Death Train to Boston (19 page)

Meiling remained silent, giving him time to recover,
for which he was grateful. The pair who had been dining at the far end of the car left their table, chairs scraping on the polished floor, and walked past in the aisle. The lone male diner had long since gone; Michael automatically noted that with the departure of the couple, he and Meiling would be alone in the dining car. Except, of course, for the stewards, who presumably stood unobtrusively nearby.

The female of the departing pair was a large woman; her dress brushed against the tablecloth, threatening to upset the silver coffeepot, but Meiling reached out a stabilizing hand. In the woman's wake trailed a stink of strong perfume. Heavily exotic, a scent meant for nights in some Turkish bazaar, not daytime hours in polite society, it swarmed up Michael's nostrils and produced a jolt, like ammonia to one who has fainted.

Thus jolted back to the business at hand, Michael at last told Meiling the most irrational, yet oddly most important thing of all: the sudden mind-picture, almost a vision, that had come over him when his hand touched the handle of her compartment door an hour earlier. It was this vision that had caused him to hesitate, and then to take the time to examine the walls and floor in a search for explosives.

"What, exactly, did you see in this mind-picture?" Meiling inquired urgently. "Tell me while it is still fresh in your memory."

"I saw a man planting slender sticks of dynamite along the seam where the wall meets the floor outside a train compartment, also taping and laying a length of fuse. I only saw it for an instant, not long enough to recognize the man, but I had the impression he was large—and it is true the man I followed to the next train car was also a large fellow. But there were no explosives outside your door."

Michael rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then ended with a rueful admission: "Now that some time has
passed, and I hear myself tell it aloud, I'm inclined to think my so-called vision was probably no more than the product of a heated imagination."

"Do not be so sure. You are very close to Fremont in spirit. It may be that
she
saw this man, but because of her injury she cannot remember it. You can see him— you are seeing him
for
her—because your mind and hers are linked, just as your bodies have so often been linked. In that way you and Fremont are one."

"Meiling—" Michael felt he should protest this reference to his and Fremont's most private business, but he did not quite know how to do it, and so ended by saying nothing more than her name.

Meiling shrugged. "The two of you are together, you are—how do you say it?—a couple. Married or not."

She nailed him with a direct gaze, almost blinding in its honesty and forcefulness. "Do you think I do not know these things? Do you think I don't know what people do even if I have never done it myself? Stop being silly. You continue to think of me as a child; that is your problem, and you are going to have to stop it, do you hear?"

Michael's mouth fell open, but words failed to come out.

And in that moment, Hilliard Ramsey strolled by. He slowed as he passed their table and tipped his brown fedora, which he wore with a dandified suit of light brown fabric criss-crossed with threads of dark green and red.

"Good morning, Miss Li," said Ramsey. "Don't get up, Kossoff. I'm just passing through."

Neither Michael nor Meiling spoke; nor, apparently, had Ramsey expected it, because he didn't stop but simply strolled on.

Suddenly acutely aware of their being alone in the dining car, Michael let the fingers of his good hand stray toward his belt, where he'd stashed the revolver
for quick access. But Ramsey kept on moving, his back presenting a rather tempting target.

Only when his old nemesis had left the car by the far exit did Michael silently wonder how the hell Ramsey had known Meiling's name.

It is not as easy as it looks, walking on crutches. But I was fiercely determined, all the more so because although Dr. Arnold Striker had given me the crutches and taught me how to use them, the last thing he had said before leaving was that he would not be notifying my husband of my whereabouts, or even of my survival. To say that I was put out by this would be a considerable understatement.

Striker was a good doctor, even a kind one, as long as he played the role of healer; but as a plain human being he turned out to be as rigid and severe as my first impression had suggested. Never before had I been so sorry to have an initial opinion proven right.

He had told me goodbye, and his hand was already on the doorknob, when he turned back. "Oh, Carrie," he'd said—this had happened five days ago now—"I think you'll want to know I won't be sending that telegram to your husband."

I wasn't greatly surprised, but one always hopes until hope has died, and sometimes even beyond that.

"I had a considerable struggle with my conscience over this," he added in a self-righteous tone, "believe me."

"Oh, I believe you," I conceded, "but perhaps you'll enlighten me as to the details of your struggle."

I wondered if it was too late to dissuade him, if I might yet persuade him to change his mind.

Striker folded his hands and faced me straight on, his features set in the gravest of lines. He declared,
"We Mormons believe in the Angels of the Lord, you know."

I nodded, keeping my face as serious as his, and said, "Yes, I know."

There is no accounting for some of the things people believe. I myself am halfway inclined to believe in God from time to time, but to believe in winged creatures of no particular gender? Semidivine beings, usually invisible, except that rather regularly during the Renaissance one assumes they must have come down from heaven to pose for numerous religious paintings? Hah! As for the one most famous around these parts, the Angel Moroni, double hah. And Pratt's angel? I would not waste even a hah on that one.

When Dr. Striker did not continue, I inquired, "So your point is?"

"So while I am not a member of Melancthon Pratt's community, I do respect his beliefs and his right to have them, including his belief in the angel that appears to him from time to time. I am willing to accept that his angel led Father Pratt to you, that this was a miracle, and that all will work to your own good as well as to the good of the whole Pratt family. Therefore I have decided not to notify Mr. Jones."

I nodded again. I was doing my best to be civil. "Mr.
Leonard Pembroke
Jones," I intoned, because my father's name—which Striker believed to be the name of my husband—did have a calming effect on me. My father's name also gave me courage, along with a very great determination to get out of this situation so that I could complete my journey to Boston—a journey I had undertaken not only as a job for the J&K Agency, but also because at the end of it I had expected to see my father again.

Resolutely I pushed to the back of my mind the nagging fear that now I might never make it in time, that when at last I got there I might be too late.

"I recall the name, Carrie," Striker was saying, "but better you should forget. It is of no further consequence now."

I could have struck him for that, be his own name Striker or not, and very likely I might have if I hadn't needed both hands on my crutches in order to keep my balance. My feet could not yet bear my weight for more than a minute, not even two.

So I had simply stood there and listened to him build his argument, brick by verbal brick—and with each one my own determination to get away quickly grew and grew.

"Surely you see," he argued, "that you are better off here with a fine family who all care about you than with a man who cares so little that he allows you to travel around the country alone!"

"That man is legally my husband," I lied, maintaining the ruse. My jaw ached from controlling my tongue, which longed to lash at him while my body could not.

"Sometimes it is necessary to put aside a set of laws, if in doing so you accomplish a greater good. Pratt will marry you in the Temple, Carrie, once you have converted. This good, generous man will save your soul by marrying you. You will join The Elect for all eternity. And you will prosper here on Earth as well."

"I see you did indeed think it all out," I said, biting off the words.

There had been nothing more to say. To my great relief, Dr. Striker also considered the matter closed, and had taken his leave.

In the five days that had since passed, I'd realized I could not find fault with Striker's logic, given that he could operate only out of his own set of peculiar beliefs. If there was any one single thing I both admired and detested about the Mormons, it was this: They were always so very sure of themselves, no matter what the subject or the situation.

I gripped the crutches under my arms firmly, pushed down hard on the crossbar, and went swinging across the floor of my room. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Sweat beaded my brow and my underarms ached, but I was getting stronger.

If my Mormon so-called family were sure of themselves, well, so was I. I was leaving, and soon, with or without Norma's help.

Today, for the first time, I intended to go outside.

MY HEART was pounding, not from exertion but with excitement, as I carefully let just enough of my weight down to allow myself to grasp and tug the doorlatch. Then I swung myself out of the way on my crutches and let the door fall inward of its own accord, as I'd seen it do many times.

"Open sesame," I said softly, for this seemed to me such a momentous occasion that some incantation was required. Then I took a deep, fortifying breath and peered out. I was only partially prepared for what I saw.

The sisters, Sarah and Tabitha, had told me some weeks earlier—I wasn't sure how many, as I never saw a calendar or a newspaper and had given up trying to keep an accurate count—that the Pratt household consisted of a main house plus a sleeping cabin for each wife, plus this guest cabin I occupied. I had spent many of my idle hours trying to figure out how this arrangement was laid out. Trying without success and with considerable frustration.

Now I understood what my problem had been: The guest cabin, my domain, stood at a considerable remove from the others, whose roofs I could see some distance away. The distance was dismaying, in fact, because everything I would ultimately need for my getaway was over there.
All the way
over there.

"Look on the bright side, Fremont," I muttered aloud. At least I was outside again, under the wide open sky!

The air felt wonderful, fresh and clean, scented with evergreens—pines perhaps, though I am no authority on trees and only know about pines on account of having lived for a number of months in a lighthouse on the other side of a pine forest. Since then—to me I guess— all evergreen trees have smelled like pines.

At any rate, I mentally totted up one point for the good, clean, fragrant air. Cold, but never mind; it was, after all, November. Or were we into December now? I really didn't know, which was distressing.

For a moment I wondered if I could have been more downhearted than I'd realized in those days just before asking Pratt to go for the doctor. It was not like me to have lost track of time like this. But never mind, there was no point brooding. I shrugged and almost lost a crutch. Securing it more firmly under my arm I vowed to ask one of the wives—Sarah or Norma seemed the most likely candidate—for a newspaper at the first opportunity.

That made me feel considerably better. I looked around and saw I could tot up another point in my favor: The ground was fairly level and well kept around my cabin, which was important because the last thing in the world I wanted was to trip and fall. Particularly on this first outing. I intended to get out, about, and back inside before anyone was the wiser.

Aha! Three points: a white-painted bench right up against the outside wall near the doorway with its one
step down. A place to sit would be most welcome in case of need, and I was tempted. But first, some long-anticipated active exploration!

It was early afternoon, my choice for an outing because I had observed that the others were, for whatever reason, generally busy at this time. If one of the wives came with my midday meal on a tray and stayed to chat with me while I ate, she would always leave soon after. Their more leisurely visits tended to occur later in the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening, though Selene was more likely to come in the morning before going off to her lessons. She did not go to school, but I had learned that Pratt paid for her to be tutored, which, to be perfectly fair, did show the man could at least recognize the girl's intelligence.

I'd always assumed Selene left the house in the morning and went to the tutor, but now that I saw how far off the house and wives' cabins were—roughly five hundred yards, though I confess I am not much good at guessing distances—I realized I had no real reason to think that. The tutor could just as well have been coming there without my knowing it.

In fact, almost anything could be going on over there without my knowing it.

Melancthon Pratt was so hard to know anything about, such a law unto himself, a bit of an enigma.

I paused in my swinging progress as I realized I had not taken Pratt's unpredictable schedule into consideration. He had not been coming to see me so often lately, either before or after the doctor's visit. While I was glad of that, I didn't delude myself into thinking he had lost interest in me, though that would have been an outcome much desired. No, more likely he was plotting something, rather in the manner of a large creature lying in wait to pounce.