Homeward Winds the River — Barbara Ferry Johnson

Leah... Heartbroken and tortured by desired for her aristocratic Creole lover, Batiste Fountaine, she flees New Orleans on a paddle-wheeler bound for the North--bound for a new life with James Andrews, the lawyer who saved her from the gallows. -- Bus as she ascends the gangplank for the sail upriver, and the first whistle of departure sounds its mournful tune, she gazes back to the cypress-shrouded levee, where the eyes of a wounded man burn deeply into her own.

Try to forget the eyes said. Someday you will long to sail southward on that river....