Death Train to Boston (22 page)

Michael knew he and Meiling were on a hunt that might take the whole winter. He had intended to set up a headquarters in Provo and work from there, slowly fanning out farther and farther up into the mountains until he found Fremont Jones. Because it could take all winter—especially in the Wasatch, where they were likely to get snowed in—he and Meiling needed the contents of their bags. Not that it would cost too much in dollars to replace the things, but it would cost too much in time. It was imperative their baggage be put off
the train at the same time the two of them got off. That would happen a few hours from now at Salt Lake City.

This was a problem. It had to be unobtrusively done. He'd already bribed a porter to put the bags off at Provo, but they were no longer getting off at Provo. Now he had either to find that same porter and pay him more to do it at Salt Lake instead, or to find the bags himself and retag them so that they'd be put off in Salt Lake City. If both those options failed, they'd simply have to abandon the bags.

Meiling had been in favor of abandoning them, even though she'd brought a trunk with enough clothes to dress a whole whorehouse. (Not, of course, that Meiling dressed like a whore—it was quantity, not quality, Michael had in mind.) She carried by hand a carpetbag that contained whatever it was she'd inherited from her grandmother, and she said nothing else was that important. Least of all, clothes.

But Michael had something special in one of his two big leather suitcases, something he wanted to give Fremont when he found her, something he'd had especially made up on a rush order when he was back in San Francisco because he knew it would mean as much to her as it did to him. . . .

He snapped off his light, which had been on low anyhow, and raised the window shade so that he could watch the blackness speed by. Nothing out there, nothing to see, nothing at all, which he found oddly comforting. The Void.

But that was an illusion. In reality there was no Void, but rather a darkness teeming with life unseen, with creatures who came out to feed in the night, to kill or be killed.

The wheels clicked; the carriage swayed; he fell asleep.

Michael dreamed that he was on a train, pursuing and being pursued. He ran through car after car after
car, pulling doors open, rushing into the connector area between the cars, where he could see the railroad ties rippling by under his feet and feel the wind of the train's passing in his face, smell the acrid scent of the coal smoke. Then onward to the next car, and on and on, until he realized he'd lost sight of the man he was pursuing . . . who was a big man with hair made of burning ice, and no face . . . who was now behind him, so the tables were turned. Michael was the one being pursued.

The man with no face was getting too close. He smelled like hellfire, like burning sulphur, in the Bible called brimstone. Michael jumped off the train and was running, flailing his legs through the air, falling—

He woke with a jolt, heart pounding, still half in the dream and in the middle of that breath-stopping leap. What had happened? What had awakened him?

First thought: someone outside the door.

Listen, listen, listen hard.

He didn't hear anyone—but then, he might not.

The train gave a lurch. After Michael's heart had stopped and started again, he knew what had awakened him: They'd gone through one of those railroad crossings where the train slows down but doesn't stop, for taking on and putting off mail. It was the change in the train's rhythm that had gotten him. In the dream he'd converted that into his leap from the train.

"Ah," he said aloud, satisfied.

He took off his sling. He'd try not to move his arm or the shoulder, but the sling was too confining for what he might have to do in the course of this risk he'd be taking. The worst that could happen to his shoulder was he might rebreak his collarbone; but the overall worst if Michael didn't have both hands to fight with was . . . well, most simply put, he'd probably end up dead.

He had already removed the dress shirt he'd worn to
dinner and replaced it with a black sweater. His suit was charcoal-gray, almost black. His shoes were black. His hair, except for the silver streaks, was black too and so was his beard—again except for the silver streaks. He would blend with the night. All except for the white skin of his face and hands.

The last thing Michael did before leaving his compartment was to tuck the revolver into his belt. Then he went out into the night world, Southern Pacific Railroad-style.

He neither saw nor heard the similarly black-clad figure that slipped from the shadows at the end of his corridor and followed him.

There are reasons why civilized people prefer to live in cities. Such as, when they wish to go somewhere they are not confronted with such outmoded means of transportation as the one facing me now.

"What is this thing?" I asked Norma, eyeing it dubiously.

"It's a buckboard."

"Oh. Regardless of what it's called, I don't think I'm going to be able to get up there." The buckboard was basically a wagon with a tall, high-backed seat and not much wagon bed to speak of behind. This conveyance looked as if it had been in Utah since the days when Brigham Young and the others came across the Mormon Trail from—what was that place called?— Nauvoo.

"Well, Carrie," Norma said impatiently, with one hand on her hip and the other one holding the mule's reigns—for this trip we didn't even rate a horse— "you'll just have to, now, won't you."

"Maybe not."

I swung myself on my crutches around to the back of the buckboard. The problem was, I could not put much
weight on my legs and therefore could not climb up into that high seat. In any situation where I couldn't get the crutches under me, my only option was to use my arms and drag the rest of my body along behind.

As I'd hoped, the back panel of the buckboard swung down, giving access to its short flatbed. I said, "I can squeeze in back here."

Norma shrugged. "Suit yourself."

The other wives had already said goodbye to me, leaving me alone with Norma; she had brought the buckboard and mule around to the front of my cabin, which had the advantage, for our purposes, of facing away from the Big House.

I let down the panel, then pushed and pulled and rolled myself into the flat space of the wagon bed. But I'd had to let my crutches drop to do it. I waited to see what Norma would do. Damn, I hated to ask for her help!

There was no alternative, however. "Norma, I'm sorry, but you'll have to hand my crutches up here to me."

"Oh all right," she agreed ungraciously. When she'd handed them over, she slammed the panel shut.

"Thank you." I bit my tongue to keep from saying any more. I would have liked very much to ask why she'd agreed to drive me at all if she felt that way about it, but I didn't dare. I was presuming too much on her apparently sparse charity already.

Sarah had given me a little suitcase that contained my one and only dress which she or Tabitha had mended, plus a few more items of clothing the sisters had made for me out of the goodness of their hearts. I was wearing one of these, a nice, sturdy, plain dress of blue cotton flannel with a small white collar and buttons down the front. To keep me warm, for the nights were now very cold, I had an old cloak, probably of military origin, made of heavy, scratchy navy-blue
wool. No hat. Not a single one. No purse. No means of identification, as none had been found with me and none provided since.

I am not at all fond of hats, but as I settled as best I could in the back of the buckboard, using the canvas suitcase as a buffer, I would gladly have taken the ugliest hat in the world if it would keep my ears warm.

Norma did not ask if I was ready. By the time I'd gotten as comfortable as it was possible to get, she had turned the wagon and was clucking to the mule. He was an ugly animal, sure-footed but powerfully slow.

This was going to be a long trip.

The sun was low in the sky as we left behind the little meadow where Melancthon Pratt's household nestled in isolation. Soon Norma had turned the buckboard onto what was a poor excuse for a road. I suppose the mountains were magnificent, if one has a fondness for mountains; I, however, am more enchanted by the ocean and watery views, which seldom—except in California—have mountains attached.

The buckboard did have some kind of spring mechanism that absorbed some of the bumps of the ride; at the same time it squeaked quite a lot. I had to raise my voice in order to speak to Norma. Reluctant though I was to try to engage her in conversation, I felt I must do so because I knew nothing about where we were, and somehow I had to survive. Starting out lost would put me at a major disadvantage.

"Norma," I called out, "what are these mountains called?"

"Wasatch," she replied.

I asked her to spell it, realizing too late that she might not know how. But she did, so that was not the problem it might have been. I breathed a sigh of relief and explained to her my need to know more of the geography, the names of things, where we were in relation to the towns I recalled the railroad line passed through.

She relented enough to tell me that the Pratt family's meadowland was called Hagar's Glen. She named Tabbyune Canyon as we crossed it, and then the patient mule began to pull our buckboard up higher and higher into the mountains. The Wasatch. I repeated the name to myself several times.

I have said I do not particularly like mountains, but really it is more than that. Mountains make me nervous somehow; I do not have the slightest idea why, and it is something I forget when I am not actually
in
some mountain range or other. As the sun went down, producing purple shadows all around, and the already brisk wind increased, my nerves went zinging along my arms and down my spine.

We kept going up and up, higher and higher, and this did not seem right to me. Provo, I remembered, was at the base of the mountains. We had gone through Provo and then the train had begun to climb. I recalled that distinctly. So if Norma was taking me to Provo, shouldn't we be going down?

I moistened my lips. Anxiety makes one's mouth dreadfully dry. "How many miles to Provo?" I called out.

Norma's reply floated back over her shoulder—she hadn't once bothered to turn her head. "I don't know in miles. In days, with this mule, it takes three."

She could hardly be taking me to Provo, then. I was dismayed. I had thought that was where we were going, because she had spoken of Provo as a place to shop, as if it were just down the road.

After a while the road entered a narrow defile, a natural passage through the rocky terrain. It was almost entirely dark now. I began to understand that Norma too must be nervous. She was going to some lengths to get rid of me, and she could not help but have an unpleasant trip back home in the dark after she'd left me off . . . wherever she chose to let me off.

The defile seemed to go on forever. "Where are we now?" I asked.

"Going through the summit. You don't get much of a view this way, it's prettier to go over the top, but this is faster."

"I see." I thanked Norma for the explanation, but she had not finished.

As she continued to speak, a bitter tone crept into Norma's voice: "Father knows all these cuts, long and short. He won't go over a mountain if he can go through it, no matter how narrow the path is or how much it twists and turns. Take the low road—that's what he always says. In fact, Carrie, that's how Father found you."

"What? You mean you don't believe that story about the angel?" At this particular moment, with walls of rock looming dark on either side, Norma's disbelief in angels was not the good news it otherwise might have been.

"Angel or no angel, that's as may be. All I'm saying is—and I'm not the only one says it, mind you, all us wives have talked about this amongst ourselves—if it wasn't for Father's insistence on always taking the low road, he likely wouldn't have been anywhere near the bottom of that canyon when your train wrecked. Which would've been too bad for you, of course, but it would have saved the rest of us a lot of trouble."

"Your point is well taken," I said, biting my lip. Her bitterness stung me to silence.

After what seemed an interminable time, from the left I heard sounds of rushing water. We were at last coming out of that passage through the rock, and all of a sudden there was quite an astonishing drop on the left side of the wagon. I closed my eyes. I know mules are the most sure-footed of creatures, and I know they
learn the ways of their beaten paths so well that this mule most likely could find its way home alone if need be.

Not much consolation, that. The Devil must have put it in my head.

I decided to pray. I no longer cared exactly where I was, or what names humans had attached to this rock or that gorge or the other farmstead we passed by. I only cared that Norma would not put me out on the side of this mountain to die, that she would take me instead to some safe, if temporary, haven.

My prayer was brief. After all, there was something more practical I could do. When she reached a flat place in the road and paused to light the oil lamps and set them in place on either side of the buckboard, I seized my chance.

"Would you rather I put that money in a bank for you some place closer than Provo?" I asked. "I hadn't realized Provo was quite so far away."

"Provo would be better. It's the only good place around here to buy anything," Norma said. She looked at me silently for a moment, and though it may have been a trick of the lamplight, I thought I saw her expression soften.

"You would still do that for me?" she asked.

"Yes, of course I will," I assured her. "The circumstances have changed slightly, but you are still doing what I asked you to do. You're helping me to get away. A promise is a promise."

Norma clucked up the mule again and we lurched onward.

After a couple of miles she said, "When do you suppose you can do it? By Christmas?"

"That depends on two things."

"What?"

"Today's date, and where you are taking me."