Deathless Divide

by Justina Ireland

  But that was all then, and this is now. Momma’s last note says California is where she was headed, but that don’t mean much in these end times. The question that matters more: Is she even alive? And what about Aunt Aggie, the woman that mostly raised me up? What do I do if she’s gone to the great beyond?

  It’s too much to consider in one go. Before I can answer any of those questions, I have to keep surviving today.

  “Yeah, okay, let’s go,” I say.

  “Would you mind relacing my corset before we set out?” Katherine asks, pointing to her back. “Not too tight. Just enough to give me a little bit of security.”

  I manage not to roll my eyes, but just barely. “I don’t know what it is about you and corsets,” I mutter, but oblige her request anyway. On the way out of town I’d cut the lacings to the contraption so that Katherine would have a bit more range of motion with her swords. We were fleeing from the restless dead, after all. But now that the danger has passed it’s apparently time to return to a modicum of respectability.

  I lace and knot where necessary but leave the whole thing looser than I’d learned in my sartorial training back at Miss Preston’s.

  “I suppose that will have to do,” she sniffs, and by that time the wagon with the rest of our party is far enough down the road that all we can see is the dust cloud it kicks up behind it.

  It ain’t hard to follow. It makes such a creaking racket that if there are any shamblers around they’ll show themselves quickly enough. But unless it’s a horde, I ain’t worried. Jackson Keats, my sometime beau, walks beside the wagon that carries his sister, Lily, and the rest of our ragtag group. The Duchess, the former madam of Summerland’s house of ill fame and a white woman of fine moral character, sits in the back with tiny Thomas Spencer, while her girls Nessie and Sallie sit up front and drive the wagon. We are a merry band of survivors, and no one seems all that upset about leaving Summerland behind us. One day, our time there will be just another terrible memory.

  “How long until we get to Nicodemus?” I ask, running up to the front, where Jackson leads the way as we walk the dusty track. We’re the only ones on the road, which makes me think anyone else who had fled Summerland must’ve taken a different route. There’d been a crossroads a little ways back, and Jackson had conferred with Sallie in a low voice before we’d continued on, taking a turn that hadn’t borne the same deep wheel marks that the other road did. At the time, I’d thought Jackson knew an alternate route, one that would leave us less open to attack, since Jackson was more familiar with the land in these parts than I am. But still, I’m a mite bit worried. Not because I don’t trust Jackson, but because I don’t like being beholden to a plan that ain’t my own.

  And maybe the for-real truth is that I do have misgivings about placing my faith in Jackson. After all, once upon a time he was my beau before he decided to put me aside, and the only reason I ended up in Summerland was because we went looking for Lily and uncovered the mayor of Baltimore’s plan to build some kind of peculiar utopia out in the middle of Kansas. Now here we are, in between a whole lot of nothing and a ravenous shambler horde, with nothing but our wits and a handful of weapons. No plan, no rations, just hope.

  It makes me nervous, how alone we are in the big, wide-open prairie. I don’t like feeling so exposed, like the entirety of my sins are being laid bare before that watery blue sky.

  “Yeah, you and I need to talk about Nicodemus,” Jackson says, gaze steely, hand resting lightly on the revolver hanging by his side. “Not now, but once we stop for the night.” His jaw is set, and whatever warmth I might have seen in him back in Summerland has faded. Red Jack is back, ruthless and cutthroat, the boy who used to make my heart pound.

  Today his attitude just annoys me.

  I stop walking and pull him with me onto the side of the road, out of the path of the wagon. “What are you talking about? What’s going on in Nicodemus?”

  Jackson crosses his arms. “I just said we’ll talk when we stop for the night. The town is a two-day ride, and we’re exposed out here. My words were about keeping us all safe, not an invitation to fight about it.”

  “Fighting is how we get to safe, and it seems like maybe you got a plan that the rest of us should get clued in on.”

  Behind Jackson, Katherine has left the wagon’s side, brows pulled together in a frown. “What’s going on?” she asks.

  “Jackson says there’s something he needs to tell everyone about Nicodemus, but he wants to wait until we stop for the night. I think we need to have it out now before we get too far down the track.”

  Katherine sighs. “What’s the problem with Nicodemus?”

  “Nothing,” Jackson says. He takes a deep breath and then lets it out. “Your classmates from Miss Preston’s are in Nicodemus. There was just a conversation I wanted to have with Jane. Later. When there ain’t an audience.” He gestures with his head toward the wagon.

  “Is something the matter?” the Duchess calls. The wagon has now passed us by and is slowly making its way down the road. I imagine the Duchess ain’t too fond of all the folks with weapons falling too far behind.

  I tug Jackson by the arm and we start walking, keeping to the side of the road to avoid the worst of the dust. “Look, this ain’t the time for half stepping the truth of the matter, no matter how bleak. At some point that horde back behind us is going to be on our tail. If there’s something we should know about Nicodemus, out with it.”

  Jackson sighs and rubs the back of his neck, lowering his voice. “All right, fine. The town, well . . . it’s a bit crowded. There was hardly enough room for the people who were there back when I left. And with the rest of the folks fleeing the horde heading there, I think it would be a better plan to not go there at all but to rather head to the eastern part of the state, make a run for Fort Riley and the Kaw River.” He presses his lips together.

  I look at Katherine, and her expression of confusion mirrors my own feelings. There’s more to his decision than that, and we both know it. “What ain’t you telling us?” I ask, but Jackson just shakes his head.

  “Drop it, Jane, and trust me for once, will you?” He takes off his hat and swipes away the sweat with the back of his hand before resettling it into place. His bowler is flecked with ominous-looking dark spots just like my wide-brimmed hat, and I wonder if he stole his from a dead man like I did. “There ain’t nothing worth seeing in Nicodemus. It’s just as cursed as Summerland, the same old evils prettied up with whitewash.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and starts walking. “It’s a Negro settlement, founded by Freedmen and runaways from the Five Civilized Tribes. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have issues. You can’t trust those Egalitarians any more than you trust the Survivalists.”

  I have no doubt what Jackson is saying is true—the Egalitarians were against using colored folks to bulk up patrols and defend towns, but they were still hardheaded in their own way. The best-case scenario would be to avoid a town altogether and just strike out for California. But that’s a fool’s errand with no rations, and Jackson knows that just as well as I do.

  “Runaways?” Katherine says, bringing me back to the matter at hand.

  “Some of them Indians kept slaves the same as everyone else,” Jackson says, his words clipped. “Ain’t a single body in this entire cursed country that didn’t have a hand in trying to own the African.”

  I shake my head, because neither the words nor the tone beneath them sound like the Jackson I know. But I got bigger problems than a bit of proselytizing. “I don’t think the Duchess or Sallie will care about going to a Negro town,” I say, deftly changing the subject. I’m pretty sure Sallie and Nessie are sweet on each other, and the Duchess was one of the few allies I had in Summerland. Gideon and Ida are both in the wind, and while I hope they made it out of Summerland safely I can’t worry about that just yet. I still haven’t saved my own miserable hide.

  Jackson shrugs. “Maybe not, but we really should head east. If we skip Nicodemus al
together, we’ll have a better chance of getting to the Mississippi, and from there we can go anywhere, quickly and safely.”

  “But there are Miss Preston’s girls in Nicodemus,” I say. “Sue might still be there. And Ida and the Summerland Negro patrols were planning to make their way there. If Nicodemus is crowded or compromised, we have to find them and let them know. They’ll want to come along with us. And there’s safety in numbers, especially when they know how to put down the dead.”

  Katherine crosses her arms, and a look I recognize all too well comes over her face. Jackson is about to get an earful. “Jane is right. Our friends are in Nicodemus, Jackson. There is no way we could abandon them like that. It’s unconscionable.”

  Jackson presses his lips together. “Since when do you have friends?” he asks me.

  “What, you think there ain’t anyone I care about more than you in this world?” I shoot back. “Don’t forget why we’re in Kansas in the first place.”

  “Fine,” he says, hightailing it toward the wagon.

  Katherine and I exchange a glance.

  “What got into him?” she asks.

  I shrug, and jog to catch up to where Jackson is stopping the wagon.

  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

  —1 Corinthians 13:4–8

  —KATHERINE—

  Chapter 2

  Notes on a Broken Heart

  Once the wagon is stopped, Jackson, or Red Jack as Jane sometimes refers to him, addresses the group. It is easy to see he is uncomfortable. There is a reason he avoided the discussion of Nicodemus, and even though it is not immediately clear, I believe it has something to do with Jane. His gaze skips over her as he surveys our group, like whatever the boy is about to say is something that she will not want to hear. It is curious, and, like Jane, I want to know just what is going on.

  But his nerves are catching, and I press in at my sides, trying to find some security in the relaced corset. The familiar panic is still there, just as it always is, right below the surface. I take a deep breath and recite Scripture in my mind to distract myself from the feeling.

  Jackson shifts his weight a couple of times, and we all watch him warily, except for the little Spencer boy, who is fast asleep in the Madam’s lap. Red Jack takes off his hat, and I know for a fact I have never seen him look this unsure of himself. Granted, we have not been long acquainted, but even while we were on that miserable train ride west, a consequence of an overzealous investigation into affairs that did not concern us, he still looked like he was out on a lark. This is a different Jackson, and he chews on his words, as though weighing them carefully will somehow make them more palatable. “We ain’t headed to Nicodemus.”

  Jane and I exchange a glance. She shrugs. I twist my hands in my skirt, as though the material can absorb the anxiousness I am feeling. My only comfort right now is the knowledge that Jane has no more of a clue as to what is happening than I do.

  The Madam—I refuse to refer to her as the Duchess; it is a ridiculous nickname—pushes her red hair out of her face and adjusts her grip on the little Spencer boy. “Then just where is it that we’re headed? Jane said Nicodemus was our best bet.” Her face still bears the bruising of Sheriff Snyder’s wrath, and a fiery rage swells within my breast, pushing back the panicky feeling. I would never tell Jane this because her penchant for violence does not need any encouragement, but I am glad she killed him. That man deserved to die.

  I hold close to my anger, because it is a much more welcome feeling than the fear that some terrible thing waits just around the bend.

  Jane crosses her arms, Sheriff Snyder’s hat, now her hat, pulled low over her eyes. “It is our best bet, but Jackson thinks we should head east to Fort Riley.”

  One of the other soiled doves, a white girl named Sallie with long, dark brown hair and a defensive jut to her jaw, crosses her arms. “That makes sense to me. Fort Riley is on the way to the Mississippi, and we could go anywhere from there. We should find the Big Muddy and try to head up north before winter gets on. One of my weekly callers heard tell of an enclave up around Saint Paul. Hardly any dead up that way, and they say Fort Snelling is big and strong enough that those who can get there won’t have to worry about anything.”

  Nessie, a colored girl a bit darker than Jane with mournful eyes, frowns. “What’s wrong with Nicodemus?”

  “Nothing, if you’re a fan of those temperance biddies,” Sallie says, her expression going stormy. “They’re all about respectability in Nicodemus. They like to say they survive by being a better class of people. It’s not as if I think Negroes ain’t good people or nothing, but those folks in Nicodemus make a big deal about it. No drink, no whoring, no swearing. It’s like a town made of a church.”

  I look to Jackson. “Is that true? Is that why you want to go east?” I cannot keep the edge out of my voice. I get the sense there is something he still is not telling us, and I despise secrets.

  Nothing good ever comes of withholding the truth.

  “Sallie is right, Nicodemus is a bit . . . restrictive.” It is not an answer, and it is a vexing response to say the least. “And it’s not nearly as safe as Fort Riley. I’m not putting Lily in danger again, if I can help it.”

  “Hey! I can defend myself,” she says, cheeks going ruddy. “I’ve been taking care of me and Thomas for months. Don’t treat me like a baby.”

  Like me, Lily is light enough to pass. It was looking for her that got Jane, Jackson, and me carted off to Summerland in the first place. She is a plucky girl, and seeing her gives me some idea of just how Jackson and Jane fit together. Jane says the two of them are no longer an item, but I see the way her expression softens when she glances in his direction. And I saw that kiss he gave her outside Summerland. Jane might deny it, but she has a soft heart, and one too easily given, in my opinion. Her love affairs were a constant source of conversation at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls, although to hear Jane tell it she was as discreet as they come.

  “It seems to me making a beeline for Fort Riley only makes sense if you think there’s somewhere to lay on for supplies along the way,” Jane says, crossing her arms. “If it’s further than we can walk in a day or two we’re setting ourselves up for trouble, especially in this miserable heat. Just how far you think the lot of us is going to get without food or clean water?”

  “There are some abandoned farmsteads we can scavenge along the way,” Jackson says, giving Jane a hard look.

  “You got a map of these farmsteads? Because that doesn’t sound like any kind of plan to me,” she shoots back. “Hoping that we can find supplies.”

  “I have to agree with Jane,” the Madam says. “Lily here might be able to fend for herself, but little Thomas most definitely can’t. And to be truthful, me and the girls aren’t exactly used to fighting the dead or hunting for our food.”

  “And I’m not even sure I want to go to Minnesota,” Nessie says with an apologetic look to Sallie. “Forts mean soldiers, and I don’t have good memories about any of that business.”

  Sallie’s expression is stricken, and Nessie takes her hand. But the rest of our party is looking more vexatious by the moment, and I clap my hands three times to get everyone’s attention.

  “All of this arguing is not going to get us anywhere,” I finally say. Panic thrums in a low key through my veins, like a plucked guitar string. That horde might not be upon us just yet, but if we keep at this they will. “Perhaps there is some logic to Jackson’s idea, but as Jane points out, it is still not a plan. How far to Fort Riley?”

  A muscle in Jackson’s cheek twitches. “Three days, maybe a little more, depending.”

  “And Nicodemus is what, another day’s walk?” Jane asks, needling. At Jackson’s slow nod, she snorts. “We’ve got no provisions, no water, and a bunch of tired, hungry people. I don’t think there’s a real choice, here.”

  “Jan
e is right,” I say. “We should head north to Nicodemus, and once we have gotten our bearings and procured some supplies, we can discuss how we might head east to Fort Riley. Besides, with that horde behind us, we should send word out to all the nearest towns and encampments so that they can prepare.”

  “That makes sense,” the Madam says.

  Jackson opens his mouth to reply. “But—”

  “Perhaps we should vote on it?” I interrupt him.

  The Madam and Nessie both look uncertain, and Jane’s eyebrow has a cock to it that I dislike. She is plotting, and whatever has gotten the gears of her mind turning cannot be good. But a vote is the best way to put to rest hurt feelings, and there is no sense in setting off with someone out of sorts. This is not a pleasure trip. We are literally running for our lives.

  “I know how I’m voting,” Sallie says. “I ain’t fond of Nicodemus, especially seeing as how they ain’t exactly going to be rolling out the welcome wagon for working girls like me and Nessie. But I’m even less fond of shamblers, and it’s only a matter of time until that horde starts to follow the rest of the food. We need a chance to prepare, no matter where we decide to go.”

  Jackson does not appear convinced, but the rest of the group murmurs concurrence, and it seems like the majority has spoken. But that is when I notice that Jane is barely paying the discussion any attention. Instead, she watches Jackson like a hawk.

  “I’m not voting on anything until I know why Jackson is so damn eager to run to Fort Riley,” Jane says, as direct as ever, her eyes narrowed.

  Here we go. I swear, Jane lives to fight. It is her daily bread.

  Jackson looks at Jane, but his expression is not angry. It is sad, almost regretful. “Fine, Jane, you win. The truth is that I heard there were survivors from Baltimore in Fort Riley, come west on the same train that brought Miss Preston’s girls out this way, and I’m hoping my wife is there.”

  My breath catches. Jackson’s words fall into the oppressive heat of the afternoon like birds from the sky, sudden and unexpected.