Dread Journey (14 page)

She shook her. head. “You see? You think I need protection.”

“I think you might,” Les said gravely.

“I’m not a baby. How do you think I’ve managed so far without protectors?”

His lips curved. “I think you’ve always had someone on the job.”

Their sham battle was diversion. Hank, remaining outside it, could wonder at the overnight change in Les. It wasn’t like Les to be serious; Gratia had done this to him, Gratia and the imminence of Kitten’s fear fulfilled. They shouldn’t be sitting here dallying; they should be looking out for Kitten. He’d been wrong last night. Gratia could look out for herself; however unworldly she appeared, that very quality was her protection. It was Kitten with all her brazen world wisdom who was helpless. What was stalking Kitten wasn’t of the world. It had nothing to do with law and the norm. It was of the spirit. The spirit of evil. The spirit of evil which had dominance in this generation because good was lost.

And Kitten knew. She tried not to know. She clanged brass armor about her; she meshed her eyes from vision of truth. Yet the truth like fog, insinuated. She was shaken with the terror of knowledge of evil. He had seen her shaken.

He didn’t care what happened to Kitten but he had to care. Because much as he’d tried to throttle it pity for the hunted, for the weak, for the pitiable, was cancerous in him. Even for Kitten, he must be eaten with pity. Kitten with all her silly vanities, her misshapen pride, her mind hung with foolish baubles, Kitten whom he despised, he must love in pity. Only if he could save her, would he be free of the sore.

There were so few of those marked down as evil’s own that he had been able to save. He could not let her pass if by his efforts he could save her. Her fate was personal, the fate of those from whom he had fled was cruelly impersonal. But reduced to the ultimate they were but one to the destroyer. Murder was murder whether it be of one or of many. Murder was the essence of evil; it must be prevented when it could be prevented. He betrayed the many to evil if he did not help the one.

He was about to speak when he saw Kitten coming towards them. So much for brave thoughts. She was sleek black satin, the pin between her breasts was a mammoth ruby that would have bought food for a village of starving Chinese, her radiance was shocking.

She cried out gayly, “I found you at last!”

After Kitten found them, Hank insisted on returning to Les’s space. “We can’t smoke here and God knows we can’t drink. Let’s go where it’s civilized.” He seized on Kitten as if he’d been starved for the touch of her. She was whole, unbroken. He didn’t deserve she should be; he had fled her last night, had furthered his desertion this morning. She should be dead now, her blood upon him for his omission. In a world ruled by geometric precision, her fear of death would have been consummated in death.

It was nothing to him if she died; she was nothing to him. He was not his sister’s keeper; violently he rejected the load. Yet it had been placed on him not once but again. He could not let her die, not if it was within his power to save her. He had been powerless to save the many. Being powerless, he had turned craven, he had run away. He was not cowardly enough to run again.

Les agreed reluctantly to the move. “If you insist.” His hand, sighed out to Gratia. “He insists.” Les could not save Kitten. He hadn’t the strength, physical or moral. Les didn’t care what happened to her. He had curiosity but no sorrow in his heart.

Gratia was colored by Les’s reluctance to leave here. Hank avoided her face. He didn’t want to know if it was with her as it was with him. That their coming together was important, that it held secret meaning and hope of eventual translation of the secret. He didn’t want to know if there was hidden beggary on her face as there could have been on his. If her reluctance was because she clung to a dream that these others would go away leaving Hank and her fumbling again towards each other.

He was a fool. She was gentle and gracious with him because these qualities were of her nature. She was the same with Les. By her very simplicity, she would be aware of values. She knew this was chance encounter, that when the Chief ended its run, each person aboard would return to his own separate self. This was more brief than summer romance; this was journey, the meeting and the parting almost one. The romance was in his heart alone.

Kitten was eager, nuzzling the sway of her black satin body against Hank. He demanded harshly, “What are we waiting for?” and he turned abruptly, shutting out Gratia by the finality of his back.

The shapeless lump of man who had been with Kitten was in the way. He wasn’t with her any more; he was standing on the outskirts, begging with his watery brown eyes. Hank said, “Come along,” to him as he shoved past. He didn’t know who the man was nor why he should include him. Kitten didn’t like his saying it, her frown was dark. She echoed, “Yes, do come along.” The man didn’t pay any attention to her underline: if you have the effrontery to intrude. He trotted after them, wagging his gratefulness. “Thank you, thank you I’d like to, Miss Agnew.”

Hank strode ahead, the bell sheep of a motley parade, the lead fool. Kitten had been a terrified child last night; he’d believed her bogies. She’d been afraid of the dark. There was no fear in her now. He’d been taken in although he knew better, knew that an actress must act. She’d acted better than she knew; he had been possessed; he had become Cavanaugh, the doughty knight, horsed with decision to rescue the suffering lady. Yet she was not to blame for his enchantment. He had wanted to play knight, wanted to sop his conscience with a mock rescue.

He damned her; he damned Les Augustin who had made her known to him. He would pipe them to Les’s quarters and he would leave them there, Les and Kitten, to devour each other with vanity and malice. Gratia—Gratia had wandered out of her dream world; she must go back quickly before she lost her way. Let her return to her room and her book. Let the stranger disappear as unwanted as he had appeared. He, Hank, would go get drunk, forget all of them.

He wanted it to be answered that way, the easy way. Absolving him from participation. But when he entered the Pullman where was Les’s compartment, Kitten moved in behind his shoulder. She asked, “What’s your hurry?” She spoke lightly but her breath was caught back and her eyes avoided the closed door of drawing room A. She was not exorcised of fear. It was so near the surface, a touch and it would fester.

He had known he was wrong; it was corroborated. He said, “I’m in a hurry for a drink. What’s wrong with that?”

She laughed as if he’d amused her, as if she were hiding the fact that he’d passed her safely beyond drawing room A. Her hand was under his arm as they reached Les’s compartment. He couldn’t leave her and go away. Even if she weren’t touching him, he couldn’t go away now.

The afternoon went slowly past the leaden windows. Drear world outside; inside Les’s compartment noise and smoke and the filling of glasses. But there wasn’t merriment, even the laughter was gray.

All through the long afternoon, he watched Kitten. Gratia and Les, together, watched Kitten. Even the outsider, Sidney Pringle, miserable here but clinging to human companionship, watched Kitten. Kitten preened and pranced and curled. She was the one thing alive under the weight of the afternoon. Alive but not real; she was a thing, glittering, empty. One word and she would be still. Hank knew the word. It was on his tongue and he was carefully silent fearing that it might roll off into sound. Les knew it; he juggled it high into silence each time he spoke. Sidney Pringle didn’t know; he was outside. Gratia didn’t know. She was protected by her dream.

In late afternoon the moving windows were slowly stilled. Les said, “La Junta.” He said it wearily as if the train had been creeping all day. All of them looked out at the lorn station. No one walked on the platform with brisk, proud steps as at other stations. Snow like salt was shaken over the lowering dusk. Kitten shivered and turned from it to the warm lighted room just as Sidney Pringle said, “La Junta. Five o’clock.”

She echoed, “Five o’clock.”

The room wasn’t warm. It was colder than the wintry air leashed outside. Because in that moment something licked out from behind her eyes. Something fearful to see.

She moved closer to Hank. She was quivering like a fine wire. It was Les who asked, “What happens at five o’clock Kitten?”

The something had scuttled into hiding almost before it had been visible. Kitten’s voice was brittle, amused. “Tiresome. Viv asked me to drop in.”

“You’re going to?” Hank slid the question over his drink.

She answered him alone. “Don’t worry. I’ll take Mike with me.”

“Maybe I’d better go along,” Hank said slowly. “Jehovah wants to see me too.”

Les added, “Why not? Let him—” His voice scraped. Whatever he’d been about to say had been wrong, so wrong that he was rigid.

Then Kitten said it for him. She’d known.
Kill two birds with one stone.
And her laugh was too shrill.

Only those words were spoken; unspoken was the great cloud that had hung over them all this afternoon. But the nebulous had taken shape. Kitten was afraid. And everyone in the little room was afraid with her. Even Gratia and Pringle, who didn’t know the shape of fear was Vivien Spender, were fearful.

Kitten said, “No.” Her head was high and in that moment she seemed to have a courage that made her truly beautiful, not just outwardly so. It might not be courage, it might be arrogance only, but her eyes were bright and there was color in her cheeks. She said no. She would walk alone. “It’s business, Hank.”

“So’s mine.”

“I want to get it over with,” she said.

He understood the implication. This was between her and Viv Spender; she would face it. Facing it was better than enduring longer. He wasn’t happy at her decision. He’d seen dying men sparked with the same sudden flare of courage. But he growled, “Go on then. Get it over with.”

Kitten’s laugh was reckless. “I’m going to finish this drink first. You can’t rush me. He can wait.”

Viv Spender could wait but she couldn’t. She finished the drink in quick gulps. She pressed the great ruby into the hollow of her breasts as her satin hips shimmered across the room. At the door she smiled. “I won’t be long.” She went quickly and the dark, cold world outside pressed against the windows. All pretense of brightness went with her. Hank said heavily, “God.”

No one asked where he was going as he too drained his glass and left the room.

T
HIS WAS THE LONG
afternoon, the impassable afternoon. This was the afternoon when tempers wore thin, when the buzzers sounded with increasing frequency, when restlessness stalked the Chief. The dry sere of late autumn was over the barren countryside; it was snowing up ahead in La Junta. The warmth and green of California was a resentment because it was too far away to be real.

By the time night fell, there would be renewal of the fiesta spirit of the Chief. There would be lights and clatter of voices and the clink of ice, the splash of soda. There would be rebirth of gaiety. The atavistic fear of the wasteland shut away by the dark. The city would be just around tomorrow’s corner. The end of inaction. The Century waiting to transport them to the promised isle, to Manhattan.

Tomorrow James Cobbett would sleep in a bed, a warm woman, a good woman beside him; he would forget for a few brief days the rasp of summoning bells, the demands of strangers.

It was time for him to go to dinner. Tomorrow he could choose what he would eat out of his appetite, not from a menu. Tomorrow he would be at home.

Mike came to his room after lunch. She said, “Kitten wants me to sit in on your meeting. She wants everything in black and white.”

She expected him to be angry. She was waiting for it. When he spoke genially, she relaxed. “I was going to ask you the same thing, Mike. I too want a witness.”

He hugged secret satisfaction watching the change in her. Whatever suspicions she may have had of his purpose in seeing Kitten, he had dissipated. She couldn’t have suspected the true purpose; he had given nothing away. Nor would he.

The wariness in her eyes these two days was out of anxiety for him, not knowing he had the resolution of Kitten’s case in hand. He couldn’t tell her; if she worried, that was the price she paid for not having faith in his ability to solve a problem. But it was well she would be present. He himself should have thought of that. He could have no better witness to his character than Mike.

She said, “Good,” and she made no effort to hide her relief. “See you about five then.”

The hour dropped out of his mouth like a bitter pellet. “Five?”

“Kitten said fivish.”

His voice was carefully controlled. “I said after dinner.”

“She can’t come then.” The wariness was again on her mouth. “If you’re busy—”

He cut her off. “I won’t be busy.” He held his rage in checkrein. Until Mike had gone. Kitten had dared change the hour. Without consulting him she had set an impossible hour. He must chart his plans all over again. He could not offer her after-dinner coffee at five o’clock. She could not be expected to go to bed at that hour.

In his wrath he was half-way to the door before he recognized the danger of seeking her now. He had made a mistake going to her room this morning. It hadn’t been a part of the plan, it had been out of anger. And it had been dangerous.

He had been seen going there. He hadn’t noticed the slit of open door on his way. He’d been blanked out with the anger. It was on his return that through the slit he saw the prying eyes poked out of a pudgy little face. The eyes were malevolent with hate. He didn’t know why they should be; the face was strange to him. But he knew he was recognized. It wasn’t until he was again in his room that he remembered it was the face of the man who’d sat across from him in the diner, the fellow who made obnoxious noises in his soup. Why he should hate Vivien Spender, Vivien Spender couldn’t imagine. It didn’t disturb him.

He might have had a stray quaver of relief that he had not laid hands on Kitten. The man who hated would have been eager to tattle. It was true that in his anger, Viv had stalked to her room wanting to twist life out of her insolent body. Once there, his superior intellect had triumphed over animal rage. She wasn’t worth the brief pleasure it would have given him. The moment he saw her and her dread, he was satisfied to wait. The final satisfaction would be as sweet accomplished by wit as by the laying on of hands.