Death Train to Boston (21 page)

She nodded to the other four wives, who had all accompanied her to my room. They'd filed in and now stood in their semicircle in the space at the foot of my bed, not because I was in the bed, as I had been the previous time they'd all stood in that same exact spot, but because it was the only space in the room large enough to accommodate them all standing in that formation. As Verla looked to each of them for support, they nodded, one by one.

Like choreography,
I thought. Then I chastised myself for not being in a properly sympathetic mood.

I sat on a chair by the window, my crutches beside me on the floor. "That would be why I haven't seen Mr. Pratt in the last few days." I'd wondered a bit, but on the whole had just counted myself lucky.

"He took a chill," Verla said, "fetchin' that doctor for you."

"Oh." I tried to look contrite. Was I supposed to blame myself for his illness? Verla might have thought so. So I said again, "I'm sorry."

They all looked at me. No one else had said a word, only Verla.

I had been in a sad, pensive mood before they'd arrived, a mood probably induced by the weather. Today for the first time I felt the bleak inevitableness of winter approaching. It had been snowing on the mountains; you could smell winter on the wind. After so many years in San Francisco I had all but forgotten what snow was like.

But recently I'd been remembering: Born and bred in Boston, I had that Yankee blood in my veins, and bad winters were no stranger to me. Oh yes, winter was coming soon—and somehow this felt like a bad one.

That was how my thoughts had been running when the wives came, and so it took me a little time to register that something was very wrong.

"It's not just that Mr. Pratt is ill," I said as that realization dawned on me, "there is more. What is it?"

I looked at Sarah, who shook her head ever so slightly, with a hint of warning in her eyes; at Tabitha, who bit her upper lip and wouldn't look at me but instead focused on some point past my right ear; at Norma, who seemed unnaturally wide-eyed and blank, as if she hadn't the slightest idea what I was talking
about; and at Selene, who kept her gaze on the floor and her hands clasped behind her back. Perhaps I was being fanciful, but it struck me that Selene had not wanted to come with the others. I could almost feel the reluctance emanating from her like a palpable force.

"What? Who will tell me?" I insisted, as it appeared Verla would not.

No one volunteered.

"Selene?" I asked.

"She's the youngest, leave her alone," said Verla flatly.

Selene might have been the youngest, but she was also the most intelligent—with the possible exception of Sarah—and Selene was certainly not lacking the ability to speak her mind when she chose. I'd learned that gradually during my weeks in this household. If they were forcing her to be here against her will, then I wanted her to have an opportunity to speak her piece.

"She's young, yes, but she can speak for herself," I said.

Selene raised her head and met my eyes. In that moment she did seem a child, not a woman, certainly not one who could be married to a man like Melancthon Pratt.

"We had a meeting," she said. "All the wives. We do that sometimes, when we cannot agree." Her fair skin flushed so much that she looked feverish, her voice faltered for a moment, but then she continued: "Carrie, we cannot agree about you."

Now it was my turn to bite my lip. Something momentous was about to happen, I could feel it. They were going either to set me free or to stone me to death or something equally dire—I hadn't the slightest idea which.

So I waited, saying nothing. My skin turned prickly all over.

Uneasy silence reigned.

I glanced at Norma: Had she told them I'd asked her to help me escape? Was that what had prompted this disagreement among the wives? Norma's face held no clue; she was keeping to that blank expression.

Apparently out of sympathy for Selene, whose face burned so crimson now that I was truly sorry I had called on her, Sarah broke the silence: "We realize that your being here is through no fault of your own. You can't help that you were seriously hurt and ill and all that—"

Selene interrupted, her voice high and impassioned: "They keep forgetting! The angel sent you—Father said so!"

Her young, clear voice rang out like a bell, struck the bare walls of my room, and left its reverberation hanging in the stunned silence that followed her outcry.

After an appropriate interval, I said slowly, "I don't believe in angels."

And I thought,
Let them stone me if they want to, but there, I have told the truth at last, at least about that.

Tabitha, the gentlest of them all, cleared her throat. She looked nervously right and left at the wives arrayed on either side of her, and then said, "Angels come from God, and God doesn't care whether we believe or not. Sometimes He chooses us first, and then later we come to believe. For example, St. Paul was not a believer until God blinded him and threw him down off his horse. So I'm sorry, but whether you believe or not is beside the point."

Sarah said, "All that is true, but for the moment let's stay with the matter at hand. We had a disagreement, and so we gathered for a meeting."

"Just a minute," I interrupted. "Wouldn't it save a lot of time if you just told me what it is about me that led you to disagree?"

"You're trouble," Verla said suddenly, and darkly.

Well, that was direct enough! Somehow I knew she wasn't talking about extra work. It wasn't the long trek from the Big House to bring my meals that was bothering her or the other wives.

"I take it Mr. Pratt is not involved in these meetings," I said, just to be sure.

"Only us wives," Sarah confirmed. "He doesn't know it's how we keep peace among ourselves. We wait until a time when he's occupied somewhere else."

"We met while he was gone to fetch the doctor," Tabitha volunteered, "but we couldn't reach agreement. Then, after he got sick, we met again. He's too sick to leave his room, you see, so he couldn't know."

Norma's composure broke. "Oh, it's so awful!" she cried. "What if he dies?"

"Hush, Norma," Verla said harshly, "Father's not that sick, he ain't gonna die. He's got the quinsy, that's all. When the fever goes, it'll pass."

Sarah resumed: "This time we were again divided, but it was four to one. So we decided to go with the majority and tell you our decision. But then, before we could get on with it, Father called Verla in and said he wanted to see you."

"And so," I supplied, as I was beginning to understand what was going on, "like the obedient women you are, you all came along to fetch me to him. You were going to let his asking for me override your own wishes. Isn't that so?"

"Yes," said Verla, and the others echoed her, all the way down the line until it was Selene's turn. Selene said nothing, and then I knew she had been the dissenter. Whatever their decision had been—which they still hadn't told me but I thought I knew—Selene had been the one who stood alone when that final vote was taken.

"Yet," I said, "you can't help resenting me." That conflict was all over their faces; indeed it had permeated
the very air of the room from the moment they walked in. I just hadn't been able to identify what it was before now.

Verla said stubbornly, "We obey him. It's our bounden duty."

Sarah folded her hands. "Nevertheless,
you
are not yet his wife, Carrie. If you were to, um, to make a decision all on your own—"

Again Selene cried out passionately: "But it wouldn't
be
all on her own, don't you see? And it's not what he wants, or what I want!" Tears rolled down her face.

I could not help myself. My arms opened out to Selene, it seemed of their own accord, and she came running to me, threw herself down on the floor beside me, and put her head in my lap, sobbing.

I stroked her hair while looking solemnly at the rest of them. I didn't know what I had expected, but not this. It had never even occurred to me that the wives would turn me out before I was physically ready and able to go. Oh, I was close to it, but not quite there yet; for every two steps forward, I usually had to go one step back. Sometimes literally.

"It's all right," I said, "I understand. You want me to leave. Selene was the only one who wanted me to stay."

"Norma too," said Tabitha, "the first time." She gave Norma a sideways glance. "I did think that was rather odd, since Norma's usually the one who . . . Oh, never mind."

I smiled. I knew why Norma had voted against their asking me to leave. She wanted the money I'd promised for her help. The deal was now moot, with them all wanting me out. Still, Norma hadn't told our secret, and for that I might give her the money anyway.

"I'm on your side," I said to the four wives, glancing rapidly down the line. I continued to stroke Selene's hair. "I can't think of anything I'd like better than to
leave here. I don't want to be the sixth wife of Melancthon Pratt."

"First!" said Selene, raising her tear-streaked face. "You were to be made first."

"Shush," I said to her as with my fingertips I wiped her cheek, "I don't want to be his first wife either. Verla is first and she always will be."

"That's true enough," Verla said, nodding. "Bein' the first one has its advantages, and it has its problems. They balance out. Bein' first is no great thing."

"Speaking of problems," I said, "I don't get around very well—"

"We'd made up our minds," Verla took over again, "until Pratt asked for you."

"Forget that. Just tell me what you decided."

"It's best you go soon's possible. Since he's asked for you, I'm thinkin' it had better be tonight. While he's too sick to come after you. On account of you can be sure he'll come after you."

Selene had stopped crying. She seemed resigned. Still on her knees she turned around and faced the others. "You realize you're all going to have to lie to Father. It will break his heart when he finds out Carrie's gone, especially now, when he's waiting right this minute for her to come to him. You'll expect me to lie to him too. I don't know if I can."

"I'll need your help," I said to the wives while at the same time I gave Selene's bony young shoulder a hard squeeze. I didn't want her to worry. I did want her to tell whatever lies she had to tell. I was beginning to have some ideas concerning Selene, but it would take a while for them to come to fruition and now was no time to deal with that. First things first. I added, "I can't yet walk well enough to go on my own."

This was true, and had been a major cause of my earlier pensiveness. If the Pratt women chose to drive
me out into the night, or dropped me on the side of the road, I probably wouldn't survive.

Norma spoke up—dear, acquisitive, materialistic Norma. "I'll take you. I'll drive you in the wagon along toward dark. We've decided on the best place for you to go."

Michael had things to do under the cover of night.

A train at night is peaceful. The rhythmic click of the wheels over the track, combined with the gentle sway of the railroad cars, acts like a mother's lullaby. The lighting is low, sounds are muted, only the conductors and a few nightowls walk from car to car.

Michael was a nightowl, and so was Hill Ramsey; but Ramsey wasn't bothering Michael anywhere near as much as the man he'd chased away from Meiling's compartment. That big fellow was an unknown quantity, and the evil you don't know is always more dangerous than the evil you do.

Somehow the worst thing was not having seen the large man again. Who was he? Where had he gone? How could he vanish? And above all, why the hell did he seem so familiar?

He could have gotten off the train, but Michael doubted it. Instead he'd be hiding out somewhere, watching and waiting for the right time, the right chance, to do . . . whatever dastardly deed he wanted to do.

"He's the one," Michael muttered aloud, "the one. I can feel it in my bones." That vague feeling of familiarity nagged and nagged at him. He'd walked up and down the train more than once during the day, looking for the culprit but not finding him, which was certainly irritating.

Now Michael sat alone in his own compartment. Meiling, presumably, was asleep in hers. The porter
had turned the bench seat opposite into a bed for the night, had made it up with a blanket of soft, high-quality maroon wool and crisp, clean sheets that smelled of bleach and ironing. It would have been pleasant to have not a care in the world, to be able to lie between those sheets and let the train rock and lull him. . . .

But never again, not if he couldn't find Fremont. And if he couldn't find her, this would be his last train trip. He wouldn't get on a train again without her. He swore it to himself, then he promised Fremont in absentia, and just for good measure he made a pledge to his dead mother as well.

Restless as hell, Michael sat on the other side of his narrow compartment with his knees up against the bunk and waited for the right time to move.

He always knew when the time was right. Part of the knowing was instinct, and part was the years of experience. You couldn't go by a clock—which was why he liked to work alone. There was too much of doing things by the clock when you worked with a partner; nobody's fault, it just had to be that way.

The train would be pulling into Salt Lake City tomorrow morning. He had to get into the baggage car tonight. Their tickets—his and Meiling's—were for Chicago, and so their bags bore tags that said Chicago. But of course that was not where they were going; the tickets and baggage tags were meant to mislead.