by Kin S. Law
That was the last thing Hargreaves knew before a sharp pain flowered in the side of her head. She was still Yard enough to avoid the worst of the blow, and she caught sight of the ruffian emerging from the darkness between boxcars. Then came the false night of a burlap bag, descending over her face, though not before she counted three of them, one smeared in furnace soot all over his arms and face. She felt Emory wrenched, screaming at last, from her arms. For that reason alone, she let her limbs fall limp. Hargreaves feigned unconsciousness, even when she felt the ropes bind around her wrists. For a brief moment she thought she saw an aquiline profile and tan skin through a tear in the burlap. A red man amongst these militiamen? Only a fleeting dream, a false hope.
Hargreaves stayed perfectly still. She felt her thespian’s instincts descend upon her, and tried to convey the limpness and helplessness of a recently dead corpse. The brutes had no interest in her face, though they certainly pawed about everywhere else. Amongst the fools was someone with a sound head on his shoulders, however. They damn well made sure to check her for a gun before they hefted her onto someone’s armored shoulders like a bag of potatoes. But they didn’t find the razor-sharp pin tucked in her hair.
By and by Hargreaves managed to get her eye to the rip in the burlap, she saw mostly the backside of the militiaman who was carrying her. She smelled the machine oil and felt more than heard the hiss of pressure shifting the riveted plates under the leather coat. Moments passed into minutes, and her soft parts grew sore. It felt like they walked for about ten minutes, though of course the suited man who carried her felt no fatigue. The other two men exchanged jibes about her raised backside in the first few minutes.
“Say, Hayworth, can’t we just drop by the saloon a spell? Wouldn’t even need a bed. Stable’s good enough for the filly,” said one of them. She felt a brushing sensation as someone touched her hair.
“Second that,” said the other voice. It sounded familiar, somehow, but Hargreaves couldn’t place it.
“She’s not some negro speed goat you can rut in the back of a barn. We take her to Scream,” said the one carrying her, Hayworth, and that was that. Whoever Wilhelm Scream was, he was fine and terrible motivation.
Soon enough the trio reached wherever they had been going, and Hargreaves felt herself being dumped through into a cooler space and down onto something soft and musty, like a coach seat. She waited until the din of the men subsided to a dull roar before peering out of the rip in the burlap. Only a dark, somewhat dusty buckwheat cushion filled her vision, and from the angle of the quivering firelight, it seemed she was in a coach with the doors shut. She slipped the burlap loose only to find her wrists bound with rope, not cuffs. Blast. The pin would be little use.
She was able to wriggle up to the rear window, and the sight there was shocking to say the least. Firstly, she made out the low wagon hitched behind the coach. Even under a sheet she recognized the newsboys’ equipment from earlier in the day. There was room behind the clockwork where a number of shapes were piled, wriggling slightly but still bound. Hargreaves looked for Constance, but the light flickered too wantonly for her to see. She didn’t want to think about what the militiamen had said about the free women they caught. And Emory. What of Emory? She could not see the child, either.
The coach door slammed open before Hargreaves could make an attempt to feign unconsciousness. Instead she whirled, fixing her eyes in what she hoped was wet panic. She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized one of the men from earlier. One, not three. Upon closer inspection, he was one of the newsboys from the afternoon. He had chestnut hair that might have been handsome on someone less loathsome. Like a horse.
“Don’t think I missed you when we were giving out the pamphlets. I don’t know where you come from, the Feddies, the Wisconsin troopers, Burgess’s men,” said the chestnut. “I’ve got three inches of steel that say you ain’t going anywhere.”
“What? What are you—let me go!” said Hargreaves, hoping she wasn’t selling the farm. She twitched her legs as if in fear, but placed them in an angle to show off her rear through the boys’ trousers. Then, lowering the pitch of her voice, she said, “Your…your leader, Scream. You’re to take me to Scream. ”
“That’s what Hayworth thinks. But no, I think you’re too dangerous to let go. No blackies have got out from Spelter in three months, and nobody would believe them if they did. But a limey white girl…that’s different. So you’re not going anywhere…but first, I’m going to have some fun.”
With a snarl, the man climbed into the coach. Hargreaves loosed a scream, high and loud enough to carry through the closing door. She clenched her teeth as she bore the militiaman’s attentions, which were clumsy and thick-fingered. But it hadn’t escaped her attention that he had said Burgess’ name, nor that his slapdash clanker armor was hanging half off his chest and legs, ready for whatever foul deeds were on his mind.
Hargreaves waited until he had pulled her trousers to her knees and his face was buried in her sex. She took time, waiting long enough to know her scream hadn’t brought anyone running. Why would they, in this crazy little burg? Then, when she was quite sure, she trapped his hands under her rear and clamped her muscular thighs shut around his neck.
“Mmmph!” said the man, his face turning bright red as he lifted it from her sex fast enough to leave rug burn. His legs kicked at the padding of the coach. His teeth were a concern, but it wasn’t her first rodeo, and she rode tight under his chin, looking calmly into his eyes as the light slowly left them.
Hargreaves waited the few minutes for him to fall unconscious. It took a long time, and longer still for her to recover her breath, perhaps twenty minutes from when she had first been thrown into the coach. Then she shoved the limp body off her, and shimmied her pants back on as best she could. Kicking one boot free, she felt with one foot for the knife the militiaman had bragged about sticking in her.
“Damn! You bloody wanker!” She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t fucking believe it. Hargreaves kicked the man’s head, hard, and checked again. But no, she had been quite thorough. The man didn’t have a knife on him. Either he had left it outside the coach, as was prudent, or he just liked his victims terrified.
“All right then. No knife, no guns…come on, Vanessa, think,” said Hargreaves. But any attempt to escape would have to wait, as she caught the sound of a clockworked horse clopping closer. Thinking fast, she grabbed her would-be rapist with her feet and crammed him under the coach seat, where the baggage racks usually lay. There was a poncho or blanket draped over the forward passenger bench, which she was able to use to cover the man’s drooling face. Then she retrieved her boot, though her clothes would have to stay disheveled, and lay down on the seat again to listen for the horse to come closer. The stink of the militiaman was still on her, and she wished dearly for a lavender-scented bath.
“The hood!” said Hargreaves, nearly when the men were upon the coach. She wriggled close enough to it so it would seem as if the burlap had fallen off. Then the door opened and Hargreaves concentrated on keeping perfectly still.
A moment passed, then another, as the muffled sound of conversation and a huffing, sparking horse drifted in. Then a body came flying in and landed on the other seat, hard enough to jostle Hargreaves feigning unconsciousness inside. She risked a peek. It was Constance! But her clothes were ripped, and her neatly piled hair was now ragged, sticky, and draped over her nudity. Part of her head looked like it had been shaved. She seemed barely there, her eyes dull and unseeing. There were marks upon her, marks that were hard to see in the dark but to Hargreaves’ trained eyes clear indicators of at least three men. Bile raged up into the back of Hargreaves’ throat, not the least of which bore the bitter taste of survivors’ guilt. Because she had been a white woman and Constance was dark!
For a brief moment Hargreaves wasn’t sure she was lucid as a witness to this horrific scene, but the moment passed and the doors closed on her, leaving her in blessed quiet. She could
hear the men outside busying themselves, but she did not deceive herself into thinking they would leave her alone for long. Surely one of them would decide there was a much-awaited main attraction in the coach.
Instead, the coach gave a rattling lurch, and Hargreaves nearly pitched onto the floor with the unconscious man. Had she killed him? She didn’t hear breathing. But she found she didn’t much care, and when a choked gurgle came from below, she found herself disappointed. That was when she saw the glitter of the knife that had tumbled out onto the floor.
“Now?” Hargreaves hissed in frustration. It must have been slipped into a hidden part of the armor. With a groan and an epithet, she took the next hole in the road and tumbled down next to the knife, getting her teeth around the handle though all the while a little voice in her head was praying she wouldn’t bite through her tongue. It didn’t take much effort to pull her bound hands over her legs, and then a moment of fury as she sawed through the ropes.
“Constance! Constance!” whispered Hargreaves as soon as she could cast the rope away and sit up. The driver’s compartment window was shut, but she heard the motions of the driver and one other man in the passenger seat. She kept her voice down as she inspected Constance, who did not answer. She had dipped into the sandman’s realm, overcome by her injuries. Hargreaves felt her body, and cursed the brutes once more. There was certain to be some internal bleeding, and her left eye felt like they had fractured the orbital. Most of all Hargreaves felt the cold realization that she was alone.
Alone, but not overcome. Not yet. Hargreaves didn’t try to open the door. For one thing, the coach was still moving. For another, how would she take Constance? Or the other freemen and, plausibly, women, in the back wagon?
It didn’t take much to redo the knots so they looked tight, but could be easily slipped off. Then she tucked the knife into her boot and laid back down to wait. Almost as soon as she was still, the driver window slid open and a militiaman peered into the gloom. Finding nothing untoward, he turned back to the front, leaving the window open. Hargreaves bit her lip and tried not to mind the bollocking those hard seats were giving her backside. Better a seat than a lout, she thought.
By and by, the coach did stop, though Hargreaves was starting to doubt the possibility. The coach doors opened, and Hargreaves expected to be thrown into the horror Constance had faced already. But no, it was just Hayworth, who grabbed her roughly and started to carry her out. He didn’t seem to notice the burlap that had slipped off.
“Those are some nice boots,” said one of the men nearby.
“Go on then,” said Hayworth. “Your daughter would like them.”
And so she lost her knife, as well, though she didn’t hear the sound of a blade drop to the ground. It was very dark.
Sneaking a peek here and there upside down on Hayworth’s back, Hargreaves made out a rolling range, like the many she had observed when she rode into Spelter. She only just made out the side of a large manor house a few yards away and the knot of perhaps eight men gathered near it. One of them pulled an armored gauntlet off and she saw the tattoo of a great hound upon his arm. Then her vision was swallowed up by the eaves of a barn, then by the hard boards of a wall and the scratchy comfort of what felt like a bed of dry straw. Something creaked, loudly, and then there was the distinct groan of a huge set of barn doors closing.
As soon as the voices had faded away, Hargreaves dashed forward and stuck her hairpin into the barn door, but cursed a blue streak as the pin snapped in the lock. It was old iron, sheathed in rust, and she had botched the job in her haste. She let rip with profanities. Her feet pricked with numbness, though she would likely feel the hard ground soon enough.
Attempt foiled, Hargreaves took a step back and regarded her surroundings. She was alone. Unbeknownst to her, the men had put the empty wagon in after her, though she could still make out the bloodstains. The stacks of pamphlets and the change backpack still sat covered in the wagon.
Hargreaves broke the lever off of it for a weapon, but almost as soon as she had it, she heard the soft crunch of a footstep outside the barn. Not a clanker, just a man, but the foot was clear enough in the crisp evening. She dove for the hay pile, looping the rope over her wrists again and tucking her new truncheon under her body. Just before the door opened, she shifted her legs so her best side was in view, but dipped her head so it looked as if she was afraid.
Moonlight snuck in as the smaller door in the barn’s front opened. Someone came in the barn, and stood there. What were they waiting for? Hargreaves clenched her jaw. Come on, you bastard, she thought. Come on and Inspector Hargreaves will show you a good time.
“Your tricks will not work,” a deep voice said calmly. “I know you are awake. You have been this whole time.”
Hargreaves snapped her eyes open. Then she whirled, and sat up, not caring that her poor abused page’s top was flapping like an untethered airship sale.
“Funny Goat?” she hissed, not daring to believe her luck. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
Under the cloth cowl draped loosely over his head, the Indian looked as handsome as he had by the farmer’s stand, and oddly not at all harried. A single feather clung to his long hair, pulled back into a neat fall framing fine aquiline features. Hargreaves thought she might feel improper objectifying the man, but when he came close, he smelled like clean sweat and forest floor. It was hard not to stare, but Hargreaves was certainly in no mood for romance just then. He was a sight for sore eyes, though.
Funny Goat had brought her some water in a basin.
“Oh, you bloody marvelous billy, come here!” said Hargreaves, and plunged her head into the basin, drinking deep. It was crisp, cold, and brought her back to life. Hargreaves was acutely aware of what the splashing water was doing to her front, and remembered suddenly that she hadn’t any proper underthings. Corsetry never seemed more welcome. To his credit, Funny Goat did nothing except hold the basin and try to keep his eyes on hers, which just made it easier to see the discomfort in them. After a bit, she could stand the silence no longer. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a cuppa tea?”
“You should run,” said Funny Goat.
“No tea? That’d be a proper treat.”
“You aren’t running?”
“I was brought with others,” said Hargreaves. “I suppose you followed me here. Perhaps you didn’t see the back of the wagon. But they’ve got others here, people you would call freemen. People of African descent. Scream and his men are hunting them, gathering them up in Spelter.”
Funny Goat just regarded her quietly.
“You will help me free them, right?” said Hargreaves, all the joviality seeping out of her voice.
“I would not,” said Funny Goat. “I…would be caught. And I know what men such as these would do to me.”
Hargreaves was about to berate him for being a coward, but paused with her hands smoothing back the spun gold of her hair. He was right, after all. How could she ask him to join in her madness, to risk his own life and body for her stupid arrogance? Hargreaves wasn’t police here. She probably wasn’t in England anymore either. If she was smart, she would run like Funny Goat said, and tend to disposing the Cook box as she had set out to do. If she was smart…
But the sight of Constance’s eyes and Constance’s smile haunted her still, as if they had been painted onto Hargreaves’ own blue pupils.
“I would make it worth your while,” said Hargreaves, thrusting her chest up in that particular way. That special way she unleashed when she was undercover as a barmaid, or wanted to distract a man from the gun she had in her skirts. My, my, thought Hargreaves. You’re getting lewd in your retirement from Scotland Yard. But she needed an ally, and she hadn’t missed the sizzle of his skin and the quickness of his breath as he looked at her. Now or earlier, when he snuck out from the back of her truck. The louder part of was saying she could knock him upside the head when his pants were down, the same way she had dispatched the poor lorry driver. But the
re was a quiet part of her that pushed her bottom out a little farther than necessary.
“I do not enjoy taking this thing by force,” said the Red Indian, frowning in offense.
“You don’t want my body?” Hargreaves feigned insult, covering her front. It was a nice touch, she thought.
“No, I want your body,” said Funny Goat, flustered. He backed up slightly, his firm footing unsure for the first time since she had met him. “I mean, you’re very attractive. You have long legs. And your soft breasts, I would enjoy them very much, and you would enjoy it also…that is…I mean…I’ve probably already helped you too much.”
“You’re not very good at this, are you?” said Hargreaves, feeling her eyebrows rise.
“No, no. I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to women very much. Either with the Blackfoots or the white women.”
“Oh,” said Hargreaves. “Well. Let me tell it to you straight. Listen, Goat. Goatie. There’s well on twenty souls trapped somewhere on this accursed farm, and I don’t think the plan is to cook them a nice dinner. One of them helped me out of a pickle, her and her boy. I’m going to go find them and set them free, and you’re going to help me do it.”
“And for that you’re offering me…recompense?”
Hargreaves didn’t know if he was as innocent as he claimed or if he was puzzled. His foreign Indian’s face was inscrutable even to her keenly honed senses. But she had had a horrid, no-good, very bad day and she just wanted to get on with it.
“Yes, yes, it’s not like I have any money left on me. If we live through this, you can bloody well have a shag. I daresay you’ll find it easy to take me to Bedfordshire, with that sweet nancy.” The last hung on the air, slipped off her tongue in her haste. Funny Goat simply looked at her as inscrutably as ever. “Well? I’ll be well and truly offended if you refuse.” Damn it, Hargreaves realized, she would. She felt her face turning red.
“I will help,” said Funny Goat. Hargreaves fancied he might charge money for people to look on his blank face: here be the Red Indian, carved out of wood. He was like a daguerreotype come to life from pictures of the Old West. But he simply turned to gather up a sack he had brought with him. Inside it were Hargreaves’ Tranter, her Browning, and even her boots with the knife still in them.