eyes. He smiled at her.

“When I was tracking you through the forest at the Hamptons, I found a torn piece of cloth from your riding habit hanging on a branch. This is how I knew I was on your trail. I tucked it into my shirt and forgot about it until I was headed home.”

“And you’ve kept it all this time?”

“I keep it in my pocket every day, to feel closer to you. It still smells faintly of your lilac scent.”

She reached up to him and wound her fingers through his hair. “So you sensed, too, we were not done with our story?”

“My grandfather knew about you, years ago. I used to dream of lilacs, when I was just coming into my manhood, and it frightened me. I asked him to interpret my vision, because I could make no sense of it. He said it was not yet time for the dream to be realized.”

“But it is the time now?”

Joseph picked up her other hand and kissed her knuckles. “Yes, my love. Now is the time.”

She shivered as a chill run through her body, which had nothing to do with the horrifying experience she had just lived through or the damp clothing on her body. She sighed in contentment, and leaned back against Joseph’s hard body.

At the hotel, Ginger was grateful she could finally bathe and remove the caked-on dried blood, along with the muck and silt of the riverbed, from her body and hair. Although she would have liked to don a new frock and fashion her hair into a chignon, she had none of the accouterments of high society at her disposal.

She had done her best to rinse the worst of the filth from her dress when she finished with the bathwater, but she couldn’t help but cringe as she climbed back into the damp and dirty dress and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair hung almost to her waist, straight and unadorned. She used the scrap of her petticoat, which she had tied around her head earlier, and wound it into a ribbon to hold her hair together at the nape of her neck, then draped it over one shoulder. Her face was scrubbed clean, but free of any type of makeup, and the skirt of her dress hung limply at her sides.

She pinched her cheeks to get some color in her face and sighed. This was not how she wanted to look in front of Joseph, but it would have to suffice. After all, her appearance hadn’t seemed to matter to him at the river’s edge. Her heart stuttered as she remembered how he had raced down the hill to her and swept her off her feet.

Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to find her man again.
Her man!
Colleen, her maid, had been right months earlier when she told Ginger true love would find a way. It was just a shame it took a tragedy of this magnitude to once again bring them together. This time, however, she would not let them be wrenched apart, despite her family’s wishes. After all, Colleen also said she needed to make her own happiness. She took one final look in the mirror, and left the room to walk into the rest of her life.

• • •

Joseph paced the large reception lobby as he waited for Ginger to come downstairs. Ever since the morning he exited the cabin in the Hamptons, leaving her in her brother’s care, he had tried to cage his heart. He pushed all thoughts of her from his mind during the day. He worked himself to exhaustion on a daily basis, allowing no time to daydream. Then, he dropped like a stone into bed each evening.

That was when his torment truly began. He might manage to control his mind during the day, but his nightly dreams were beyond his reach. As he slept, he relived the encounter with her in the small hunter’s cabin in the forest. He replayed the vision of her eyes glazing over as her first-ever orgasm cascaded over her body. His mouth remembered the sweetness of her breast. He awoke in a sweat, with the covers twisted around him, and the scent of lilacs in the air — and he knew he would get no more rest that night. The next day, he worked himself even harder, praying for one night of peaceful sleep with no tormented dreams. But it hadn’t happened. For five months, his sleep had been fitful.