Beyond the High Blue Mountains

By Jon Bezayiff

BEYOND THE HIGH BLUE MOUNTAINS chronicles a boys triumph over adversity when Colin MacNeil sets out alone to reach the Oregon Territory in 1854. Brought to America by his widowed mother when her fellow Scots, believing infant Colin was cursed, drove them from their island home. Colin MacNeil began life in America on a Mississippi Riverboat. Orphaned at twelve when his abolitionist stepfather is murdered, he flees westward to escape a sheriff intent on placing him in the workhouse. Alone and vulnerable on a rural Missouri road, Colin endures a terrifying experience at the hands of a brutish teamster that scars and haunts him for life. Found near death, Colin is taken in by a family who soon consider him their son. Colin, fearing his curse causes everyone around him to die, wants no harm to befall the family. He hires on as a wagon driver for an affluent family bound for Oregon Territory. On the trail he is befriended by a canny wagon master and forms a brotherly bond with a crippled boy who, unknown to him, holds the key to Colins future. Colin endures great hardships while coping with the Oregon Trails dangers and a past that haunts him. Dangers like cholera. Or a sinister preacher whose intent towards him the now bitterly experienced young boy instinctively recognizes. During Colins perilous journey a band of Crow Indians recognize his courage by making him a blood brother and tribal member. Colin is caught between two worlds. Torn between joining his newfound Crow brethren. Or, honoring his word to the wealthy employers whose wagon he drives. Doing the honorable thing, Colin soon becomes aware that fellow immigrants, mistrusting his friendship with Indians, have suddenly become the trails most dangerous threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2005
• ISBN: 9781467855525

Jon Bezayiff

           Jon Bezayiff boyhood years were spent hunting jackrabbits with the hot dust of California’s San Joaquin Valley under his bare feet. Today he holds degrees in Art and History. A nationally published cartoonist, illustrator and author, he resides in Oregon with his wife of 42 years, Susan. They have two sons, Michael and Christian as well as an active grandson, Tristen.  In the early sixties he served in the U.S. Army’s Nuclear Attack Center during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later illustrated leaflets for Psychological Operations in the South East Asia Theater. His professional career in private industry began with graphic and interior design for Douglas Aircraft products. Following fifteen years in Aerospace he joined Freightliner LLC as an automotive stylist. He retired after 25 years from that firm in 2004. His artwork hangs in several aerospace museums including the Smithsonian and Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Jon Bezayiff’s first Novel, DRUMMER”S LUCK, ISBN 0-595-27228-2, was published in 2003. He pursues many interests from Hunting Alaska’s wilderness to attending evensong at King’s College in Cambridge, England but finds mentoring youths the most rewarding. Currently he is an Aerospace Education Officer for a Civil Air Patrol Squadron. Jon Bezayiff believes that life is a circle. We must pass on what we have learned about life or our own existence has been meaningless. Those of us not actively involved in guiding and imparting our life experience to the following younger generations fail to accept their societal responsibilities.

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© 2005 Jon Bezayiff. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 09/01/2005

ISBN: 1-4208-7118-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-5552-5 (e)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I BARRA

CHAPTER II A BOY OF THE RIVER.

CHAPTER III A YOUNG BOY MOVES WEST

CHAPTER IV THE PRAIRIE

CHAPTER V THE ANVIL OF ADVERSITY

CHAPTER VI THE OCEAN OF TREES

CHAPTER VII BEYOND TRAIL’S END

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NOVELS BY JON BEZAYIFF

THE BRONZE DAGGER

DRUMMER’S LUCK

BEYOND THE HIGH BLUE MOUNTAINS

For my father, Jay, that quiet man who was born a century too latefor the Rendezvous.

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.

Kenko Yoshida, 1283-1352

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CHAPTER I

BARRA

PORTLAND, OREGON, 1905.

Grandpa Colin! Come see the bears! A young boy excitedly called to his grandfather as he walked with an older brother and two cousins. Behind them an elderly man smiled at his four grandsons who were visiting the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition on opening day. Eleven years old Jamie blurted, Gosh a’mighty Grandpa! Are those real Grizzly Bears? Yes Jamie. They are true Grizzlies. The boy’s grandfather spoke with just a hint of a soft burr even after 65 years removed from a Scotland he had never known until middle age. He spoke like a Scot because his mother and stepfather had spoken only Gaelic in the house during a childhood spent upon the Mississippi River. Sometimes at night he still dreamed in Gaelic. Not the Gaelic of Scotland’s Highlands, but of her Windward Islands, where his mother gave birth to him. Really Grandpa? They are real Grizzly Bears? Twelve years old Colin Roderick MacNeil III asked with his green eyes wide in wonder. The boy’s grandfather shook his head sadly. His grandsons were already too civilized and sheltered by their parents. Now the best homes, lives and schools his sons’ ample fortunes provided could not teach Colin’s grandson the differences between a Black Bear and a Grizzly. Yes indeed, they are Grizzlies for sure boys. He stepped easily between the four boys hanging over a railing separating them from the edge of a moat encircling the bear’s small enclosure. The boys were all eyes and ears as he pointed at the larger of two nervously pacing bears. You boys see that hump above the big one’s shoulders? That’s a sure sign of Ursus Arctos Horribilis, the Grizzly Bear. Our common Black Bear does not have the Grizzly’s hump or the size, power and generally ornery character of those big fellows. The name Grizzly comes from his silver tipped fur because it makes him look grizzled or gray. Jamie, always the most curious of the four grandsons, asked his grandfather another question. The slender boy’s voice was serious, almost accusing in tone. Did you ever shoot one grandpa? The old man’s fierce green eyes got a faraway look in them. He nodded. A few Jamie, a few but I never wanted to. I’m not proud of it. These magnificent brutes don’t belong in cages. Look at them pacing back and forth, frustrated and trapped in that small cage. It’s against nature. They belong up in our high mountain country, running free, wild and proud. Too bad most people coming west never appreciated how noble they are. Someone behind the old man touched his elbow politely. Excuse me Captain MacNeil? The man doffed his hat as he spoke with respect. The Governor and his wife were hoping to have a word with you and Senator Fletcher before all the speeches start today. Captain Colin MacNeil nodded to a lean man with flint eyes standing watchfully behind him and the boys. Soledad? Por Favor? Colin spoke in fluent Spanish. Llevate estos diablillos a sus padres? Please take these little hellions back to their parents? Si Patron! Soledad’s smile flashed and just as quickly disappeared as he gathered up the four boys to take them in hand. Colin MacNeil straightened his coat, discreetly readjusting a small nickel plate .32 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with ivory grips in its shoulder holster between left arm and ribs. Colin thought about his faithful old Colt Baby Dragoon revolver that had come west with him as boy. He smiled ruefully. The old Colt was still at home in his desk drawer. The faithful Colt had been left to him by his stepfather, Edwin de Baliol. Colin was almost thirteen years old when he began carrying it after that terrible night on the wagon road west from Hannibal, Missouri in 1853. From that moment to this, he rarely went without a side arm in the more than fifty years that had passed since his night of terror on the road west. He glanced up into the Douglas fir trees, His attention caught by a flash of blue where a Steller’s jay darted quickly through their dark branches. The Jay, raucously scolding the crowds of people below his airy kingdom, brought back memories of Colin MacNeil’s lost boyhood. He stroked a thin scar running from left ear down halfway across his cheek and remembered another flash of blue in 1853.

SCOTLAND’S EILEAN BARRAIGH, 1840.

Laird Robert MacNeil, Chieftain of Clan MacNeil sat listening to a worried group of people under his protection in the little village of Leideag which overlooked his seat of office, the brooding Castle of Kismull that jutted from a rock in the Island of Barra’s southern bay. Castle Bay, as it had been called for centuries. The island of Barra was nearly the southern most in a string of lonely windswept sentinels known as The Western Isles standing between Scotland’s Sea of the Hebrides and the stormy North Atlantic Ocean. The entire chain of islands made up what is known as the Outer Hebrides. To the east only Scotland’s Orkney and Shetland Islands stood farther north but the Outer Hebrides faced the full fury of the Atlantic’s raging storms without the protection of safe anchorages like the Orkney’s Scapa Flow. Generations struggling with the Atlantic’s fierce nature and making a living from their stony, unforgiving island or the dangerous sea surrounding it made the islanders of Barra hardy and resilient Scotsmen in a nation already known for being a warrior breed. Life was always harsh for the islanders of Barra and in recent years it had become even harder because an increasingly efficient British Navy and the Crown’s Customs officials had all but stamped out the islander’s long history of smuggling. Century by century the English had tightened their noose about the necks of the wild MacNeil clansmen who once made incursions and raids on the Irish coast and often committed piracy on the open seas between Scotland and Ireland. Then that powerful English Queen, Elizabeth I, crushed the Clan’s chieftain, Roderick MacNeil, because of his acts of piracy upon British shipping. Barra was forfeited to MacKenzie of Kintail until the MacNeils recovered their stewardship of the island in 1688. Now an impoverished Laird Robert was struggling with the inevitability that he would have to sell Kismull Castle before the year was out to Colonel John Gordon of Cluny.

The MacNeil Clan Chieftain’s financial woes made him short tempered and impatient with a problem his people had brought to him on this night. Laird Robert was an educated man. He fancied himself, a modern thinker, a man of the mid nineteenth century who was more at home in the drawing rooms of Edinburgh or Glasgow then sitting down at a crude village church table with a bunch of superstitious, mean spirited islanders who were his misfortune to govern by inherited right. Laird Robert stared into a dark glass of island whiskey. It was said the further west one traveled in Scotland the darker the whiskey became. In truth, Laird Robert mused to himself, the whiskey of Barra was indeed as dark as the mind of the parson now droning on about this young widow, Ellen Seton MacNeil. She was a comely young thing who had caught the eye of Laird Robert himself on more than one occasion. In another time Laird Robert could have had his way with her as was his right as Laird of Barra but those days were long past thanks to the likes of this local parson and the damnable English who now would not let a gentleman make a little profit off some harmless smuggling of spirits and tobacco. Laird Robert grew irritable. I fail to see the problem Reverend Gilbertson. Surely some place can be found for this woman and her bairn? The Parson was shocked by the question. No! No my Laird! We villagers all believe the woman is cursed! She has lost a husband at sea in a storm with all his hands as well. The very same day she gave birth to twin boys, both identical as peas in a pod but one was stillborn. Twins are always to be regarded with suspicion as anyone knows but when one is born dead it’s surely an omen of disaster. The people here about think she will destroy us all if she is allowed to stay on Barra. Don’t you see Laird Robert? She must be sent away! A widowed young woman like that, with a cursed babe in arms will only cause more problems for our people. Laird Robert was appalled. Would you all have her burned as a witch? Surely the stillborn twin boy’s death was only an unfortunate accident of birth? The death of her husband, a fine seaman I might add, was but a tragic coincidence! Are we so ignorant that we should punish a woman for her misfortunes? Misfortunes that she, nor her child, had anything to do with! The parson and village leaders all shook their heads in disagreement with Laird Robert’s perception. If you do not send her away Laird, we cannot be responsible for anything that happens to her, or the bairn. She and her child are cursed and none feel safe with either of them on Barra. Laird Robert took a sip of his whiskey. He knew there was no sense trying to overcome many centuries of ignorant superstitious beliefs on the island. Laird Robert MacNeil sighed with resignation. Send Ellen MacNeil in to me. The rest of you good, ‘Christian’ folk may leave.

Newly widowed Ellen MacNeil was a beautiful young woman, not yet twenty with flaming red hair and emerald green eyes. She stood proudly before Laird Robert holding a quiet baby to her breast. So! My neighbors are casting me out Laird Robert? Do I frighten them that much? I am truly cursed then. My Roddy is drowned in the sea, my other bairn is barely in the ground and now I am being cast out because of my misfortune! Laird Robert spoke with sadness. T’is true Ellen. You and your babe will know no peace if allowed to stay on Barra. Not even under my protection. I will see to it you are paid a fair price for your cottage. Have you a little set a side? I can help a bit there. More importantly, I have a cousin in America, Duncan Fraser. He has a ship’s chandlery in a city called New Orleans. I am sure he can find a place for you. I will have our factor write a letter for you to give Duncan. We can have you in Glasgow within a fortnight. You can take ship to America from there. The clan shall pay for your passage. I owe it to your Roddy you know? He made many a voyage that slipped past the Crown’s customs officials for me. Those fools outside don’t realize yet that losing your brave Roddy’s skills as a captain and his swift little sloop, The Banshee, is a disaster that ruins us all. What the bards say is true Ellen. To know the sea is to know sorrow. A single bright tear rolled down Ellen’s cheek at the truth of Laird Robert’s words. So many men in her life lost at sea, grandsires, uncles, cousins, father, brothers and now her own husband, Roderick MacNeil. She had no adult male relations left to stand up for her. She was completely alone now. Her baby stirred softly against her breast. Laird Robert asked gently. What is the boy’s name Ellen? She looked up at the laird with pride flashing in her green eyes. "I’ve named him as his father wished, Colin Roderick MacNeil. His father would have loved him. He has his father’s resolute courage already. He never cries

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you know? Not even when he is hungry. Laird Robert touched the baby’s head. Well then little Colin, good luck to you and your mum lad. Laird Robert handed Ellen his own tarn, a beautiful wool cap with the MacNeil clan’s tartan woven around its headband. Attachedto the tam was a silver clan badge surmounted with three feathers, symbol of a chief. Take this for the boy Ellen. Don’t let him forget his Scottish heritage in America. Perhaps it is God’s will Ellen. You and your son may be the lucky ones, escaping this cruel island for a better life across the sea in America."

Ellen MacNeil left Barra a few days later with just a few bundles that she could carry to a small ship waiting at the dock. No one helped her as she struggled with wee Colin in her arms and the bags she carried. Just before she reached the waiting ship’s gangway, someone threw a stone that struck her cheek. Ellen recovered her balance to turn on the bystanders with scornful contempt. Green fire flashed in her eyes as she coldly cursed the islanders to a life of misery and want. Then, with her blood dripping down on little Colin’s red gold curls, she turned her back on Barra, the only home Ellen Seton MacNeil ever knew and faced east towards Glasgow. There, God willing, with part of the money Laird Robert provided, she would find a swift packet to take her and little Colin to America. Ellen looked down at Colin who was watching her with luminous green eyes as if he was trying to calm his mother’s fears about crossing the perilous ocean to a strange new land.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, 1842.

Edwin de Baliol smiled charmingly at the people gathered for an elegant supper in one of New Orleans’ finest hotels. Not that Edwin lived there for he was temporarily strapped for cash, again. It would be at least a month before his quarterly draft of pounds sterling arrived from his family’s solicitor in Edinburgh. He smiled ruefully at the thought of his family living their primly proper lives as members of Scotland’s nobility. Embarrassed by his youthful indiscretions with an older woman who was married to one of England’s wealthiest peers, they quietly pensioned him off and shipped him to America. It was an exile that benefited everyone concerned. As the youngest son of an aristocratic but large family, Edwin had little chance of ever inheriting his father’s title. Despite his being well educated in the finest schools, cultured and intelligent, Edwin had no interest in becoming a minor British government functionary posted to some remote corner of the Empire. A common practice that absorbed many untitled sons of Britain’s privileged families. Also, the old practice of finding a place for Edwin within the church was negated by his already established reputation as a youthful wastrel. The churches of Great Britain, already locked into what would be called the Victorian Age, no longer were a place where the nobility could dump their surplus young sons without titles. In the eyes of churchmen throughout Great Britain, Edwin was a rebellious young rakehell whose talent for scandal was a source of constant embarrassment to his aristocratic family.

All this suited Edwin de Baliol very well. He had no interest in a career of any type that involved boring clerical work, or worse, a career in the Crown’s military such as the army or navy. Hunting and killing bored him. Edwin loathed guns and never carried one in an American society where almost all those with the money to afford them carried a firearm on their persons. Edwin’s quietly passive nature came at a price. Packed off, like all young boys born to the British upper classes, to a public school Edwin, an innocently beautiful child, quickly fell victim to older boys who abused him physically and sexually. Terrified nearly witless by these cruel upper classmen, Edwin repeatedly attempted to run away and was ruthlessly caned by the headmaster for such open rebelliousness. As he grew to adolescence a resentful and troubled Edwin was caned so often in school that he was physically and mentally scared for life. He felt betrayed by his parents for abandoning him to such a harsh system of education where discipline, respect, silence and the need to keep one’s emotions hidden was beaten into young boys with a stick. What disgusted a young Edwin most about his school were the housemasters looking the other way as a few older boys preyed on the younger ones. Edwin wrote letters pleading to be brought home but his father coldly wrote back that school was a place that would make him a man. His father admonished him to stiffen his back and make do. So Edwin endured his fate by escaping into cynicism. He became cold and indifferent to the ideals his schoolmasters taught even as they ignored the frightened whimpers of younger boys trapped in the baths at night by the bigger ones. So Edwin became quite cunning at finding ways to take his own revenge and for other violated younger boys upon certain upper classmen. His successes quickly gained him the enmity of those older boys. Edwin only escaped expulsion a number of times because his family endowed a large percentage of the school’s operating expenses. As he matured, Edwin realized the school was but a smaller version of the British society his family was part of. When, at seventeen, Edwin finished his school years he was full of loathing, towards teachers and classmates. Even more, Edwin hated his parents for putting him in harm’s way. Edwin was bitter about how he was abused as an innocent young boy. He detested the hypocrisy of a culture that allowed the many older boys that molested him to be accepted by society as fine, upstanding young gentlemen as they went off to Cambridge or Oxford. Edwin once heard his house prefect giggle with open anticipation that the reason they kept all the bells and organs going at Cambridge was to cover up the sobbing of choirboys. So Edwin spitefully rejected any family expectations that he enter university. Edwin had been sequestered for years in a rigid religious school with nothing but boys. He quickly began pursuing a long suppressed interest in women, the gaming tables of London and the seamier sides of the great city after dark.

Edwin’s cynical disdain for anything his parents and siblings believed as respectable behavior soon led to the charming, handsome young man’s becoming embroiled in many scandalous affairs with a number of married women. The family had no idea it was his way of getting even with the parents who abandoned him to years of terror and abuse at school. Things came to a head on the night of his twenty first birthday, Edwin’s father, with outrage and disgust, told him he was an embarrassment to the family. The only way they would support him was if he left Britain for good. A great feeling of escape overcame Edwin at his father’s ultimatum. A month later, Edwin shed not a tear as he took ship for The United States. No one in Edwin’s family came down to the docks as his ship sailed. Just as Ellen MacNeil would do a few years latter leaving Barra, Edwin never looked back as England dropped below the eastern horizon.

That evening in the hotel Edwin looked across the table at his host, Duncan Fraser who enjoyed matching wits at cards more than most of Louisiana’s wealthy entrepreneurs. Fortunately Duncan was as good at cards as he was at many successful business ventures around Louisiana. A shrewd but lonely man, the older Duncan’s interest in Edwin was almost paternal. Duncan liked Edwin because the younger man possessed the same cunning ability to eliminate the term game of chance at cards as he did. Duncan knew that Edwin’s current financial problems were not brought on by gambling losses but by his extravagant life style that kept him in debt to creditors like tailors and jewelers because he lavished gifts upon ladies and friends alike. Duncan almost envied Edwin’s charming ability to turn women’s heads. Perhaps he was living his own older man’s fantasies through Edwin’s many female conquests amongst New Orleans high society. Or perhaps it was simply the fact Edwin was a truly charming rogue who made no pretense about anything except enjoying the moment. That was something the respectable Duncan could never openly do. Whatever the reason, both men shared a mutual affection and respect for one another. A friendly affection Edwin decided to capitalize upon after dinner.

I say Duncan. It seems the cursed mail from Britain is late again. I’m in a bit of a tight spot until my ship comes in so to speak. Do you think you could put me up as a lodger in your boarding house until then? Edwin asked it lightly and quietly lest he be overheard and to keep the desperation out of his voice. He knew Duncan kept several boarding houses open for his clerks and workers to lodge in. He charged them little for rent but reaped a profit out of the loyalty it gained him. Duncan smiled knowingly. I keep telling you to husband your money Edwin. Make it grow. Invest some of it with me and I’ll turn you a handy profit. There is more to life than wine, women and gaming tables. One day some outraged husband is going to call you out and you will end up dead under the dueling oaks at dawn! Edwin flashed his most engaging smile to Duncan. You know I am too much the coward for that old chap. All New Orleans knows I would rather run than fight. I arrived in Charleston from Britain first and within weeks had to leave because some planter thought I seduced his wife. The idiot! She seduced me in fact! Then it was Mobile and more of the same. I swear Duncan these Americans are simply barbarians! Duncan frowned. All the same Edwin, you are going to end up dead by some outraged husband’s hand one day. However, you will never listen to me despite my having your best interest at heart. Duncan sighed resignedly. All right Edwin, I have some rooms on Lake Pontchartrain you can use until your bank draft arrives from Edinburgh. Mind you now, it’s a respectable house and the young woman who runs it for me will not abide your bringing loose women, drinking or gambling under her roof. Duncan scribbled a note on his business card with a pencil. Here is the address and my permission for you to take lodging there. Give this to Ellen MacNeil. She is a charming young widow of whom I have grown most fond so treat her with respect. Duncan laughed at his own concern. Actually, I am afraid the only thing in common the two of you have is being born in Scotland!"

Duncan Fraser may have been a shrewd businessman but he knew nothing of women, or the attraction between opposites, Edwin mused months later as he sat on the verandah overlooking Lake Ponchartrain’s dark waters. Fireflies flitted through the garden and somewhere out in the darkness, a Negro boatman’s strong voice came across the water in the form of some sad slave song. Across the verandah Ellen MacNeil sat quietly sewing while young Colin played on the floor with a toy horse Edwin carved for him. He smiled at the memory of his initial meeting of Ellen when he arrived, bags in hand to present Duncan’s card. She was the very essence of politeness, cool and reserved but Edwin was attracted to the fire in her eyes. She was less educated than most ladies Edwin knew. Yet Edwin sensed she was twice the woman he had ever met. Edwin’s nature was to instinctively resort to charming himself into Ellen’s favor. He liked women too much to ever want to be ill thought of by any of them. Even one employed as a boarding house manager for Duncan Fraser. After months of his living in the boarding house Ellen remained polite but aloof to Edwin’s best efforts to win her over. Edwin at first did not realize he was drawn to Ellen’s strength of character because he had none of his own. For all of his rebelliousness towards a harsh father, Edwin’s hedonistic life was self serving and indulgent only of his wants and needs. Behind his veneer of cultured polish and elegant manners, Edwin began to realize he was a hollow man when comparing his life to Ellen MacNeil’s. Ellen had important goals in her life. Ellen wanted security for herself and more importantly, little Colin, whom she protected like a tigress with a cub. When Edwin realized this about Ellen, he instinctively turned to Colin as a means past her aloofness towards him. Edwin may have loathed hunting, but he knew there was more than one way to trap a green eyed little vixen like Ellen MacNeil.

From where she sat sewing Ellen stole a glance at Edwin de Baliol. Edwin was quite handsome she thought. Not handsome in the rugged fashion of her lost Roddy but more refined, almost effeminate in a way. She knew his family was descended from John de Baliol and his son Edward who both had briefly held the throne of Scotland in an ill fated struggle with their rivals of the illustrious Bruce family whose most famous scion, the great Robert the Bruce, defeated the English at Bannockburn in 1314. Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scotland in 1306 at Scone, was grandfather of Robert II, the first Scottish King of the Stuart lineage who later ruled both England and Scotland. The Stuart lineage and their claims to the thrones of England and Scotland died with Bonny Prince Charlie in 1788. Ellen knew the de Baliol family was intermingled throughout Scotland’s violent history as rival claimants to the throne of Scotland for they had been ruthlessly used by the shrewd English to divide the warlike clans of Scotland against themselves into the eighteenth century. Edwin therefore was a descendant of kings. A fact the low borne but proud Ellen MacNeil could not ignore. She believed herself beneath Edwin’s station and maintained a cool but polite relationship with this aristocratic lodger. Yet, she mused to herself, perhaps Edwin was a threadbare aristocrat in a new nation where titles and family lineage were meaningless. Still, she thought, he was very nice to Colin who was drawn to Edwin. Perhaps because Colin had no father and Edwin missed being part of a family more than he was willing to admit. Colin seemed most happy when Edwin was in the house. She wondered why Edwin had, in the last few weeks, been spending less time out at night making the rounds of theaters and saloons. For herself, Ellen was quite happy to have a man about the house. Most of her lodgers were seedy clerks and snot nosed apprentices who worked for Duncan Fraser. Edwin stood out in their boarding house like a fine racehorse in a livery stable!

Edwin put his paper down. I say Misses MacNeil, I have an appointment tomorrow night with some gentlemen interested in a game of cards. Would it be too much trouble to iron me a shirt in the morning? It’s very important that I look my best. These fellows are men I don’t want to offend. I would surely appreciate it, Madam. Ellen smiled at Edwin’s obvious attempt to be polite. Besides, Colin was happily sitting on Edwin’s knee playing with an expensive watch he had pulled out of a vest pocket. It’s no bother Sir Edwin’s sudden reply startled her. Oh please Madam. Call me Edwin will you? May I call you Ellen? We are living under the same roof and I have enjoyed your care for months now. I would like to think of you as a friend. He smiled. Shall we? Ellen nodded back without looking up. If it’s your wish Sir you may call me Ellen. Edwin. He corrected her. It goes both ways, Ellen dear. Ellen blushed for the first time. All right…Edwin, but it’s Colin’s bedtime. Edwin stood up. I’ll put him to bed. It’s the least I can do to return the favor of the shirt. Come along you little ‘Spalpeen’. Your Uncle Edwin will sing you a lullaby! Ellen realized with start that they had been conversing together in Gaelic, not Edwin’s public school English. Suddenly, for the first time in two years, Ellen missed her home on Barra.

Ellen was growing concerned about Edwin who had been away for two days. That often happened before but Ellen had not minded until recently when despite herself, she found herself increasingly attracted to her handsome lodger. He had left wearing a fresh shirt she had ironed for him and in his best white linen suit. Even little Colin seemed concerned as he kept looking for Edwin in his two rooms upstairs. Ellen knew Colin had become very attached to Edwin and the aristocratic Scot’s doting on her son greatly touched her. As Ellen busied herself about the house, dusting and seeing to supper she kept an ear cocked for the sound of Edwin’s steps on the front porch.

Ellen quickly set aside her concern about Edwin when someone confidently used her door’s ornate brass knocker to announce his presence. It was Duncan Fraser standing at the door when she answered with her feather duster in hand. Good afternoon Sir. She greeted her employer respectfully. Duncan smiled. Yes indeed my good Ellen MacNeil, a fine afternoon it is. Ellen was not used to Duncan arriving in the middle of a workday and obviously so cheerful. How may I help you sir? She asked, hoping her apprehension was not noticed. Duncan chuckled. It is more about how I can help you my dear. Fetch wee Colin and join me in my carriage will you? I have something to show you and discuss. Ellen frowned. Discuss? Discuss just what Sir! She was openly concerned. Tut, Tut now Ellen. Nothing to fear I assure you. I have a business opportunity and something of a more personal nature that will be to your and Colin’s benefit as well as my own! Now shall we go my dear?

Ellen MacNeil’s head was spinning with all sorts of thoughts as Duncan’s driver wove his way skillfully between busy waterfront traffic on New Orleans’ cobblestone streets. Duncan said little other than small talk about his affairs until they pulled alongside a steamboat tied up at a riverside dock. Duncan helped Ellen and an excited Colin out of his carriage and escorted them across the gangway. An elaborate sign proudly proclaimed the steamboat’s identity to the world beneath an equally ornate wheelhouse as the BATON ROUGE. Duncan pointed at the sign. This, as you can see Ellen, is the sternwheeler Baton Rouge. Your lodger, and my friend, Edwin, with some backing from me, won this beauty in a card game last night from her former owners. Ellen was stunned. Oh My! Oh My! Ellen kept saying to a beaming Duncan Fraser. Then Edwin suddenly appeared on deck. Welcome aboard Ellen. Isn’t she a beauty? Colin shrieked with delight at sight of Edwin who despite his smile looked a bit frazzled. Duncan looked at Edwin. Take the bairn and show him the boat lad! He looks excited enough to burst. Duncan waited until the two were out of earshot before he turned to Ellen. Sit down Ellen, please? Ellen bit her lip. Whatever this was about, it was more than just showing off Edwin’s new prize. Duncan reached out and took her hand. Ellen, as you know, Laird Robert, our kinsman on Barra, entrusted you to my care. Therefore, I am your late husband’s clan chieftain’s representative here in New Orleans. I have provided well for you and have come to see that you are a woman of great ability. You have helped me often enough with my accounts to prove your skill at business. I wish my other boarding houses were run half as well as you manage the lakefront place. So I have a proposition for you. As Edwin’s backer who advanced him the stake for that card game, I have a right to a half ownership in this boat. Now Edwin is a superbly skilled gambler but I am not. So I want to protect my investment. You understand? Ellen nodded, wondering where this was going. Duncan continued. "You are a young widow of the clan MacNeil Ellen, and it is my duty as your protector to find a place for you. That includes a husband to care for you and the boy. Edwin has agreed to marry you and pledged to care for Colin as his own. A dowry will be provided for you. In return

Edwin has agreed to sign over his share of Baton Rouge into your name beforehand. I do not want his half of Baton Rouge lost a second time in a game of cards. Edwin will be satisfied with control of the upper deck gaming tables and a quarter share of the profits. I’ll take a half share of profits after you pay the operating expenses, wages and such. You and Edwin shall each receive a quarter share. You will oversee all the other business operations of our boat. The passengers and cargos you secure will be your responsibility. We have hired a capable captain to operate the boat for us but you will have the final say about what sort of cargo is transported up and down the river, where the boat goes and who are taken as passengers. The captain shall provide a crew but only with your approval." Ellen was too stunned to say a word. She just nodded meekly for it was Duncan’s right