River Queen Read Online Free Page A

said. “Please don’t make Mr. Leggett wait, Julienne, he’s always so very prompt.”
    “Yes, I know,” she said impatiently. Roseann left and Julienne seated herself at her dressing table. “Make my hair perfect, Tyla. I want to be the most beautiful lady at the party tonight.”
    “You will probably be the most beautiful lady at the party,” Tyla said sternly as she brushed Julienne’s hair, “because you may be the only lady at the party. Miss Julienne, I know you’ve got your head set on going, but please, please, just think, for once. This isn’t a social gathering with friends that your family has known for years. This is some kind of rabble-rousing bash with a bunch of river men. Your father said that all kinds of men that have to do with the steamers are going to be there, even roustabouts. A party at Natchez-Under-the-Hill! You shouldn’t ever go there after dark for any reason, much less to a party!”
    And there Tyla had defined the nature of the other, darker half of the city of Natchez.
    While the genteel city of Natchez had been built on the high bluffs overlooking the river, the port itself that provided the riches for that city was the shantytown of Natchez-Under-the-Hill, strung down along the muddy shores of the Mississippi. It was the most notorious port on the river. All along the docks, where hundreds of steamships came and went every single day, were saloons, gambling dens, brothels, filthy shacks with rusty tin roofs that served as flophouses for drunks and whores, and meager stores with armed guards. Every night there were fights that ranged from drunken scuffles to murderous knifings and shootings. The regular Natchez police would not dare go there. It was policed, after a fashion, by a brutal gang called the Big Bosses, a group of the roughest, most dangerous men. They ran a protection racket, charging the saloon owners and pimps and merchants to keep them from being robbed, to break up fights, and, when necessary, to haul off the bodies and make them disappear.
    “Don’t be so dramatic, Tyla,” Julienne said disdainfully. “Ladies go to Natchez-Under-the-Hill all the time, since it’s the only way to board a steamer. You know we’ve gone down there to take three trips to New Orleans, and nothing at all happened. And it’s not as if I’m going to a saloon. We’ve known the Moak family for years, and they always have fine parties, with all the highly-regarded families.”
    “But this is not a Moak family party,” Tyla argued. “Mr. Moak is wanting to sell that riverboat, and so he’s invited all the men from the river to come tour it. I’ll bet Mrs. Moak, or Felicia and Susanna, aren’t going to be there.”
    “Father is going to be there, so it will be perfectly proper for me to go.”
    Stubbornly Tyla shook her head. “It’s not proper. Not with all the riffraff that’s going to be there. Roughnecks and bad women, I’d imagine. And there you’ll be, right in the middle of them. It’s no place for a Christian lady.”
    “But I am a Christian lady and you know it, Tyla. I go to church, I pray. Besides, you’re always fussing at me about being a snob. You should be glad that I’m going to a social function with people that are beneath me.”
    Tyla sighed deeply. “There’s a world of difference between being charitable to those less fortunate than you, and partying and carrying on with riffraff.”
    She went over to retrieve curling tongs from the grill over the roaring fire, licked her finger and snapped it on the red-hot rod, and nodded with satisfaction when it sizzled. Then she carefully wound a long gold strand of Julienne’s hair around it and held it for a few seconds, to make a perfect ringlet. Julienne sat very still, she didn’t even speak, as Tyla made four ringlets. Once Carley had jostled Tyla’s arm while she was doing this, and the hot iron had badly burned Julienne’s neck.
    When she finished Julienne picked up the conversation. “Again,