It helped pass the time, all the talking while Coyote slept on her. But when it was well passed midnight, Meredith felt the prickles of her fear return. While Erva got ready for bed, Meredith decided to walk along the train’s hallways to see whether that could help her anxiety-filled restlessness. Of course, Coyote came too, peeing between cars, making Meredith laugh.
Although it was more than likely closed, since it was so late, Meredith ventured to the dining car, wondering if someone would give Coyote some ribs or a steak. Of course, she realized, she couldn’t show him to anyone in the train, so she did as Erva had and hid him under her skirts. Funny dog, sidling close to her legs, wagging his tail the whole time, surely going to ruin his disguise.
Surprising her, she gained entrance into the car with only a few waiter’s standing in a corner, and a tall man quietly asking whether the train could go any faster at night, try to get to Butte in record time.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” one of the older waiters asked with a thick Russian accent.
Perhaps the intrusion of “ma’am” this late at night startled the other waiters, but it seemed everyone turned and gawked at her, even the man asking about the train’s speed. Then Meredith gasped, recognition flaring through her body, tensing her hands into ready fists.
“You,” she spat at Bruisner, dressed in only his black trousers and white shirt, cuffs rolled up.
Instantly, he rubbed along his left cheek where she had slapped him, his eyes narrowed. But he smiled. Oh, that sickening grin made her knees weaken.
“Is this man a bother to you, ma’am?” the Russian waiter asked, beginning to stand between her and Bruisner.
But Meredith lunged to the side. After seeing Bruisner here, measuring his height and the muscles under his shirt, his basic shape, she realized the man on her porch had to be him. Pointing a shaky finger at her stalker, she asked, “Why were you on my porch?”
The Russian waiter, God bless him, tried again to angle himself between her and Bruisner. “Explain yourself, sir,” he said.
Bruisner’s dark gaze shifted from Meredith to the waiter. Then he sneered. “I’m not going to explain myself to an immigrant like you.”
Meredith began to slowly walk closer, anger fueling her every step. “You ass.”
“You’ve established that, dear,” Bruisner said quickly, making Meredith falter in her steps. His sinister grin altered and warmed suddenly. “I worried I might never see you again, tiny firecracker that you are.”
“Worried?”
“Ah, yes.” He slowly pursued her, his eyes glinting while he gazed down her body, which she wished so much to cover with a shawl, anything, to keep him from looking at her like that. His eyes focused on her breasts. “It isn’t every day a man meets a woman like you, so spirited, such a challenge. You remind me of those wild broncos the ranchers are always bragging about breaking. With a calm, steady hand, anything can be broken, they say.”
“Shut your mouth, mister,” the Russian waiter puffed his thin chest. With a flick of his finger the other waiters shifted forward. “You don’t speak to a lady like that.”
Bruisner laughed. “What on earth did I say? I’m merely talking horses, something of which seems to fascinate folks in these parts for endless hours. Her, on the other hand” —he pointed toward Meredith— “she is one of very few people in this God-forsaken land who can talk about something other than cattle.” He aimed his menacing smile toward Meredith then. “I had to talk to you more after our ever so brief introductions. Maybe teach you a lesson or two.”
“Leave this car,” the Russian waiter demanded.
“It was you on my porch.” Meredith hated how her voice didn’t sound nearly as strong as she wished it would. It wavered slightly, and as angry as she was, she also realized how scared she’d become. Although Bruisner was clever, she saw through his speech for what it was. He was threatening her, threatening to break her spirit with whatever means he deemed. The fire-hot anger pounding through her veins was doused by icy-cold fear.
Bruisner glanced at the circling waiters. There were six of them, and only one of him. He nonchalantly shrugged. “Fine. I’ll leave. I just wanted to have a chat with” —he cleared his throat while he rolled his eyes— “the
lady
.” He walked closer to Meredith. The waiters all startled, some protectively lunging forward. Bruisner stopped and held his hands up. “Oh, for goodness sake. I wish no harm to the woman.” He continued to walk closer to Meredith, and she realized she was standing close to the only exit, the way back to the first-class cars. She tried to stand ramrod straight as she slowly crept farther away from him.
Bruisner sidestepped around Meredith cautiously, his hands still in air. “See, I wish her no harm.” He glanced down at her, only a couple feet away, the Russian waiter trying again to shield her from the ass. Bruisner grinned widely. “I’d never want to harm a woman such as she, for she is a rare treasure here in this barbaric, backwater land—educated and intelligent, however misguided her heart is. Tell me, I understand that a woman such as you might require more...how do I say it?...capital, but how much is the going rate? I’m sure I could afford you.”
The whore innuendo was crystal clear not only to Meredith, but all the waiters as they jumped into action. In the midst of the waiters protesting and racing forward, before anyone could get to Bruisner, Coyote rumbled a growl that shook the car and leapt onto Bruisner. Meredith stood frozen for a moment, shocked as she watched the canine take down the large man and snapped at his face, Bruisner wrestling with wide terrified eyes. Then she saw a flash of something metal. A high-pitched yip exploded into her ears. Vibrant red blood gushed between Bruisner and Coyote.
Bruisner bounced to his feet and ran from the car, while Meredith swooped down to her protector, bloody Coyote with a giant knife still stuck in his abdomen.
“No, no, no,” she cried.
“What a good, loyal dog you have, miss.” Meredith vaguely heard the Russian waiter say. She couldn’t concentrate on anyone else though, her focus on her puppy.
“What were you thinking, sweet doggie?” she asked as she carefully swept her hands through his soft fur. The knife was lodged in Coyote all the way to the hilt. She’d taken enough emergency training to know better than to pull out the dagger.
“Please...I need a cloth, napkins...please,” she begged as Coyote whimpered, but when she lowered her face close to his, he licked her cheek.
Tears easily flowed at the sweet gesture. She smiled at the dog, so brave, so hurt. Oh, God. He was going to die. Maybe...maybe Erva knew more emergency training than she did. Her husband was a doctor, who had been a general, and more than likely had dealt with stab wounds.
Someone handed her a clean white dishrag, and she thanked whoever it was, then she wrapped the cloth gently around the knife. Coyote whimpered only once, but again licked her face immediately after.
“I’m going to carry you, baby. This will hurt.” In a blur she picked up her precious cargo, then hurried through the car to the next and the next. The waiters helped her, but everything became hazy while she stared at Coyote’s breathing. It began to get shaky.
Once she was back in the small chamber she shared with Erva, the waiters seemed to disappear, Erva scurrying forward when the gaslights were turned on.
“Oh my God! What happened?”
M
eredith
didn’t know how to explain. Out of her mouth came gibberish phrases. “Bruisner—here. Coyote defended me.”
“Oh my God.” Erva gently took hold of the dog and cradled him in her lap. “What were you thinking?” she said to Coyote. “Are you all right? Are you going to be okay?”
As Erva inspected the injury, Meredith felt her body boil over.
What a sweet, lovely dog, she repetitively thought.
She couldn’t watch him die without doing something. Erva kept talking to Coyote, as if the dog could talk back. And something in Meredith snapped. She couldn’t stand here, blood all over her skirt and blouse, and watch Coyote die.
Default is a blurry state of being, and when it took over Meredith, the word itself she thought of: default.
Default.
She moved without thought. She couldn’t hear much, other than the rush of her emotions—guilt, anger, passion. Rage. She’d vaguely remembered Erva stashing a pistol into the storage space. Then she held it in her hand and was standing out in the hallway.
Running through the first-class cars was easy enough. No one was there to stop her, ask her what she was doing. But where was Bruisner? Surely, he had to be somewhere in first-class. His clothes were of the finest stuff available, as if compensating for...then Meredith realized, he probably was compensating for not being paid enough, not being able to afford first-class. She turned and charged the direction of the other passenger cars. But she saw him before she’d left the last of the sleepers.
He’d kept the door open to the platform he stood on at the end of the car. With shaking hands, he lit what looked like a hand-made cigarette with a match, then flicked the match out into the country, the wild country of Montana.
He’d threatened to break her, he basically called her a whore, then he’d sunk his knife into such a sweet dog. Black rage tore through her limbs, calling for her to move slowly, quietly, making sure he didn’t hear her. The wind the train culminated or perhaps from the plains of the prairie swept through Bruisner’s thickly pomaded black hair, ruffling it like wet chicken’s feathers. The breeze crept into the hallway Meredith resided. It tried to tickle her, caress her hair away from her face, tried to give her some kind of clarity. But all she thought about was how a dog had defended her, someone had finally cared enough to defend her—Jake, Erva, then an adorable scruffy dog that looked so much like a real coyote. She owed him something. She owed everyone who had dared to care for her something.
Bruisner took a long inhalation, exhaling a gigantic puff of gray-white smoke. He reached for the cigarette when he straightened and finally turned more her direction. His eyes widened when he saw her, but then he shook his head in a grimace.
“I’m sorry,” he said around the coffin nail. Then he pulled the cigarette out, reaching both hands forward, palms up as if begging. “I wasn’t thinking. I—he was going to kill me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your dog.”
She kept approaching, almost amazed he was saying so much, apologizing even.
“I—I—I thought it was a game,” he said, rambling in his speech. “It was a game. I liked you. You hit me. I insult you. Then...then I hoped you’d see the attention for what it was. I like you. I find you attractive. I don’t agree with your liberal beliefs, but I like you, despite myself.”
As much as she reviled his excuses, it was then the realization dawned. She’d acted like this before. She hadn’t ever done anything with a pistol previously, but she’d been so uncaring about Erva and that damned article she’d plagiarized. It was difficult to express that level of thoughtlessness. She’d been in such a desperate haze. And she’d taken credit for the wonderful work before she had considered what the hell she was doing. God. She was doing it again, becoming so desperate, everything just a blur.
Slowly, she glanced down at the gun no longer concealed by her skirts.
“Jesus.” Apparently, Bruisner had seen the pistol too. He ducked to the side where Meredith couldn’t see him any more.
She rushed out to the platform and looked up the side ladder. Bruisner was climbing, then looked down.
“Jesus, you’re going to kill me over a dog?” He scrambled up and over the top of the car.
“No,” she yelled. Then she felt like an idiot for what she’d just done. Granted, she thought he had been the perpetrator on her porch that night, but he hadn’t ever hurt her. Okay, he’d said some freaking slimy things to her and had tried to kill Coyote, but did that merit getting shot?
She followed him, only thinking of how to explain she wasn’t going to kill him. Her skirts were hell to get around when climbing the ladder, and she’d had to put the pistol in her pocket, but she did ascend that blasted thing.
As a little girl, she’d watched Westerns with her dad the rare times he was home, sitting on his knee while the good guy chased the bad guy. The thought flashed through her mind as it had in the past: would she be the bad guy?
The top of the car was slick with frost, making standing almost impossible, as was the constant gust of the frigid wind. But Bruisner was sliding to the other side when Meredith reached the top, pulling herself up. He pivoted his head, staring at her with huge dark eyes.
“You can’t kill me over a dog.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” she yelled over the sound of the rushing train whirling into a dark forest of boulders and trees set atop a black mountain.
Bruisner stalled a little, looking over his shoulder at her, his gaze wary. “Why do you have a gun then?”
“I’m sorry. I just—I’m sorry,” she said a bit deflated. “But you—you can’t talk to me like that.” Tears surfaced, her voice wobbled. Years of pent up emotions wracked through her body. She’d held in so much—all the hope to be loved had been repeatedly dashed, beaten down. She’d wanted so much for herself at one point. But somehow all that drive had been focused on proving herself to David, not even the love she might have felt for him at one time, but on earning love, earning worth.
There, on the roof of a train’s car, she recalled Coyote viciously attacking Bruisner. The dog had thought she had worth, even though he didn’t know or understand what kind of a person she had become. He’d defended her, no matter what. And something about that, about Erva riding with her and becoming her friend, made her finally see she didn’t have to hustle any more. She didn’t have to work so hard at life, at love.
“You never talk to a woman like that, you understand?”
Bruisner nodded. “I—I know. I just...despite myself—”
“Shut up. Shut up. You don’t—”
“Where’s the gun?”
The train jumped a little and Meredith faltered, trying to gain her balance by flailing her arms around.
“Where’s the gun?” Bruisner, although he was unsteady too, had somehow turned and started to approach her. His blue eyes sparkled in the bright silver scythe of a moon.
“Don’t come any closer.”
He paused, his palms lifted as if surrendering. But he’d played this trick before.
“Don’t you dare come any closer.”
He was closer though. Only a few feet away and somehow gaining even more proximity.
“Stop it.”
“You promise not to kill me over your dog?”
“I might if you keep getting closer.”
“I don’t see the gun—I’m sorry. What was your name? I never got it?”
“Didn’t you? When you were on my porch, you didn’t see my name on the sign?”
He was two feet from her, his hands still outstretched. But his blue eyes bore into hers with a predatory darkness. He smiled slowly. “Such a clever woman. Yes, I knew your name before I even stepped foot on your property. I asked about you in that pathetic town you call home. Found out your name, Meredith Peabody. I have to admit, I’ve thought much about you.”
She slunk a hand into her pocket, holding firmly to the pistol, while her other hand wavered in the air, hoping to purchase some kind of balance, while she backed away from her prey turned hunter. God, what had she just done? Why had she followed him? Just to apologize for having the gun in the first place?
“Don’t step any closer.”
“Pity. For such a clever woman to come out here all alone—it was such a stupid thing to do.”
Icy dread filled her veins, made pumping her blood too sluggish and slow. Her body felt too heavy, too cold to do anything. He was right. She’d been so thoughtless. Her default process worked for shit.
“On top of a train,” Bruisner towered over her, his hands not quite touching her, “how utterly romantic.”
With her one free hand, she slapped him. It had been her left hand, and her aim had been off, hitting more his jaw than his cheek. The impact tore through her arm and burned into her shoulder.
His head bobbed, and he swayed from the hit, but righted himself quickly. When he grabbed her arms, his smile snarled. “There’s the girl I know.”
She cocked back the hammer of her gun, then fired before she knew what she was doing. He flung himself away from her, howling.
Damn. God damn it, what had she done? She’d been so scared. She just reacted.
He gripped at his arm. “You shot me.”
She backed away another step, the frost causing her to slip a bit, though she caught herself. “You were threatening me.”
He held his hand out, and the moon revealed a little blood, just enough to make a small Rorschach blot on his palm. “You shot me.”
“I warned you not to talk to me like that.” The pistol was wedged in her pocket, and she couldn’t seem to extract it, no matter how panicked she felt. So she just leveled it at him through her skirts.
“This is just a game, Meredith. I wouldn’t hurt you. But you shot me.”
“Just a game? Just a game? You’re threatening me.”
“I’d never do anything to hurt you.” He spat, touching his forearm, which appeared to be already finished bleeding.
“Then why grab me?”
“It’s just a game, idiotic woman.”
She waved the gun at him. “This isn’t a game to me.”
Suddenly, he smiled. “But you play it so well.” He lunged for her again. This time he slapped her across a cheek. The pain was so intense, such a shock, she wasn’t sure what had happened with time. But somehow she was on her back, the frost from the train’s metal roof penetrating through her clothes into her skin, burning her into action.
He was on top of her, doing something with her skirts.
“Where is that blasted thing?”
He was trying to find the gun.
She cocked back the hammer again and fired, even though she knew the gun was aimed away from him.
He startled, and that gave her enough time to scramble away. But he grabbed her ankle and pulled her back. One of her legs slid between his, and she cocked her knee at his groin, as she haphazardly clawed at him with her hands, forearms, anything. She missed her intended target, but did manage to knee his upper inner thigh—sensitive area all the same. Covering his crotch with one hand, he growled and lowered his body on hers. His weight forced her to realize just how stupid she’d been chasing after him when she should be with Coyote, the loyal sweet dog.
Somehow he had both her wrists in one powerful fist of his, the rest of his body crushing her into the freezing metal.
She whimpered.
“Oh, Meredith, don’t cry.” His one free hand cupped her cheek like a caring lover would. It only heightened her intense fear and dread.
He was much more powerful than Meredith had ever considered, and she thought again of how she’d put herself in this place, flat under him, his legs, hands and weight pinning her in place.
It was such an odd thought, but flittering around in her head she remembered in Junior High School not wanting to pin a butterfly to a corkboard for an assignment. She’d decided instead to take a lesser grade. But on the day the insect classification corkboard was due, she saw them, saw the stretched wide butterflies, permanently stuck in that fatal position by pins.
The butterflies hadn’t stupidly flown into their captors’ hands. They’d probably never thought of their abduction and death, just flickered from one beautiful flower to the next, doing as a butterfly would when they were caught and killed.
Hot tears flooded her eyes.
“Ssh, ssh, sweetheart. I’d never hurt you.”
But he was.
“Mercy me, but you are a pretty, little thing. So little.” The hand that had caressed her cheek dipped down to her neck, stretched over her breath-way.
“Please d-don’t.”
“Ssh.” He hushed her, gently yet threateningly wrapping his fingers around her throat. At the same time, she felt at her hip he’d begun to grow hard. “Just...just a little kiss.”
She turned away from him.
She could move her head!
Inspiration caught with the realization. His one free hand took hold of her chin or tried to, but she bucked her head free somehow. Quickly turning her head side to side, avoiding his one free hand, she saw from her periphery he’d lost his patience. He was cocking his hand back, going to hit her again. That’s when she slammed her forehead against his face.