The Drifter

Dr. Leah Mundy was coming into the bathhouse, shuffling backward, bent over and talking softly to someone in a rolling wood-and-wicker chair. “Just a few steps more. There we are,” she said.

Her voice was incredibly sweet and coaxing, devoid of the acid, scolding tone she used with Jackson.

“You’ll feel like a new person when you’re in the bath,” Leah Mundy said. She brought the rolling chair fully into the room and swiveled it around.

“Dr. Mundy, who’s that man?” asked a child’s voice.

She glanced up, and her eyes grew wide and panicked, the eyes of a doe caught in a hunter’s sight. “Mr. Underhill!”

He bowed from the waist where the towel was knotted precariously. “Ma’am.”

He was impressed by the way she regained control without even moving a muscle. The panic in her gaze subsided to a detached authority. In her profession, she probably saw male bodies all the time. Half naked or not, he was no more than an anatomy specimen to her. She straightened her shoulders, folded her lips into a humorless line, and cleared her throat.

“I didn’t expect to find anyone here,” she said. Jackson could tell she was trying not to look at his tattoo. “I was bringing Bowie for his therapeutic bath. He’s Mrs. Dawson’s boy.” Her voice softened a little as she glanced down. “Bowie, this is Mr. Underhill. He was just leaving.”

The child in the chair smiled shyly. Jackson felt his heart squeeze with an odd feeling of longing and loss. Bowie had fair hair and pale skin, and a face stamped by an invalid’s patient resignation. He was painfully thin, with a blanket draped over sticklike legs.

Jackson managed a friendly grin. “How do, youngster. Pleased to meet you.”

He glared at Leah, his gaze never leaving hers as he gathered up his things and stepped behind a trifold screen. He whistled as he dressed, savoring the feel of clean clothes against clean skin. He noticed that his shirt button, which had been broken for weeks, had been replaced. Leah Mundy might not be all that friendly, but she employed good help.

Every so often, it was possible to feel respectable, just for a minute or two.

As he was leaving the bathhouse, he happened to glance into the bathing chamber. Leah had managed to get the boy out of his clothes except for a pair of drawers for modesty.

“Sophie’s away, so it’s just the two of us,” she was saying. “Can you hang on to my neck?” She burrowed her arms around and under him.

Bowie complied, linking his bony wrists behind her neck. “Where’s Sophie?”

“She took the side-wheeler to Port Townsend.” Leah lurched as she stood up with the boy in her arms.

“Here, let me help,” Jackson said gruffly, striding toward them.

A flash of surprise lit her face. She gave the briefest of nods. “Just take Bowie’s legs and we’ll ease him into the bath.”

The legs were even paler than the rest of him, flaccid from lack of use. Jackson took careful hold and slowly bent, easing Bowie into the water.

“Too hot for you, son?” Jackson asked.

“No. Just right…sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir. Call me Jackson.” It just slipped out. Here he was, running from the law, and he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. Being friendly only brought a man trouble. The lesson had been beaten into him by all the hard years on the road.

The boy seemed happier once he was in the bath. He rested his head against the edge of the basin and waved his arms slowly back and forth.

“You like the water?” Jackson asked, hunkering down, ignoring Leah as she seemed to be ignoring him.

“Yup. I keep telling Mama I want to swim in the Sound, but she says it’s too dangerous.”

Leah scooped something minty-smelling out of a ceramic jar and started rubbing it onto Bowie’s legs. “It is too danger—”

“Just make sure you’re swimming with someone real strong,” Jackson cut in.

“Don’t put ideas into the boy’s head,” Leah snapped.

“If a boy doesn’t have ideas,” Jackson said, “what the hell is he going to think about all day?”

“And don’t swear,” she retorted.

Hell’s bells, she was a bossy stick of a woman. “Did I swear?” Jackson asked. “Damn, I never even noticed.”

He found a sea sponge and playfully tossed it to Bowie. The boy looked baffled for a moment, then tossed it back.

“Anyway, son,” Jackson continued, “when I was your age, I was full of ideas.”

“What sort of ideas?”

Like how to escape the orphanage. How to forget the things fat Ralphie made him do in the middle of the night. How to turn a deaf ear to the cries of the younger boys…

Jackson thrust away the memories, hid them behind a broad grin. “Ideas about sailing off to paradise. I had me a favorite book called Treasure Island. It was by a man called Robert—”

“—Louis Stevenson!” Bowie finished for him. “I know that book. He wrote Kidnapped, too. Did you read that one, Jackson? I have heaps of books. Dr. Leah always gives me books, don’t you, Dr. Leah?”

“You’re never alone when you’re reading a book,” she murmured, and Jackson looked at her in surprise.

For the remainder of the bath, he and Bowie discussed all sorts of things from storybooks to boyish dreams. Jackson couldn’t believe he’d actually found something in common with a little crippled boy who spoke properly and owned a roomful of books. And all the while, Leah Mundy looked on, her expression inscrutable.

She probably disapproved. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t know him, and what she’d seen of him did not inspire trust. He’d taken her away at gunpoint, would have kidnapped her.

In a way, he was glad it hadn’t come to that. The idea of spending days with her cooped up aboard the schooner gave him the willies. Still, a sense of urgency plucked at him. The past was nipping at his heels.

“Ever been sailing?” he heard himself asking.

“No, sir.”

“It’s a fine thing, Bowie. A damned fine thing.” Jackson shot a glance at Leah. “Of course, you have to make sure you don’t have a mutineer aboard who’d sabotage the steering.”

“Who’d do a thing like that?” Bowie asked. “Pirates?”

“A crazy woman,” Jackson said casually.

Bowie laughed, thinking it a great joke. Leah ducked her head, but Jackson noticed the hot color in her cheeks. She didn’t look half so harsh when she was blushing.

“One time,” Bowie said, “Mama was going to take me on the steamer to Seattle, but she changed her mind. Said it was too far from home.”

“Maybe your daddy—”

“His father’s been dead for years,” Dr. Mundy said. She spoke with a peculiar icy calm that sat ill with Jackson.