The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel (21 page)

“Cripes, you must be eager to get rid of me.”

“I’m just sayin, maybe it’s time we move stakes. We both know we can’t keep workin out of St. Louis, and you, ah, seem to be gettin a handle on this thing…”

If only that were true, Trace thought, but he turned the idea over in his head. For the first time in a long time, it seemed like a possibility: settling down, having a home of his own. Children, maybe.

But then his mind slipped backwards, to his last memory of Dorothea—sunken eyes half-closed, lips peeled back in the grimace of death, and the grotesque contrast of her swollen belly, a mockery of life and potential, distorting her stiffening body.

He shuddered, hard. “No, Boz. I ain’t takin that chance again.”

Boz was quiet for a while. When he spoke again, his voice was flat and businesslike. “We catch this killer, how you want to fetch it back to Her Worship?”

“Dunno. Figure on crossin that bridge when we come to it.”

“You figure on walkin off a cliff if she points you that direction?”

Old grief and guilt made him tetchy. “I ain’t out here cause she sent me, Boz.”

“What, you tellin me there
ain’t
any animal attackin folks?”

“Oh, there is. But she didn’t want anything to do with it. Tried to talk me outta comin out here.”

Boz turned his head sharply. There was an agitated quality to his next breath, but he just stared at the side of Trace’s face, waiting.

“I had a vision. Of the Baptists, in danger. I went to ask her what it meant. She told me there was somethin bad out here, and to stay away from it. But it didn’t seem right I should know these folks were headed for trouble, and not do somethin about it.”

“Christ on a
crutch
.” Boz stood back, pressing into a corner of the railing as if his partner’s stupidity were catching. “D’you
wanna
die? Cuz if you do, there’s quicker ways.”

“No.” Trace thought about it for a minute. “No, I don’t think God’s gonna let me off that easy.”

“Shit.” Boz ground out his cigar on the railing. “So now it ain’t enough, bein able to control it? Now you gotta be tapped by the Almighty for some holy purpose?”

Trace swung his head from side to side, wearily. “That ain’t what I’m sayin.”

Boz’s response was foul. He spat at the ground and went back inside.

*   *   *

T
RACE’S PRICKLY FEELING
intensified as the sun went down. Miss Eliza tried to draw him into conversation, but he found himself being short with her, almost surly. His argument with Boz had resurrected that feeling of being unclean, poisonous—set apart, like Cain. He resented Eliza Kingsley for representing what he couldn’t have, and that was hardly fair to her.

Ferris seemed to sense Trace’s mood, because he was unusually charming and gentle, engaging Miss Eliza’s attention and leaving Trace to wallow in his brown study.

Around eight o’clock, the porters began to come around and let down the sleeping berths. Those passengers with children began the arduous rituals of putting the little ones to bed—a process that involved a lot of wailing and shushing from the back of the car. Miss Eliza said good night, and went away to her own bunk, above her brother’s. Trace declined the porter’s offer to let down his berth—he knew he wasn’t going to sleep tonight, and if he did, he’d as soon doze upright in the seat, rather than cramped into a bunk that was head and foot too short for him.

He pulled the little
Varney the Vampyre
book from his vest pocket and doubled it inside out, to the page where Miss Fairweather had summed up her research on predatory corpses:

Commonalities~

Consmptn. of blood

Exceptional strength

Nocturnal; averse to sunlight

Diff. to kill; most often purifying methds—fire, water, pure metals/woods, medicnl garlic, salt

Not much help there. He had tried to get a description from her of what a Chinese keung-si looked like and acted like, but she had flatly refused, saying she didn’t want to hamper him with any preconceived notions.

“If the spiritual signature of this creature is any indication,” she’d said, “you may well encounter something that has never existed in this world before—a corruption of nature into some new … abomination.”

Trace had looked at her hard. “What do you know that you’re not tellin me?”

“Many things,” Miss Fairweather said grimly. “None that would give you any comfort.”

Now, Trace was aware of Ferris watching him, as the man pulled off his own coat and boots, and made ready for bed.

“If I may be so bold as to intrude, Mr. Tracy,” Ferris said, “what is in that book that makes you frown so? I have seen you study it many times, but it never seems to bring you any comfort.”

Trace smiled, humorlessly. “You believe in demons, Ferris?”

“Indeed I do,” the other said. “In fact I have seen things—events in my own life—which might best be explained as the work of evil forces.”

“What did you do?”

“I prayed. Until I thought my heart would break. And then it did break. And after that, I am ashamed to say, there was no more room in me for faith. And so I turned to … to darker forces, darker places inside myself, in search of answers. But there was no solace there. You know the story of Sisyphus, Mr. Tracy?” Trace nodded, and so did Ferris. “Truly, to offer hope, with no intent of fulfilling it, is the cruelest bargain imaginable.”

Trace nodded again, thinking of Miss Fairweather, of that sense he’d had that getting involved with her was a bottomless pit of despair, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was about her that disturbed him so.
He
had been the one to turn up the last two jobs—though come to find out she already knew about them. Was she watching him that closely? Were they both in tune with the spirit world in such a way that they noticed the same disturbances? Or was some other force driving his choices? He knew there was something driving
her,
he just didn’t know what it was, or what influence it might exert over him.

“Ferris,” Trace said slowly, “do you ever think there’s some … invisible web between folks? I ain’t talkin about destiny, or God leadin our footsteps. I mean, I met two people this last month, and come to find out they met each other, maybe because of me, though I never introduced them, and somehow knowin the two of them prompted me to take this trip because of some fourth thing that involves all three of us. How can that be? How can the three of us have met because we have somethin in common that hasn’t happened yet?”

Ferris appeared to be considering the question very seriously. “I do have the opinion that time operates in both directions, although most of us can only perceive it from one perspective. Perhaps … if you will forgive me, I have had the impression that your perceptions are broader than most?”

Trace nodded, after the barest hesitation.

“Perhaps you have the rare gift of seeing ahead. I have known a few who did, in my career. It is not an easy gift to bear. All men question their place in the world, the purpose for which they were designed. The sad truth is, most of us will only ever live a small and mundane existence.” Ferris eyed Trace’s face thoughtfully. “I do not think that will be your fate.”

Trace wanted to ask what made him think so, but it felt like fishing for praise. “My bein on this train is no accident,” he said instead, and handed the
Varney
pamphlet across the aisle. “I
did
see ahead—and I think there’s somethin bad waitin for us.”

Ferris looked at the little book slowly, examining Miss Fairweather’s notes and then the cover. His brows drew together, his amiable face twisting in a smile of savage bitterness. “And so I know my place in this world,” he said, and gave the book back to Trace.

“Beg pardon?”

“It would appear, Mr. Tracy, that I was sent here to protect
you
.”

“You know what we’re ridin into?” Trace said, shocked.

“I have heard rumors.” Ferris’s mouth was etched around with deep anger, though it was not directed at Trace. He leaned across the aisle, lowering his voice. “Tell me … who are the two persons you mentioned, whose future you share?”

“The Baptist, Kingsley. And a woman named Sabine Fairweather.”

“Fairweather?” Ferris’s brows lifted in surprise, and a series of calculations rippled across his animated features. “I have never met the lady,” he said carefully. “So I cannot guess what her interest might be in these matters…”

“What’s
your
interest?” Trace demanded, but Ferris only shook his head.

“I have even less volition in these machinations than you, my godly friend, and I am not free to speak of the forces that compel me. I will only say, I believe you are right to think another hand is guiding your steps … or soon will be, if my presence here is any indication.”

“Somebody’s keepin an eye on me, then?”

Ferris allowed a single nod, though his usually open manner was withdrawing, and Trace sensed he would not get much more out of him. “For good or ill?”

Ferris’s smile twisted. “I suppose that depends upon one’s perspective, does it not?”

The train whistle began to blow, making them both jump. The sound was eerie, nightmarish. It echoed off the valleys and bounced back at them,
whooo-whooo-whooo-whooo,
like a deep-voiced mechanical owl. Then a single short
whoop.

“There’s an obstruction on the tracks,” Ferris said, his voice taut.

“Holy God.” Trace instinctively looked toward the front of the train, but of course there was nothing to see except the bunks down and jostling … and Miss Eliza, standing in the aisle in her nightdress.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Trace hurtled out of his seat and up the aisle. Miss Eliza looked up, startled, as he loomed over her. He seized her by both arms and tossed her into the lower bunk alongside Kingsley, just as there was an awful, screaming, squalling roar that started at the front of the train and progressed backward, shuddering through the car as if the tracks themselves were shaking off their burden.

Trace was sure, later, that the collision must’ve made one hell of a bang, when the second-class car struck the emigrant car in front of it. He just didn’t remember hearing it. The back end of the car bucked like an ornery bronc and Trace was flung forward. He landed on his chin and slid down the smooth-polished length of the aisle to end up in a heap next to the wood stove.

He
did
hear the screaming then, and the tinkling of broken glass and luggage bouncing off bunks and shelves to the floor. A series of blows shook the car, accompanied by the deafening and then diminishing
BANGbangbang
of each car behind them colliding.

At last the tremors stopped. The children were wailing and no few of the adults. Trace lay where he was for a minute, gingerly checking to make sure he was still alive. The back end of the car was elevated, propped up on the first-class car behind it, so he was cradled in the join of the floor to the front door. All manner of trash, luggage, hats, toys, bottles, and thirty pairs of shoes had slid down to the front of the car and buried him alive. He heard a pop, felt a flash of heat, and looked up to see a woolen stocking had fallen on the stove and burst into flame.

He flipped the stocking into the ash bin, where it lay smoldering. Then he carefully sat up, shaking off bits of refuse and old luncheons. He could taste blood, his lower lip was mashed, but no teeth were missing. His jaw felt like he’d been punched.

He got to his knees. The floor sloped up away from him, not too steep to walk but barely; all the oil lamps swung precariously on their hooks. People were trying to get out of their bunks, finding it hard to stand, casting about for clothes and belongings, calling out as to the whereabouts and welfare of companions. The porter was telling everyone to be calm, in a high and panicky voice. Brother Clark was praying and braying like a donkey.

Trace put a hand on the wall behind him, used it for leverage to stand. The front door of the car was buckled inward, about halfway up. He tried the handle and it broke off in his hand.

That left the back door or the windows. Trace started up the slope of the floor, straddling the aisle to step up each alternating berth leg, gently but firmly pushing people out of his way. “Stay down,” he advised. “Stay in your bunk. We’ll get the conductor down here, get the car settled down again. You just stay put.”

He walk-climbed as far as Kingsley’s bunk; he and Miss Eliza were both unhurt and collected in wit.

“What a piece of bravery!” Kingsley exclaimed. “To risk your own safety for that of another—”

“Are
you
all right, Mr. Tracy?” Miss Eliza asked. “You were thrown some distance.”

“Nothin broken,” Trace reported. “Can you see to those that are hurt? Try to get them up, get them dressed. Might have to get everybody off this car.”

“
Nobody’s
leaving this car until the conductor says so,” the porter piped up. “The safety and comfort of the passengers is the responsibility of—”

“That’s what I said.” Trace gripped the young man by his jacket and pointed him aft. “You and me are gonna go find the conductor, ain’t we?”

“I’m not supposed to—”

“Come on, son.” Trace pushed the porter ahead of him and they clambered up the aisle as far as Trace’s own seat.

“Are you all right, my friend?” Ferris was grim-faced but appeared unhurt.

“I’ll live.” Trace ran a hand down inside his bedroll, pulled out his gunbelt, and wrapped it around his hips. “You got a gun on you, Ferris?”

“I can protect myself,” Ferris said.

“You can’t carry firearms on this train!” the porter protested. “Only the conductor and the engineer are allowed to—”

“Hush!” Trace held up a hand. Someone was knocking and rattling at the back door of the car. Trace climbed toward it, saw the handle move and the door buckle open a couple of inches. Several sets of human fingers curled into the opening. Trace added his to the effort, braced his feet against the wall of the gentlemen’s privy, and shoved.