By the Bay (10 page)

They all smirked and laughed and hinted that you couldn’t keep a pretty girl like Jillian from running off with a good looking guy like the young Frenchman. Everybody knew how Jillian had spent so much of her life looking after her mother and figured she’d just gotten tired of the whole thing.

“You’ll hear from her in a few days,
Florence
.
” Roy had told her, “In the meantime I’ll look around a little and see what I can find out just to make you happy.”

It had become necessary, however, to tell Christine that her daughter was gone.
Florence
summoned her sisters who lived in the area as support, figuring this was going to be difficult one way or the other.
Maggie
came from her farm up the valley
and Connie
from nearby Los Fresnos
.
The other sister, Dorothea, was notified in a tactful letter that indicated only that her niece had eloped with a man
Florence
didn’t know very well.

They were all attached to Jillian
,
h
aving been brought up by her mother
. W
hen Christi
ne
began to be less than well, they had felt a particular obligation to her daughter that had grown to a special closeness in each case.

They gathered in the little cottage by the bay.
Florence
had brought a lunch of her special Mexican cooking of tacos and enchiladas and waited until everyone
had eaten
, including Christine, who seemed unusually light-hearted at this gathering. “This was,” she said, “the way it was when they were all growing up, or would have been if only Dorothea could be here.”
She looked around, then frowned, “but where’s Jillian?”

Maggie
who was usually blunt nearly to the point of rudeness looked at her
older
sister. “She must be at the school teaching, Chris. You remember she’s a teacher now.”

“Of course,” Chris snapped, “but it’s Saturday.”

At the most unexpected times, Christine could be sharp as a tack.

Everybody looked at
Florence
. The youngest, she had always been Chris’ special favorite. They thought she should be the one to tell.

She decided to say it straight out. No use pussy-footing around and making Chris more
anxious
.  “Jillian isn’t here, Chris. She went off to be married.”

Her sister’s blue eyes grew large. “Nonsense, she couldn’t get married without me there. Besides who would she marry? She hasn’t even got a boyfriend.”

“We figure she does,” Shorty said. “He left a note saying they were  eloping and he was taking her to visit his mother and father.”

“Actually he only said his family,”
Florence
corrected uncomfortably, “I’m not sure whether he has a mother and father alive.”

“Everybody has a mother and father,”
Connie
argued.

“Not necessarily still alive,”
Maggie
told her. “Jillian for instance has a live mother, but she never even knew Davis . . .”

Chris’ scream was a mixture of anger and terror that stopped all speech. “Where is my baby?” she demanded in a shrill voice. “What have you done with my baby?”

“She’s gone to be married,” Shorty said.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Chris insisted, tears streaming from her eyes. “He’s come back for us and he took her away. Davis came, and took my baby and left me behind.”

By nightfall,
Florence
had no choice but to call the doctor to come by and give her something to calm her and allow her to sleep. Her other sisters, who had their own families to see to, left once Chris was quiet under sedation.

After the café closed,
Owen
came by to spend the night on the living room couch while
Florence
slept on a pallet next to her sister’s bed. 

When Chris awakened the next morning to a mild and sunny day, she demanded to be able to eat her breakfast in the back yard. Her concerns from the night before banished, she thanked
Florence
politely for looking after the ‘baby’ last night while she was unwell.

She would be able to take care of Jillian herself today so
Florence
could go back to her work helping
Owen
at the café, she assured her sister as she ate her cereal and drank coffee and a glass of orange juice squeezed from the fruit of her own trees.

She chattered happily about her baby as though the evening before had not occurred. Tired and worried,
Florence
could only hope that this comforting illusion remained with her sister long enough for all of them to have a rest.

In the meantime, she would let the hired girls look after Chris for the day while she worked at the café and tried to figure out a way to make sure Jillian was all right.

When she left for work Chris was humming a
lullaby
to the baby she assumed was sleeping in the extra bedroom.

Chapter Thirteen

By the time the Belle Fleur came into port in New Orleans, Jillian was improving on the initial training
Owen
had given her by being well on her way to being a fair shot with the pistol she now wore constantly at her side. Philippe saw to it that she carried a dagger as well, concealed under one pant leg, and had taught her a trick or two about defensive fighting, though he assured her that none of these new talents would be needed as he and his men would always be available to protect her.

Jillian had a mixed picture in her head of the city of New Orleans in her own time as both a wicked center of sin (the aunties
’
image) and a colorful place of music and many flavors of nationality as presented to her by the wanderers who drifted through Port Isabel. Either was somewhat entertaining, but the city she entered with Philippe and his
buccaneers
was simmering in the expectation of imminent attack as they heard accents from Spain and France and saw people of color from the islands and heard the
unique cadence of the mixture of voices.

They’d hired a carriage at the docks and now with Mac along were headed for a destination only Philippe knew. He’d been closed mouth since they’d disembarked, his face grim and serious. She supposed he was concerned in coming home to this lovely city that he might find changes for the worse for both his pirate friends and for all its residents, but for herself she felt mostly excitement. After all this was like a novel she’d read before, she already knew the ending. Andrew Jackson with his rough
frontiersmen
, the free
,
as Philippe called them
,
men of color, Native Americans, Creoles from New Orleans and, most important to Philippe, the Baratarian
buccaneers
would defeat the British soundly and save New Orleans for the Americans.

She felt a certain elation at the thought of being witness to such a victory.

She was jolted when Philippe suddenly motioned the carriage to a stop and, helping her out, paid the driver while Mac, protesting every step of the way that he was tired and wanted to ride, joined them on the ground.

Philippe  ignored him. Jillian didn’t mind walking. She was too excited to sit still anyway and would be able to absorb the atmosphere better from the ground anyway.

She
saw that passersby stared at her and guessed that even here young women were expected to dress in feminine style, not like pirate lads. In fact the clothing she saw on the women around her
was
such as to make her drool: long full skirts sweeping the walks, lovely soft colors, clothes of
a
kind of a grace and beauty that modern fashions could not give.

Never before had she been in the fabled city, not in her time nor in this, and she meant to enjoy every minute. She wondered if the food was as glorious now a
s
it would come to be later so that its attractions brought visitors from all over the world. Gumbo,
beignets
,
seafood. It made her mouth water just to think of it.

They were in the heart of the old quarter now and she looked to see examples of the fine
ironwork
and frowned when she couldn’t spot any. Maybe that didn’t come until later.

Even though it was the heart of winter, right after Christmas if she’d figured right, the area dripped with greenery and, close as it was to the 
G
ulf, the air held that familiar scent of moisture and salt.

She sniffed again, smelling something delectable and unfamiliar, Creole cooking no doubt, and was about to ask Philippe if they couldn’t get something to eat as she was starving, when Mac, slightly ahead of them, stopped, staring at a building just a little way ahead. He swore in backwoods English, words that, unlike the Frenchmen’s remarks under similar conditions, were quite clear to her.

Mac was really upset ab
out something. She grabbed Philippe’s arm and turned to
glance
up at his face. The look she saw there shocked her more than Mac’s violent exclamations.

Philippe’s face was frozen into harsh lines, his mouth tight, his eyes hard. For an instant she thought
, I don’t know this man.
She quickly loosened her grip on his arm and stood independently, her hand dropping to her pistol.

What is
wrong
?

Both men had their gazes fixed on what looked to
her just an empty little building. She saw nothing special about it. It didn’t house a fancy restaurant or a saloon or even an ordinary little store selling hats and ladies dainties.

It was abandoned.

“Where have they gone?” Mac asked. “Looks most like they was never here.”

“I don’t understand,” Jillian protested. “What’s going on?”

Finally Philippe actually looked into her face. “Nor do we,” he said softly. “When I left the city a blacksmith shop set at this sight. It was run by the
Lafitte
family. My Jillian, I brought you here to meet the only family I have had since my grandmother died when I was eight, and they are not here.”

His words didn’t enlighten her by the slightest measure. “They are blacksmiths?”

“Other business was conducted here as well,” he returned grimly, not looking at her any longer, but surveying the street and its buildings. “Mac, I’ve been noticing since we first stepped into the city that things are changed somehow.”

“Mama Rose’s little place is nowhere to be seen. Though at first I’d just mixed up where it was placed. And the Catholic school, it was a block further over than I recalled.”

“People I’ve known for years walked past without even nodding,” Philippe’s tone was clipped, precise. “This is not the city we left only a few weeks ago.”

“Now that’s a downright spooky idea,” Mac said uneasily. “Things don’t change that quick, but I gotta admit I’ve been feeling downright weird ever since that business with Lightning Jack.”

Philippe’s
brown eyes narrowed. “What business, Mac?”

The two men faced each other in a conversation that shut Jillian out. Mac scratched what was left of his right ear. “Didn’t feel much like talking about it, but the way it all happened seemed real strange, though I figured it was just me and the men didn’t seem to want to talk about it.” He waited until an elderly woman with a small child moved past and out of earshot before going on.

“It’s all a little fuzzy, Phil, but the way I remember it,  one minute I was in
irons
down below, me and some other faithful crew, and Jack was running roughshod over the rest of the
men
, ordering lashing and short rations for anybody who as much as opened his mouth. Course that was just what I was hearing. Locked away the way I was, I didn’t see anything first hand.” He sounded almost apologetic.

“You know I appreciate your loyalty, Mac.”

Mac looked embarrassed. “Well, da
m
mit, ain’t I know
ed
you since you was a kid? What else could I do.”

Jillian felt like they were going to hug at any minute. After all, Philippe was French and she’d heard the men over there did hug each other. But she was a Texan and wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

To cover the emotional moment, she plunged into speech. “What are you talking about? Things don’t change that much in just a few weeks.”

“For me they changed in the space of time it took me to swim and float on my little raft from Padre Island to the town of Port Isabel,” he pointed out calmly.

Suddenly she understood what he was getting at. “You think something like that has happened here? A time shift?”

A middle aged man with skin the color of melted milk chocolate came strolling up. She stepped in
front
of him, speaking quickly and in her most polite terms. “Can you tell me, sir, the date and the year.”