by M. K. Hobson
Emily swore under her breath as she laid a hand on Stanton’s damp, pallid forehead. He was hot as a flatiron, and his face seemed thinner. His closed eyes seemed to be sinking backward into his skull. It was as if he were made of wax, and melting from the inside.
When the water boiled, the girl shook dried tea into a little china pot, and brought it back to the seats. Then the girl opened her basket and took out paper-wrapped items.
“Would you like a sandwich?” She offered one of the little bundles to Emily. “I made lots.”
Emily didn’t want it. Her heart was beating anxiously against her stomach, making her feel lightheaded and vaguely queasy. But the girl’s face was kind, her look vaguely imploring. Emily took the sandwich, unwrapped it. The thick-sliced homemade bread was spread with farm butter and strawberry jam. It was very good. Emily found herself wolfing it down in three bites and wishing for more.
“I haven’t seen you eat today.” The girl produced a tin cup from her basket and offered Emily a cup of tea. Emily shook her head. “I guess you’re down on your luck.”
“Nah,” Emily said. Having already become aware of her limitations in the field of masculine mimicry, Emily resolved to keep her utterances as syllabically limited as possible.
“My name’s Rose,” the girl said. “Rose Hibble.”
“Elmer.”
“Is your friend drunk?” Rose asked, nodding at Stanton.
“Uh-huh,” Emily said. “Thanks for the sandwich.”
“My uncle Sal was a drunk,” Rose said thoughtfully. “You know how they say about people, ‘drunk every night but Sunday’? Well, he was drunk on Sundays, too. Used to go into church to argue with God. Blamed if he didn’t win nine times out of ten!”
“Hmmm,” Emily murmured, hoping that the sound would indicate her lack of desire to hear more about Uncle Sal.
“I’m going to Chicago.” Rose cocked her head. “Where are you going?”
“New York,” Emily said, then immediately wished she hadn’t. She shouldn’t be talking at all. Why wouldn’t Stanton wake up? She was no good at being cagey and secretive and sly. He was the credomancer, he was the one trained to manipulate the minds of men …
“New York!” The excitement in Rose’s voice scattered Emily’s thoughts. “How exciting. Me, I’m going to Chicago because my Aunt Kindy owns a hat shop. She employs a dozen girls, and she needs a clerk, and I’ve studied two years at the Nevada Women’s College—mathematics and accounting and penmanship and bookkeeping—and so Mam said, ‘Rose, you go on out to Chicago and put some of that education to good use.’ Aunt Kindy is a good old soul, a godly woman, not too strong in the head, especially with her multiplication, and Heaven knows, you have to have your multiplication if you’re going to run a business …”
The river of thought continued from this gushing fount of information. Rose exhaustively elaborated on the theme of Aunt Kindy’s lack of mathematical skill before progressing through the life history of every member of her family, footnoted with her opinions on everything from the price of cornmeal to the proper way to iron sheets. Mostly, however, she talked about her dime novels.
“I brought some doozies with me!” She opened her heavy, lumpy carpetbag to reveal a rainbow galaxy of excitement and adventure. She showed them to Emily one after another, offering a precise and detailed description of each. Emily wondered why Rose didn’t notice that they were all the same story, just with different names.
“… and then Tom, the Straight-Shooting Outlaw, rides into the gulch and unties her, and pulls her up on his white horse, and they ride off into the sunset,” Rose exhaled at the end of another one of these recountings, closing her eyes.
“And the corrupt Sheriff Black and his posse of thugs get killed in a rock slide, right?”
“No, they get scalped by redskins. There’s this chief who owes Tom a favor because he saved his daughter, a beautiful Indian princess, from a raging grassfire.” Rose gave Emily a scornful frown. “Rock slide, phooey!”
Emily chewed her lip as Rose pulled another book out of her bag and began describing it. So many of the books featured noble outlaws, flamboyant and reckless, the kind that signed their names in bullets but never really killed anyone.
Well, being an outlaw was nothing like that at all. It was frightening and uncomfortable. You didn’t get to change your clothes, you had to use filthy bathrooms, you had to watch your friends die …
Emily’s heart jumped and she had to swallow to shove it back down her throat. She glanced over at Stanton. He looked worse than ever. What on earth was she going to do?
The afternoon wore on. Rose kept talking. They entered the desert, cutting across the ghostly alkali plains that rolled out before and behind them, a smooth blank sheet. And Rose kept talking. At least she didn’t seem to require much response. Her nonstop patter quickly became as much a part of the background hum of the train as the clack of the wheels.
As afternoon became evening and Stanton still hadn’t woken up, Emily knew she had to do something. The other passengers were beginning to comment. There were murmurs about “the sick man in the corner.” People held handkerchiefs over their mouths as they passed, and everyone gave Emily and Stanton a wide berth. Everyone except Rose.
“If you’re going through to New York, you’ll have to change trains in Ogden,” Rose observed. “I guess you’ll have to carry him, huh?”
“Yep,” Emily replied, as if she had to tote drunken associates all the time.
She had to wake him up before Ogden, before they had to switch trains. She couldn’t drag a full-grown man around without attracting attention she couldn’t afford to attract.
That night, when the conductor came by to fold the seats down into beds, Emily didn’t know what to say.
“It’s all right.” Rose smiled at the conductor, nodding toward Stanton. “The poor man needs his rest. I can lay my head against the window.”
Emily laid her head down and slept, hoping that Stanton would surprise her the next morning with one of his ill-tempered quips.
But he did not. He was still bleakly unconscious as they approached Promontory early the next morning.
She knew she was licked. She had to get him to a doctor. If he didn’t wake up before Ogden, she’d drag him off the train and have him carried to one. And then …?
And then, well, she’d get back on the train. She had to get to New York. That’s what Stanton would want her to do, and she certainly owed it to him to make the right choice.
When the train stopped for breakfast, Rose got off. She was gone for quite some time—long enough, indeed, that Emily worried she might not make it back. But as the train gave its final whistle, Rose dropped into the seat across, her face flushed and her blond hair wisping around her face. She gave Emily a knowing grin.
“I figured it was time we got some help from Mother Roscoe!” she said. She showed Emily a small paper parcel that bore the stamp of the station’s dry-goods store. Rose took out its contents one by one. Blackstrap molasses. Fluid extract of coca. Ground coffee beans, calomel, and brandy.
“What’s all that for?” Emily said.
“It’s for your friend. My mam used to stir some of this up whenever my Uncle Sal was having a bad time of it. She called it ‘Mother Roscoe’s Eye-Opener.’ I don’t know who Mother Roscoe was, but I’ll wager she had lots of eyes to open in her time.” Then, using the tin pan she’d boiled her tea water in, Rose began to mix the ingredients, using an alarmingly heavy hand with the coca extract. The girl swirled everything around, then put the pot on the coal stove.
“It has to boil for a bit,” Rose said as the train lurched and got under way. In a bit, the smell of sickly sweet steam filled the cabin, and the girl took the pot off the boil and set it aside. When it was cool, she poured a little into a tin cup and showed it to Emily.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Emily said.
“Oh, yes, perfectly safe.” Rose lifted it to her lips, drank deeply. Her eyes went w
ide and she hiccupped. “Tasty, too! You think you can make your friend drink it?”
Emily took the cup, sniffed it. She swallowed a mouthful. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, and there was an aftertaste of metal filings and rust. It burned going down her throat, and even the small sip she’d taken made her heart thunder in her chest. It made her feel like she could leap out of the train and run all the way across the continent under her own steam. Yes, Mother Roscoe certainly knew how to open eyes! She lifted the cup to Stanton’s lips, digging her fingers into the hinge of his jaw to make his mouth open.
“Come on,” she whispered, massaging his throat, willing him to swallow. “This is your last chance, Dreadnought Stanton. Otherwise I’m going to New York without you.”
She was answered with a little coughing choke from Stanton. A flicker of distaste passed across his face. He weakly lifted a hand as if to bat the cup away from his lips. Hope rose in Emily’s chest. She tipped more of the liquid down his throat.
“Not too much,” Rose admonished. “Just keep after him slow-like. Mam says too much Eye-Opener all at once can make a man’s heart explode.”
Emily kept administering small doses of the stimulant over the next couple of hours, happily noting its positive effects. Stanton even opened his eyes once, though they fell shut again abruptly after. Finally, as they were pulling into Ogden, he opened his eyes and they stayed open. He looked at Emily with slowly focusing recognition.
“All right,” he croaked. “What’s all this?”
Emily could have kissed him. Instead she explained the situation to him, speaking slowly, keeping her words small.
“We’re pulling in to Ogden. We have to switch trains. You have to wake up.”
“I’m very tired, Emily,” he mumbled, tucking his head against her shoulder. “Just let me sleep awhile longer.”
Emily glanced at Rose; the girl had her lower lip between her teeth and was making a great show of looking up at the ceiling.
“It’s Elmer, remember?” she hissed, jerking her shoulder up. Then she put her mouth closer to his ear. “Caul attacked you with some kind of spell. You have to shake it off!” She tipped a large dose of the stimulant down his throat, and he gagged, spluttering. He sat forward in the seat, coughing loudly. Emily thumped him on the back.
The train was slowing as it pulled in to the station at Ogden. Stanton was still coughing as it lurched to a halt.
“We’re here,” Emily said. “Come on. We have to go.”
With a great deal of effort, Stanton pulled himself to his feet.
“Food,” he said. “I need food.”
“Can you walk?” she said.
“Of course I can walk,” he said, falling to the ground with a thundering crash. All eyes in the car turned to them. Emily lifted a reassuring hand.
“He’s all right,” she squeaked, forgetting entirely to keep her voice low. She reached down and helped Stanton up.
They climbed down off the train into the bright sunshine. Stanton squinted hard, lifting a shaking-weak hand to shade his eyes. There were dozens of farm women selling merchandise on the platform. Stanton walked dazedly past each one, pointing out what he wished Emily to purchase.
“Butter. Eggs. Sugar. Milk.”
Emily purchased each of the items Stanton had indicated. Then, bundles in hand, they sat on a wooden bench on the platform. Emily watched in fascination and horror as Stanton (using his fingers) ate a tub of butter straight, in slow contemplative bites. This was followed by a dozen eggs broken directly down his throat and washed down with long gulps of milk from an earthenware jug. He took large bites from a cone of loaf sugar. After about ten minutes of this bizarre repast, he sat up straighter, taking a deep breath.
“Well, I’m in no shape to work any magic,” he said, dusting crumbs of sugar from his clothes. He looked a little better; the waxy pallor was fading from his face, but the hollow purple shadows under his eyes were still deep and sickly looking. “But I think I can make it to the train.”
“That’s all I require,” Emily sighed, feeling happier than she had in quite a while.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Aberrancy Hunters
It was close to noon, and Ogden was flooded with warm spring sunshine. It was the biggest and nicest station they’d yet stopped at—an elaborate profusion of peaks and gables and awnings, with a high clock tower rising up from the middle. The paint was so fresh it still reeked of linseed oil. Ogden was a hub of transcontinental rail traffic, and the station teemed with feverish activity. Bags and trunks whizzed by on carts, salesboys hawked snacks and supplies, travelers crowded in a churning mass.
The Central Pacific line, on which they’d ridden since Cutter’s Rise, ended at Ogden. Passengers continuing eastward had to transfer to the Union Pacific line, which would take them to Chicago. They arrived at the Union Pacific track with time to spare; trainmen were still swarming over the engine, loading fuel and putting on water.
They climbed onto a cramped car. Stanton sank into a seat with a groan. The carriage was smaller and older and shabbier than the Central Pacific cars had been, with lower ceilings and chipping varnish.
“No wonder I ache so badly, sleeping on a bench like this.” He looked at Emily. “How long was I out, anyway? If we’re already in Utah—”
“It’s been a day and a half now.”
“A day and a half?” Stanton eyed the yammering children, the women digging in baskets for treats to appease them. “And at least five more to look forward to. I wish I were still asleep.”
She dug into her pocket, handed him the purse of money Dag had given her.
“They were your horses,” she said. “I didn’t feel right throwing your money away on a Silver Palace car.”
He looked at the money, which must have seemed a damnably small amount. He tucked it into his pocket. “You’re probably right. Discretion is the better part of valor.”
“Oh, there you are!” The bright voice came from the aisle.
Rose was carrying all her things, struggling to keep the lumpy, overstuffed carpetbag from slipping out from under her arm. Her hair wisped around her face, and her cheeks were red with hurrying. She slid into the seat across from Emily, smiling happily.
“I almost didn’t make it! I was in the mercantile, and you just can’t tell one train whistle from another, can you?” She withdrew a crumpled paper candy bag from her pocket and reached into it.
“I got this for you, Mr. Elmer.” She pulled out a bright silver safety pin. “For your collar. I thought you might like to stop having to hold it all the time. No, don’t thank me, it wasn’t anything. I went into the mercantile to buy some candy, and while I was standing there I got to talking with this old woman, she uses them for quilting, and I asked her could I have one. Didn’t charge me anything, just said I could have one for free! Can you imagine?”
Emily smiled at Rose. She took the pin and fastened her torn collar.
Rose fixed her gaze on Stanton, looking at him with an abundance of sweet sympathy. “And how are you feeling? Would you like a piece of candy?”
Stanton gave her a look that encompassed his entire opinion of being spoken to like a sick kitten.
“This is Miss Rose Hibble,” Emily hurried to explain. “She’s from Reno. She’s going to Chicago to work for her Aunt Kindy. It was her recipe for Mother Roscoe’s Eye-Opener that helped revive you.”
“Really.” Stanton stared at Rose for a long moment, a moment that took on a menacing quality due to Stanton’s general appearance of roughness. His face, usually clean-shaven, was stubbled and sunken, and there were still purple shadows around his eyes. Emily had the strangest apprehension that he was going to say something vile to her. But then he blinked, shook his head, and shrugged. “Well, thank you very much for your help, Miss Hibble.”
“Miss Hibble, this is Mr…. Smith,” Emily said. She remembered chiding Stanton for not making up a better name for her; now she found that it really wasn’t as
easy as it seemed.
“Oh, Mr. Smith? There’s a Mr. Smith back in Reno, runs a blacksmith shop. I don’t suppose you’re related?” Rose tilted the bag of candy in Stanton’s direction, giving it a little shake.
“It’s highly unlikely,” Stanton said. After a moment, he reached into the bag and took out a piece.
“Probably so. He’s quite a strapping brute and you’re rather on the spindly side, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.” Stanton popped the candy into his mouth and struggled to his feet. “Will you excuse us for a moment, Miss Hibble?”
Stanton gestured to Emily and they walked into the vestibule. It was enclosed with a flexible leather curtain and it was much louder, the rattling of the steel wheels on the tracks loud enough to make her teeth vibrate.
“How are you feeling?” Emily said, trying not to yell.
“My head is killing me,” Stanton said, candy rattling in his mouth. “Caul got me with a rigor rictus. Lucky you were there to blunt it.”
“Dag promised to ditch him somewhere nice and remote,” Emily said. “I Sundered him, you scrambled him … will that take care of him long enough for us to get to New York?”
Stanton stroked his lower lip with his thumb. “Hansen told me Caul had about thirty men in Lost Pine. They’ll be looking for him. And just like my Jefferson Chair ring lets Mirabilis keep track of me, Army Warlocks have their own ways of locating lost comrades. He won’t quickly recover from the Sundering, but he only has to recover enough to order a general alert. There are dozens of Warlock units between here and New York. Soldiers could be waiting for us at any of the stations.”
Emily leaned heavily against the wall of the vestibule, rubbing her upper arms with her hands.
“Why didn’t you just kill him?” she muttered.