Free Midnight Star by Catherine Coulter Page B

wassurprised at how . . . civilized the city was.” She fell silent a moment, remembering Rio de Janeiro, a city as exotic as any described in the Minerva Press novels. They had docked there for a week while repairs were made on the Eastern Light. Although there were many Europeans and Americans living in the city, it was the influence of the early Portuguese inhabitants that seemed to dominate. Chauncey would never forget shopping in the open-air stalls, watching the garishly dressed black women hawking all kinds of fruits as well as cloth, jewelry, tea, and coffee. She had brought enough gewgaws to fill a small valise. She smiled vaguely, now remembering how she would have gladly tossed away her exotic purchases when the ship floundered like a toy wooden boat in the cold, raging winds that gusted as the two oceans met at the tip of South America. Chauncey as well as the majority of the other passengers fell so ill with seasickness that she had wanted to die. Both she and Mary had even been hurled from their damp bunks several times by the ferocious hail-and snowstorms that pounded the ship. It had taken the Eastern Light an entire week to round Cape Horn. One of the great sails had been torn asunder, but Captain Markham hadn’t seemed overly perturbed. “Slight damage, very slight. Fine sailing and a kettle full of luck” was what he said.
    “Do you know how lucky we are, Mary? Mr. Johansen told me that many of the ships take a good eight months to navigate from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco. And we’re going to reach San Francisco in three months.”
    Three months of miserable food, crampedquarters, and near-death, Mary thought. “I suppose it’s better than struggling overland through that awful-sounding Panama place with all its fevers and vicious natives! And just thinking about riding in those dreadful wagons across the interior of America, thirsting to death in the desert or losing your head to those red Indians—”
    “Scalps, Mary, not heads.”
    “The result is the same, miss!”
    “Indeed,” Chauncey said absently, no longer paying attention, her thoughts inevitably going to the man in San Francisco. “Soon, Mr. Delaney Saxton,” she said softly. “Soon.”
     
    The Eastern Light didn’t pass through the Golden Gate until five days later. There was another storm to ride out, not so severe as the one that had sent the ship diving into the trough of incredibly deep waves off Cape Horn, its white sails beating against the savage burst of rain and wind. But still the rolling and bucking decks were enough to send Mary to her knees in devout and loud prayer and to make Chauncey’s stomach roil in protest.
    “Another trip safely done,” Captain Markham said with simple pride as he stood by Chauncey on the quarterdeck as the ship neared its berth on what the captain called the Long Wharf. “More changes, I see,” he continued. “Every time I return, the city has stretched itself outward. That area yonder—but two years ago it was still bay. A lot of bay has been filled in since the first argonauts arrived for gold in forty-nine, and more miles of wharf than you’d imagine. You’ll find many streets paved with wooden planks now,Miss Chauncey. Lucky they are, else after the rains you’d sink to your knees in the mud. And I heard that we’ll have gas lights soon. Not a dismal little village any longer. No, as bustling a port as New Orleans.”
    “Just look at the hills,” Chauncey said in some awe.
    “That’s Russian Hill,” Captain Markham said, following her pointing finger. “And there is Telegraph Hill, called that because of the semaphore atop it. And there is Fern Hill. Houses are starting to creep up them now, but it’s tough going. On the ocean side, there’s naught but rolling sand dunes, no hills.”
    “The city looks quite modern. All the brick buildings.”
    “Aye, that’s true. Used to be all wooden shanties, but fires have been a problem. Lucky in the long