Alias Mrs Jones

by Kate McLachlan

  Another man perused a thin instruction manual with a deep scowl on his face. “It says here to ‘place the mica insulated washers on the binding posts of the two-path carbon lightening arrester and attach it to the ground plate.’ What in hell’s the ground plate?”

  “What in hell’s a two-path carbon lightening thingummy?” asked the fourth man.

  “I don’t know,” said the Roosevelt man, “but you’d better attach it. I don’t want to be the one talking when lightning strikes if you don’t.”

  “Here, you figure it out then.” The man with the instruction manual thrust it at the Roosevelt man, who held his hands up in surrender and refused to take it.

  Finally, one of them spotted me. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Have you been there long? We’re a bit distracted here.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I’m looking for Mr. Dunn.”

  He looked blank, glanced over his shoulder at his comrades, who appeared puzzled as well.

  “Mr. Hiram Dunn,” I said. “Doesn’t he work here?”

  The man shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  The Roosevelt man stepped forward. “I know who he is. He worked here quite a few years ago. He helped start up the railyards ten years ago or more. He doesn’t work here any longer, though. I think he works for the school now.”

  “That’s right,” said another man. “He’s the school superintendent or something like that, I think.”

  Where had I got the idea Mr. Dunn worked for the railroad? It was Guy, I think, who told me. He said they moved to Hillyard because his father worked for the railroad, but now that I thought about it, he never said his father still worked there. It made sense, really. A school superintendent was far more likely to greet a new schoolteacher at the railroad station than a railroad man.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you,” I said. “I misunderstood. Good luck with your telephone.”

  I backed out. As I closed the door behind me, I heard one man say, “Edgar, would you leave that door alone? You’ll have it worn out before we even get the telephone mounted.”

  I didn’t know where the school superintendent’s office was, and it was nearly noon. Even if I knew where to find Mr. Dunn, he would probably be gone by the time I got there. I decided to return to the Dunns’ house that afternoon. Meanwhile, I would stop by Hennessey’s Confectionary. It was Saturday, so it would be too busy for me to talk with Mrs. Hennessey, but I was yearning for a sweet. I headed north beside the railroad shops. The main tracks into town split into several side tracks, most of which disappeared into the brick buildings. I could see through the open faces of some of the buildings. Engines and cars were parked inside, and men crawled over them like bugs.

  I continued walking beyond the shops. A train lay idle on the track to my right. The town was on my left, but it was far from idle. I passed a smithy, a feed store, a restaurant, and a lumberyard. I had just reached the icehouse when I heard a voice so close it took my breath away.

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” Marshal Mitchell said, his voice just around the corner of the icehouse and heading my way. “When I get hold of that Jones woman I’ll—”

  The rest of his words were lost in the shrill sound of a train whistle, but it was enough to spur me into action. The railroad car beside me was open. I lunged for the open rungs beside it and pulled myself up into the car. I tucked myself into the corner and tugged the hem of my skirt inside just as Marshal Mitchell rounded the corner.

  “—knows something more than she’s saying. If you hear anything about that fellow who—”

  Again the whistle blew and blocked the rest of his words.

  The floor lurched. I nearly fell, but grabbed the edge of the open car door to keep myself upright. The train was moving!

  I pulled myself to the opening and looked down. The train gained speed rapidly. Already the ground moved below me at an appallingly fast rate. I braced myself and prepared to jump.

  “No!”

  I looked up.

  Marshal Mitchell ran toward me. “Don’t jump,” he shouted and waved his arms at me as if trying to push me back. He said something else, but I couldn’t hear, as the train picked up speed and moved farther away. Marshal Mitchell stopped and stared at me, his form growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether. I watched Hillyard as it also shrunk until we rounded a curve, and I stared at nothing but flat, uninhabited prairie.

  The spring sunshine did not penetrate into the car, but frigid air blew in easily. I shuddered. I grasped a bar attached to the inside of the door. It slid easily on small wheels. I pulled it shut, and the car turned black. I pulled it open again, just a sliver, so that I had enough light to see.

  Wooden crates were stacked against one end of the car. A drawing of a red apple was painted on the side beneath the words “Applesauce, made fresh from Washington apples.” One stack was lower than the others, only two crates high, so I sat on it, my back against another stack, and wondered where I was headed.

  Canada was north of Hillyard, but that was the extent of my knowledge. I wasn’t sure how far Canada was, but I thought it was at least a hundred miles. Surely we would stop before then.

  Just in case, I opened my purse to see if I had anything that might be of use in a foreign country. I carried a handkerchief, comb, and mirror, a coin purse, the key to my room, a pencil nub, and a small tin of Colgan’s mint chips. I opened the tin and slipped a mint wafer into my mouth. I was hungry. It had been a long time since breakfast.

  I emptied the coin purse into my hand and counted. One silver dollar, three half dollars, four dimes, and four nickels. Three dollars and ten cents. I thought with longing of the wad of bills I had stashed in my satchel at home.

  The train slowed. I shoved the money back into my purse, slid from my perch, and pulled the door to make a larger opening. We approached a depot. The sign above it said “Colbert.” I prepared to leap from the car as soon as we stopped, but the train did not stop. The platform was empty. A canvas bag dangled from a post beside it. As I watched, a metal hook emerged from the train, snagged the bag, and pulled it inside. The train sped up again.

  I closed the door and slumped to my crates. My stomach rumbled. I wondered if there was a way to open some of that applesauce. I tugged at the top of the crate with the fingers of my left hand, but it wouldn’t budge. I sat again, huddled into myself, and tried not to think of the cold.

  The train passed through four more towns, Chattaroy, Milan, Elk, Scotia. The tiny towns were busy, but the depot platforms were bare of passengers. Each time I opened the door and prepared to jump, and each time, the train slowed but did not stop. If I didn’t already have one arm in a cast, I might have risked a jump from the moving train. I would have to catch myself with my arms, though, and I didn’t have the nerve to put my broken arm through such a test.

  Finally the train slowed and slowed some more and gradually lurched to a shuddering stop. I saw the depot sign, Newport, printed above the depot door. I had my purse over my arm and my hand on the bar, ready to climb down, when I saw two men standing on the platform waiting. They were passengers, I thought, and I had them to thank for making the train finally stop so that I could climb down. They didn’t board, though, but hopped down from the platform and approached my car with quick, purposeful steps. “Here she is,” I heard one say, and they stopped right in front of me, one man tall and thin, the other short and squat. They wore badges on their coats.

  I stared, unable to move.

  A large pair of hands reached for me. “Come on down from there, lady,” the tall man said. “Your ride’s over.”

  He hauled me to the ground, not gently. I would have fallen, but the short man wrapped his thick hands around my left arm in a painful grip.

  “What are you doing?” I tried to pull my arm from his grasp, but he only tightened his hold. “Let me go.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re coming with us.” The tall man took hold of my right arm above the cast, and b
oth men began walking me rapidly away from the depot toward to the well-lit center of Newport.

  “Where?” I asked. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Jail.”

  I stopped walking, but they did not. My new boots dragged in the dirt. I stumbled to my feet again and scrambled to keep up.

  “Jail?” My voice was a squeak. “Why? For riding that train? I didn’t mean to. It was a mistake. I’ll pay for my ticket.”

  “Shut up,” the tall man said.

  “But I haven’t done anything wrong. You’re making a mistake!”

  “Shut up.” It was the short man this time. He shook my arm. “It’s no mistake. You think there’s another woman on that train wearing blue ostrich feathers on her hat and a cast on her arm?”

  I nearly panicked before I realized that the woman they described was not Robert’s wife. They weren’t arresting me for murder, after all.

  “Oh.” I let myself give a little laugh. “You’ve heard from Marshal Mitchell. Did he telephone you that I was on that train?”

  “Telegram,” the tall man said.

  “You misunderstood,” I explained. “He didn’t want me arrested. He knows I was caught on that train by accident. You can ask him. Send him a telegram.”

  They said nothing but continued to march me toward the jail. Citizens of the town stared at me as we passed, and I burned with shame.

  Finally we reached the jail. They thrust me into a chair and released their grips on my arms. The tall man sat behind a desk, and the short one rummaged through a bookshelf. I rubbed the bruises left by their fingers and tried to be grateful that they didn’t handcuff me.

  “You really have made a mistake,” I said. “I’m certain Marshal Mitchell is expecting you to send me back to Hillyard.”

  “I’m sure he is,” the tall man said. He sat forward as the other man walked around me and placed a thick book on the desk. It was an expandable book with leather covers held together with steel bolts on the side. “But I don’t see why we should let Mitchell get the credit for bringing you in.” He turned pages of the book as he spoke, and both men scanned them closely, looking up to examine me now and then as they turned a page. I craned my neck to see what they were looking at and felt the blood drain from my face. Wanted posters. They were looking for me among the wanted posters.

  “What do you mean?” I tried to breathe normally, pretending innocence. “Bring me in where? Marshal Mitchell wasn’t bringing me anywhere.” My panic grew as they continued to turn pages. Any moment now they might find my likeness. “Why are you looking in that book? I’m not in there. I’m not a criminal. I’m a schoolteacher.”

  “Well, if that’s so,” the tall man said, “you don’t got nothing to worry about.” But he turned another page.

  “This is unfair.” I stood up indignantly. “You have no right to keep me here.”

  “Sit down,” the short man said. He started around the desk.

  “Wait, look at this,” the tall man said. Both men stared at the open book, then looked up and examined my face.

  The short man fingered the handcuffs that hung from his belt. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  “Eleanor Caldwell,” the tall man read from the poster. He looked up with a smirk. “Didn’t like your husband much, did you Mrs. Caldwell?”

  I didn’t wait to hear anything more. I had the door open before they knew what I was doing.

  “Hey! Hey, stop there!”

  “Get back here. Stop her!”

  I heard chairs crash to the floor as the men rushed after me. There was no way I could outrun them, but I had a start on them and no other choice. I wasn’t about to give myself up to the hangman’s noose. There were narrow passageways between the jail and the buildings on each side of it. A restaurant on my left was well lit and busy. I turned right and dashed down the corridor between the jail and its darker neighbor. It was black as night in the passage. I couldn’t see in front of me, but I didn’t dare slow down. I ran blindly, stumbling once but moving on. After only a few steps I was spotted.

  “She’s down here!” The squat man yelled. I heard the brush of his coat against the walls as he tried to catch up with me, but the walls were too close to allow him to run freely as I did. Something caught at the plumes of my hat and tore it from my head. As I bolted out of the tunnel, I heard generous swearing from the constricted man as he stumbled over the hat. “Down here,” he yelled again, and the other lawman’s answering call came from the passageway on the other side of the jail.

  There was no time to think. I ran east, for no reason except that it was the direction I already faced. I ran quickly and recklessly through mud and shadows, past buildings and wagons and horses and people. No one tried to stop me. The people I passed seemed more amused than anything else at my flight from the marshals. Jeering remarks made to my pursuers let me know the distance between us was narrowing.

  I was not used to running. My lungs burned for oxygen, my skirts were too heavy, and my corset would not let me catch my breath. I could not outrun the marshals.

  I dodged behind a tall building, doubled back quickly, and ducked behind a barrel. I pressed my arm over my mouth to try to muffle my gasping breaths. My pulse beat heavily, especially in my sore arm, and sweat trickled down the sides of my face. I closed my eyes and prayed that the marshals would pass me by.

  They did not. The boot steps slowed, then stopped, no more than three feet from my hiding place.

  “She’s crossed over,” one said. “This is Oldtown.”

  “So? I bet she doesn’t know she’s in Idaho.”

  “How much was the reward on her?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “That much? She didn’t look worth it to me. Still, it’s not worth losing our jobs over. Let’s go back.”

  “We could get Spence. He could arrest her and split the money with us.”

  “Why would he? He’d just get us fired for meddling in his jurisdiction and keep the money for himself. Let her go.”

  “At least Mitchell didn’t get her.”

  Their voices faded as they walked back on the Washington side of the border. I let my breath come more easily and rested my head on my bent knees. I had no idea I was even near Idaho, but I thanked whoever had placed the border between the two states right at the town of Newport. I hunched behind my barrel for quite some time. Exertion from running kept me warm at first. Eventually, though, the sweat cooled on my body and I shivered. A rumble from my stomach reminded me that I’d not eaten since breakfast.

  I rose, smoothed out my skirt, and tidied my hair, which had fallen loose during my flight. I had no hat—my poor hat!—but there was nothing I could do about that. The sun had set. I looked about and tried to plan my next step.

  Oldtown and Newport seemed to be just one town spread across the border between Idaho and Washington. I didn’t know when I had crossed the line into Idaho, but I knew Washington was behind me in the west. If I stayed on the Idaho side of the line, I would be safe from my pursuers, so I walked east.

  A cold wind blew the smell of water toward me. Soon I saw a wide river, black except for the reflected lights of a steamboat idling at a dock and a few lantern-lit barges loaded with timber. A string of lights along the bank beckoned me north. Before long I passed more docks and boat landings. I found a narrow two-story building with “Davey’s Restaurant and Hotel” painted on the front. I opened the door. The restaurant consisted of one long table with wooden benches on each side. A lone bearded man sat at the end of one bench shoveling stew into his mouth. A fire blazed in a large fireplace, and a dark wooden bar reflected the flames from the opposite wall. I moved toward the fire, ignoring the curious looks of the men who leaned against the bar.

  “Dinner’s over, ma’am,” called a large woman from a doorway at the end of the room. “But I can get you a bowl of stew for two bits.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Sit yourself down.”

  I sat at the end of
the bench far from the bearded man. The woman returned with a steaming bowl of beef stew and a fat slice of bread. “Coffee? It’ll be a nickel more.” I nodded and she brought it to me. The stew was delicious, and I ate it rapidly, soaking up the gravy with the bread. With the fire at my back and hot food in my stomach, I was soon warm again. I pushed the bowl away with a satisfied sigh and pulled the coffee toward me.

  The men at the bar had resumed talking and paid no attention to me. The man at the other table sipped his own coffee. I glanced at him and caught his eyes sliding away from me.

  The large woman came to take my bowl. “You be needing a room tonight? Two dollars.”

  I yearned for a bed, but two dollars would leave me with only eighty cents. I had no idea how much a ticket back to Hillyard would cost, and I didn’t dare leave myself without enough money. While I hesitated, the woman turned to the bearded man.

  “More coffee, Spence?”

  Spence? He was the man with Idaho jurisdiction.

  “How about that room, ma’am?”

  “No thank you.” I stood up and took three dimes from my purse. “The stew was delicious. Thank you.”

  I pulled the collar of my coat about me and slipped out into the night. I wandered, but stayed in the shadows by the river, worried that Spence or one of the Newport lawmen might see me. Aside from Davey’s Restaurant and two saloons, it appeared the buildings along the river were devoted to transport, primarily lumber, by wagon and rail and steamship, and I thought of my students’ essays. There was no refuge for me there, but I was afraid to leave the river lest I accidentally cross over into Washington. Finally, I entered a stable in an attempt to get warm. I only meant to lie in the hay for a moment, but hours later I was awakened by an ancient man demanding payment for my slumbers. I gave him fifty cents, and he loaned me a blanket. I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night, but I didn’t freeze and I was not apprehended by the law. I felt it was a bargain.

  I was up with the first light. I hoped the lawmen were not. Surely they slept better than I had and would not be so eager to leave their beds. I kept a careful watch as I followed the railroad tracks back to the depot. It was in Newport, on the Washington side of the border. It was a risk, but I had no choice. I stepped up to the depot window.