Dreadnought

I wasn’t real specific.” The ranger gave her a look that implied he’d told them she was a Confederate nurse, but he wasn’t going to air that extra bit in front of the inspectors. “As for you fellas, I don’t think they’d bother you none. You’re obviously not Yankees, so if you keep your head low and wait out the trouble, I bet you’ll mostly be all right, no matter how it falls.”

Mercy said, “Thank you, I think.”

“You’re welcome. Anyway, here’s why you boys are in on this talk,” he said to the inspectors. “The Rebs have told me they think they’ve seen your troops, and they’re scared just plain shitless, if you catch my speaking.”

The inspectors made noises indicating that yes, they got the unpleasant gist of shitless.

“They’ve made it way far north, fellas. They’re well outside of everybody’s jurisdiction now-mine, yours, the U.S. government’s. We’re so far gone from Texas, or any part of any state that might have been Texas, or might be Texas one day, that it’s just plain ludicrous. Nobody but those oddball Mormons are in charge out there, and they’re just barely afloat. But those troops are definitely working their way through Utah. When we leave this train, you fellas and me, I want us to make some kind of arrangement.”

“What kind of arrangement?” asked Inspector Portilla.

“A gentleman’s arrangement. Which is to say: I don’t like you, and I don’t want to be your friend any more than you want to be mine. But somebody’s got to vouch for each of us, you get me? When we find out what’s going on, I can’t have you accusing my government of something it didn’t do, and you won’t have me accusing your government of something it didn’t do, either. We’ll sort this out, make a statement, agree on it, and present it to both sides so nobody gets all up in arms about it, however the cards fall.”

After a few brief seconds of consultation in Spanish, the inspectors decided they were amenable to this and offered their hands. They shook on it. Then Horatio Korman told them, “I’ve got the latest rough estimate of the mob’s position. When we get off the train at Salt Lake City, we’ll go out there together and see what we can find out. It looks to me like they’re too damn close for comfort, if they’re . . .” He hesitated, then said, “. . . sick, or whatever they are. They’re coming up on cities, and people. Bigger places than they met out in West Texas.”

Inspector Galeano said, “And the more people they meet, the more the trouble grows. Yes, Ranger Korman,” he said, using the formal title like he’d known it all along. “Your terms are reasonable. And you are right: If we do not sort this out together, there could be more war, based on misunderstanding. And I will not have it on my watch.”

“Nor I on mine,” said the Texian. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a little chat with the nurse here in private.”

The inspectors made polite excuses and withdrew, ostensibly to the caboose, leaving Mercy and Horatio Korman alone in the deserted sleeper car. She rose and took the seat across from him, so they could face each other more directly.

He said, “This is the part where you tell me what you were up to an hour ago, when I saw the edge of your pretty blue cloak fluttering on top of the caboose. Gave me a hell of a start.”

“Mr. Korman!” she exclaimed.”

“Don’t play dumb with me; it’s too late for that. What’d you turn up back there? What did you and . . . Was it that uppity Yankee woman? That Clay woman, riding with her auntie?”

Mercy sighed and did not argue, which he took for a yes.

“What were the two of you doing up there, if not heading up and over, into that rear car? What did you find?”

“It was her idea. And we found bodies,” she told him. “And drugs.”

“Bodies? Drugs? Well, I guess I already knew about the bodies-”

“No, Ranger Korman, I don’t think you understand. All of this is tied up together. Your missing Mexicans; the dead men in the back of the train; the army scientist who’s off his rocker, scaring everyone away from the caboose exit with his Winchester . . . All of this is part of the same thing; I can feel it in my bones,” she said.

And then she told him the rest.

Seventeen

The first few days of the ride to Salt Lake City were tense and dark, overshadowed by a cluster of clouds that never quite dropped snow but never quite went away, either. The train rolled, darkened and patched, along the rails and out of the prairies and plains of the Midwest, climbing in and around the edges of the Rockies, and then up, and around, and through the narrow places and the frightening black tunnels. Gradually the train took on elevation. Sometimes the going was easy and the train chugged with something like merriment, as if it were a dog being taken for a swift sprint around a yard. But sometimes when the sky hung low and the train’s course took it higher up against the clouds, every firing of every piston felt like a horrendous chore that it didn’t wish to perform.

In Denver, the Dreadnought had experienced the addition of a piece of equipment that looked like it’d been forged in hell.

This new addition was a snowplow fixture as large as a small cabin, designed to replace the pilot piece in case of a storm-or, worse yet, in case of an avalanche across the tracks. The snowplow was circular and made of reinforced steel and cast iron, of such a size that four or five people could’ve stood within its opening. But inside the circular frame it was fitted with hundreds of interlocking and overlaying blades, angled to move snow, rocks, or anything else that was unfortunate enough to land within its path. It looked less like something made to move snow than something designed to bore tunnels in rocks . . . or process entire herds of cows into ground beef.

Every once in a while, often in the very deepest part of the night when things were the quietest, Mercy could hear something whistle or whisper among the mountain peaks and across the wide, blue lakes that met between them. So far away, and she could hear it faintly but sharply. It made her think of the prick of a pin left inside a dress after alterations: sudden, bright, and small, but faintly alarming.

One time, upon seeing that her car-mate was still awake, Theodora Clay blinked sleepily and asked out loud, “What on earth is that noise?”-but not so loudly that any of the few travelers around her, all the remaining civilians, would awaken.

Mercy murmured, “I couldn’t say.”

“It sounds like another train.”

“It might be, someplace far off. There are other tracks, here through the mountains. Other paths.”

Miss Clay yawned and said, “Yes, I suppose. They must all feed together for a while, until the pass at Provo.”

“What’s so special about the pass at Provo?” Mercy asked.

Miss Clay said, “Supposedly it’s the only spot where the mountains are passable for hundreds of miles in either direction. All the railroads have made bargains, deals, arrangements; however it works. Everything going west goes through that pass, except the rails that run from Chicago to the coast, and the ones that go through New Orleans, through Texas. I expect it will be impressive. All those tracks, side by side. Crowded into one stretch like that. I wonder how long it runs.”

And then they slept. In the morning, there was breakfast in the caboose with the inspectors, who never seemed to sleep, but always seemed very, very watchful. After the inspectors had retired with their coffee, Miss Clay put in an appearance. She seemed to have a special sense for when the foreign men would be absent, so she could “eat in peace,” as she put it.

Mercy privately thought that it was very like a Yankee, to go to war over the rights of people whom you’d rather die than join for tea. But in the name of peace, she kept this to herself.

Malverne Purdue also kept to himself, in that corner beside the caboose’s rear exit. He’d become a fixture there, a signpost of a man whose duty was only to declare, “No trespassing,” and threaten to enforce it with the Winchester across his knees. By and large, he was ignored, except when one of the porters would ask him about a meal, or Oscar Hayes would arrive to relieve him for a few hours of sleep.

Mercy could see him from the corner of her eye while she sipped her coffee, which she liked a bit better than