Mary Shura: Gabrielle

She had walked back and forth on the pole between the trees a half dozen times without wavering. Now that she had reached this point, she suddenly feared that what she was doing wasn’t going to be exciting enough to be a real act. She practiced stopping halfway and then making a deep bow to the front with her right foot outstretched. When that worked, she tried it with her left foot. Her heart was pounding with excitement. She had it! She had a brand-new act to be written on the handbills and advertised ahead down the river.

She was rising from the deep bow with her left foot in front of her when she saw him. He didn’t seem to come. Rather it seemed that he had always been there. He stood beside an oak tree a few yards to her right, a tall, blond-haired boy with a deep, rich tan to his skin and eyes as blue as her own. He was staring up at her as if he could not believe his own eyes..

She stared back at him, startled, and felt her foot slip on the mop stick.

He moved quicker than a wild thing. He was instantly beneath her with his arms stretched up. One moment she was aloft with only the rustling of the leaves around her and the green scent of the woods filling her head. Then she was in his arms, being held very close with her heart beating fiercely against his and the scent of his face, like fresh air, against her own.

"Please, oh, please," she stammered, struggling to be let down.

Without releasing her, he studied her face for a long minute. Then gently, as if she were something breakable, he set her on her feet. His voice was surprising, very quiet but deep. "I didn’t believe you were real," he said. "Now I don’t know whether I want you to be real or not."

She felt the heat rising in her face and pressed down the skirt that his firm grasp had pulled all sideways. With a rush of horror, she realized he had to have seen half of her pantaloons, at least, and maybe more petticoat that he had seen in his entire life, except on a wash line.

"Thank you," she said breathlessly. "You scared me. That’s why I fell."

"Have you any idea what I felt when I came through the woods and saw you there, up in the air as if you had flown?" He shook his head. "It’s a wonder I didn’t fall instead of you."

He was grasping her hands now, and Gabrielle knew she should pull them away, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She smiled back at him. "It must have been a shock. I’m really sorry."

He looked astonished. "Sorry? I didn’t mean that at all. The minute I saw you I knew I had been waiting for just that moment my whole life."

What could she say to that? She dropped her eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked again. "Where did you come from?"

"My name is Gabrielle Prentice," she managed to say. "I came from the showboat Levee Princess down there at the dock."

"But where do you live?"

"On the river," she said. "On the boat with my father and the others." She tugged her hands away. "And I really do have to go now."

"You can’t leave!" he protested. "Well," he said, replying to his own remark in that remarkable voice, "that’s silly. Of course you have to leave." He caught her hands again and his words came all in a rush as if he had more to say than there could ever be time for. "But you can surely stay a little bit, just a little while. I couldn’t stand it if I didn’t see you again. I’m David Wesley. Tell me I’ll see you again." He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Why was she suddenly afraid? He had sounded as if he was under some kind of spell. Somehow she felt a little enchanted herself. She had this awful feeling that if she didn’t pull away and run back to the boat that very minute, she would never be able to go.

She pulled free and, scooping up the two mop sticks, began to run awkwardly toward the river.

"Wait," he called after her. "Come back. You can’t leave me now."

Her father was standing at the rail of the Texas deck beside the pilot house. The reflected sunlight flashed on the glass of his binoculars as he lowered them when she emerged from the edge of the woods. With his right arm, he motioned urgently for her to come. Steam was boiling out of the Katie M , the little tug that pushed the Levee Princess . That meant they were ready to shove off.

No, she wanted to tell him. No, not yet.

But he was calling to her, his voice strange across the stretch of wet riverbank. Stephen DuBois stood by the oak tree to which the boat had been fastened, ready to free the boat from the land by untying the rope.

"Hurry, Gabrielle, hurry!" her father called. "We’re leaving right now in hopes we can make a few miles before dark."

When she glanced back at the woods, her father called again, his tone impatient.

"Hurry, Gabrielle, hurry."

GABRIELLE’S father grinned as she ran up the gangplank. "There for a minute I thought I was going to have to send somebody to find you. I was even thinking of having Tom Luce signal you with a few bars on that calliope."

Gabrielle laughed, knowing he was kidding. No calliope player ever dared touch the keys of his steam piano unless the boat was going to put on a show. Calliope music carried for miles and the minute the farmers heard it, they began putting their tools down to come to the river.

Her father started for the pilot house, ducking his head to miss the line of wet clothing pinned on the lines strung across the deck. Gabrielle felt a rush of guilt. She should have been here to help Floss get the washing done. But it was too late to worry about that now. "Listen, Father," she said, skipping to catch up with him. "I thought you told Pud we were leaving tomorrow. I need to show you before we leave here. I’m ready, I really am."

For a horrified moment she feared he was going to ask her what she wanted to show him. He couldn’t have forgotten. When he turned to her with a sober face, she knew he remembered about the tightrope walking. He was only putting it off because he was afraid for her. "We’ll find a time for that, Gabrielle, but we’ve got to get into the current and try to work our way to the other side before another rain sets this river to boiling again."

She stared at him as he shouted the order for the tug to fire away. Why was she worrying? He never broke promises, at least he never had yet.

The throbbing of the engine in the Katie M grew stronger as she pressed her power against the Levee Princess . The larger boat lurched as it was nudged toward the center of the river. Wrinkles fanned out against the current. The trees on the Illinois side of the river seemed to rise and fall in a ragged line of green. The woods they had just left shimmered in the light, the call of song birds still audible above the pulse of the tug. Gabrielle stared back into that secret green. He was in there somewhere, that strangely attractive young man who called himself David Wesley. She could still hear his voice pleading, "Come back. Come back." She shivered from the memory of the mingled terror and excitement she felt as she had fallen into his arms.

Sighing, she turned to go down to the galley, where she would probably find Flossie singing cheerfully to herself while she went about her work.

The passageway was dark after the brilliance of the afternoon sun. Gabrielle blinked and almost ran into Stephen DuBois, who had posted himself right in the way and stood glaring down at her. Even when she paused and waited for him to stand aside, he didn’t move.

"If you please," she said icily. "I would like to pass."

He stepped slowly aside. "What’s your hurry? You sure haven’t been moved to do anything but loll around on shore since we landed here."

She glared at him. He was impossible. Who did he think he was, criticizing what she did? It was none of his business. Somehow she was going to have to get through to her father how insolent and rude this man was. "Have you been appointed my guardian?" she asked.