by Rosalyn Eves
A weird sort of thrill runs through me. Just wait until I tell Emily.
Texas Jack was rather handsomer in the cover sketch than now, red-nosed and ruddy-cheeked, with dark circles under his eyes. He seems to be deflating a little. His gun hand drifts down to his side.
Mr. Edison edges closer and puts out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Omo—Texas Jack.”
There’s a commotion behind me, and then someone shoves Alice and me aside. “Out of the way, out of the way.” It’s an older, balding gentleman with a pink nose and pink ears. I think he might be the hotel manager.
Once past Alice and me, the manager stops and surveys the scene, hands on hips. Then he shakes his head and approaches Texas Jack. “Come now, Mr. Jack, put your gun away. You’re waking my guests. I’m sure Mr. Edison would be pleased to see you again tomorrow. You can even take tea in my own parlor, how’s that?”
Texas Jack allows himself to be led from the room. Beside me, Alice sags against the wall in relief, and Will makes his way toward her. I leave the siblings to themselves and follow Mr. Edison and Texas Jack from the room.
Now that the immediate danger is gone, the scene begins to feel rather ridiculous. I wish Samuel was here to appreciate—no. I’m not going to think about Samuel.
“I’m afraid you don’t look well, Mr. Jack,” the manager says. “Would you like a bit of whiskey in my office before you head, er, back to your camp?”
Texas Jack shakes the manager’s arm free. “I feel fine. I’ve been out with a party hunting and heard that Mr. Edison was here when we got back.” He turns to Edison again. “I’m the boss pistol-shot of the West, you know. It was me who taught Dr. Carver how to shoot.”
There’s a proud, boastful note in his voice, and, unexpectedly, Texas Jack whips his revolver back out of the holster. The manager and Mr. Edison both recoil, as do I and the handful of guests who have been drawn by the noise.
“See that weathervane?” Texas Jack asks, pointing with the barrel of the gun to a vane atop the train depot, just visible through a wide window open at the end of the hall. He pulls the trigger. There’s a loud bang, and the sharp smell of gunpowder and smoke.
The weathervane pops off the top of the depot.
Screams erupt up from some of the gathered guests, and all down the hallway doors fly open.
“Who’s been killed?” someone demands.
Texas Jack smirks and replaces his gun.
“Damned fool,” mutters Mr. Edison, but I don’t think anyone but me hears it.
“No one’s killed,” calls the manager. “It’s an accident. Go back to bed!” He turns to the gunman. “Mr. Jack, I really must ask you to leave.” He waves at a clerk that appears at the top of the stairs, drawn by the noise. “Here, take Mr. Jack outside.”
The clerk scurries toward us, a terrified expression on his face. But Texas Jack, having apparently satisfied us—and himself—of his prowess with a gun, puts up no resistance this time.
As he’s led away, the manager turns back to Mr. Edison. “He’s not a bad sort, really, not like some of the gunmen we get around here. The sort that robbed the train the other day. Truly bad and dangerous, those. Mr. Jack is just…Well, between you and me, Mr. Jack’s down on his luck. It’s hard to be held up as a hero in all those books, and not have your life match the reality. His shows don’t draw crowds the way the others do, and now the West is more settled, there’s not so much call for hunting guides. A body, especially one like Mr. Jack, needs some meaning in his life.”
Alice and Will have joined us in the doorway by this time. Will frowns thoughtfully at the open window, at the line of the depot roof. “He’s a performer, you say?”
The manager shrugs. “Is. Was. It’s hard to say now.”
Will doesn’t answer, but his eyes narrow. Alice pokes him. “I know that look. What trouble are you brewing up?”
“Nothing,” Will says, but spoils the effect by adding, with a wide grin, “yet.”
chapter eleven
Saturday, July 13, 1878
Rawlins, Wyoming
Sixteen days until eclipse
Just after breakfast on Saturday, the first train in two days leaves the station: a westbound train that’s been sitting at the station since Thursday morning.
“Line must be fixed at last,” our waiter says, bringing us word along with our bill. “Eastbound train’ll be here soon.”
Soon. My heart leaps a little. “How soon?” Do we have time to fetch our things from upstairs? I have to assume my luggage is still on the train, as it never showed up here. I catch myself wondering if Samuel is on a train toward Denver yet, but I squash the thought before it can flower. I’ve no business thinking of Samuel. He made it very clear he didn’t think much of me.
The waiter shrugs. “Train’ll be at the station for a good while loading up folks.”
We’ve already lost so much time here. In some ways, it’s been idyllic—seeing the stars through the telescope, getting to know Alice and Will, even having that wild adventure with Texas Jack. But with the real world pressing on me, all my anxiety over Rebekka floods back. Is she all right? Has the baby come yet?
Alice and I rush upstairs to gather our things. I stow mine into my carpetbag and refill my canteen, wishing that the descent of so many passengers had not cleared out the town like grasshoppers eating the first crop of wheat in the Salt Lake valley. There’s little remaining food to be had, and certainly not at prices I can afford, even with the dollar Alice pressed on me after she and Will received a wire of funds the day before. I’ll have to find something at the next stop.
We make our way to the hotel lobby. On the way down, I spy Dr. Morton in the hotel dining room, and I hesitate.
I was hoping to say goodbye to Mr. Edison, even though he would never remember some nobody he met so briefly. But it would feel like I mattered, to have someone like him know my name, if only for a little while.
Dr. Morton isn’t Mr. Edison, but he’s a scientist and chemistry professor and he was kind to me at the telescope. I turn to Alice. “I’ll see you at the station.”
I hail Dr. Morton, and he turns to me, surprise visible in his raised eyebrows. “Can I help you, miss?”
He doesn’t appear to remember me, though we’ve spoken twice now, and he gave me his seat at breakfast that first morning. I take a deep breath. “I wanted to thank you for helping us with the telescope the other night. It was glorious—it made our forced stop at Rawlins more than worthwhile.”
“Oh?” he says politely, glancing at his watch.
I rush on, compelled by something I hardly understand. “I’d like to be an astronomer myself, someday.”
Now I have his full attention. He peers at me, his eyebrows drawing together. “A young lady like yourself? Whatever for?”
I falter. I thought a scientist like Dr. Morton would understand. “To study the stars? To understand the orbits of comets? Per aspera ad astra. You taught me that.”
“You’d do much better to leave that work to real scientists.”
“But Mrs. Draper—”
“Assists her husband. Oh, I don’t deny astronomy is well enough as a hobby, and Mrs. Draper has been useful to her husband, as Miss Herschel was to her brother. But astronomy—as a mathematically based science—is much more suited to the masculine mind than the feminine. As a point of fact, Dr. Clark has argued that such strenuous study in women can coarsen their features and inhibit their ability to bear children. I do not think it coincidental that the only female astronomers one finds are spinsters. The exclusive study rather unfits women for other, more seemly duties. You cannot wish to stunt your life before you’ve scarce begun it.”
I catch my breath. I’ve carried the blissful glow from that telescope view with me for more than thirty hours, and Dr. Morton has snuffed it with one comment. I try once mor
e. “And Mrs. Mary Somerville?”
“She is more a generalist than an astronomer, but I daresay her existence is the exception that rather proves the rule. Name me one such other woman who successfully balances domestic life with her studies.”
I have no answer for him.
Rather smugly, Dr. Morton plucks up his hat from the table and settles it on his head. “If you want my advice, I suggest you study something more conducive to your own happiness, like domestic sciences.”
He rises, then walks away without looking back. Mouth dry, I hitch my carpetbag higher on my arm. I walk out of the hotel into blazing sunshine. The heat hits me like a wall.
Will and Alice are already on the platform beside the tracks when I reach the station, but I don’t join them at once. They’ve been extraordinarily kind, but they owe me nothing, and I can’t help but feel that my presence has been an inconvenience. And after Dr. Morton’s words, all my pleasure at the prospect of our journey has been shaken up.
But Alice is made of sterner stuff than I am, and when she sees me, she waves me over to them. “There you are.” As if my being with them is a matter of fact.
The relief that washes over me is short-lived.
Alice drags me after Will, toward the first-class car. I stop, loosing my arm from hers. “Alice, I don’t have a first-class ticket.”
Will must hear me, because he stops too. He and Alice exchange a look, and then, without a word, Will swerves toward the second-class car just in front of the first-class cabin. Unlike the car I rode in before, the rows of seats are divided up into compartments.
By the time we reach the car, most of the compartments we pass are full. Will finds a compartment occupied only by a couple and opens the door. “Good afternoon, friends. May we join you?”
The wife sniffs and looks out the window. Her husband rubs at a bristly mustache and asks, “Haven’t you seats somewhere else?”
“Alas, the occupants took umbrage at my two wives and asked us to leave. But I am sure you will not be so narrow-minded,” Will says, leaning toward them with an engaging smile.
Two wives.
Alice’s quiet gasp is covered by the woman’s cry of outrage. “I never! The affront of some people. Be gone! Or I’ll call the porter and have you ejected.”
My head has gone weirdly floaty.
We move on. Will is shaking, trying not to laugh, and Alice nudges him with her elbow. “You’re incorrigible.”
Will shrugs. “They were going to send us away as soon as they saw our skin color—you saw the woman’s reaction. Might as well give them something truly objectionable. Though it’s even odds whether they were more offended by my having two wives, or having one of them be white.” He makes a face at Alice.
I say nothing.
At the front end of the car we find a compartment with only one gentleman sitting beside the door, and as soon as the door opens, I understand why the seats have remained empty: the gentleman has been smoking heavily. The entire compartment reeks of it, and the haze still hanging in the air makes me cough and blink back tears.
But the man doesn’t do more than glance at us when we enter and doesn’t protest when Alice walks across the car to open the window. I sink into the bench by the window and stare out, pressing my forehead against the warm glass. Alice takes a seat beside me, and Will sits across from us. They begin talking, but their words touch me without making an impression. The floating feeling has vanished, and now I only feel hurt, and embarrassed at feeling hurt. What Will said was no more than most people believed about polygamists. He didn’t know I was Mormon—how could he? I’d said nothing to them.
Alice notices my silence first. “Elizabeth? Are you all right?”
“My father has two wives,” I blurt, and then press my lips together to keep any other foolish words from escaping.
Both siblings stare at me.
“Has?” Alice asks. “Or had?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Both,” I say. “He was married when he met Mama, but his first wife died. He married again a few years ago.”
“And your mama?” Alice asks, staring at me with a slightly glazed expression, as though I am some beast she’s never encountered, and she’s not certain how dangerous I am.
“They’re still married.” I add, perhaps unnecessarily, “I’m Mormon.”
Will and Alice exchange a carefully neutral look, and my heart falls. No doubt they’ll remember a reason why they need their first-class seats, and I’ll never see them again.
“Hmm,” Alice says, digesting. “I suppose if you were raised to it, it would not seem so strange.”
Now it’s my turn to stare at her. “You’re not…offended?” I think the man in our carriage might be—he’s drawn up a newspaper to hide himself and hunches away from us, as though my religion is catching.
“I—” Alice starts, catches herself, and squares her shoulders. “I admit it’s not what I am used to.”
“There’s polygamy in the Bible,” I say. “And no one says the prophets were wrong.”
“I know. But somehow it’s easier to accept things that are done long ago or far away. Well,” Alice says briskly, as if coming to a decision, “if your mama doesn’t mind your papa having more than one wife, why should I?”
I laugh a little. Mama most certainly does mind Aunt Olena, but she is only offended in her particular case, not about polygamy in general. She loved Aunt Elisa like a sister. “You’re very generous. Most people think we’re heathens.”
The train lurches forward, pulling away from the station.
Alice grins at me. “Most people think Will’s a heathen too.”
“What’s wrong with being a heathen, anyway?” Will asks. “Seems like just a label some people stick on someone else when they want to feel superior, as though they chose to be born into their religion and corner of the world. If they’d been born in a different place, they might well be heathen themselves. People waste far too much time judging others when they could simply look into a mirror.”
Touched—and a little amused—by Will’s expression of sympathy, I settle into my seat, watching the last of Rawlins vanish behind us.
* * *
* * *
We have a quick lunch in Como, and then the afternoon stretches long and hot before we reach Laramie. Will takes a nap, his derby tipped over his face; Alice and I take short walks up and down the corridor outside our compartment and talk.
Alice tells me about the series of domestic paintings she is working on: intimate scenes, of the sort the Impressionist Mary Cassatt paints, only more rustic. “I think easterners have a very set idea of the West,” Alice says.
“Yes,” I laugh, thinking of my dime novels and the weird encounter with Texas Jack. “We are all dressed in fringed leather and wear gun holsters.”
Alice smiles at me. “Even the women.”
There is nothing of that rustic impression in Alice, whose gray-and-lavender travel suit bears fine lace at the hem and along the neck, though now a little torn after our muddy walk from the train. Sometime during our stop in Rawlins, she acquired a new hat—a beautifully shaped straw confection dyed gray like her dress.
“I am working on a collection to show that there are all sorts of people in the West: Fine men and ladies, farmers, barbers and butchers and teachers and actors. Even some vaqueros from Texas.”
“Some what?” I’ve never heard the word before.
“Cowboys,” she says, smiling again.
“Do you only paint people?” I ask. “Or if you mean to paint the West, do you paint landscapes as well?”
Some indecipherable emotion flickers across her face. “No. Or, not really. I have tried a few, but it is difficult for a lady to paint a landscape without venturing into the landscape, and I don’t have much opportunity for that.”
“It’s hard for women to go out alone at night to view the stars too.” Mama certainly doesn’t think it appropriate. Nor does Dr. Morton, whose opinion stings more than Mama’s.
Alice stops by a window to look at softly contoured plains rushing past. There’s a curious austere beauty in them, very different from the striated rock mountains of my valley. “Will you get to see the eclipse, where you are going?”
I shake my head. “Not fully. The path of totality doesn’t run through Cheyenne.”
She turns back to me. “Then you should come to Denver.”
A surge of longing passes through me and leaves me trembling. “I wish I could. But I need to care for my sister, and anyway, I haven’t money.”
Alice waves her hand, as though all these things, these tiny, thin strands that comprise my life, are only insubstantial objections. “Then come only for the eclipse, for a day or so. Surely your sister can spare you so long. And you can stay with me, so the cost will be minimal.”
There is still the cost of the railway tickets, and as sick as Rebekka has been, I don’t know if she can spare me, but Alice’s expression is so kind and hopeful I say only, “I’ll think about it.”
* * *
* * *
As Laramie comes into sight, Alice and I press up against the window. First, there’s a vast, sprawling building belching smoke, then a tall windmill, spinning in the summer breeze. Or maybe just the wind of the train’s passing. Behind the windmill, a round reservoir holds water for the train engines.
We pull into the station—the largest I’ve seen yet, a long two-story building with pointed roofs, depot and hotel combined.
As we wait for the hallway outside our compartment to clear of passengers, Alice says, “You wouldn’t think it now, but Laramie used to be one of the roughest of the frontier towns. Some of the first founders were self-appointed lawmen who were lynched for corruption and violence in the very halls they helped build.”