Badlands

by Melissa Lenhardt

  Rosemond took it from me and we looked into the open purse at two coins.

  Fifty cents.

  Rosemond clicked the purse shut and sighed. “Dunk will be waiting at Cheyenne, with our trunk.” Her voice was confident, but her expression was not.

  We rode in silence for an hour or more, each lost in our own thoughts. Rosemond spent her time worrying with the coin purse, clicking the clasp open and closed until I finally snapped at her to stop. With a smirk, she stared at me and continued on as before.

  I kept my laudanum cravings at bay by thinking of Kindle and the blood-covered letter Rosemond had shoved in my chest. I had to get word to Kindle’s sister, Mary, so he would know where to find me when he was released, or if he … No. I wouldn’t consider any other possibility. Kindle would prevail.

  I yawned and glanced around the passenger car. A narrow aisle separated the hard wooden benches lining the outside walls. Men, women, and children were crammed on every available surface, their suitcases and knapsacks shoved beneath the seats and overflowing into the aisles. Women held babies and toddlers, some shushing the babies and their hungry cries with soft cooing, others with a brash word or a slap. The older children ran up and down the aisle, thinking it a great adventure, no doubt. The teeming train was no different from the tenements they had recently left, but whereas the cities offered no hope of bettering themselves, the swaying train would lay them off at a new beginning in the West where, with hard work, everything and anything was possible. As the newspapers promised.

  Mixed in among the families were way travelers—cowboys, hunters, miners, and businessmen—traveling between towns on business. They were loud and rough, and a couple let their eyes linger over the women in the carriage longer than politeness allowed. One particular businessman, with a head as round as his protruding belly, was turned almost completely around in his seat, staring with narrowed eyes at me and Rosemond for the better part of fifteen minutes. Finally, I turned my head to Rosemond and said in an undertone, “I think the man in the checked pants recognizes me.”

  Rosemond didn’t look at the man. “It’s not you he recognizes.”

  “You know him?”

  The tip of Rosemond’s nose was stark white, in contrast to the blush of anger overtaking her face. The click-clack of the train helped camouflage our conversation. “He recognizes a whore when he sees one.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” I snapped. “You look no different than any other tired, foul-tempered passenger wearing an ill-fitting dress.”

  Rosemond’s expression darkened further, as if insulted by being seen as anything other than desirable.

  “You can’t have it both ways, Rosie.”

  She glared at me. “There’s only one person in this world allowed to call me Rosie.”

  “Who?”

  “Not you.”

  “Ma, look!” A young boy in the seat behind us yelled and banged on the window. “Eagles!”

  In the distance, dozens of birds sat atop misshapen mounds dotting the plain, flapping their wings in protest when new birds would land close by. A few birds alighted on the ground and poked at the mounds from the side.

  I inhaled sharply as the vision from the Cheyenne cleansing ceremony returned vividly to my mind. Once cleansed in the river, I hadn’t thought much about the vision, so thrilled with regaining my strength and emotional connection to Kindle. When I did think of it, I’d assumed the vision was merely knowledge buried deep within me coming to the fore to set me on the right path. But I’d never seen rotting carcasses of buffalo scattered across the plains. Had the vision been a premonition of things to come? I thought of Camille King, a madam in New York City and the friend who helped me escape. She had appeared to me and her words had woken me from the vision:

  Men are pathetically easy to manipulate, to control. It’s the women you need to worry about.

  I stared at Rosemond as a cold knot of dread settled in my stomach.

  “What’s wrong?” Rosemond asked.

  “Nothing.”

  My eyes drifted to the window, where mounds of dead buffalo continued to slide by.

  “What are they doing?” the boy asked.

  “Those aren’t eagles, young man, they’re buzzards.”

  The businessman in the checked pants was standing in the aisle, leaning across Rosemond and me to look out the window.

  “And those are buffalo carcasses they’re eating,” he said.

  “Buffalo!” the boy said, awed.

  “Yep. Shot from a train. Skinners go behind. See?” He pointed ahead, and sure enough there were five wagons loaded with buffalo skins next to five carcasses. The skinners were close enough that we could see they were covered in blood, gore, and sweat.

  I leaned back into the seat, chilled to the bone at the sight of the men Cotter Black had threatened to sell me to if I didn’t do as he wanted all those months ago. The businessman grinned down on me, his bright eyes lingering on my bosom as if fantasizing about what was beneath the scratchy dark material. “Turn your stomach?”

  I glared up at him. “No.”

  He straightened and looked between me and Rosemond, the same bright leer lighting up his eyes. He held out his hand. “Sean Isaac.”

  After a pause, Rosemond held out her hand. “Eliza. My sister Helen.”

  Isaac’s face fell. “Eliza. A beautiful dark-haired woman with a face of scars. I was sure your name was Rosemond.”

  “You’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Rosemond said.

  Standing as he was, Isaac held on to the bench in front of us to steady himself against the swaying motion of the train. “That’s too bad. I couldn’t help but overhear a little of your conversation.”

  Rosemond tensed but remained silent. I pressed my leg against hers. “A gentleman would hardly admit to eavesdropping on ladies’ conversation.”

  Isaac leaned forward and whispered, “I ain’t no gentleman.”

  “That’s quite obvious,” I said.

  “I can help you with your money problem.” Isaac leaned forward and whispered in Rosemond’s ear, but loud enough for me to hear. “I have three dollars burning a hole in my pocket.”

  She stood and moved into the aisle. She stared at the man and without a word turned and made her way out of the back of the carriage. Isaac waited a beat and followed.

  I turned and watched her go in stunned silence. Was she accepting his offer so I could drink a cup of coffee?

  I laid my head against the window. The sun was high in the sky, but the spring air was brisk. I wrapped my arms around me to control my shaking, as much for laudanum withdrawal as the chill, and closed my eyes. So much for Rosemond’s desire to start a new life. I meant it when I told her she looked no different from anyone else on this train. I thought of her as a whore, but my judgment was clouded by the certain knowledge of the fact and my uncertainty about what had passed between Kindle and Rosemond a week before on the riverboat. I didn’t want to believe my husband would lie with her, but he was a man, she was a manipulative whore, and to protect my identity he had been selling the idea that I meant no more to him than a paid companion.

  Though it pained me to admit it, I had to be fair to the version of Rosemond who’d sat next to me on the train: there was nothing in her demeanor, speech, or comportment to mark her as a lady of the night, and, except for her scars, I doubt Isaac would have recognized her as such. More like he stared at us with wishful thinking, and his hopes were granted by a woman who was broke and knew of no other way to earn money.

  I sighed. I couldn’t let Rosemond degrade herself because I was thirsty.

  I rose, picked up Cora Bayle’s carpetbag, and followed. Passengers who’d been practically sitting on top of one another immediately took our bench. I walked across the open-air platform joining the cars into another carriage exactly like ours. A canvas curtain separated the latrine from the seating area. I could easily peek through the edge but did not. Instead, I knocked on the wall to the ladies’ side.
“Wait yer turn!” said a broad Irish brogue. Not Rosemond. I knocked on the men’s wall as someone exited, adjusting his gun belt. The man stared at me with dark brown eyes. A wispy black mustache hung down past his chin. I stepped away and backed through the curtain into the women’s latrine. I lost my footing and fell on my bottom, right on the feet of the woman sitting on the shitter.

  “What did I tell ya?” she screamed. “Get out.”

  I scrambled to my feet, apologizing the whole time, grabbed my carpetbag, and went back into the small space between the latrines. The man I’d mistaken for Kindle leaned against the wall, chewing a matchstick. “You have a way of barging in on people, don’t ya? Who are you looking for this time?”

  I stepped back into the aisle and away from the man. His deliberate insouciance awoke the impression of danger I’d felt the first time in his presence. Halfway down the aisle, I turned and walked away. When I was through to the other train I knocked on the wall next to the women’s latrine; when no one answered, I entered. I pressed my free hand to my stomach, swallowed the urge to vomit, and waited for my breathing to return to normal. Panic flooded my chest as memories from months earlier exploded in my head. Cotter Black’s face illuminated from below by firelight, his blood oozing onto the red dirt of Palo Duro Canyon, the sound of his voice in my ear. I grabbed my head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the images. I forced myself to think of Kindle, his smile, the feel of his fingertips like feathers on my skin, the way his eyes darkened with desire in the most inopportune times.

  I’ll never let anything happen to you.

  I opened my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Straightened my shoulders. Kindle wasn’t here to protect me, and the last thing I needed to do was turn into a blubbering mess at the hint of a threat. Had the dark-haired man threatened me? No. But he was dangerous, I had no doubt. I needed to find Rosemond, and I needed a weapon.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  I stared in thought at the ground speeding by beneath the hole that served as the latrine. A knife would be the best weapon, easiest to conceal, but difficult to steal. I had nothing to trade except my medical knowledge. My luck wasn’t running hot, so the chances of a woman suddenly going into labor were slim. The train was full of men, which meant gambling and the possibility of violence. Unfortunately, my medical bag was in the trunk in Dunk’s possession, or so I hoped. I hadn’t seen it since I climbed on the Mississippi River flatboat to escape.

  I shook my head in disgust. How far I’d fallen to wish ill on others for my own benefit.

  The train slowed and leaned to the right. No doubt being shunted off to a side track to make way for the express train. I exited the latrine and went to find Rosemond, part of me hoping my little fit hadn’t made me too late to stop her from a mistake, another part wondering if she’d earned enough for two cups of Arbuckle’s.

  Sean Isaac found me waiting at the top of the stairs to exit the train, blousing my dress in an attempt to cool down from the hot sweats that had overtaken me.

  He leaned against the opposite wall and watched me. “You sick like your sister?”

  I glared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “The French pox. You got it?”

  “No.”

  He licked his lips and looked me up and down. He jerked his head toward the lavatories and said, “Won’t take but a minute. Two dollars, easy money.”

  I took in Sean Isaac from head to toe, as if considering. He wore a sweat-stained brown felt derby and pants that had once been a bright yellow-and-orange check but were faded and dingy from wear. His waistcoat and jacket were brown, and his collarless shirt was open at the neck, revealing a triangle of chest hair. His teeth were crooked but surprisingly clean. He had a weak chin and thin lips, a combination that my father had always judged harshly. You can have a weak chin or thin lips, Katie, but both together are the hallmarks of a devious character.

  The brakes squealed as the train shuddered to a stop. I unlatched the chain that served as meager protection from falling down the stairs while the train was moving. I leaned in close to Isaac and let the chain fall. “Two dollars?” I said, and backed away from the stairs.

  Isaac stepped forward, his back to the exit. “I’ll do three if you start by suc—”

  My fist met his nose before he finished his disgusting proposition. He tumbled out of the train and onto the ground. I walked down the stairs, shaking the pain from my hand, and stood next to him. He rolled around, clutching his nose and screaming as blood oozed between his fingers.

  “Oh, settle down,” I said, crouching next to him.

  He pulled his hands away and stared at the blood in shock. “You cunt! You broke my nose!”

  “Yes, well, maybe next time you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  “A civil tongue?”

  “You propositioned me and called me a cunt.” A crowd had gathered. The women gasped.

  “After you punched me in the nose!” I tried to move his hands away. “Don’t touch me!”

  “I can fix it, if you’ll stop acting like a child.”

  “A child!”

  “Wot, didja get beaten up by this little woman?” a man in the crowd said. The men laughed.

  “She didn’t beat me up.” Isaac’s voice was nasally.

  “Unless you want to sound like that for the rest of your life, you’ll let me fix your nose.”

  “Let her fix it,” someone in the crowd said. “Can’t make you look much worse.”

  “But she punched me in the nose!”

  “You said she didn’t,” several voices from the crowd argued.

  “Yeah, which is it?”

  Isaac knew he was caught. I held my hand out to help him sit up. He took it, grudgingly. I felt the sides of his nose and found the break. I positioned my thumbs on either side of his nose and paused. “Have you had this done before?” I asked.

  “No, I—ahhh! Bitch!”

  I stood quickly and backed away. The men in the crowd moved forward. “None of that. This little lady helped you.”

  Isaac glared at me, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. One man helped him stand and dusted his backside off. He slapped the man’s hand away.

  “That’ll be three dollars.”

  “What for?”

  “Fixing your nose, of course.”

  Isaac opened his mouth and stepped forward. Cotter Black’s doppelgänger stepped between us. “Pay the woman. She provided a service, she deserves remuneration.” When Isaac paused, the dark-haired man seemed to grow in stature, though he didn’t move an inch.

  Isaac reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, pulled out three silver coins, and slapped them into my outstretched hand. He turned away with ill grace and the onlookers moved off to find amusement somewhere else.

  The stranger turned to me and held out Cora Bayle’s paisley brocade carpetbag. His thick, square-nailed fingers were embedded with the brown leather dust of a man who spent his life in the saddle. The thick hair covering the back of his hand couldn’t camouflage the map of rope burns and scars. “This yours?”

  “Yes.” I lifted my gaze to his face and forced my voice to be steady. “Thank you, Mr. …”

  “Salter.” He dipped his head, touched his hat, and walked across the muddy wagon track to a tent with the word SALOON painted on a broken board hanging over the opening.

  The entire town consisted of a saloon, a café, and the depot, all housed in dirty, drooping canvas tents, and a corral containing three horses. Down the track a piece was the rotting and rusting remains of one of the notorious hell-on-wheels temporary towns set up to support the building of the transcontinental railroad. On a slight rise behind the town graveyard stood a burial ground with five visible wooden crosses, leaning southward from the relentless northern winds that rushed across the flat land. It was the most depressing town I’d yet come across in my travels. I supposed there was little money to be made from the emigrant train, and the more ambitiou
s businessmen had long left for more prosperous railroad towns.

  I stared at the three dollars in my hand. It wasn’t enough to buy a horse and tack to return to Kindle, not that I would want to travel across Nebraska without a gun or a partner. I dismissed the idea of approaching Salter as soon as it entered. My misjudged trust of Cora Bayle was too fresh. I’d much rather take my chance with the volatile woman I knew than the madman I didn’t. Rosemond was clever, and dangerous, but so was I. When I had my wits about me, we were evenly matched.

  Returning to Kindle would have to wait a while longer.

  CHAPTER

  7

  I found Rosemond throwing dice with five men in the back of the baggage car.

  All six faced the back wall, allowing me to observe without being noticed. Rosemond was in the center, of course, her dark hair coming down from her bun in soft tendrils. She threw the dice against the wall and raised her hands in victory when they settled. The men groaned good-naturedly while Rosemond raked in the small pile of coins. A large Negro noticed me and nodded in my direction. “Wanna join, miss?”

  Rosemond turned and saw me. Her face was flushed with happiness and pleasure, making her look almost innocent and giving me a glimpse of who she might have been before life set her on the path of being a whore.

  Of the woman she wanted to be now.

  “Hello, Sissy.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “What do you have there?”

  I looked down at the bottle I held in one hand. “Milk.” I held up the hand holding the carpetbag and a folded handkerchief. “A chunk of cheddar cheese and two thick slices of apple cake.”