Of course, were I in society, I should terminate relations with unspeakables, cousin or no. Now I find myself in a tormenting predicament. I have alarmingly few individuals upon whom I can rely. It would be of tremendous disadvantage, practically impossible, to sever ties with these two as long as I remain in Santa Fé.
You are a doctor and a wise man. If it is possible for this letter to receive a reply, I beg your council on the matter. Did not Dr. Friedrich study abnormal behaviors and unusual diseases of this nature? One more matter on which I have no one to provide educated discussion.
In fact, there is no educated discussion on practically any matter out here, most people not being educated. The newspaper is full of falsehoods to garner interest, only one in English still running through Santa Fé, its printing sporadic, at the editor’s whim rather than by plan. Most people in the Territory, whether Mexican or Negro or Anglo cannot read and write anymore than a three-year-old. There seem to be nearly no schools. Any there were have closed with all in unrest, fled, or deceased.
With no library and no books, not even in Spanish, I fear I may actually forget my own letters given enough time for the locals to influence me. Not that everyone in Santa Fé is simpleminded. I have met intelligent people out here, not least of which the Scandinavian maker, Kjellstedt, yet one needs more to stimulate the mind than a glib remark by an acquaintance (which, incidentally, often comes at the expense of another of one’s acquaintances or oneself).
We have no theater, no entertainment unless one enjoys gambling and cock fights, no organized music. No steamers or dirigibles. No electricity or proper lavatories. Trying to get a bath and healthy meal in this place is like trying to sail the Seven Seas in a matchbox.
As I had to abandon my trunk at the ranch when it burned, I haven’t even my own books from Boston which I was able to study repeatedly while staying there. What I would not give now to read Jane Eyre another dozen times, even to hold a book, any book, the thicker the better, in my hands. I have spotted a few spines at the home of a new friend of mine, a lady from Chicago whose address I gave previously, and I shall ask her about them the moment this is sent. Or perhaps I must see the doctor first. There is one mostly competent doctor, a German immigrant, still in town. I have a wound in my side after being washed away in a flash flood. You need not worry, however, as I just had the first long bath and excellent meal I’ve encountered in many months and am quite well.
What troubles me more than injury or food is my precarious lack of funds. The town’s maker has agreed to build me a steamcoach which may reach New England without rails, horses, or even roads. Yet, with all goods in short supply and prices previously unimagined, I must earn many thousands of dollars, plus secure the materials by the grace of God, which may be impossible at any price. It could be that the steamcoach never is completed.
Regardless, cash remains as volatile a conundrum: even if no coach may be built, I shall never leave these mountains without material means; passage on any transport, bribery, the very goods of survival, all must come at a price. Of the many torments in this place, it is this work which makes lack of intellectual stimulation, proper attire, even food, seem trivial by comparison. Without the work, without momentous income, there is nothing here to hope for.
The language, wild animals, horses, Indians, primitive living, anarchist society—so much I have not reached.
Miss Night is about to wring her own hands right off, insisting I will be too late. Besides, I’ve used far too many of her lovely letter sheets, which I will never be able to replace.
I haven’t the time to read this over. Please excuse its dozen flaws and the whole hysterical document. I promise I am not overwrought, only in a deadly hurry. Things are not as bad as all that when one has a bath and hot dinner and knows there are at least a few people about trying to be halfway civilized in this Stone Age town.
If you have but one chance to write, tell me everything of Boston: color of the sunset, smell of the ocean, sound of the streets. Tell me about your work, how you are, what progress you have made with cure or vaccine.
And, if you have the time, tell me anything you can about the condition of my cousin and his friend. Is it an illness of the mind? A phobia of women? They seem healthy and (essentially) adjusted in appearance, even both quite handsome. One would never pick them out in a crowd as abnormal. I do not understand—which, you know better than anyone, is a most disagreeable state.
Write me the taste of lobster. The sight of a trolley. The feel of imported bed linens. The smell of a bakery. The sound of a page turning.
With all my love,
Ivy
Forty-Second
Fastest Draw In the East
Ivy feels sick as she walks to the maker’s workshop through morning sun and mist. After her doctor’s visit—he said the side wound was too far along for stitches and must be kept clean and allowed to granulate on its own—she spent the night at Winter’s. She had to make up the sofa with blankets herself in order to sleep there, with Winter distressed and insisting Ivy take her own bed.
Now, although she can hardly bring herself to visit the maker without a new payment for him, she must go for her teal dress stored by Isaiah.
She tries to think of something else so her feet will keep moving forward. Abandoning two thousand dollars in Silver City comes to mind. Sam and Melchior. She tells herself she does not miss Sam’s company. Tells herself Melchior’s company is less desirable than a rattlesnake’s anyway. For the best. She must learn to get along on her own.
And what of her distraught letter? She shivers. What did she say? Nothing her father can do for her, so why complain? What if it never arrives? What if his reply never comes?
Telling Rosalía and Winter her problems from the trail was not the same as reaching to the outside. Rosalía was sympathetic over the flood. Winter looked bewildered as Ivy tried to explain the jailing and aftermath without vulgarity.
Rosalía finally turned to her on the cowhide sofa. “You recall Mr. Mikkelsen and Mr. Banner running the old T River Ranch? What folks said about them?”
Winter’s eyes widened. She held her hand over her mouth. “Oh—I’m so sorry, Ivy. Your own cousin? How dreadful for you.”
For the first time in the telling, Ivy felt some relief. Winter understood, while Rosalía and Grip behaved as if they did nothing worse than hold up a stagecoach.
Once she heard the story, Rosalía encouraged Ivy to write more details than she previously advised. Ivy might not get another chance.
She still does not know which was the right idea.
They told her the city was blessed with a black market freighter hauling firearms and steel from the east, not north, in her absence, but had no time for more news as both encouraged her to write her letters. Far from overjoyed, Ivy was reminded that she had nothing to offer Oliver for her steamcoach. The maker may be patient, yet Ivy felt certain Glendaleen would be unimpressed if he invested in a device which remained unpaid for. Perhaps he bought nothing at all...?
Ivy finds the front wall of the workshop open, Isaiah leaving with a team of men carrying a section of pine poles bound together at the shop before placement. Much of the wall is being formed of adobe, but these panels—and anything else builders can get their hands on—speed the process.
Isaiah removes a hand from the enormous panel to tip his hat, sweat already coating his face in sunlight through vanishing mist. “Morning, Miss Jerinson. Glad to see you’re back safe. You’ll find your belongings where you left them and Oliver inside if you need a word.”
Ivy thanks him and takes a deep breath before she enters. Why does the maker have to be up already? Perhaps she can wait for her dress. Go on with Winter’s, find material for a new one in the meantime, her yellow one being so stained and ravaged she never wants it back.
She is hardly past the threshold when the little man pops up from a great steel construction and spots her. “Young lady! We wondered what happened to you. How are you?”
>
Ivy scarcely hears, staring, lips parted, at the device upon which he works. What she took to be a defensive construction for the barricade, is, in fact, a vehicle. Like a small steam engine or elongated coach.
Oliver looks down to follow her gaze. His smile grows. “Isn’t she delightful? I thought you’d want to see her, yes? Let me show you—here, here, here—see the wedge shape of the nose? Slim body? Have you ever studied anatomies of the swiftest animals, Miss Jerinson? The falcon, antelope, horse. Then the animals which cover vast ranges and great distances—the wolf, buffalo, Canada goose. Can you see it?”
Opening his arms wide as if to embrace the device, he steps back, bright blue eyes alight, chest out. “She is antelope and wolf, falcon and goose. Once complete, there shall be scarcely a track overland she cannot devour. While the world clamors for more like her, you and I....” His eyes mist over, face dreamy as he gazes at the steel shell. “You and I, Miss Jerinson, can say we drove the first.”
Ivy swallows, tears in her own eyes. “Oliver—” But she gives up and hugs him.
Oliver laughs, a medley of chains, watches, gears, and gauges jingling across his person.
He admits only with prompting that she owes him a great deal more money. Acquisition of black market materials placed him in debt to Mr. Strudwick, his father-in-law. Horrified, hoping never to come face to face with Glendaleen, Ivy thanks him as she gathers her attire, promising to pay him back with interest soon.
What is she thinking? Allowing this man to go into debt to build her a device she can never pay off and, based on the report from Mr. Thorp at Raton Pass, cannot make use of even if complete?
Dress bundled in her arms, Ivy looks again to the gleaming contraption while the maker also gazes at it as if upon his firstborn.
Her breath trembles. “Oliver—”
He jumps. “Nearly forgot.” Snatching off his spectacles to polish them on a handkerchief. “Miss Jerinson, everyone in town says you are quite the authority on Daray’s disease. Would you be so kind as to pay me the compliment of inspecting my plans?” He trots away on light feet, around a table crowded with scraps and unfinished devices, including his metal arm, a brass hat, several pairs of sungoggles, and a clockwork raven.
She peers past his shoulder as he stops at another table covered in reams of parchment, quill and nib pens, and bottles of ink, at least two of which have spilled and dried.
Oliver waves and chatters over long drawings pressed to the table by bizarre paperweights. “You see, we need ways to hold them at bay. Mr. Brownlow’s committee has discussed the matter. We know they are attracted to light. The blackout—”
“I’m sorry, Oliver. There’s a committee? What blackout?” She was asleep by sundown last night.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes. Mr. Brownlow organized citizens with Sheriff Thurman: strict blackout orders for the city since the attack on Independence Day.”
Wishing she asked Winter or Rosalía more about Santa Fé in her absence, Ivy opens her mouth, but he races on.
“No fires, no lights in windows, curfew at sunset. They ate up Tip Cillio’s prized sows. He came in just before the attack here calling for blood; half the men in town running about with pitchforks and six-shooters. Then the sick ripped in here on Independence Day—people in the streets, cooking fires, lanterns. Twenty or thirty armed men at the celebration. Mr. Cillio ran in with his pitchfork.” Oliver lifted his clanking hat to mop his brow. “Torn up like a rabbit in a coyote’s den, I hear. Back on his feet a few minutes later, trying to grab them. And Mr. Herrero was bitten on the hand—”
“Did they amputate?”
“Pardon me?”
“Cut the hand off the moment it happened? There is a chance—”
The maker shakes his head. “They tried to stop the bleeding until he turned on them. We heard the screaming. That’s when Isaiah and I ran out. We made sure the whole heap were dragged out of town and burned.” He looks from Ivy to his sketches and blueprints. “What do you think?”
All the rambling, then silence to let her take in scribbles she cannot make heads or tails of. He clasps his hands behind his back, beaming at diagrams as he rocks on his heels.
“I beg your pardon, Oliver.... What are we looking at?”
“Yes, of course.” With sweeping gestures of nimble hands and a waterfall of words, often interrupting himself to jump to the next page, he expounds upon the virtues of each device.
Firearms and unclimbable walls, platforms with lookout posts, telescopes, a weapon like a shotgun which launches blasts of fire to hang and smolder in the sky to draw them off. Another like a rifle which can shoot dozens of rounds in succession from a long clip which runs through the barrel like a chain. Bladed armor for arms and torso. A ball to throw and explode like a firework, filled with enough dynamite and lead fragments to destroy a dozen risers in close proximity.
Ivy longs to sit down and hold her head. “Oliver ... are you sure...? You are not talking of teaching skilled military units to use these devices, but handing them over to the people of Santa Fé.”
Mouth open, hand raised, Oliver pauses. His eyes roam the plans. Hand lowering, he looks at her. “They are ... not always ... mechanical, are they?”
“I would not trust most of the men in this town to tie their own shoes, even had they laces.”
The maker’s forlorn gaze returns to his inky plans. “Perhaps ... a few? Isaiah and I can make use of certain devices. We might trust at least the telescopes and lookouts. And the wall itself: mostly of Isaiah’s planning.”
“Yes.” Ivy rests her hand on a clear patch of his sleeve. “Focus on the wall. And a few ... extras. We’re all grateful for your work. I know your devices are brilliant.”
He pats her hand. “We will consider what should be most efficacious. Then, may we call on you again, miss? The committee needs your council.”
“Certainly you may.” Ivy bites her lip. Can she stomach a meeting with this so-called committee? “Thank you, Oliver. I don’t know how you moved so swiftly with the steamcoach. I will repay you.”
She takes only minutes to change into her own clothes and eat a few slices of sourdough toast at Winter’s, having already tidied away her bed. Winter encourages her to take a larger breakfast, wait just a moment and she will have an egg and tomatoes for her, but Ivy excuses herself and flees. Winter has more than enough work without her. Besides, she feels even more ill than before she saw the maker.
By late morning, she visits the stable to see about their horses. Luck tied in a stall, the others penned with two geldings in a small corral. She leads Luck out to tie at the fence, grabbing a curry comb and bristle brush, and tries to think.
Chucklehead chases the two chestnuts away across the pen. Elsewhere chews his way methodically through a full manger. Luck is still losing spring coat, looking more like a wild animal than riding mount, with patches almost bald beside chunks of thick hair exploding out below the curry comb.
In seconds, Ivy is nearly blind with fur and dust, but she goes on. One solid, tangible thing she can get accomplished.
Luck extends her neck over the top rail, nose beside Chucklehead’s. He paws dirt with a forefoot—more dust—and stretches to nibble Luck’s mane, eyes rolling to study her reaction.
“Go away!” Ivy waves her arms at the stallion.
He snaps her sleeve. She tries to slap him with the back of the brush, but he jerks his face up, gazing into the distance as if nothing happened.
“Beast. Leave us alone.” Ivy squints as red fur bursts around her. “I should work on you next. You are all filthy.”
Chucklehead swings his head back over the fence. This time Ivy catches him on the nose with the tip of her brush. He wheels as if she gave him an electric shock. Startled that her puny blow had such an effect, Ivy soon sees he is charging the chestnuts, one of whom tried to pick up a tumbling clump of hay tossed his way by the breeze.
The two flee at the sight of the stallion bearing down on them, ears back an
d nostrils flared, but they have only the cramped pen. Elsewhere goes on eating.
Coughing on dust clouds, hardly able to see, Ivy must tie a ragged handkerchief around her face to continue working.
When Chucklehead finally leaves the pair huddled against the far side of the pen, turning his back to swagger toward Luck, Ivy could swear he smirks.
Again, she waves her arms. “Can’t you leave us all alone?”
He pauses, regarding her, then, either deciding she does not mean it or is no threat, he leans his head over the rails to the mare.
Scowling, Ivy starts on mane and tail, taking half an hour before she can run even a wide-toothed steel comb through that long, red tail from one end to the other without a snag. Coat almost glossy now. She pats the mare’s hip. Two of them clean at least, though she herself needs another bath after this. At the boarding house. She cannot keep imposing on Winter, even if she does seem delighted for Ivy to ask for so much as a teaspoon.
Well past lunchtime now. She should call at the doctor’s before checking for available rooms with Mrs. Acker. Not that she wants to see her cousin—his horse being bad enough. Still, she must show an interest in his continued survival. He might be in a coma by now and she has no idea where or how Sam fares.
Chucklehead makes another lunge at the cowering chestnuts. Ivy sighs as she unties Luck. Why would they pen the stallion with strangers like this?
With the livery overflowing, Luck was the only one of the three granted a stall. Ivy ties her in with her hay and scans the alley for Mr. Quiles or a stable boy. Neither being apparent, she finds Chapo the swaybacked job horse two spaces from Luck, and leads him from his stall to tie in the alley. She fetches Chucklehead, having to throw a rope around his neck and trick him with a handful of oats to get his head down for a halter. The stallion follows her out, then drags her through the stable toward Luck. Ivy just manages to force his head into Chapo’s stall and ties him there with his own feed.
Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Page 7
