Deathless Divide

by Justina Ireland

  “No,” she says slowly, like I’m stupid, “I’m mad because you tortured and killed a man after I gave him my word he would live. Again.”

  “Ah, so this is about Denver.”

  “Not everything is about Denver, Jane.”

  “But this is,” I say, holding her on my lap when she makes to flounce away. “And here’s the thing about Denver: I told you that I was planning on killing the O’Reillys right after we talked to the sheriff. And you know I ain’t one to break a promise.”

  I’m about to tell her, for the thousandth time, how the O’Reillys deserved to die. I’m about to tell her, for the thousandth time, that all the people we’ve been chasing deserve to die. And worse besides. But the look she gives me shuts me right up.

  The thing is, I know I’m right. But I’m not willing to lose the one person I got left over it.

  After Gideon fled Nicodemus, Callie nursed me back to health. She sawed off my arm, kept the wound from getting infected, and made sure I had enough to eat and drink. All I did the entire time was imagine the twenty different ways I was going to kill Gideon Carr. I thought about small Thomas and the Duchess, Sallie and Nessie. I thought about Cyrus Washington with his careful manner and soft voice, the confident way he discussed the risk of the vaccine and his passion for his town. I even thought about Jackson and how those dead that had ambushed him on the prairie came from Summerland. Knowing what I did of Gideon’s penchant for experimentation, I was soon convinced he’d had even more to do with the end of that thrice-cursed town than I’d suspected at the time. In my mind, Gideon had killed Jackson just as surely as he’d killed poor Thomas. Him, and his reckless pursuit of a cure.

  Winter set in, and Callie kept us both alive, foraging for food in nearby towns until I was strong enough to go out hunting with her. Life became very different when the dead were no longer a threat, and she taught me how to take stock of the prairie for dangers that weren’t shamblers.

  It’s hard to say just when I got sweet on Callie. It wasn’t an all-at-once sort of thing. I reckon there’s something about being stuck with a person for a moment that makes you start to see them differently. She told me stories about her family, about Gideon when she first met him; I told her stories of Miss Preston’s and Rose Hill. I even told her about my heartbreak over Jackson, and my visions of him nearly disappeared. Things were good, and by the time we ended up in Denver we were sharing more than just stories. Unlike so much else in our lives, it felt . . . easy.

  I guess falling for someone always is. It’s the staying in love that’s hard.

  The Colorado Territory was the first time we fought, and I reckon that was because it was the first time we’d encountered other people in almost a year. The horde had wiped out most of the towns still standing in Kansas; whatever Indian nations were still about were good at keeping themselves scarce as Callie and I traveled west so that most days as we walked we were the only living souls about. But all that changed once we got nearer to Fort Laramie, a heavily fortified, bustling crossroads trading post in the Wyoming Territory. For some reason the horde hadn’t roamed this far west, and the shamblers we did see were quickly put down.

  Fort Laramie was the first time we encountered news of Gideon Carr.

  It was a small thing, a newspaper article from the Denver paper. There, in the smallest font possible, was a headline that upended the foundations of my new life:

  BRILLIANT SCIENTIST LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO TEST NEW VACCINE

  It was like seeing a ghost, and it was all I could think about for days. How long until he turned folks after making a mistake? How many people had he killed already, the kind of people no one really cared about? Thoughts of Gideon and the people he’d killed went round and round in my head until I finally realized that no one was going to stop Gideon Carr.

  Which is why I had to end him and his reign of terror.

  It was about this time that Callie and I began to realize that we would be remiss not to find a way to earn some money. Since no one would hire a one-armed girl to be their Attendant and Callie had none of the necessary training, we started taking bounties. It was lucrative work, and the thing about bounties is that the sheriffs posting them are already past the point of desperation. Which means they ain’t too picky about who delivers on them. And that was the case with the O’Reillys.

  The bounty on those boys’ heads had only been for livestock rustling and petty thievery, but they’d killed a family of Negroes. The O’Reillys had come onto their property pretending to be beggars, and the Turner family had welcomed them in and fed them, even gave them a place to sleep. And in return, once the Turners had gone to bed, the O’Reillys murdered all of them in their beds. It was the kind of crime that should have seen them hanged. But killing Negroes wasn’t against the law in Colorado Territory, just like it wasn’t illegal to kill an Indian in most places, and so the sheriff had only been worried about the crimes of theirs that had been perpetrated against white folks—cattle rustling, stealing a few chickens. If there had ever been any doubt in my mind that the lives of colored folks were cheap, the Turners’ tragic end had put them to bed.

  There was no court in Colorado that would hold those boys accountable for their true crimes. But more than that, while looking for the O’Reillys we discovered that they’d done some work for a man of science with a laboratory outside of Denver.

  And so, when we caught up with the O’Reilly boys, I took the liberty of appointing myself judge and jury. But not until after I’d discovered everything they knew about Gideon Carr. Everyone gives up what they know at some point. It’s just a matter of how much cutting you have to do before they do.

  We were too late in getting to Denver, Gideon was long gone by the time we’d arrived, but now we knew that Gideon Carr was hale and hearty and using lowlifes like the O’Reillys to do his dirty work.

  Killing the O’Reillys had been easy, and after that, well, I realized that it was much simpler to collect a bounty on a dead ruffian than a live one. I’ve spent so much of my life fighting and killing the dead that the living seem like a cakewalk in comparison. Sure, they might fight back, but if you’re quick and you’re ruthless, there’s not much to worry about. Either way, I was willing to do whatever I could to make sure Gideon Carr paid for his crimes.

  And if Callie had any objections, well, eating fine food and staying in nice hotels shut them down.

  Until now.

  Callie doesn’t say anything for a long time, and for a moment I’m afraid that I’ve gone and done it this time, that she’s going to leave me in the night and I’ll be on my own. I don’t relish the idea of it being just me and Salty. But we’re so close to finding Gideon now that I can practically smell him, and the thought of finally catching up with him after all this time is a sweet one. Maybe finer than Callie’s kisses, truth be told.

  That’s when Callie looks me dead in the eyes, and her expression ain’t angry in the least. It’s indescribably sad.

  “I ain’t mad that the O’Reillys are dead. They were bad people, and the Turners deserved justice. I ain’t even all that mad about Perry, because Lord knows he was a sonuvabitch. It’s just . . . all this awfulness, it takes a toll, Jane. This doesn’t feel like justice, it feels like revenge. And just what do you think is going to be left of your soul if you keep letting vengeance take tiny bites out of it?”

  I snort.

  “It’s a good question,” Jackson says, laid out on the bed, ankles crossed. He wears a fine suit of all black.

  “No one asked you,” I snap at him. Callie rears back, looks over at the bed, and climbs to her feet.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” Callie sighs, tugging on one of her braids. “You’re talking to spirits, you’re torturing people, you’re killing because you can, and all the mirth has left you. This ain’t you, Jane. This hunting for bounties and for Gideon, it’s made you hard. You’ve locked up the best parts of yourself, and all that’s left is a woman that I don’t like, one who
shoots first and asks questions later and talks to thin air in between.”

  “The ghost thing might be a bit much, and that’s something I have to think on myself,” I admit grudgingly. Since we’ve gotten to California, Jackson has been making more frequent appearances. Nothing good can come of that. “As for the killing, well, executing someone who deserves it feels like a fine bit of work, like planting a garden or washing your face. You know it needs done, and while the work itself can be tiresome, the result is invariably worth it.”

  “But who made you executioner?” Callie says, her voice low. “Do you really win anything if you end up just like the people you hate?”

  “If it ends up with Gideon Carr in a pine box? Yes.”

  The bleak mood I’ve been fighting for months finally descends upon me, just as there’s a knock on the door. Callie opens it and two Negro men bring in a copper tub as well as steaming buckets of hot water. They fill the tub halfway, and then leave two more buckets of water near the fire to keep warm. Callie hands them each a silver dollar and they leave with a tip of their hats.

  As the two men leave, Jackson’s ghost looks at me and shakes his head. “The girl loves you, Jane, as impossible as that might be. Listen to her.” And then like always, the bastard is gone.

  Callie and I stare at each other for a moment, not speaking, and I think this is my chance to tell her all the things I feel. This is where I should tell her that I’m sorry and I’ll do better, that I’m not the person she thinks I’m becoming: heartless, ruthless, killing without an ounce of remorse.

  But I respect her too much to lie to her. Because no matter what else I do, I plan on hunting down Gideon Carr. I plan on doing whatever is necessary to the people I meet along the way who have aided him in his foul agenda. And when I find him, I plan on making sure he feels every ounce of misery that he has inflicted on the world.

  And I am going to take my time doing it.

  “You go first this time,” Callie finally says. “You’re covered in blood.”

  I begin to undress, awkwardly, and she comes over to help. The moment for declarations has passed, and we are back to our usual rhythms. Her hands go to unbraid my hair, and I accept the help without complaint. She helps me climb into the tub, and I sigh as the warm water washes over my skin. For a moment I’m nervous, the same way I always am when I step into a tub. A bad experience with water as a child has always made me a little bit skittish, but as Callie starts to help me wash my hair my anxiousness melts away.

  I get out of the bath. We use an empty bucket to drain most of the water, tossing it out the window that overlooks the rear of the hotel and pouring in most of the remaining hot water for Callie.

  And we do it all without uttering a word.

  I wash her back, planting a kiss on her shoulder when I’m finished. She reaches back and rests her hand on my neck, holding me close for a few heartbeats, steam wafting up around us. I’m half tempted to climb into the tub with her.

  How is it possible to care for someone so much and still want more?

  “Let’s just forget about Gideon,” she says. She releases me, and I take a few steps away from the tub. “We can head north, get ourselves a little homestead.” Her head is bowed and her voice is low. “We’ve got funds enough to set ourselves up right. Or maybe go back east? We could do our own private tour of the great deserted cities and the dead will leave us be. It would be like back in Nicodemus, after the fall.”

  She ain’t pleading, but there’s a quaver to her voice. I sit on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, and say nothing. Because I don’t like to break a promise, and what I’m thinking she won’t want to hear.

  None of this happiness is for me. Gideon Carr’s death is my only future.

  After Callie rinses with one of the buckets, she drops our clothes into the tub, washing them and stretching them out next to the fire, stoking it so that it’s summer hot in our little room.

  “Come lie next to me,” I say, and she obliges without a word. I wrap my good arm around her, and sigh as she presses against me. The heat and the relief of having finally caught Perry after weeks of tracking him descend upon me.

  I fall asleep without ever answering her.

  Or maybe, that is all the response she needs.

  When I dream, it’s of walking hand in hand through the fields of Rose Hill with Callie. It’s a sweet taste of what I can never have.

  If there is any doubt as to the necessity of westward expansion, the rising of the dead has thoroughly ended the debate. For America to survive she must find new lands to claim, conquer, and rebuild.

  —Senator Jerimiah Springfield, 1867

  —KATHERINE—

  Chapter 28

  Notes on a Curious Wagon Train

  We spend the night at Miss May’s boardinghouse. She charges us only half the usual rate—a deal on account of three of us sharing a single room. The house creaks the whole night through, and I find myself missing the gentle rocking of the Capitán; but once I get to sleep, my rest is undisturbed, and I wake the next morning to sun filtering in through the window.

  As I wake I take a moment to mentally revisit the events from the night before. Miss May had related the real reason she was heading up to Sacramento: San Francisco was not safe for Negroes. A few years ago everyone had been content to leave the Negro sector alone. But now there was a scramble for space behind the Great Golden Wall, which is what folks call the wall around the city that keeps the dead out, few and far between as they were. There were quite a few men of science that predicted that now that the East was lost the hordes would try once more to cross the Rockies, and that some might succeed. Of course, the constant attention of the Army in California had thus far kept the number of dead to a minimum, but there was a panic in the city as everyone scrambled for land.

  And the Negro sector was the one place where no one cared if a few buildings burned.

  “The good people in this city have fled, because good people have no stomach to watch their neighbors be burned out and then have their plots bought from under them,” Miss May said over dinner the night before. “And after this most recent fire, I have to say that I’m of a mind to finally head east into the mountains. I’ve heard there’s a Negro settlement out past Sacramento, place up in the foothills called Haven. Let the whites and Chinese fight over San Francisco, I’m going to find someplace where I can have a little farm and not have to worry about waking up in flames.”

  That wasn’t the only reason Miss May wanted to leave the city, though. There was also a matter, mentioned briefly, of a close friendship gone south, but I was polite enough not to pry into the specifics. Miss May’s tears while packing up a studio portrait of her and a Chinese woman provided more than enough insight.

  My musings are interrupted by the door opening just a bit, the soft pad of feet on the wood floor drawing my attention. Before I can wonder what the noise is about a giant orange tabby launches itself onto the bed, gazing at me with luminous eyes for a heartbeat before walking onto my chest.

  “Mrow,” the cat says, as though we had already been introduced.

  “Ah-choo,” I say in response, because it must be said that although I enjoy the presence of felines, especially if they happen to be adept mousers, their existence does not agree with mine.

  I sit up and scoop up the cat in one move. I no longer wear a corset; the loss of Jane set me off on a spiraling path of doubt and uncertainty, and in my endless revisiting of that day, I could not help but wonder if I might have been able to save her if I had been less restricted in my movements. I do wear a binder across my breasts during the day, but in my rest I wear only a sleep shirt (and a few throwing knives strapped to a holster on my thigh). Sometimes I think that Jane must be looking down at me from on high with that smug expression of hers, and it brings me a moment of gladness.

  I set the cat down while I dress, and it sits and watches me with wide green eyes. I had not seen any sign of a cat yesterday afternoon while we’d helped
Miss May box up her few belongings. But the cat looks well cared for, and there is something about it that reminds me of Jane, perhaps the way it looks at me as though I were the silliest creature on the planet.

  Carolina told me a story about a man he had met from the Punjab who said that all things that die are brought back for another chance at life. The best people reach enlightenment, but the rest of us might have to come back as a lesser creature. Carolina had told me the story as a way of explaining that the undead plague had to be some sort of cosmic punishment for humans being so terrible to one another. But I had been quite taken with the idea of people dying and coming back as something like a grasshopper or a rat, and the way that cat looks at me makes my heart ache. Maybe Jane is not up in heaven being insufferable, after all.

  “You will be glad to notice I am no longer wearing a corset,” I say to the cat, because if it is Jane I would rather forestall a lot of meowing about my attire.

  “Who’re you talking to?” Sue asks from behind me, and I startle.

  “Lordy, Sue! Creeping around like a thief is like to give me a heart attack.”

  She laughs. “I ain’t the one fixin’ to sleep the day away. I was just coming to fetch you.” She holds a plate for me; there is cornpone and a nice slice of fried ham, and my stomach grumbles. “I saved you some breakfast, because Lily was eyeing it.”

  “That girl is growing like a weed and has the restless dead’s appetite to match,” I say. “Thank you.” I take the plate and begin to eat, the cat cleaning up any crumbs that fall. I eat standing up, and Sue watches me appraisingly.

  “What?” I say around a mouth full of food.

  “You disappointed that San Francisco is a bust?” Sue asks.

  I chew as I think, turning my thoughts over and in on themselves. “I suppose I was looking forward to seeing the cosmopolitan city we had been dreaming about. But I should have known that it would suffer from the same ills as every other place.”