“Did it have anything to do with Gideon’s vaccine?” Katherine asks.
I press my lips together until the pain centers me. My lips are chapped, and the bottom one splits, the blood coppery on my tongue. “I don’t rightly know. He would say yes, but others in town had been vaccinated as well and that didn’t save them. I think it’s more complicated than that.”
“It usually is,” Sue says. “Go on.”
And so I tell them everything.
I share how I woke up in Gideon’s house surrounded by shamblers, and I re-create for them his confession that he’d made Nicodemus his own pet science experiment. As I talk, I become angry all over again, and by the time I share how Callie missed nearly ending the man and was there to take my arm, I am shaking with rage.
“Jane,” Katherine says, laying a hand on my arm. “Jane, look at me.”
But I can’t. I can’t bear to see the pity in her face.
I jerk free and put a bit more space between us, to remind myself that this is a temporary respite. I don’t get to have these friends. I don’t get to enjoy their camaraderie or the balm of their sympathy. All I get are pain and death and suffering until Gideon Carr has breathed his last.
So I keep my gaze on the horizon, step it out so that I’m a few paces ahead of her and Sue, and stick to the telling of it.
“I spent the next few months in recovery. Callie was immune as well, so we stayed in Nicodemus with naught but the dead to keep us company. There were provisions enough for the winter since it was just the two of us, and no one was coming anywhere near a town overrun by shamblers. I would sometimes watch them walk by the window, count how many folks I knew. A few Miss Preston’s girls, some folks I recognized from Summerland . . . but most were strangers. It must have been harder for Callie, because she’d lived a good bit of her life in Nicodemus, knew most of the people who were eaten or turned that fateful night.
“But one day, I was looking out the window, and there she was. Miss Duncan.”
My throat closes with the telling, and I have to cough to force the words out. Katherine and Sue watch me, and their gazes weigh heavily on the back of my neck. Even though the sun is shining, and I’m surrounded by people I know, I feel as alone as I did that day back in Nicodemus. “It was snowing, and she was just walking the street, like the dead tend to do. It’s like currents, if you can believe it, watching them move around. I suspect there’s a pattern to it, though I could never tell what it was.
“I suppose I was still a bit weak and feverish from the infection, because I forgot for a moment where I was, and all that had happened. I ran outside after her, barefoot in the snow. I was just . . . so happy to see someone I knew. I stopped her and tried to talk to her, but her mouth just kept moving, making that shambler moan. And I became so . . . mad, just furious. I pushed her down, but she got up and just kept walking. And I did it again, and she got up again, back to walking, like a windup toy. That’s when Callie found me, pushing and crying and yelling. And once she brought me back to myself I swore I would take all my rage and pain out on him.” I take a deep breath and finally turn around. “So that’s what I aim to do. I’ve slashed and shot my way across this great land just for one last chance to murder that bastard. No matter what.”
Tears track down Katherine’s cheeks, and she dashes them away. “Jane, I cannot imagine what you have been through. But coming all this way, tracking down Gideon for revenge, it is—”
I shake my head, and it silences her. “Callie, she . . .” I consider telling them about the feelings between me and Callie, how close we’d grown over the past year, but I decide not to. Some things just ain’t for the telling, and even though Callie is gone, I want to keep the memory of our time together for myself. “She eventually tried to talk me out of it, said getting my revenge wouldn’t bring anyone back. And I know she has the right of it, but I can’t stop. I’m like poor Miss Duncan now, I have to just keep moving in that direction. Because if I don’t, I will just lie down and die from the despair of it all.”
“But what about your mother, Jane?” Katherine says. “The wagon train is going to Haven. That is the town in your momma’s letter! You managed to rendezvous with us against nigh on impossible odds. If that is not the workings of the good Lord, I do not know what is. It is obvious He would rather have you find your mother than Gideon Carr. There are always going to be bad men in this world, men who trample everyone in their path for whatever their foolish heart desires. But you cannot kill them all, Jane. Leave Gideon Carr to God, Jane, and see to the ones you love.”
I laugh, the sound hollow. I consider for a moment seeing my momma, filling her in on my adventures for the past few years. I’d embellish the tale, make myself a hero instead of the fallen woman I’ve become. It would be exploits of glory and derring-do, and I’d make it sound like a lark instead of a trial. She’d clap her hands with delight and be so proud of her daughter, a girl so audacious and refined that no one else could compare.
Just the thought of it is exhausting.
“I think that the good Lord might have his hands a bit full at the moment, and I am willing to step in and take up the burden. It’s the only thing I want now, to see Gideon finished, to see him realize that he is beaten. Besides, that girl is gone, Katherine. She died in Nicodemus. I’m a revenant now, and the only thing I want is to kill the man that murdered me before he can hurt any more people. Now, I think that’s enough talk of revenge for one day. Tell me how you all came to be in California.”
Katherine and Sue exchange a look before Katherine tells me of leaving Nicodemus and how her friend Carolina Jones had helped her, Sue, and Lily escape Fort Riley on the eve of her wedding.
“You ran across the prairie in a wedding dress?” I ask, because if anyone could do it, Katherine could.
“Well, we rode horses. Of course, the poor things were lost to the first pod of undead we ran across, but we escaped unscathed. Carolina said we should make our way west by boat—he had a lead on a sea captain looking to cater to a Negro clientele, and so we headed to New Orleans and stayed with some friends of mine.”
“So, is this Carolina sweet on you?” I say, asking the obvious question. It’s worth it for the horrified expression on Katherine’s face.
“What? No, absolutely not. Carolina does not prefer my type of company, if you know what I mean.”
“What, bossy?” I say, even though I know exactly what she means. She shoves me playfully, but just as quickly as it arrived, the moment is gone.
“So what happened to Callie?” Sue asks.
“She left me back in Monterey. She seems to have found some charity in her heart for murderers. Just not for me.” I’m surprised by the amount of hurt that comes through in my voice, and Katherine sighs.
“Oh, Jane,” she says, and I realize I’ve given away more than I wanted to.
“I ain’t seen Lily,” I say, deftly changing the course of the conversation.
“She’s around,” Katherine says, and now it’s her turn to sound guarded.
“She good?” I ask.
“As much as can be expected,” Sue says, and I get the feeling that there’s something they don’t want me to know.
Thankfully, people start screaming, distracting Katherine and Sue away from any more story time and halting any further potential for exploration of my feelings. But the shout that goes up ain’t any kind of good news.
“¡Casimuertos!” Tomás says, running toward us full tilt. “Miss Jane! ¡Casimuertos! They’re coming for us!”
The bounty and safety of the West has made clear that every good Christian should abandon the East, foresworn as it has become, and build a new Eden upon the prairie and the mountain, sharing the gospel with those who need it most.
—Pastor Jonathan Smith, 1870
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 36
Notes on a Troubling Sign
Jane’s small helper and scruffy dog run toward us, the dog barking excitedly and the li
ttle boy yelling in a mixture of English and Spanish.
“Hurry, hurry, Miss Jane! They’re in the river and coming right for us. There’s more than I’ve ever seen before!”
The poor child is wide-eyed and shaking with fear, but Jane is as calm as a sea captain navigating familiar waters. She directs the boy back toward the middle of the wagon train, giving him instructions in a low voice, as Sue and I draw our weapons and turn toward whence the boy came.
Our group had decided to take a route that paralleled the Sacramento River rather than the more direct roads. There were two reasons for that. First, because it was easier to make any long trip with a reliable source of drinking water nearby, and although steamships and barges navigated the Sacramento River, it was still potable. If our group had any kind of funds we could have made the entire trip via steamship, but walking was infinitely more affordable than negotiating passage with a boat captain. The second reason was that this route was much less traveled. Bandits and thieves worked the roads with higher traffic, and, generally speaking, when it came to traveling as a colored person, the less attention paid to your movements, the better.
Of course, none of that prudent planning is going to save us from a surprise encounter with the restless dead.
Jane keeps pace with Sue and me as we head toward the river, but our progress is stopped by Carolina and Juliet heading away from the direction the Californio boy indicated.
“There’s too many of them,” Carolina says. “I don’t know that the three of you will be able to put them down in a melee.”
“How many are we talking?” Jane asks, drawing her falchion. It’s a fine blade, and even Sue gives it an admiring glance as she readies her broadsword.
“At least fifty,” Juliet says, visibly rattled. “It’s the most I’ve ever seen in the entire time I’ve been here. The train will have to make a run for it.”
“Are they all in the river?” Sue asks.
Carolina nods. “I’m wondering if a ship was somehow infected and overrun upstream. Either way, once they make the bank they’ll be a real threat.”
“Keep the wagon train moving,” Jane says, and points northeast. “It looks like there’s a bend here. If you can get everyone past this spot, it should be clear upstream.”
She is right. The river travels quickly here, the water wide and deep, but its course makes a sharp turn, which the dead have bumped into in their trip downstream. I watch as a few wash up and scrabble out of the water, lurching through the reeds and bushes that grow thick along the bank.
“Go, we can take care of this,” I say to Carolina and Juliet. I am not nearly as sure as I sound, but they nod and hurry away.
Jane is already striding decisively toward the water’s edge. “Stay behind me and let me work. As long as I move slowly they should be no problem. Just take care of the ones that get past. Don’t tax yourselves.”
“Well, ain’t she bossy,” Sue says. But it becomes clear why Jane barked out such an order as the first few restless dead draw even with her.
It takes the undead a good bit of maneuvering to navigate through the weeds and onto firmer land. A couple slip and fall in river mud, the same as any heedless person might, but Jane does not run up to them to end their forward progress. Instead, she waits, and whistles a merry tune as they regain their footing and stalk toward her. They are not lurching and grasping for her the way they might a regular person. Instead, they walk right past her, one going so far as to bump into her before Jane swings her sword around and takes off his head.
Shock washes over me as I see Jane was not exaggerating about the side effects of Gideon’s vaccine. She is completely invisible to the dead. It is like she does not even exist to them.
She throws a roguish grin over her shoulder at me and even has the gall to give me a saucy wink.
But then there is no time for anything but work.
More restless dead are gaining the bank, and Jane takes down better than half of them, her movements slow and deliberate. Sue and her big sword very nicely work cleanup on the ones that scramble through the grasses too quickly for Jane to decapitate. I quickly see that I am extraneous, and I instead track the progress of the wagon train as it makes its way past us and up the road. As I watch, it turns toward a bridge, crossing and heading away from the river.
Within a few minutes, the fifty dead have dwindled to only a few, and the bank is thick with blood and bodies. Jane wipes her sword off on a woman’s fine velvet dress and sheathes it before rejoining Sue and me. We all head back to the wagon train.
“I thought the plan was to follow the river,” Jane says, pointing to the train beginning to cross the nearby bridge, the column stretched out like a cat sunning its belly.
“It was,” Sue says.
Without oxen and heavy loads we can move faster than the wagon train, and we catch up to our group quickly. Lily runs to greet us, and she freezes.
“I thought you were dead,” she says, giving Jane a terrified look.
“I am,” Jane says, voice flat.
Lily does not quite know what to do with that, and the parade of emotions that flit across her face echo the way I am feeling by the minute: angry, then sad, then cautious, and finally, concerned.
“Lily, is there something amiss?” I ask.
She grabs on to the lifeline I throw her with both hands, turning her attention back to me. “Upriver, the water is filthy with shamblers!” she says. “Juliet says we need to head away from the water.”
Jane’s face goes stony, and she strides ahead to where the middle of the wagon train is crossing a long bridge now crowded with Chinese and Californios pointing to the water. They hold pickaxes and shovels, and I realize that we must have stumbled upon one of the work crews building levees along the river. It was the talk of San Francisco, where the people of the city were eager to have more predictable travel to Sacramento and to lure more people to the state. The project was intended to make more of the area alongside the river conducive to farming by alleviating the massive flooding. A lack of workers and soaring costs had delayed the project; it was now slated to be completed in 1890.
“Tomás!” Jane yells, and the small boy comes running over. We approach the nearest Californio, who looks to be in charge of the day laborers, and, with Tomás interpreting, we inquire what happened. He relays the story of the dead appearing in the water—ten yesterday, a few more this morning, and now more than a hundred of them.
Sure enough, the water churns with the dead. The current is a bit too swift for more than a handful to gain the bank, and without the curve of the river that benefitted the dead behind us they cannot maintain their footing. Either way it is clear that they are coming from somewhere upstream.
Jane thanks the man for his time and we catch up with the wagon train, which is now cutting a path away from the river to the north. A few dead try to lurch after the train, and we easily dispatch them. We walk in silence for a few moments, Tomás and Lily eyeing each other suspiciously, the little dog hopping sideways and barking whenever one of the restless dead get too close. We are almost rejoined with the wagon train when Jane utters the question on all of our minds.
“What the hell is going on upriver?”
No one responds, of course. We do not know anything more than she does. But I hope the answer is one that does not spell our doom.
When the Devil’s Bride ran up against Alfred and Lucy Brampton, a couple of no-good swindlers who had left a trail of dead and broken hearts in their path, she did not hesitate. Reports are that she walked into a saloon that the couple frequented, asked their names, and shot them down before either could respond.
And good thing, to be sure, for the Bramptons had a wagon full of colored children, stolen from their parents, that they had planned on selling into slavery.
Had she known this about these fiends? Or had her heroism been a happy coincidence?
—Western Tales, Volume 47
—JANE—
Chapter 37
<
br /> In Which Our Plans Change
Predictably, the topic of conversation on the wagon train runs to the dead. How could it not? Most of these folks came west to escape shamblers, to find new lives away from the killing and dying. Of course, it ain’t like they haven’t seen the restless dead in California before. Just not like this, fresh and fast and ravenous. The dead in the ocean were old and raggedy, easily dispatched by beach patrols. The old shambler that wandered the landscape here was usually an oddity, a prospector or trapper that died in the wild and came back without any kin to plant a nail in their forehead.
But this was something completely different, the beginnings of a horde, flowing down the river, out to sea. Assuming the river did not bend fortuitously and provide a landing spot for them and their endless hunger.
Yes, the people of California had fled the dead, yet here it all was, pursuing them like Pharaoh harrying Moses and the Israelites across Egypt. Only in this case the Red Sea seems to be in on the chase. I wish I was surprised, but I ain’t. Seems to me whenever anyone finds but a little bit of peace, the dead inevitably show up to wreak their special kind of havoc.
It’s nice a body can rely on something these days.
We veer away from the river, a panicked hustle that can only be maintained for an hour before Juliet has to call a halt as older folks and kids begin to drift too far back. We’re heading due north instead of the more northeasterly route that would have taken us to Sacramento, and that vexes me. Something is causing the dead in the river, and even though I pray that it’s just an overrun boat like Carolina Jones suggested, I fear that Gideon has laid waste to yet another town in the course of his despicable experimentations.
I take a deep breath. We’ve stopped next to a placid stream that burbles and sings, and the landscape is beautiful, but the direct opposite of how I feel.
Katherine, Sue, and I do a quick survey of the perimeter before posting guards. Our shifts will start earlier tonight, and with good reason. Folks are skittish at seeing the dead, but I hear more than a few conversations that already try to minimize the danger. “It’s probably just a boat,” someone says. “Maybe a family turned and their town went as well, there are dozens of little hollers up this way.” They’re trying to tell themselves a story that makes California the land of safety and sunshine, and in lying to themselves they’re putting us all at risk.
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