by Andy Conway
On the corner of the Town Hall, facing Christ Church, Peter grabbed her and pulled her towards him.
“What’s got into you? What just happened?” he said.
She glanced around to check that they weren’t causing a scene. She needed to disappear, to be unnoticeable.
Peter seemed to sense her fear, and mumbled an apology, looking at his shoes.
“What did he mean by the smell?” she asked.
Peter avoided her eyes and coughed a little. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“He meant me, didn’t he?”
“Well, er, yes. I think he did.”
“I smell strange?”
“It’s... it’s an Indian smell. I suppose it’s the smell of smoke and fat and buffalo hide. It’s a peculiar odour.”
“I need a bath,” she said. “Can you give me a bath?”
He laughed and actually blushed.
“I mean get me a bath. Tell me where to go. There.”
Her eyes scanned the square and fell on the single word next to the Oyster Rooms. An advert proclaiming BATHS. “This place? Under the church?”
They walked over and he read the sign. “Not here. It advertizes a place on Broad Street.”
“Take me there,” she said. “Now.”
“You don’t want to go to Moseley?”
“No,” she said. “I want to smell like a white woman.”
20
AGENT CALDER SUNK INTO the shadow of the carriage and kicked his feet up. He would be better off travelling alone. Buffalo Bill had begun the journey making a speech to the assembled camp. He did not mention the real nature of their mission, which was to seek out news of Bright Star Falling. In fact, he made no mention of her at all and no one seemed to have noticed she was missing, although it must have been obvious by now to all the Indians. No, Buffalo Bill had stood on the steps of the carriage and made a grand oration as if he were setting off across the entire Wild West itself, rather than taking a trip a couple miles up a dirt road to a city newspaper office.
No, this journey to the offices of the Birmingham Daily Post was an historic meeting of civilisations. A great step forward in the progress of the entire human race.
When they had finally set off, Calder realized even the mere act of travelling with Buffalo Bill was itself a circus. A simple coach journey from A to B was a grand extravaganza. Nothing for him ever happened quickly. The very concept of urgency was alien to him. It was no wonder, Calder thought wryly, that Buffalo Bill had been too late to save Custer from massacre by the Indians. He still had not made it to Little Bighorn, eleven years later, and was now further away than ever.
Poor Custer.
As the coach trundled its way through Aston at a snail’s pace — Calder looked out and calculated he could have walked faster, as many alongside were indeed doing — Buffalo Bill had at first merely stuck his head out of the window and waved to every resident of the Lichfield Road. Then he had stuck his entire torso out of the window. But this meant that the adoring public were still not seeing enough of Buffalo Bill as they should, so he had eventually instructed the coach driver to halt, opened the door, stepped out, and climbed up on top, where the populace might see every inch of him in all his buckskin-clad glory.
Calder put his feet up and puffed on a cheroot. When that was all smoked, he pulled his derby down over his eyes and snoozed, dreaming of fast horses that bore down on fleeing squaws with the speed of bullets fired from a Smith & Wesson.
By the time they arrived at the offices of the Birmingham Daily Post, where Buffalo Bill gave another great speech to the assembled crowds, he worked out they could have made the journey there and back five times at a normal pace.
Calder looked out over the heads of the crowd. She was here in this city, somewhere, and he intended to find her. Once this interminable errand was over, he would set out alone, and on his own horse, even if it brought attention to himself. He’d lost far too much time now to worry about blending in with the locals.
Once the editor of the august Birmingham Daily Post had emerged to greet Buffalo Bill personally, and a row of pretty typists had formed a guard of honour as he entered the impressive building, Calder followed in his wake, like his shadow, unnoticed by all.
There were more grand speeches, seemingly to every department of the building, as Buffalo Bill toured the copy room, where respectable suited gentlemen wrote the day’s news, the typing pool, where beautiful young ladies clattered away like a weaving machine in a factory, and the print room, where grimy but skilled labourers toiled in sweat, ink and unbearable noise.
The editor also made a speech, and seemed keen to impress on Buffalo Bill the Birmingham Daily Post’s liberal and progressive stance on all things.
It did not phase the great Buffalo Bill, who agreed wholeheartedly with the Birmingham Daily Post’s stance, and was keen to impress on the editor of the Birmingham Daily Post that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was perhaps the only thing in the world that would bring peace between white man and red, end the war on the Plains and bring prosperity and peace to the beleaguered natives of America.
There was much applause and hearty backslapping.
Calder slipped away and asked one of the editor’s lackeys where he might find the director of personnel. Once he’d stated the nature of his enquiry — a reporter from the Post who was writing a story on the Wild West show — he was escorted to an office where he could finally ask his question.
The answer was curt.
He thanked the clerk, apologized for his mistake and rejoined Buffalo Bill, still speechifying, with growing fury.
It was almost another hour before he could guide Buffalo Bill back to the carriage waiting outside. Once Colonel Cody had made a final speech to the assembled crowd, urging them to come see his Wild West show, which was practically the eighth wonder of the world, he finally got in the carriage and faced him.
“Mr Peter Wethers is not on the payroll of the Birmingham Daily Post and no such person has ever worked for them.”
“Great Scott! So he’s an imposter?”
“It would appear so.”
“But he gave me a card!” said Buffalo Bill.
Calder rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Colonel Cody. If only you would have me vet your activities, like I asked, I might have discovered this at the outset.”
Buffalo Bill sneered and waved a dismissive kid-gloved hand. “Pah! In London you wanted to check on the ex-Prime Minister.”
“He only said he was the ex-Prime Minister.”
Buffalo Bill shot up and banged his head on the carriage ceiling. “Good God! You know what this means? She hasn’t eloped at all. He’s kidnapped her!”
“Really, Colonel Cody, I don’t think—”
“He’s a criminal imposter and he has kidnapped my interpreter. I assigned him to her and sealed her fate. My God, what have I done?”
“Why would he kidnap her, sir?”
“Perhaps he’s in the pay of the local political thugs who are against us! They kidnap her and tell the mob that a dangerous Indian is on the loose!”
Calder caught his breath. It was actually quite plausible. “So what are we to do now?”
“Fight them with the truth,” cried Bill. “I’m going right back in there to tell the editor what has happened and put up a reward!”
Calder sighed. “You have to get back for your show today.”
“It won’t take long. Just a brief discussion with the editor.”
He rapped the ceiling and stepped back out. A cheer went up from the crowd.
“Good people of Birmingham!” he cried. “A terrible calamity has arisen!”
Another speech. This would take hours. Calder opened the door on the other side, where carriages roared past. With a jump and a skip, he crossed to the pavement and walked away from Buffalo Bill’s interminably slow roadshow as fast as he could, the map of the city rolled under his arm. From memory, he knew that City Council Square was up ahead, a short walk.
>
He quickened his step and felt the thrill of the chase at last.
21
THE BATHHOUSE WAS LIKE a palace and she wondered at how even paupers here could bathe like kings and queens for the price of a few pennies. They had given her towels and a bar of lemon smelling soap and she had gone through to the women’s changing rooms, trying not to stare at the women around her undressing. She took a bath to herself and used up almost all of the bar of soap, scrubbing at her skin till it was almost red.
Redskin, she thought, smiling bitterly.
Peter Wethers was waiting for her outside. She walked straight up to him and said, “Smell me.”
He looked around, embarrassed, in case anyone had overheard, and leaned close to her and sniffed.
“Is the smell of Indian gone?” she asked.
“You smell of lemon,” he said.
“Good.” She placed her hand on his arm as they walked back to Council House Square.
“You know,” he said. “I seriously doubt anyone from the camp is going to sniff you out. They won’t be setting bloodhounds on you.”
“I’m not ashamed of smelling like an Indian,” she said. “That’s not why I took a bath. I lived with the Indians, and it’s almost all I know. But I don’t belong with them. It seems my true self is here and I have to find it. I can’t find it as an Indian.”
“Well, your transformation is complete, Miss Bright.”
She smiled, but sorrow swelled in her heart and throat. She was no longer Lakota. She was English now. But she didn’t know yet what that meant. She was like the Indians who’d submitted to being tamed by the whites, wearing their clothes, speaking their language, praising their God; their children in the white man’s special schools having their Indian ways beaten out of them. They didn’t know what it meant to be white either, even though they tried so hard to be what the white men wanted them to be.
They crossed a busy junction, pedestrians dodging between carriages flitting by, and as Peter gripped her and dashed across, she saw a tunnel that used to be under this road. A stark, stinking underpass, lit with yellow lanterns.
They found the safety of the pavement and strolled along under naked cherry trees. The Central Free Library to the right. The looming grandeur of Mason College and the Liberal Club to the left.
The square sloped away to the right, the Chamberlain fountain imperious. And up there the balcony where she’d stood last night, looking down on all of this with him at her side. Wanting him to kiss her.
As they sauntered across the square, she thought about seducing him. She had resisted last night, but now, it felt right. They would walk across Council House Square, go to their room to collect their things and she would linger at the bedside and pull him to her.
Trembling. In a few minutes she would kiss him. In a few minutes she would possess him.
A pencil hawker barred their way and Peter guided her round him. Three young men, flitted by, laughing, giant card portfolios under their arms. Jaunty swagger. Their fingers dirty. Art students. A college nearby. Yes. Behind the Council House and Art Gallery. She knew it somehow.
The blank eyes of the pencil hawker met hers. A spider crawled across her neck and she lowered her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Peter asked.
She nodded, swooning. Her stomach lurching.
Premonition of death.
She gagged as they walked across Council House Square, dodging traffic, trying to hold it all in.
They strode into Corbett’s Temperance Hotel and the old man with kind eyes greeted them. Peter informed him they were leaving immediately.
“And your baggage, sir?”
“We’ve just solved that problem. It’s waiting at New Street Station for us.”
“How terrible that they couldn’t get it to you last night. I do apologize.”
“Not your fault,” said Peter, handing over a bank note.
“Why, thank you, sir,” said the old man.
“We’ll just collect our things and be on our way. A most pleasant stay.”
They tramped up the stairs and Katherine held onto him. Perhaps she would need to lie down for a while. Just until the sense of dread had passed.
In the room, Peter reached for his notebook and scanned the room for any belongings they might have left.
“We have everything?”
She remembered her notebook. Held up her purse. “I have nothing,” she said.
He nodded. “Then let’s go to Moseley. We’ll take the train. It’s just behind this building.”
Awkward moment. She smiled to him. He didn’t know what was happening, and neither did she. But she saw it in his eyes, though he tried to hide it: the flame of lust igniting and burning with a sudden hungry light. Was she going to seduce him after all? She had wanted to, and then felt that her heart had burned to ash. She took in a deep breath, swept off her bonnet and let her red hair fall around her shoulders.
She could see her bad magic – her wakan – in the air between them, pulling him in, beguiling, coaxing, seducing.
“Get out.”
She glanced around the room. Little Star’s voice, so clear, like he’d whispered in her ear. But he was not in the room.
“Are you all right?” Peter asked again. “You look pale.”
Little Star’s voice had dispelled the cloud. Her seduction would not work. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to work.
“What is it?” Peter asked. He turned at a commotion on the stairs. Boots tramping up towards them.
The old man’s voice. “You can’t! Sir! Please!”
They had a moment to exchange a puzzled glance before the footsteps reached their landing and someone rapped at the door.
Peter turned to her, panic in his eyes.
She looked all around. There was no escape. The window that overlooked the square was too high. There was no ledge outside. Nowhere to climb.
Peter opened the door.
A man in a grey suit and a derby hat, with a moustache and whiskers.
Calder, the Pinkerton agent.
His keen grey eyes pierced her soul.
She had seen that look before. After it came gunfire and dead Indians.
“Bright Star Falling, I do believe,” said Calder.
22
PETER STEPPED BETWEEN them. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the man who’s taking this Indian back to camp.”
“I don’t think so,” said Peter.
The old man with the kind eyes wrung his hands. “Oh, my. Oh, my.”
“I think you misunderstand me,” said Calder.
“She’s free to go where she likes.”
“I’m afraid that’s not the truth. As a subject of the United States, an Indian confined to a reservation and only here with the permission of President Cleveland, she is under strict instructions not to stray from the reservation. Buffalo Bill’s camp is merely an extension of that reservation. Legally.”
Peter towered over him. “This is rubbish! She’s not an Indian and you know it!”
“I know one thing, sir. You’re not a reporter with the Birmingham Daily Post. You’re looking at a spell in jail for fraud, I expect.”
Peter lunged for him. Calder pulled out his gun in a flash and had its barrel pointed in his face.
“Now let’s not get into a fight about it, Mister Phoney Reporter. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”
“Oh, my word!” said the old man with the kind eyes. He turned and scuttled down the wooden stairs. “I’m fetching a policeman!”
“Any policeman will back me up,” said Calder. “She’s going back to Buffalo Bill and you’re going to jail.”
Peter turned to face her, shrugging with resignation. It was over. Katherine was a prisoner. Her heart sank with the bitter taste of defeat. She had come so close, only to be pulled back.
Then Peter turned in a flash and had Calder’s gun pointed at the ceiling.
It fired.
&nbs
p; Plaster rained down on them.
Peter shoved the agent out of the doorway and across the landing. They smashed to the floor.
The gun fell and skittered across the landing through the banister, clattering down the stairs.
“Run!” he shouted. “Katherine! Run!”
She froze for an agonising moment, looking around the room. What to take in flight? Her purse, still tucked under her arm. She slung it over her head so it hung with the white ghost around her neck. There was nothing else. She flew onto the landing and headed down the steps.
Footsteps coming up. The old man down there. A policeman with him. Fear in their faces.
A window at the end of the landing led to a clear stretch of rooftop.
She jumped over the two wrestling men and clambered out onto the roof.
Free sky and a sudden burst of sunlight through the grey. Council House Square was hidden by the giant advertisement board for Montserrat Limetta that crowned the hotel but she could see the spire of Christ Church sticking out above it.
She turned and ran across the slate tiles. The next building to the hotel was slightly lower with a flat rooftop. The theatre. She jumped down onto it and ran across to the next building, higher, shinned up a drainpipe to the sloping roof, shielded by a chimneystack.
“Katherine!”
Peter scurried across the hotel roof, jumped down into the well and across to her.
“Keep going!”
She turned and ran along the peak of the building and he was soon behind her.
A whistling sound came from New Street below.
“The police. They’re onto us!”
And then it came into view, like a giant whale rising from the ocean. The glass roof of New Street Station. She gasped in wonder.
“Keep going!”
She lunged forward, aware that she might fall at any moment and plunge to her death.
She tripped and held on, steadying herself. A slate dislodged, slid down the slope of the roof and disappeared over the edge. Someone cried out down below and there was a faint shattering sound.