The Boundless (26 page)

“Everyone inside!” shouts the steward again, in vain.

“Mr. Dorian, sir!” the porter calls out. “Come inside now!”

With a cacophony of gunfire the Natives converge on the train. Arrows slit the air. Will crouches low and grabs Maren's hand. “Come on,” he says, pulling her through the panicking crowd toward the next car.

Will smells singed fabric and notices a tendril of smoke curling from his small suitcase, just inches from his chest. He looks up in alarm. Through the churning bodies he catches a glimpse of a man at the railing, a cap shadowing his face—his rifle trained on Will. Will tenses at the sound of a dozen simultaneous shots, and suddenly Mr. Dorian is in front of him, his thick coat swirling before Will like a cape. A rifle bullet falls from the folds of the coat and dances across the floor.

“Run now!” Mr. Dorian shouts.

Will bolts after the ringmaster, trying to stay low. As Will nears the door, he sees a Native rider pull fearlessly alongside the carriage on an amazing black horse. Its speed is incredible, outpacing the Boundless, passing unscathed through the barrage of rifle fire. The hunter pulls back his bowstring and shoots one of the passengers, then pulls another arrow from his quiver and notches it. An instinct makes Will grab Maren and push her down. There is no sound as the arrow embeds itself in the wooden post behind where Maren stood seconds before. She looks at Will, eyes wide in astonishment.

Suddenly a voice—and Will never thought a voice could be so loud—carries above the shouts and rifle reports and train clatter.

“Put down your weapons at once!”

Will turns back to see the scarlet figure of Sam Steele striding across the platform, anvil-size pistol raised high. He fires off a warning shot.

“Weapons down, do you hear, or I will open fire upon you and mow you down!” He turns to the Native hunters. “And that goes for you, too! This ends now!”

The gunfire ceases at once, and then Will, panting, is being pushed inside the next car by their porter. A group of sweaty men talk jubilantly about their skirmish. Uniformed stewards are pushing through the crowd to assist the Mountie.

“You'll need to hand over the rifles now, gentlemen,” one steward says, taking the guns from the reluctant hands of the passengers. “These are the property of the Boundless and for use only on the shooting car.”

“We showed those redskins!” one of the passengers whoops. “We showed 'em!”

The porter leads Will and Maren and Mr. Dorian through the car. Will's knees are wobbling, and Maren, too, looks badly shaken. She puts her lips to his ear and whispers, “Thank you.”

As the porter shows them inside their compartment, Will is hardly paying attention. Mr. Dorian locks the door and then parts the curtains, peering out onto the prairie. There's no sign of buffalo or the Natives.

“Lieutenant Steele seems to have put a quick stop to the madness,” he remarks, his face still drawn. He looks at Will. “That wasn't a Native that shot at you. You know that, don't you?”

Will nods. “I think it was Chisholm.”

“I caught a glimpse of him. It was a perfect chance to kill you in the confusion. No one would've known.”

Will looks at the bullet hole in his suitcase and feels ill.

“Thank you,” he says. “You saved me from that second shot.”

“A good coat serves many purposes,” the ringmaster replies.

“They know who I am,” Will says, fighting panic. “They're going to come for me again!”

“Quite possibly, yes,” Mr. Dorian responds.

Will blinks. He was hoping for a shake of the head, some kind of reassurance.

“But they won't attempt anything during the day,” Maren tells him.

“They just did!” Will exclaims.

“We'll change compartments before nightfall,” Mr. Dorian says. “Until then I think it might be wise to spend as much time in public areas, the busier the better. Let's begin with a visit to the dining car. Both of you must be famished.”

Eating is the last thing Will feels like doing. Someone has just tried to kill him. But after Maren changes out of her tightrope costume, the three of them venture out to the dining car.

Second class, though still a far cry from the luxury of first, is a lot more comfortable than third. The corridors have wood paneling and fabric wallpaper. Thick carpet cushions Will's footsteps and insulates the carriage from the noise of the tracks. The windows are larger and the gaslights more numerous.

In the dining room Will feels people's eyes on him, and recognizes a pair of men from the shooting car. Everywhere Will glances, he thinks he sees Brogan or Chisholm or Mackie.

When the meal arrives, it looks delicious, but Will is afraid to eat it. How does he know one of Brogan's men hasn't crept into the kitchen and drizzled poison all over it? Enviously he watches as Maren tucks into her chicken pie. She catches him looking, and notices his uneaten food. She seems to understand what's worrying him, because she raises an eyebrow, forks some of his food into her mouth.

“Pretty good,” she says, and then swallows.

Will eats. Everyone is talking about the gunfight with the Natives, and Will hears all sorts of gossip flitting between tables. Ten passengers killed. Fifteen Natives. Three passengers. Two Natives. A brave jumped aboard and scalped a steward. Sam Steele leaped onto a Native horse, chased off the hunters, and then reboarded the Boundless with a tomahawk.

Will feels better after his food. Having all these people around almost tricks him into believing he's safe—he could stand up and walk off into his normal life.

Toward the end of the meal, Sam Steele strides into the dining car and speaks to one of the senior stewards before moving forward up the train.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the steward says, “Lieutenant Steele has asked me to pass on the news that there was a brief skirmish with some Indians. Two of our passengers were tragically killed.”

Gasps of horror engulf the dining car. Men thump the table and vow bloody revenge. Mr. Dorian eats, staring rigidly ahead. The two men from the shooting car look over darkly, and Will thinks he hears them muttering the word “half-breed.”

He stares longingly in the direction where Sam Steele disappeared. Forward. He catches Maren looking at him anxiously. Is she worried he'll make a run for it? He wants to, but he won't. They've saved his life three times now. He's made his promise to Maren, and he means to keep it.

*   *   *

“Nearly had him,” says Chisholm, nervously forking some meat from a tin. “All lined up, and then Dorian waves his coat in front of him. How does a coat stop a bullet?”

“You should've let me take the shot,” says Mackie. “I wouldn't have missed the first time.”

“Ease up, Mackie,” Brogan says, flicking some food from between his teeth. “Sounds like it was a tough shot.” He's angry about Chisholm's cock-up too, but he wants to jolly him along, especially after nearly drowning him in the muskeg. He needs all hands on deck for what's coming.

The three of them have fallen back to Peck and Strachan's brakemen's cabin, not far behind colonist class.

“We won't get another chance like that,” Mackie says sullenly.

“Maybe we don't need one,” Brogan says.

“What d'you mean? You said we needed to take that boy.”

“Oh, we're gonna take him, all right.”

“So what's the plan?” asks Chisholm, his eyes bulgier than usual.

“When I was in the saloon car, that Mountie was right there. I thought I was sunk. Why didn't the boy go to him? The boy wants something, that's why—or Mr. Dorian does, more like. He's got his hands on a key to the funeral car. I reckon they've got their own plans.”

“I don't like this waiting,” Mackie says.

“That Dorian can disappear things,” says Chisholm. “How we know he won't disappear what we're after—and himself?”

Brogan thinks about this, and shakes his head. “That's magic,” he says. “And I don't believe in magic.”

*   *   *

After the porters have made their last rounds, putting the train to bed, Will, Maren, and Mr. Dorian slip silently out of their compartment. Luggage in hand, they move five doors back and enter a smaller, empty room. After bolting the door behind them, Will starts quietly helping the others pull down the sleeping berths.

“When are you doing it?” he asks as he spreads a sheet and blanket over the middle bunk. “The robbery.”

Mr. Dorian takes out his watch and consults its two faces. During the afternoon he several times asked the stewards about the train's precise location and speed. “We need to be inside the funeral car no later than four o'clock this morning.”

“You can just stay here, Will,” Maren tells him. “Lock the door behind us. No one knows where you are. We'll be back before breakfast.”

Will shakes his head. “I'm not staying here alone.”

“It's best if you don't get mixed up in this, Will,” she says.

He laughs. “Could I be any
more
mixed up? I'm coming with you. I'll feel a lot safer.”

Mr. Dorian regards him. “I warn you, Will. You might regret your decision. I have a feeling we may run into resistance.”

Still, it's not a hard decision to make. He's truly horrified by the idea of being left alone in the compartment. Even more, he wants to be there to help Maren if she needs it.

“I'm coming,” he says again.

“Very well. I suggest you both get some sleep.”

“You're not sleeping?” Maren asks the ringmaster.

“Not yet.”

Later, under the covers, Will is still wide-awake. The gaslight has been turned low. Maren shifts above him, already asleep. Opposite him, Mr. Dorian stretches out in his berth, fully clothed, writing. He looks over and sees Will watching.

“Will you be young forever?” Will asks. “After your portrait?”

“I think not. The portrait ages, and presumably when it reaches a goodly age, it will die, as it were.”

“What happens to you then?”

Mr. Dorian looks up from his writing. “Perhaps all my years will catch up with me, or maybe I'll just start aging again normally. That would be an unexpected bonus. I merely want my allotted years, William. Is it greedy to want that?”

Will doesn't know the answer. “Maren says you have big plans for the Zirkus.”

Mr. Dorian smiles—and it's a different kind of smile from the impassive ones Will has seen so far. This is the kind you get when you're thinking of your favorite thing. “Yes,” he says. “I'd like to open circuses overseas, and add more animals to my menageries—make Noah's ark look paltry!”

He chuckles, and Will laughs too.

“You must be the only person with a sasquatch.”

“I believe I am, for the moment. But there are always more animals, and more marvels to collect. Imagine if I could trap a Wendigo!”

“Have you seen one?” Will asks, caught up in the ringmaster's enthusiasm.

“Not yet, but I plan to. And there's a man in the Far East who can fly. Imagine that, William. Flight! I hope to enlist his services before Mr. Barnum does. Everything on this earth I want to gather, and every feat that's possible. A new world to let us escape our own.”

There's a wistfulness, Will thinks, in his last words. The ringmaster folds his piece of paper away inside his pocket, and then writes a brief note on a second piece.

“Just a little message telling my Zirkus friends how we're faring,” he tells Will.

“How's it going to reach them?” Will asks quietly.

“A favorable tailwind,” Mr. Dorian replies.

As Will watches, Mr. Dorian folds the paper in half lengthwise, then makes a series of other folds, ever more complicated and ingenious. When he's finished, he has something that resembles a goose. He pulls a little tab at the tail, and its wings flex and quiver expectantly.

“It really flies?” Will asks, incredulous.

“It really does.”

Mr. Dorian goes to the window and slides it open. Night air tinged with coal smoke gusts in. The ringmaster puts his face out, turns it from side to side, then makes a slight adjustment to the paper wings.

And then he launches his bird into the air.

Will wishes desperately he could somehow follow its journey. If he could, he would see the paper bird swoop up, wobbling slightly. The train shuttles past so quickly, it's hard to tell if the paper bird is moving at all, but occasionally the wings give a flutter or flare and the bird rises and banks. The cars flash past beneath it.

The paper bird soars toward a brakeman standing atop a freight car, smoking. He squints, then reaches out to grab it, but the bird veers around his outstretched hand.

Farther down another brakeman sees it and, thinking it's a bat, punches it with his hand, sending it tumbling through the air, away from the tracks. The bird rights itself and flaps, but the train is far away now, and the mindless paper craft just keeps sailing straight ahead, into the night.

But perhaps it is cleverer than it appears, for straight ahead comes the last half of the Boundless, still rounding a big curve. The paper bird banks slightly, to come in line with the train. Whatever paper mechanism animates it now seems to falter. The wings stop fluttering, and slowly the paper bird begins to sink, toward the roof of the freight cars.

Lower and lower it glides until it flies right into some kind of web jutting from the window of a car that says:
zirkus dante
.

It's not a web but a Native dream catcher, and the paper bird is tangled snugly in its threads. The dream catcher is pulled swiftly inside.

The paper bird is unfolded, the note read.