Her expression was cheery, her smile broad. When she looked at it, she could scarcely believe that it had been taken before one of the ugliest moments of her life. First, there was the business with the runaway slaves, followed by the trouble on the riverboat later that night, their last on the Crescent Queen. The Colonel had been traveling with Josephine and Claire for three months as they made a pair of lazy tours up and down the river. Because both Claire and the Colonel were up late into the night, the former dancing and singing and the latter gambling until dawn, Josephine was in the habit of getting out of her blankets on the floor and leaving the others in bed while she climbed up to the promenade to read. Sometimes, when she came back too early, she could hear them making love, and would slink away again without opening the stateroom door. After the Colonel had disappeared for two years when she was eight, the day of the fair, she’d refused to talk to him the next time he came, and the time after that, a few months later.
