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Rocky Mountain Restoration

By Lisa J. Flickinger

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Rocky Mountain Restoration
By Lisa J. Flickinger
Chapter One

1899
SS Jameson, Pacific Ocean

“Eeeeeee!”
Owen’s spine juddered as he slipped a crystal goblet to the expanse of white linen.
Heads bobbed up around the SS Jameson’s dining saloon, their inquisitive eyes fixed on the door leading to the upper deck cabins.
His jowls vibrating, Walter Hamilton, Head Steward, stepped to Owen’s side and hissed under his breath. “Go! Stop that caterwauling.”
“Those are Maggie’s cabins, Sir.” Owen surveyed the room. She’d been attending General Chalmers and his wife Katherine, a moment ago. Where had Maggie gone?
“Aaaahhh!”
“I don’t care whose rooms they are. Go!”
Owen tugged a broad smile to his lips and pinched the beak of his wool cap. “Yes, Sir, right away, Sir.” With a crisp step, Owen marched his polished leather boots to the heavy mahogany door and pushed through.
In the hallway, the frightened wail split his ears. He followed the shrieks to room eight and knocked on the door. “Miss? It’s Steward Owen Kelly.”
He hadn’t served the woman who occupied the room, but he had studied her appearance. She was impossible to ignore. Tall, only a few inches shy of Owen’s six feet, and slender with bountiful black curls. Her attractive blue eyes held an expression of unease. The trait set apart her from the other passengers on the steamship bound for a pleasant fall excursion up the Canadian Coast.
“Please help.”
Cautiously, he pushed the door. It wouldn’t be the first time if he found a woman, the top sheet arranged to accentuate her feminine curves, who required his assistance—assistance he didn’t intend to provide.
The sliver of view revealed the woman, shoes on the bed, her arms wrapped around the striped privacy curtain hanging from the elaborate tin ceiling. A whimper escaped her throat. “Please…help me.”
His heart pitched as he stepped to the crimson pattern of the wool carpet inside the room. “What’s wrong? We heard your screams, and the Head Steward sent me to help.”
Tears dangled from her long curled lashes. “It’s here.” She swung her head from side to side in a frantic motion. “Somewhere.”
Owen swept the room with his gaze. The wrought iron bed, vanity cabinet, and parlor chair were the typical furniture of all the first class rooms. The only difference of any note was the lack of steamer trunk tucked into the corner.
Nothing appeared amiss. Passengers had been known to over imbibe in all sorts of recreations during the voyages. Was the woman delirious? He lowered his volume to a whisper. “What’s here, Miss?”
“That! Aaaahhhh,” she shrilled.
He spun on the spot to find a Norway rat scurrying from under the bed and toward the door. A quick stomp and the creature’s long bald tail was pinned under his boot. Owen reached down and lifted the tiny creature into the air. It twirled like a dervish, its pale underside a contrast to its shaggy black coat. “It’s just a baby,” he crooned to calm the woman’s fright. “There’s no need for you to be afraid. I’ll take—” The rat dropped to the ground as Owen leapt forward. He’d hardly braced his knees before the woman swooned into his arms.
Even within inches, she was a beauty. He studied her pearled skin and plump lips.
“Owen?”
The silk of the woman’s skirt rustled against the leg of his dark uniform as he rotated to face his friend.
A black look crossed Maggie’s broad face. He was in for it.
She planted her feet. “What are you doing?”
“I—”
“Georgie said there’d been screaming. I came as quick as I could. Why are you in Josanna’s room?” Maggie’s eyes fired. “And why is she—” Maggie thrust her chin forward. “—in your arms?”
Josanna, an elegant name for an elegant woman. “Hamilton sent me. There was a rat. She fainted. I caught her.” Not that Owen needed to explain himself to Maggie.
Josanna roused and murmured, “Ssnooop.”
Why was she accusing him of snooping? The fright must have jarred her thoughts.
Pointing a pudgy finger toward the bed, Maggie commanded. “Put her down and leave. I’ll wipe her brow with some cold water and a cloth. It’ll bring her around. You are no longer needed.”
Owen laid Josanna atop the oriental counterpane, and Maggie tidied her skirts.
“I’ll take a look for the rat.”
With a sharp elbow to his ribs, Maggie repeated her command. “Leave.”
Owen acquiesced and returned to the dining room. Josanna’s delicate features remained in his mind as he continued serving the guests their luncheon. In his one year and four months of service aboard the ship, not a single woman had intrigued him as she did.
Maggie might wish to, but she couldn’t stop him if he secured a rat trap from the stores and returned to Josanna’s state room later in the day. Nor could Maggie argue with his reasoning. Since the day she and Owen had begun their training, Hamilton had bombarded them with the adage “it was the employees of the SS Jameson’s responsibility to inquire after their passenger’s wellbeing and to provide for their every convenience.” That included a trapped rat.
“Steward.”
Miss Primrose Gillespie’s high pitched voice pulled him from his thoughts. He resisted the urge to shiver. “Yes?”
“I appear to have dropped my fork,” she said, and batted her long eyelashes.
Owen looked down at the sterling silver utensil emblazoned with the steamer’s signature lying four feet from Primrose’s and her mother’s table. Had the object taken flight? In his distraction, he’d forgotten to give the woman a wide berth. He’d learned not long after they’d set sail on the two week long voyage that Primrose enjoyed seeing him bend to her every whim.
Why the girl bothered with her games was a mystery. It was apparent the women were of means and a steward, particularly one fresh from the wharves of Chicago, was much too lowly for the girl to bother with. He scooped the fork from the floor. “I’ll return with a clean one in a moment, Miss.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Gillespie tittered and splayed a hand across her chest. “Primmy, dear, let the man go about his work. You can borrow my dessert fork.” She reached the utensil across the table.
“Don’t be silly, mother. Owen doesn’t mind, do you?”
How had Primrose learned his name? Yes, he minded, he minded a lot. Working the ship wasn’t physical labor, but it was demanding. Passengers like Primrose leeched time better suited to meeting real needs. He wouldn’t reward her with a smile. “I’ll be right with you.”
Owen crossed the sixty feet of high ceilinged dining room and plucked a napkin wrapped place setting from the serving table outside the kitchen door. To his left, Maggie scooped up two bone china tea cups and set them on a black and gold lacquered tray.
He held out the place setting. “Would you take this to table fifteen?”
She turned to face him. “Primrose and her mother?” One thick eyebrow rose. “I thought the charming Owen would appreciate the attention sweet Primmy wished to bestow on him. She asked after you the other morning while I was making up their beds.”
“So you’re the one who gave her my name.”
Maggie proffered a wry grin. “I didn’t know your name was a secret. I wonder how Miss Thomas knew to ask after the brawny Owen Kelly when she came to.”
Even in her panic, Josanna had remembered who he was. The knowledge warmed his heart.
“I know your Irish, Maggie, but the color of green doesn’t suit you.” He regretted the words the moment they passed over his lips.
Her pale cheeks flamed as she poked at his chest. “You’ve forgotten what you’ve come from, Owen.”
Her familiar words thickened at the back of his throat.
Hamilton stepped between them. “Save your bickering for your break, you two, or I will have to write you up. Owen, table fifteen is waiting for a fork.”
Owen thrust the utensils into Maggie’s grip. “I’ll serve the tea.”
“Please do,” Maggie shot back. “Table eight will be delighted by your attention.”
Widowed sisters Inez Burgess and Clara Parks, he steeled his spine. Clara primped her gray curls and tapped her sister’s hand as Owen neared their table.
“Look who they’ve sent as a replacement, Iney.” A cheery giggle bubbled from Clara’s chest.
Inez looked up from the thick novel nestled in one palm and adjusted her pince-nez. The gold chain affixed to the corner of one eyepiece vacillated against her cheek as she drew her narrow mouth into a frown. “Where’s the girl?” she asked.
“Oh please, you mustn’t be rude. I’m sure this dear young man will serve our tea quite competently.”
In his work on the steamship Owen hadn’t met any siblings more night and day than Inez and Clara. Inez, tall and narrow, buried her nose in reading material from sunup to sundown. Her younger sister, fair skinned, with an athletic build, joined in the many activities with the other passengers.
“It’s bothersome. We already have the girl trained.” Inez dropped her chin and glared over the top of her glasses. “How long have you let it steep young man?”
The stewards were trained to leave the tea balls in the steaming pots for a precise four minutes. He glanced down. Thankfully, no silver hook gripped the china rim, but he had no idea what special training the sisters had given Maggie. “It’s just the way you like it Mrs. Burgess,” he said, and slid the tray onto the table.
“We’ll see.” She returned to her book.
Clara leaned forward. “What activities are we engaging in this afternoon? I enjoyed yesterday’s tug-of-war on the top deck immensely. That Mr. Hewitt is a charming man.”
“The poor steward doesn’t need to hear about your latest infatuation.”
The droll Edgar Hewitt with his “dreadful sense of style”, according to Maggie, was an unusual choice for the delightful Clara.
“One would think, after four unsuccessful attempts to find your next husband on a voyage, you would have given up by now.”
Four voyages? Perhaps Inez had a reason to be indifferent. “Today’s Wednesday, Yvette will have planned for board games. Meet back here in the dining room by two pm.”
Clara clasped her hands. “What fun we shall have. Do join in today, Iney.”
Her sister ignored the comment. The wooded aroma of Lipton tea wafted from Inez’s cup as she brought it to her nose and sniffed. Inez tipped the cup and took a small sip.
He waited for the pronouncement.
“It will do,” she said.
~
Excused from supper service, Owen ascended the thirty foot ladder from the steward’s quarters and hurried down the hall to prepare the smoking room for the evening. The room lay adjacent to the dining room, where the sounds of laughter and the tinkling of dinnerware indicated the meal was still in progress.
As a result of reclining on his bunk, lost in his thoughts, Owen had overstayed his break and made himself late for the last stretch. Manning the smoking room would take him well past the midnight hour and would excuse him from breakfast service in the morrow, too.
Inside the room, he took a deep breath and tugged the hem of his uniform jacket. Thankfully, the room was empty of the fifteen or so men who would retire to its sumptuous surroundings after their meal.
He made quick work of dusting the red oak paneling and polishing the globes on the wall sconces. Next, he squared the room’s barley twist chairs with their corresponding tables and left a precise one boot-length gap between them. With a cloth from behind the bar, he wiped the leather armchairs nestled on either side of the fireplace.
By the time the men trailed in by groups of twos or threes Owen’s heart had calmed to a steady beat. The Breyer family comprised of Peter, his son, and his son-in-law, arrived first and took the far table. They were soon joined by the General who was guaranteed at some point in the evening to regale the table with his exploits during The Third Burma War. The group was affable and would spend the evening playing Five-card Stud. The highest bet to date had been fifty-six pennies.
The serious gamblers, from five different countries, gathered around another table.
Although the air would hang with the pungent odor of pipes and cigars, only a handful of the occupants smoked. Gambling was the primary reason the Smoking Room filled in the evening, it was the only place gaming was allowed on the ship.
Jack Reilly punched his companion, Bertie Saxon, good-naturedly on the shoulder as they sat before the fire. “Awww, Bertie, you need to be more bold. Esther will come around.”
Esther Dodd, the tiny spitfire from England who loved to spend time on the upper deck entertaining the children with stories and games.
Bertie’s mouth slumped into a frown under his groomed handlebar moustache. “She looks right through me. I’m only six years her junior, why won’t she give me a chance.”
Poor Bertie lacked a decade, at least, in maturity from the woman in his sights. He’d been dropped at the Vancouver peer by his father’s driver an hour before the SS Jameson set sail. Owen’s fellow steward, Spencer, had overheard the young man’s frantic pleas of “don’t leave me” as the carriage drove away.
Since then, Bertie had told anyone who’d listen he no longer needed his father’s support as he would be a self-made man within weeks. His intent was to make his fortune in the gold fields of northern Canada.
Owen stepped up to the twosome. “May I offer you some George Roe. It’s the Captain’s special this evening.”
Owen loathed strong drink. The curse was partly responsible for the destruction of his family, but the job necessitated he served it. Alcohol was not included in the ticket purchase for the excursion and the company made a tidy profit on sales in the Smoking Room. Against company policy, when any of the men reached the point of inebriation, Owen escorted them to their room. More often than not, he received the gratitude of their wives.
Jack reclined in his chair and slicked a hand through his oiled black hair. “One for me and my friend. Put it on my tab, boy.”
Owen bristled at the slur. It wasn’t only Jack’s hair that was oily. There was something about him that grated on Owen’s nerves.
Jack was thin and sinewed as if he was a tightly coiled mechanism ready to spring. His manners were rough at times and smooth and suave at others. Owen never knew which Jack he’d approached.
Jack had taken poor Bertie under his wing, but it would be of no help to the boy to encourage him in the imbibing of spirits. Thankfully, neither of the two played cards although it was obvious Jack’s ear was often attuned to the action at the tables.
Neither man paid attention to Owen as he slid two crystal glasses of amber liquid to the low round table between them.
Bertie’s head was in his hands. “I’m not sure how much longer I can take her dismissal, Jack.”
Owen clamped his jaw to keep from snickering. The ship had set sail only three days before. Even for the immature Bertie, it wasn’t long enough to become lovesick.
“A man like you, well on his way to success, has nothing to worry about.” Jack squeezed Bertie’s shoulder. “Women can be fickle. I should know. My fiancée left me at the altar. In fact, this trip was to be our honeymoon.”
The fact might account for Jack’s strange moods.
“Esther’s made of sterner stuff. Be patient, Bertie.”
The next two hours blurred as Owen served the occupants of the room. The noise level rose, and the air thickened with smoke.
Georgie, Owen’s cabin mate and fellow steward, arrived to relieve Owen for a short break at ten pm. “There’s leftover rice pudding from supper in the kitchen. If you don’t hurry, it’ll be eaten up.”
No one loved the cook’s sweets more than good natured Georgie. “I’m surprised you left me some.”
Georgie laughed. “I wouldn’t have, but Maggie slapped my hand.”
Maggie wasn’t as angry over Josanna as she wanted Owen to believe, but her chastisement of Georgie would go to waste. Owen planned to forgo his treat and slip down to Josanna’s room with a tombstone trap. If she allowed him, it would take only a moment to set the contraption under her bed. It would also allow for several minutes of conversation before he had to return to the Smoking Room. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Owen slipped the trap from a linen cupboard, where he’d hidden it earlier, and strode down the hall toward Josanna’s cabin. He nodded to Inez and Clara as he passed and raised his fist to knock on Josanna’s door.
“Stop.”
Maggie, again.
“I thought I might find you here. What are you up to?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Inez and Clara entered their room without a backward glance.
Owen couldn’t explain the draw he felt toward Josanna to himself let alone Maggie. All stewards had been warned repeatedly during their training to keep an emotional distance from the passengers. There had been hundreds of women on the voyages since he had begun working on the ship, and until now, Owen hadn’t found it difficult to submit to the warning.
“I brought this.” He pulled the morbidly shaped trap from his pocket and held it out. “I was going to set it and make sure the rat was no longer in Miss Thomas’s room.”
“I’ve already set one. I could do it in my sleep, like any of us could. If you don’t stay away from her, I’ll speak to Hamilton.”

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