And hemp ain’t my color.
Miss Duncan leaves while Sheriff Redfern settles into the chair behind the desk. I can’t help but remember the greeting Katherine and I got from Sheriff Snyder when we arrived to Summerland, and for a moment the dead man swims in my vision. But then I blink and it’s just the bland expression of Sheriff Redfern.
“Miss McKeene.”
“Sheriff Redfern.”
“Mind telling me what happened between you and Sheriff Snyder at the end there?” he says.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but I’m invoking my Fifth Amendment, as is my right as an American citizen.”
“What makes you think there’s an America anymore?” he says.
I am, for the second time in a day, left speechless. It’s an unnerving pattern.
Miss Duncan returns with a bowl of stew, a crusty roll, and a full canteen. She hands it all to me through the bars, and my stomach rumbles. I settle on the cot then drink from the canteen, washing the road dust from my mouth before I turn my attention to the food.
I clear my throat dramatically, since Redfern is still waiting for me to start spilling my guts, a confession that ain’t never going to happen. He might be the law in this town, but a tin star doesn’t change anything about the man wearing it. And what I remember of Redfern is that he was only too happy to play by the rules of a broken world as long as they protected him. “Perhaps, Sheriff, you should tell me what has transpired since you left me in the none-too-gentle hands of Sheriff Snyder.”
Redfern gives me an inscrutable gaze while I enjoy the stew, which probably ain’t that great but tastes like manna to me, half-starved as I am. We sit like that long enough for Miss Duncan to let loose with an impatient sigh, and it’s her irritation that finally provokes Sheriff Redfern to speech.
“After I saved your friend Jackson and sent him off onto the prairie, I hitched the train back to Baltimore. Mayor Carr had asked me to ensure the delivery of the lot of you as well as some provisions and the first load of his property to Summerland, and then to return. The mayor was planning on leaving Baltimore within the month and wanted me to escort him as well. After the episode with the shambler you put down at his dinner party, it was only a matter of time before his ruse collapsed, and someone discovered that Baltimore County wasn’t as safe from the dead as the Survivalists were claiming. And the mayor had no interest in being around for that revelation.”
I think of Jackson, the pain sudden and swift, and I have to blink rapidly to stave off the tears. Not yet. I can’t break just yet. I have to get through this, whatever this is, and then I can mourn his loss.
Just a little bit more.
Nothing of Sheriff Redfern’s story surprises me. Mayor Carr had been a clever bastard, but now he was most likely dead just like all the rest of them. Well, not dead. Undead. I want to imagine Mayor Carr as a large, roaming shambler, but that just brings back the images of Jackson’s last moments, so I force myself into a scowl and stare at my stew instead. I do feel better knowing that Mayor Carr will no longer be able to ruin the lives of Negroes by offering them up as shambler chow, but it’s a cold comfort indeed when weighed against my own personal tragedies.
Sheriff Redfern reaches into his desk and produces a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He pours one for himself and another for Miss Duncan, and she takes it up without question, even as it’s the middle of the day. I’m supposing those stories we heard about Nicodemus and its temperance laws ain’t accurate after all. No one offers me any, and I’m a mite bit put out, truth be told. Ain’t I been through a trial?
After taking a small sip of his drink Redfern returns to his tale, expression pinched as though relating his story is one of Hercules’s labors. “I had just returned to the city when he asked me to take one more trip south before we were to head west. He wanted me to go down to a compound in the Lost States in order to unload some bitten Negroes he had for a tidy sum. So I saw to loading up the train and set off.
“That’s when the city fell.”
I shovel stew into my mouth and nod along to Sheriff Redfern’s story. Back in Summerland, my friend Ida told me how criminals and “bitten” Negroes have no rights under the Thirteenth Amendment and could be sold into a version of servitude that persisted down in the South. The reasoning went that, once bitten, a body is no longer “human,” and thus had no rights; combined with the accepted wisdom that Negroes have some sort of natural resistance to the bite of a shambler, it created a situation where Negroes could legally remain in a state of “bitten-but-unchanged” in perpetuity, and thus be sold like any property. It made no matter that there was no evidence a colored person was any more likely to survive the bite of the dead than a white one, it was a convenient lie that no one much bothered to debunk, especially when it meant that a person could lie about colored folks getting bitten and make a quick buck on the open market down in the Lost States. Most white folks are eager to believe the worst about us, anything to make us seem less like people.
Plus, there were more than a few folks who were looking for some way to reinstitute slavery, that peculiar institution. Claiming Negroes had been bitten and survived was just the answer they’d been searching for.
Redfern’s words are also a good reminder that no matter his title now, he used to work for Mayor Carr. Sheriff Redfern might not be spouting the “divine supremacy of the white race” nonsense that Pastor Snyder lived by, but I still can’t trust him.
Redfern continues his tale. “We were only perhaps a half mile outside of Baltimore when the engineer stopped the train. The tracks were swarming with dead, and we couldn’t ram them without the risk of derailing. There were too many for me and the small train crew to fight on our own. We were about to be overrun—until Amelia and her girls came to our aid.”
Sheriff Redfern gives Miss Duncan a soft look, and she blushes prettily, sipping at her whiskey before speaking. “The horde came upon the school quite unexpectedly. It was everything we could do to get out with what weapons we could salvage. The place was utter chaos. We lost most of the instructors, including poor Miss Preston.” Miss Duncan shakes her head at the memory.
I don’t blink at this. Getting eaten by shamblers is the least that woman deserved. “What about Miss Anderson?” I ask. She and Miss Preston were both responsible for sending Katherine and me west to Summerland. I’d like to be able to close the book on them both.
Miss Duncan sighed. “Miss Anderson took her leave of the school a couple of days before the attack. No one is sure where she is now.”
I grip the canteen so hard it bends a little as Sheriff Redfern picks up the story. “The Miss Preston’s girls had fled toward the train tracks, knowing that their best route out of the city was to stay off the main road and follow the tracks until they were well clear of the city walls. When they saw us stalled with the dead they cleared them out, and the engineer and I figured it might be good to have some assistance as we left out of Baltimore County.”
Miss Duncan nods. “We found the Landishire girls a little way down the track, as well as some other folks. And then we all rode to the next interchange, switched tracks, and headed west. And we were not a moment too soon—from the train, we could see another horde the likes of which I’d never envisioned in my worst nightmares, making its way, glacier-like, toward Baltimore. I daresay I have no idea what is happening in the Lost States, but the East is done for. I cannot see how the cities are going to survive, when the shamblers we saw are combined with the masses they will add to their ranks in Baltimore itself. No wall can stand against a hundred thousand dead. A normal city would have trouble fighting back a horde a fraction of that size, even with the advanced defenses we have here in Nicodemus.”
“Funny you should mention that,” I say. “Because Nicodemus has got a horde of its own heading right for it.”
Sheriff Redfern and Miss Duncan exchange a look. “The horde that overran Summerland?” she says. “We had a feeling that horde might be headed
this way, but at the speed they travel, we should have weeks to prepare. If they even make it here at all before they change course or disperse.”
“Well, I’ve got some bad news for you, because it was nipping at our heels all the way here. Like dogs tracking a rabbit.”
“A horde that has adapted to move so quickly and deliberately? Can it truly be the same one?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
Miss Duncan purses her lips, and Sheriff Redfern scowls. “There is a difference between coincidence and causation,” he says, his tone dismissive. “Gideon Carr said as much himself.”
“You spoke with Gideon on this?” I ask, and they nod. “Before Summerland fell he had a theory that shamblers have some way of communicating with one another over long distances, some kind of survival instinct. A sort of adaptive behavior, something that helps them to find food as it becomes more scarce—as we collect ourselves behind walls that no small cadre of shamblers could hope to breach on its own. It’s what makes them horde up like they did outside Baltimore’s walls, or at Summerland. As we get better at defending ourselves, they’re getting smarter, more capable. Adapting to the exact tactics we’ve used to outrun them, keep them out, and beat them back. And if you ask me, that’s probably why you got a horde on its way to Nicodemus.”
Redfern laughs. “That’s some kind of supposing.”
“You go out and say howdy to that horde, and then you come and tell me there ain’t something strange about this new crop of dead,” I shoot back, leaning forward against the bars. They think the idea is foolish, but they told me themselves how the hordes of Baltimore baffled and terrified them. And they didn’t see the way the dead waited for us the first time the walls of Summerland were breached. Poor Jackson even said that it seemed like the dead that got him were lying in wait, almost like a living man might do. The dead aren’t as mindless as everyone wants to pretend. Not anymore.
There’s a knock at the door, and Gideon pokes his head in. “Sheriff, Miss Duncan. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I am here on the behalf of several concerned people.”
My heart pounds in a glad rhythm, and this time I don’t even bother chiding myself over the reaction. I am happy to see Gideon, there’s no use shaming myself for it. Jackson is gone, but he’d put me aside long before he turned. Before he’d pledged his troth to another. Not that I have any less tragic expectations for the feelings I have for Gideon, if I’m being honest with myself. But for now I am going to hold the glad feeling in my heart, however fleeting it might be.
Redfern bristles. “I ain’t the one accusing Miss McKeene of murder, and Miss Duncan is here to make sure nothing improper happens. What do folks have to be concerned about?”
“These are dark times, Sheriff. I daresay we have enough to occupy us with just regular living,” Gideon walks into the room, his spine straight. He seems even taller than usual, and his characteristic limp is completely gone as he strides confidently to stand next to the cell. His eyes meet mine through the bars and a slight smile curves his lips. “Miss McKeene, I take it you are well?”
“There’s a horde bearing down on our current location and I’m behind bars with a murder accusation hanging over my head, but all things considered I suppose so.”
Gideon laughs, the sound rich. Under my shirt my penny takes on a slight chill, but it’s gone almost before I can ponder what it might mean. My lucky penny ain’t a normal penny, it’s hoodoo, and usually warns me of peril. Was the chill of the penny because of Gideon, or the steely-eyed gaze Sheriff Redfern is giving me? Or something else entirely?
“Sheriff Redfern, you know as well as I do that Jane will never get a fair trial as long as those ruffians from Summerland have their say. Mayor Washington has asked me to speak with Jane, since we are acquainted, and get her side of the story.”
“Is that so?” Redfern says, giving me a narrow-eyed look.
“It is. The council is debating whether to even prosecute, knowing what they do about the denizens of Summerland, so I daresay this is of the utmost importance. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a few minutes to speak with her, alone.” There’s a tone to Gideon’s voice that very clearly says he doesn’t much care whether Sheriff Redfern minds.
I look from one man to the other. Redfern worked for Mayor Carr, Gideon’s father, so the two must be acquainted. Whatever the history between them, it’s clear there’s no love lost there.
Sheriff Redfern shakes his head and stands. “We’ll give you some time to speak with your . . . acquaintance.” Redfern says the word in a way that makes clear he thinks we are more than that, and Miss Duncan’s lips purse with displeasure. My face heats, and I sit up a little straighter. I might be known to steal a kiss or nine, here and there, but I will not have my honor called into question by anyone’s uneducated assumptions.
Even if there’s a good chance the man was reading my traitorous mind.
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Gideon’s tone is bland and polite, and if he noticed the emphasis in Sheriff Redfern’s words, he gives no indication of it.
Sheriff Redfern and Miss Duncan leave the office, the door scraping closed behind them. As soon as they’re gone I bound off the cot and grab the bars.
“What in the seven hells is going on?”
He grins. “It’s good to see you, too, Jane.”
I cross my arms, because he is far too relaxed for someone who just fled the dead. And I never trust a person that ain’t at least a little bit anxious in these perilous times, especially considering that horde heading for us. It ain’t escaped my notice that Gideon is here in Nicodemus looking comfortable and settled. Just how does one set themselves up to be a mayor’s right-hand man in only a day?
“How’d you get out of Summerland, Gideon?” I drop the question like it’s a shambler, quickly and without any kind of shame.
His satisfied expression falters, just a little. “The same way you did, I imagine.”
“The day the town fell, I saw you in your lab not an hour before we were overrun. You didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.”
My momma once told me I have a particularly annoying habit of not letting go of a topic until I’ve gotten a satisfactory answer. Jane, I swear, you are as relentless as the dead when you set your mind to something, she’d said in exasperation. And she’s right. When something doesn’t smell right I’m not one to let it be. Because what you don’t know might kill you. Whatever it is that Gideon is hiding, I want it out before it comes calling at the worst possible moment.
An expression somewhere between shame and embarrassment crosses his pale face. For the first time I notice that he has a faint smattering of freckles across his nose, and I have to work to quickly squash the warm, twinkly feeling the discovery evokes.
The boy is a distraction, I swear to God.
“The truth is . . . I left right after I spoke with you and Katherine.” He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and then takes his glasses off and cleans them as he talks. “I knew that the town was going to fall—not as soon as it did, but soon enough. The evidence was overwhelming. So I decided to take my chances running. I was busy loading some of my lab equipment onto a wagon when I saw your friend Ida and the rest of the Negro patrols running for the town’s border. I broke open the lock on the armory door for them, and then we all fled. Does it help if I told you I had no doubt that you would survive?”
“Not especially,” I say, my tone dry. I can’t really blame him for hightailing it out of there. Truth be told, I would have done the same thing if I hadn’t had Katherine in my ear talking about helping folks and the like. I grab my canteen off the ground and drain it. I still feel impossible thirsty. “Either way, it’s finished now, Summerland is just another dream turned to dust. So what’s this grand plan you have to save my neck? At least, I’m assuming that’s why you’re here?”
“Oh, yes.” He leans forward in the chair, and an odd expression comes over his face. It’s somewhere akin to the way m
y momma would look when she’d read a particularly inspiring passage of poetry or verse, a little bit crazed and a lot bit excited. “I want you to help me convince the people of Nicodemus to let me inoculate them.”
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“My vaccine. I’ve injected it into various subjects, including yourself—to great success, by the way—and I do believe it’s ready for wider testing. I want the people of Nicodemus, and now Summerland, to let me inoculate them as well.”
I laugh, the sound ugly and harsh. “If I remember correctly, I ain’t exactly had much choice when you gave me the poke.”
He flushes at the possible double meaning and clears his throat. “Yes, I know, and I apologize for that. But I only made sure you got it because you were headed for the patrols—the most dangerous job, the people most likely to be bitten. It was important for everyone working the patrols to have any possible protection I could give them.”
I shake my head. “Gideon, you’re a damn smart man, I know you’re just trying to help people, and I don’t want to rain on your parade. But you ain’t Edward Jenner, and whatever it is you’re sticking in people ain’t the smallpox vaccine. I ain’t ever seen it work. What I have seen is a whole bunch of people get dead.”
He purses his lips. “It’s worked on you.”
“I ain’t been bit! That’s the problem here. As soon as someone gets bit, that’s when you can start figuring out whether your inoculation works or not, and I don’t know people who are lining up to let shamblers bite them. Not to mention that most folks get devoured by the dead, so most times it ain’t just the problem of a little nibble.”
Gideon continues on, ignoring my outburst. “Nicodemus is the shining light on the hill. They’re open to the promise of science in a way that Baltimore and Summerland never were, and if I can show the townsfolk that it’s not walls and blades but vaccines that are the future, then we can change the world.”
Deathless Divide Page 9