He rushed me along a narrow path winding through a grove of trees, where fallen pine needles put down a thick blanket beneath our feet. It was cold—or at least I was cold. “What about me? Mata Hari, remember?”
“Well, sis,” he said, looking at me through his old man’s eyes. “You can stare down that nose of yours same as you did to me, and dare anyone to throw you off the train. It’d work, too. Your power isn’t all in the guns, you know. It’s in you, too.”
As though a veil had been lifted from my senses, I saw that the body of his youth was only a veneer he wore over his timeworn self. I still found it hard to accept he had actually wanted to come back, to try and make what amends were possible. He must have known it was too late.
Eventually, we came within sight of the tiny train depot, which looked sweet and antiquated, like something you’d see in one of the Christmas kiddy shows on TV. I expected Santa Claus to appear at any moment. Making the analogy more appropriate, the little train engine also looked “cute” to me. It puffed coal-stoked steam clouds into the brisk, blue sky, as though eager to be at its work of pulling the half- dozen cars hitched on behind. Four of the cars were passenger cars; one a flatbed bearing a very large cannon, its wheels blocked by chocks of wood. The last car held the horses that would pull the gun when they came to their destination.
Those last two cars didn’t seem so cute.
Worse, the conductor was in the process of picking up the box steps, just as the train took a first lurch forward.
Whatever else August had had in mind to say failed him now as time ran out. He thrust a couple of folded pieces of paper toward me. “These might help. Show the first one to the conductor on the train. If you get in trouble, give the other to the officer in charge. You’ll be all right. Good luck.”
He turned before I had a chance to argue, jogging back the way we’d come. On the hill, towering over the tops of the grove of trees that buffered the train station from the estate, I saw the crenellated towers of the castle. A castle, for God’s sake, August’s birthright lost, given over to the madness of his life.
He had actually abandoned me, and without bothering to look back. Shock held me still, my mouth hanging open. The anger didn’t come yet, not for a while.
And then I was running down the hill toward the station, waving my one free arm, with the purse bumping against my leg at every step while I yelled, “Achtung!”
CHAPTER 17
The conductor must have been used to people racing for departing trains and yelling at him to wait. The motion of his arm urged me to run faster, and so I did. He remained on the landing to haul me aboard when I caught up, his action suggesting long practice. In truth, the train hadn’t picked up much speed, a condition I learned was a chronic failing of the mountain railway system, and it was no great stretch for a woman who exercised regularly.
I put on a huffing and puffing display fit to rival the train, however, clutching at my chest as though nearly overcome by the exertion. It kept me from having to speak as I followed him to a thinly padded bench about midway down the length of the car. He hovered and said something that ended with a question mark.
Ah, yes. In lieu of a ticket, I reached in the pocket of Beatrix’s jacket where August had stuffed a wad of money, and without looking, pulled some out, handing the conductor a bill. He looked at it and grunted, then jabbered unintelligibly again. He sounded displeased.
“Nein, nein, nein!” was part of what he said.
I might be ignorant of the language, but I could tell that much was no, no, no. I had no idea what the rest of it could have been.
Oh, hell, I thought. He probably wanted to arrest me. A little voice inside my head was screeching, Barely started, girl, and you’re already toast.
My stomach lurched with a queer, sickening flutter to accompany the voice. I returned the inappropriate money to my pocket and frantically pulled out more, holding it out for the conductor to make his own selection. August’s note came with the bills, so I gave him that, too. My hand looked quite steady, suspended in mid-air, but the paper between my fingers held a sustained vibration. Deliberately, I let moisture flood my eyes, not a real hard trick as I so angry and so frightened my emotions were bouncing like a yo-yo on steroids.
He read the note, then took a bill of smaller denomination, grumbling through a flowing handlebar mustache as he dropped a few coins in change into my palm.
Something within me let go and I nearly screamed in light-headed relief. My curiosity ran rampant, wondering what the note said. Evidently the von Fassnacht family still carried some weight around these parts. Unless, of course, the Germany of 1918 had the same requirement for exact change that modern bus drivers do, and August had smoothed my way. I was probably fortunate the conductor hadn’t kicked me off the train.
Damn you, August, I seethed inwardly, although in all fairness, I had to include myself in that condemnation. Why hadn’t either of us given more thought to the language? Well, I had thought of it, but I’d also let August talk me out of my worries. I should’ve known I couldn’t rely on him when he said all would be well.
More to the point, why didn’t real life echo the fantasy novels I’d read where the traveler was always conveniently supplied with a “mastery of tongues” spell? Big damn joke! If ever Caleb and I were able to return to the twenty-first century, maybe I’d write my own story and tell how things actually happened in a time displacement. I doubted it would ever occur to anyone that what she was reading was actually an autobiography.
THE PASSENGER ACCOMMODATIONS lacked a little something in the way of comfort. No restroom, for one thing. After several hours of swaying from side to side as the passenger car rocked over uneven rails, of winding around mountains and climbing over hills before chugging down the other side, I began to think of the time Caleb and I had borrowed Queen Charlotte of England’s traveling carriage with a good deal of nostalgia.
When I had boarded the train at the von Fassnacht estate station, there had been only two or three passengers in the car. As we left the mountains behind, more and more people got on, paying their fare with closely held coin, and once, by the payment of a scrawny chicken. The people seemed thin and pale to me, tired out and deprived. No female wore a color other than black; every man had a mourning band sewn around his sleeve. These were a tired people crushed by the vicissitudes of war.
The farms we passed appeared rundown and not particularly prosperous. I think there must have been no one left to work the fields. The men and women with whom I shared the compartment had the look of country-folk, a group fallen on hard times. In all truth, I’m not exactly familiar with the kind of poverty they represented; a combination of war-caused shortages of food, fuel, and inadequate shelter, with the addition of overwork and excess taxation to pay for the very shortages they were suffering. This broth was salted by the loss of a high percentage of their youth. In some cases, not only the youth but every male up to a certain age, for every man I saw out of uniform was old. The few male passengers in the railway car were downright elderly.
I kept myself to myself, as English novelists are wont to say, though I watched my fellow passengers in fascination. They, in turn, watched me, surreptitiously of course, their eyes sliding instantly away when I would have met them. I was very conscious of the differences in our clothing, in our health, in the way we faced the world—and so were they.
Had I not felt such a sense of urgency for this journey to be over, to have found Caleb and made him safe, I’m sure I could have found something to enjoy, if nothing more than the sense of history. As it was, the hours crept by on buggy little feet, the kind of feet that tickle and itch at the same time, and make shudders raise the hair on the back your neck.
Especially when we reached the station where all the farmers got off and all the soldiers got on.
I EXPECT the transition from civilian to military must have happened in a more gradual manner than I now perceived. If I’d been paying attention at all tho
se pokey little stops we made as we headed generally northwest down from the mountains, I’d most likely been more prepared.
Instead, I’d spent hours staring blindly out the pitted, cinder- darkened window and trying to ignore the curiosity of the farm folk. I’d been daydreaming of what I’d say to Caleb when I found him. Of what he’d say to me. Umm. And God willing, what we’d do.
There was no doubt in my mind that we’d be together soon. I not only had the visualization of where August had found the Colt in September, 1918, I also had a map he’d drawn from memory. I knew I was looking for Ned Smith—Sergeant Ned Smith—who was either a veterinarian or a farrier. I knew his division and that Will (Wilhelm? William?) Mueller and Corporal Walsh were in his unit. If . . . when . . . I found Ned, I found Caleb.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t absolutely, positively certain. Maybe there was just the tiniest bit of fear. But I refused to let that possibility gain a foothold in my thinking
Night was beginning to fall when the unit of German soldiers, spilled over from the previous three cars, found accommodation alongside of me.
They entered the car on a wave of too-loud laughter, in a group numbering around fifteen. That they noticed me was immediately evident for the laughter stilled momentarily, then burst out more exuberantly. I kept my face turned to the window, to all intents as deaf and blind as a post although I was super-sensitive to the noise they made.
It was easy to feel an uncomfortable kinship with a rabbit at the moment a hawk flies over its hiding place.
I watched the soldiers’ reflections mirrored in the sooty window. Rain began to fall, trickling over the glass so the men appeared caught in a strange divisive dance. It dawned on me these men were veterans returning to the front. Veterans back from sick leave, to be precise, for all they were so impossibly young. But there was not a one who didn’t show evidence of a half-healed wound or the drawn look of sickness. A couple of the youngest had mangled hands and missing fingers, still raw looking and painful.
I’d have bet my last dollar they’d held on to a grenade too long, symptomatic of a lax, though desperate, training.
All of this I took in with only cautious glances from under my lashes. Every book I’d ever read regarding self-defense said to avoid meeting your attacker’s eyes. That direct eye contact can set up a link that can lead to domination. Well, you can take my word for it, there’s nothing quite like the potential of a dozen or so attackers for you to take that advice to heart. I did not want to draw attention to myself.
If I acted invisible, maybe I’d become invisible.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though that desire might be out of my control. I began to shake as I watched the leader’s reflection when he sauntered over to where I sat. Leader, I thought, but not an officer. He may have been as young as twenty or as old as thirty-five, his thin, careworn though unlined face too ambiguous for me to tell with any certainty.
“Güten tag,” he said, removing his helmet and holding it in front of him. Naturally he spoke in German. He continued on in that language as my heart began pounding furiously.
Oh, m’God. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what he’d said. Should I profess I was deaf? Should I stick up my nose and act so haughty and out-of-reach that he would regret speaking to me? Ought I take out the Colt and shoot him through the heart?
Seven rounds, I reminded myself. If I were able to shoot seven of the soldiers before they got to me, I could never reload fast enough to get them all. I had only the one clip, although I did have an extra handful of shells. Oh, Jesus. Mata Hari, here I come. What shall I do?
I took a deep breath and turned around to face him, letting my dark, dark eyes glimmer through my lashes. “Que?” I asked. “Repeate, por favor. Yo soy mexicano. No comprende aleman.”
Oh, Lord, don’ t let me be wrong. Hadn’t I read yesterday afternoon, while I was researching in the library, that Germany had tried to bribe Mexico into entering the war on their side? They’d actually offered to give the Mexicans Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. And please, please, don’t let any of these boys speak Spanish. After all, I didn’t. I’d taken high school Spanish, for Pete’s sake. I had a program on my computer. But speak the language? No.
“Espana?” he asked sharply, rearing back in surprise and fondling a sidearm threateningly.
“No, no. No espanol. Mexicano,” I squeaked in alarm, my answer coming out sounding more American than Hispanic. I needed to establish my bonafides fast. Had Spain been on the wrong side in this war after all? I thought it had been neutral. Maybe Germany considered any country that was not their ally the enemy.
A couple of the young men conferred. The spokesman widened his eyes and blinked a few times until I judged that he was saying my black eyes looked Mexican. There’s nothing like a little good, old-fashioned stereotyping to help things along.
“Mexicano?” he repeated, trying for the pronunciation I’d given.
If I sounded bad with my Americanized accent, you should have heard him with his German.
“Si, si.” I flashed my best smile, which is not the easiest thing to do with chattering teeth. Seized with some kind of inspiration, I held up my purse with all my stuff in it. “Reunir generale Ludendorff.”
He frowned. “General Ludendorff?
“Si.”
“Wo?” he demanded, looking over his shoulder, as though he could see through the wood and metal of the train car.
“Metz,” I said, guessing at his question.
His eyebrows lifted. “Metz?”
My head bobbed an affirmative. Ah, yes. Metz. The end of the line.
From there, I would get out and walk
Incredibly, the soldier—I had no idea of his rank—shrugged, smirked, and made some comment to the other soldiers that made them roll their eyes with a kind of ooh-la-la voyeurism and leer at me.
Given the alternative, I suppose this was the best thing for them to think. Better a whore than a spy. They don’t usually shoot whores.
Anyway, much to my astonishment, they left me alone after that, fearing perhaps, they’d be in trouble if they accosted the general’s toy and the toy complained. Still the weight of their eyes rested on me. I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
I tried to act as if they weren’t there as I rested the side of my head against the cool glass window and watched the night slip past. A storm had gathered in the distance with a terrific show of almost non-stop lightning. At first far away, the storm was moving rapidly toward us, and soon I could hear the rumble of thunder over the noise of the coal- fired train engine.
And then I realized the light show wasn’t a thing of nature. Not lightning at all, in fact, but an artillery barrage with our six-car train the target.
The train slowed, and slowed some more. Brakes screamed with agonized friction against the steel rails. With a great hissing of steam, the train halted, and the soldiers began jumping out the opened door. They didn’t stop at the ditch alongside the railway either, but continued on into the open fields. I saw the train engineer and a couple of stokers, their faces and clothes wet with sweat, take cover down the line. The conductor was conspicuous by his nonappearance.
I didn’t know what to do
Run or stay put
This was 1918. They had no radar, no heat-seeking missiles, no GPS. They barely had the most primitive of wired radio communications. How could they pinpoint this train’s position? There was a lot of space; maybe the barrage would miss. Miss by a mile.
Only as the shelling crept nearer, I finally figured out that, against the odds, the Allies did know how to find this train and they weren’t going to miss.
When a shell exploded at a distance no further than a hundred yards, I abandoned ship. The train rocked from side-to-side, jumping as the tracks lifted from the gravel bed. I took off running for all I was worth as the next shell thundered down, closer still. The concussion knocked me off my feet. I thought for sure my eardrums must be shattered, what with the noise and the th
ump of blasted air pressure. Everything swirled dizzily as I regained my feet.
I couldn’t hear, but I could see. I watched the locomotive bounce up, as though ten tons or so of steel were nothing, then come down, skewed off the track. It tipped and began a slow roll.
I ran again, harder, clumsy with shock, and with my shoulder bag rebounding against my thigh with every pump of my legs. Better if I could have abandoned it, but the Colt was inside. I must guard my possession of the Colt at all costs, since it was Caleb’s and my own ticket home.
The wind of the locomotive’s slow motion turnover brushed past me. I felt terribly small, like the ant beneath an elephant’s foot must feel, in the instant before the crushing weight came down. Unable to spare the time to watch the engine self-destruct, I put my head down and fled.
Where? Anywhere, so long as it was away.
The sound of horses, terrified and in agony followed me.
CHAPTER 18
Major Page showed up on a surprise inspection early one evening, just as Caleb was rinsing the last of his shaving soap from his chin. Caleb, or Ned, as he thought of himself most of the time now, didn’t know whether to be flattered or piqued at his commanding officer’s appearance.
Picking up a ragged towel with which to dry his face, Caleb turned from the tiny, cracked mirror hanging from a nail pounded into the tent pole and saluted.
“Sir,” he said. Page hadn’t been around since the day he’d told Ned Smith about the medal, preferring to send his orderly when he required his horse, and Caleb had to wonder if there was some specific purpose for this visit.
“Sergeant Smith. At ease, soldier. I heard you were wounded in that sniper attack last week. Came to see if you’re recovered.” Page glanced curiously around the tent, noticing the two black dogs sitting at attention on a piece of sacking at the end of Caleb’s cot. “Mutts are still with you, I see.
Shadow Soldier (The Gunsmith Book 2) Page 17