Dreadnought tcc-3

by Cherie Priest

  When Armistad Foote had finished his transcription, he turned to the telegraph key-a newfangled sideways number that tapped horizontally, instead of up and down-and sent a series of dots and dashes with such astonishing speed that Mercy wondered how anyone, anywhere, could’ve possibly understood it. When the transmission was concluded, the station agent finally pushed the device to the side and leaned forward on his elbows.

  “And what can I do for you today?”

  “My name is Mrs. Lynch. I don’t mean to interrupt your afternoon, but I’m about to take a real long trip. I figured you could tell me what the best way might be to head west.”

  “And how far west do you mean to go, Mrs. Lynch?” He was a bright-eyed little man, wiry and precisely tailored in a striped shirt with a black cinch on his right sleeve. He smiled when he talked, a smile that was not completely cold, but was the professional smile of a man who spends his days answering easy questions for people whom he’d rather usher out of his office via catapult. Mercy recognized that smile. It was the same one she’d used on her patients at the Robertson Hospital.

  She sat up as straight as she could manage and nodded for emphasis when she said, “All the way, Mr. Foote. I need to go all the way, to Tacoma.”

  “Mercy sakes!” he exclaimed. “I do hope you’ll forgive me asking, Mrs. Lynch, but you don’t plan to undertake this trip alone, do you? May I inquire about your husband?”

  “My husband is dead, Mr. Foote, and I absolutely do intend to undertake this trip alone-seeing as how I don’t have too many options in the matter. But I have money,” she said. She squeezed at the satchel as she added, “In gray and blue, what with this being a border state and all; and I brought a little gold, too-since I don’t know what’s accepted out past Missouri. It’s not a lot, but I think it’ll get me to Tacoma, and that’s where I need to go.”

  He fidgeted, using his heels to kick his own swiveling seat to the left, and then to the right, pivoting at his waist without moving his torso or arms. He asked slowly, as if the question might be delicate, “And Mrs. Lynch, am I correct to assume-by the cadence of your voice, and your demeanor-that you’re a southern woman?”

  “I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything. Heading west ain’t like heading north or south, is it? But I’m from Virginia, if you really must know,” she said, trying to keep the crossness out of her voice.

  “Virginia.” He turned the name over in his mouth, weighing what he knew of the place against the woman sitting before him. “A fine gray state, to be sure. Hmm . . . we have a train leaving very shortly-within the afternoon-for the western territories, with a final destination of Tacoma.”

  She brightened. “That’s wonderful! Yes sir. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

  “But there will be many stops along the way,” he cautioned as if this were some great surprise. “And the atmosphere might . . . prove . . .” He hunted for a word. “Unsympathetic.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This is a place of contradictions. The train heading west is a Union train by origin, and most of its passengers and crew are likewise allied in sentiment-though you can be absolutely confident, this is a civilian operation and in no way tied to the war effort at all. Not exactly.”

  “Well, which is it? Not at all, or not exactly?”

  He flipped his hands up as if to say some of each, and explained. “One of the last cars is transporting dead soldiers back to their homes of origin in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and the like. As far as I know, and as far as I can tell, that’s its sole official business, and they’re taking passengers along the route as a matter of convenience, and to offset the cost, of course.” He shrugged. “Money is money, and theirs is as good as ours. Suffice it to say, they have a refrigerated car full of valued cargo-the human cargo of slain veterans. I’m given to suspect that perhaps it holds a war hero or two, or maybe even General McDowell, whose widow and family have moved out to California. Though the caskets were sealed and unmarked, except by serial numbers, so I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny those suspicions.” But he smiled broadly, pleased to have guessed at a secret.

  “Pretty much what you’re telling me is that the fastest, easiest-and you haven’t added cheapest, but I’ll trust you wouldn’t bring it up if it were unaffordable-way I can get myself West is to keep my head down and ride a Union wagon?”

  “That’s the sum of it-yes. It’ll get you there, sure enough. Probably faster and safer than just about anything else we’ve got headed that way for the next month, truth be told.”

  “And why’s that?” she asked.

  He hemmed and hawed again, only momentarily. “There’s a bit of a military presence on board. The engine itself is of military vintage, and only the passenger cars are a civilian contribution.” His tone lifted into something more optimistic. “Which means that you can expect virtually no trouble at all from the Indians along the way, much less the pirates and highwaymen who trouble trains these days. It’ll be quite secure.” He stopped, and started again. “And anyway, what of it, if anyone somehow learns that you’re from Virginia? This is a civilian task, and a civilian train.”

  Mercy wasn’t sure whom he was trying to convince. “You don’t have to sell me on it, Mr. Foote. My trip is likewise unrelated to the war effort. So I believe I’d like to buy a ticket,” she said firmly. “As long as the ride is safe and quiet, I’ll count my lucky stars that my timing worked out so good.”

  “As you like, Mrs. Lynch,” he said, and he rose from his seat.

  She let him make the arrangements, and finally, after she’d handed over almost the very last of her money, he gave her an envelope stuffed with papers, including her boarding pass and itinerary.

  “The train’ll be boarding down at the end, at gate thirteen.” He pointed.

  “Down where all those folks are stomping around, making a crowd?”

  “That’s it. Now have a good day, Mrs. Lynch-and a safe trip as well.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Foote.”

  She stared out the window, down at the thirteenth platform. There wasn’t much to see there except for a dense and curious crowd, for the columns between her and the engine blocked the bulk of the view. Even through the obstacles, she could see that the engine was large and dark, as engines went, and an old warning thrummed in her head. Suddenly she knew . . . illogically, and against all sane rejection of undue coincidence . . . that once she got up closer, she’d recognize the machine, by reputation if not by sight.

  She drifted dreamlike toward the crowd and then back to the edge of the platform, where the people moved more quickly and with less density. Following the thinner stream, she shifted her satchel to hug it more closely against her belly.

  Blue uniformed men with guns pocked the scene, mostly staying close to the engine, to the spot that felt safest to them in this uncertain state of divided loyalties.

  The engine’s stack rose into view first, between the platform beams that held the shelter aloft. It could’ve been any freight engine’s stack, dark and matte as wool made for mourning. The lamp-which also came into view as she drew nearer-could have been any lamp, rounded and elongated slightly, with a stiff wire mesh to protect the glass.

  But then the pilot piece, the cowcatcher, eased into view as two men stepped apart. No longer could it be any engine, from any rail yard or nation. Devilishly long and sharp, the fluted crimson cage drew down to a knife’s bleeding, triangular edge, made to stab along a track and perform other vicious duties-that much was apparent from the rows of narrow cannon mounted up and down the slope against the engine’s face. In front of the pilot grille, even the rail guards that covered and protected the front wheels were spiked with low scoops and sharp points, just in case something small and deadly should be flung upon the tracks that the pilot might otherwise miss. All the way up the chassis more guns were nestled, as well as elaborate loading systems to feed ammunition to the devices in a Gatling style. And as
she approached yet closer, squeezing her way through the crowd to get a look for herself, Mercy noted that the boiler was double-, or maybe even triple-plated, riddled with rows of bolts and rivets.

  A water crane swung down low to hang over the engine. Soldiers ordered and shoved the onlookers back, demanding room for the crew and station workers to do their jobs; and soon the valves had been turned and the flow was under way. As the engine took on water for the trip ahead, spilling down the pipes into the still-warm tanks, the metal creaked and settled with a moan.

  The gargantuan machine was nearly twice as large as the ordinary engine huddling two tracks over-not twice as wide, but longer, and somewhat taller, and appeared thicker and meaner in every way.

  A man beside Mercy-some random gawker in the pressing crowd-turned to her as if he knew her and said, “My God, it’s enormous! It’ll barely fit under the station awnings!”

  And behind her came a different voice, slightly familiar and heavily accented. “But it did fit,” said the speaker with great conciseness. The nurse turned around and saw the most recent Texian to come aboard the Providence-the Ranger Horatio Korman. He added, “You can bet they were careful about that,” and he tipped his Stetson to Mercy. “Mrs. Lynch.” He nodded.

  “Hello,” she said, and moved aside, allowing him to scoot one booted foot closer to the tracks, almost to stand at her side. Together they stared ahead, unable to take their gazes away from it.

  Along the engine’s side, Mercy could see a few of the letters in its name, though she could barely parse the sharp silver lettering with cruel edges and prickling corners that closely matched the gleaming silver trim on the machine’s towering capstack.

  The ranger said it first. “Dreadnought. God Almighty, I hoped I’d never see it for myself. But here I am,” he said with a sniff. He looked down at Mercy, and at her hand, which held the envelope with all her important papers and tickets. Then his gaze returned to the train. “And I’m going to ride whatever she’s pulling. You, too, ma’am?”

  “Me, too.” She nodded.

  “You nervous?” he asked.

  She lied. “No.”

  “Me neither,” he said, but she figured he was probably telling the truth. He didn’t look nervous. He looked like a man who had someplace to be, and didn’t much care how he got there. His two large leather cases still dangled, one at the end of each hand; and his guns must’ve chafed against his forearms when he walked, but he wore them anyway, as casually as a lady would wear a brooch.

  Mercy asked, “How far will you ride?”

  He glanced at her quickly, as if the question startled him. “Beg your pardon?”

  “How far?” she tried again. “It goes all the way out to Tacoma, if you ride it long enough. But it stops a bunch of times between here and there.”

  He said, “Ah,” and his eyes snapped back to the metal train. “Utah. But I might end up leaving sooner. Remains to be seen,” he said vaguely. Suddenly he turned to her, and he set one of his cases by his feet so he could take her arm as he bent down to her height. “Mrs. Lynch,” he said, and his breath was warm on her skin.

  “Mr. Korman!”

  “Please,” he said softly. “I can bet old Greeley told you my job, and my distinction.” He looked left and right, and brought his face so close to her ear that she could feel the tickle of his mustache against her cheekbone. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that information to yourself. This being a Union train, I’ll have trouble enough on board as a Texian. They don’t need to know the rest.”

  She drew back, understanding. “Of course,” she said, nodding but not retreating any farther. “I won’t say a word.”

  The press and flow of the crowd shifted closer to the cars upon hearing some instructions. Horatio Korman stuffed his second bag up under his arm and took Mercy’s hand. “Will you accompany me, Mrs. Lynch? The two of us being two of a kind, and all . . . or, at least, two folks of similar sentiments.”

  “I suppose I could,” she said, but he was already leading her against a current of people waving their bags and reading their tickets instead of watching their steps.

  The ranger drew his duster forward over his guns, and adjusted his bag. He took Mercy’s envelope of tickets and receipts as boldly as he’d taken her hand. Together they reached the steps to the second car, which was being watched by a man in a crisp uniform in a shade of sky-blue that marked him as a Union underling. But he was an armed underling, and he examined all approaching passengers with the same steady eye.

  A porter stood to the other side of the steps, his gloved hand out and ready.

  Horatio Korman handed over his own ticket as well as Mercy’s. Once they’d been examined, he reclaimed both stamped items and returned the nurse’s to her envelope, and the envelope to her hand. Then he picked up his bags once more and led the way inside.

  Mercy followed, aware of the implication and a little annoyed, but a little comforted by the ranger’s appropriation of her presence. He hadn’t wanted to speak with her; he’d wanted her company the way he’d wanted to draw his overcoat forward to cover his firearms. He’d selected her as a reasonably respectable woman of a similar social class, in order to draw less scrutiny as he boarded the train; and because she was a southern girl, he figured he could trust her not to open her big mouth.

  Damn the man, he’d been right.

  She stood at the entrance to the passenger car’s door, blocking the way. She looked back over the platform and the assembled people there, and forward into the car. Horatio Korman was nearly out of sight, almost at the next car back, where he apparently intended to go without her.

  On the terrible engine, a whistle the size of a small barrel gulped against its tightened chain, inhaled, and screamed out a note that could be heard for a mile and maybe more. It screeched through the station like a threat or a dare, holding its tune for fifteen seconds that felt like fifteen years.

  Even after it’d stopped, it rang in Mercy’s ears, loud as a gong.

  And behind her, the porter with the clean white gloves called out in a voice that sounded very small in comparison, but must have been quite loud, “All aboard!”

  Eleven

  Mercy’s seat was in the fourth passenger car. To the best of her assessment, this meant that the train was lined up thusly: the great and terrible engine, a coal car, a secondary car that probably managed the diesel apparatus or other armaments, a third car whose purpose Mercy could not gather, the seven passenger cars (two Pullman first-class sleeping cars in the lead, the remaining passenger-class cars behind them), then a caboose with full food service, and, finally, an additional caboose that was no caboose at all, but the refrigerated car carrying the remains of the Union war dead. This car was strictly off-limits to all, as was made apparent by the flat bar with a lock the size of a man’s fist securing both the front and back doors of the thing, in addition to its painted-over windows that allowed not even the slimmest glimpse inside.

  But Mercy could see none of this from inside her compartment in the fourth sleeper car, a square box with a wall of windows and two padded bench seats that faced each other. Each seat could’ve comfortably sat three women dressed for travel or four men dressed for business, but the nurse had the full length of the bench to herself.

  She spent fifteen nervous minutes sorting out her brittle yellow tickets and the papers that ought to accompany her, including both the notes on her husband’s passing from the Union Army and her certification from the Robertson Hospital, which said such contradictory and true things about her that she once again thanked heaven she’d kept them in her personal bag, and not stuffed them into the long-lost portmanteau.

  The Ranger Horatio Korman was nowhere to be seen or found, but, as the train was being settled, two women came to take the bench that faced Mercy. After polite nods, Mercy watched them closely. She had no idea how long they’d be forced to look at one another or how well she could expect to enjoy their company-if at all.

  One
woman was quite elderly and small, with a back that was beginning to hunch despite her corsetry’s determined stance against this development. Her hair was white, and simply but firmly styled, and her eyes were a watery gray that spotted everything from behind a light wire set of spectacles. She wore black gloves that matched strangely with her pale blue dress, and a little black hat that suited the gloves even if the dress did not. She introduced herself as Norene Butterfield, recently widowed, and her companion as her niece, Miss Theodora Clay.

  Miss Theodora Clay was taller than her aunt by a full head, never mind the low gray hat that capped her shiny brown curls. She was younger than the other woman by forty years at least, which might have put her near thirty; she wore a smart but inexpensive lavender suit and gray gloves, plus black boots that peeked their pointed toes from beneath her skirt when she lifted Mrs. Butterfield’s luggage to store it in the drop-down berth above.

  The sight of her made Mercy feel unkempt, and inclined her to camp in the washroom section of the car-but, she concluded, not until the train was moving and their trip was under way. Besides, the washroom was presently occupied by a tired-looking man with two small children who had trundled inside and shut the door ten minutes previously. He could be heard begging the little boys to finish up and wash their hands, or wash their faces, or fasten their drawers.

  She was not particularly comfortable, but she very much wanted the trip to get under way. She could not help but notice how many armed, uniformed men were riding the train . . . particularly for a civilian operation, as had been so vigorously claimed. Mrs. Butterfield spied Mercy watching the enlisted lads and said in a surprisingly hearty voice, “It’s a relief to have them aboard, isn’t it?”

  “A relief? I suppose, yes,” she said without committing herself to anything.