or the Texian or anyone else she might’ve looked for in case of an emergency, but Malverne Purdue was wrestling into a holster and fiddling with guns, as if he had used them before, but not too often or too expertly.
A little girl in a corner was clinging to the hand of a woman who must be her grandmother, who looked every bit as terrified as the child. The older woman caught Mercy’s eyes and asked, “What’s going on? Dear, what should we do?”
The soldiers were shouting orders back and forth at one another, or confirming orders, or spreading information up and down the line. Whatever they were doing, they did it loudly, and they did not address the passengers even when directly asked to do so. Mercy understood the necessity, whether she liked it or not, so she reiterated her instructions from the previous car. Then, after a pounding of feet that took most of the soldiers out the forward door, she held up her hands.
“Folks, we’re going to need to keep the aisles clear, you understand me? Did everyone hear what I told this lady here, and this little girl? About getting down your luggage and ducking down behind it?”
Murmurs and nods went around, and some of the faster listeners began opening bays and storage panels; hauling out suitcases, satchels, boxes, bags, and anything else large enough to cover any part of any body; and throwing them into the compartments.
“Everyone, now, you understand? Stay out of the aisles, and don’t do any peeking out the windows.”
Malverne Purdue, who was now fighting with the buckle of a gunbelt, raised his voice and said, “I want everyone to listen to this lady. She’s giving you good advice.” Once the belt was secured, and he was wearing no fewer than four guns up front, and one tucked into the back of his pants like a pirate, he said to Mercy, “I know I’m not an officer and it’s not your job to obey me, so don’t remind me, but: take what you’re saying from car to car. Keep these people out of the path; there’s going to be plenty of coming and going.”
She nodded and they headed off in opposite directions-him to the front, after his fellows, and she to the rear, toward her own compartment.
The wind between the cars was ice on her ears and in her lungs as she breathed one shocked chestful of air that made her eyes water. The train was moving so fast that the tracks underneath the couplers poured past as smoothly as a ribbon of water. If Mercy looked at it for more than a fraction of a second, it made her dizzy.
She gripped the rails and stepped onto the next small platform, then yanked the door open.
By the time she was back in her own car, she was breathless, disheveled, and half frozen. She said, “Excuse me,” and pushed past Mrs. Butterfield, who was perched on the edge of her compartment seat and demanding of Miss Clay, “What do you see? What are they doing?”
Theodora Clay had her hands and face pressed against the window, her breath fogging the pane and the tip of her nose going red with the cold. She said, “I see five of those bizarre contraptions. They’re gaining ground, but not very quickly.”
“How many men, do you think?” asked her aunt.
Mercy knelt down on her seat beside Miss Clay so she could see. Though the question had not been directed at her, she answered. “I can’t imagine those things hold more than three at a time.”
To which Miss Clay said, “I suspect you’re right. Those . . . those . . . carts, or mechanized wagons, or whatever they are . . . they look like they’re made for speed, not for military transport.”
The nurse added, “And they’re made for assault. Look at their guns.” She pointed, jamming her knuckle against the breath-slick glass.
Theodora Clay tried to follow the indication and agreed. “Yes, I see two Gatling-form spritzers mounted above each front axle, and small-caliber repeating cannon on the rear axle.”
Mercy looked at her with a puzzled frown. “You know something about artillery, do you?”
She said, “A bit,” which was such a useless contribution to the conversation that it may as well not have been offered at all.
“All right. Do you think we’re in range?”
“Depends on what you mean by that. They could likely hit the side of a barn at this distance, but they couldn’t hit it twice in a row, not at the speeds they’re coming.” Miss Clay looked back down at her aunt and said, “But we should do what Mercy’s been telling everyone. Get your luggage, Aunt Norene.”
“I’ll do no such thing!”
Miss Clay gave the old woman a scowl. She said, in a level, angry voice, “Then go help
Mrs. Butterfield sniffed disdainfully and flounced out of her compartment into the aisle. Once there, she immediately spotted the widower trying to wrangle his two boys, and set to assisting him.
Miss Clay returned her attention to the window and said, almost to herself, “They’re gaining. Not by much, but they’re gaining.”
Mercy was still looking after Mrs. Butterfield and could therefore see out the other side of the train. She said, “And they’ve got friends, coming at us from the north.”
“Goddammit,” said Miss Clay. Mercy wasn’t sure why the blasphemy surprised her. “How many do you think that makes?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. I can’t see very far the other way,” she said, though she dashed across the aisle and leaned her face against the window. There, she could spot at least three, and a dust trail that might indicate a fourth somewhere just beyond her range of vision. “Maybe the same number?”
She returned to Miss Clay’s side and gazed hard at the vehicles.
Theodora said, “They’ve got a little armor plating, but nothing that could withstand anything like the antiaircraft cannons on our engine.”
“They look fast, though. Maybe they think that if they can catch up fast enough, we won’t have much time to fire at them.”
“Then they’re idiots. Jesus, they’re coming right for us!”
But Mercy said, “No, not right for
“Whatever for?”
“Well, they know we’ve got passengers aboard,” Mercy pointed out. “And they don’t give a shit about the passengers. They want something else. Something at the front, or the rear.” She felt like she was stating the obvious, and the longer she watched, the more obvious it became-the machines were deliberately parting to ignore the middle cars.
“You say that like they’re reasonable human beings,” Miss Clay spit.
“They’re every bit as reasonable as the boys aboard this train,” she said stubbornly. “Thinking less of them than that’ll get you killed.”
Theodora looked like she would’ve loved to argue, but she heard her aunt bullying and bossing out in the aisle and changed her mind, or her tactic, at least. She said, “Leaving room for error, if all the passengers holed up in the middle cars, they might be safest.”
“You might be right.”
The forward door burst open and Cyrus Berry came squeezing through it, followed by Inspector Galeano and Pierce Tankersly, then Claghorn Myer and Fenwick Durboraw, two other enlisted men whom Mercy had seen coming and going along the train.
Mercy said, “But not yet-we’ve got to let the soldiers sort themselves out.” She cried, “Mr. Tankersly!” and summoned him over.
In a few fast words, she explained her guess and Miss Clay’s idea. He nodded. “That’s a good plan. I’m going to put you in charge of it.”
“What?”
“We’ve been split into squadrons fore and aft, and we’re migrating that way now. Do you have a watch?”
“Not on me,” she confessed.
“Does anybody have a watch?” he asked the room. When he was greeted only with mumbles and the frantic mechanizations of people building fortresses out of luggage, Mercy stopped him.
She asked, “How long do you need to get into place?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “Give us five minutes. Can you guess that pretty good?”
“Yes,” she said, then turned him around and gave him a shove. “Now get moving!”
