“They shot my horse and I shot both of theirs.”
“That seems unnecessarily cruel of you,” she said. “Those poor beasts certainly had nothing to do with any of this.”
“It was an accident,” Hawke explained. “I didn’t intend to shoot them. Here. Put this on.”
“Oh, so then it becomes less a matter of cruelty and more a matter of extreme clumsiness,” she said as she put the second moccasin on, tying it down just as Hawke had. She laughed. “Heavens, I don’t know which is the more discomfiting thought.”
“Yes, well, whatever the reason, the horses are dead, so the only way we have of reaching Green River is by shank’s mare.”
“Shank’s mare?”
“Walking.”
“You Americans and your quaint expressions.” Pamela sighed. “Very well. If we are going to go ‘shank’s mare,’ as you call it, then it might be better to walk to the railroad.”
“How far are we from the railroad?”
“I don’t know exactly how far, but I’m sure it’s much closer than Green River. As I said, Poke and Gilley took me off the train when we stopped for water.”
“You should’ve screamed or something. They would never have gone through with it if anyone on the train had been alerted.”
“I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t do anything. It was all I could do to breathe. They put something over my mouth and nose, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up here.”
“My guess is they used chloroform,” Hawke said.
“Yes, well, the problem is, I was unconscious when they took me, so I don’t know if we are north of the railroad or south. And if we start out in the wrong direction, we could wander around for who knows how long.”
“We’re south of the railroad,” Hawke said.
“How do you know we’re south? I thought you said you were new here.”
“I came up from the south and I haven’t crossed it,” he explained. “You think your feet will hold out for nine or ten miles? The moccasins will keep the rocks and stickers out, but they won’t give your feet much support.”
“They’ll be fine,” Pamela insisted.
“All right, we’ll head for the railroad. We’ll start as soon as the rain stops.”
Chapter 6
HEADING TOWARD THE BRILLIANT SCARLET AND gold sunset beneath the darkening vaulted sky, the
Behind the engine and tender was a string of coach cars, inside of which the passengers were getting down to the business of eating their supper. Although America liked to call itself a classless society, nowhere were classes more evident than on a transcontinental passenger train.
The third-class passengers were the immigrants seeking better opportunities out West than they had found in the East. The immigrant cars were filled with exotic smells such as smoked sausages, strong cheeses, and fermented cabbage.
The second-class passengers were those in the day coach. Often, these were not transcontinental passengers, but merely people traveling from one city or town to another along the route. Most of them were eating their dinner from the boxed meals they had bought for twenty-five cents at the previous stop.
The more affluent, first-class passengers occupied the parlor cars, and they took their meals in the dining car at linen-covered tables set with gleaming china and sparkling silverware. They made their meal selections from expansive menus that could compete with the finest restaurants in the country.
One of the diners stopped the conductor as he passed by the table. “I say, how long until we reach Green River?”
The conductor was wearing a watchfob, chain, and watch across his vest. With an elaborate show, he pulled the watch out and opened it.
“We shall be there in exactly two hours and forty-seven minutes,” he said. “Barring any unforeseen stops.”
To his relief, Hawke discovered that as he walked, his leg felt better, and after a while he lost the limp altogether. When he and Pamela Dorchester reached the railroad, Hawke dropped his saddle with a sigh of relief, then climbed up the little rise to stand on the tracks.
Before him the empty railroad tracks stretched like black ribbons across the bleak landscape, from horizon to horizon. The tracks gave as little comfort as the barren sand, rocks, and low-lying scrub brush of the great empty plains, but Hawke was certain that a train would be coming through before sundown.
“Oh,” Pamela said. “I don’t believe I have ever walked this far in my entire life.”
“You did well,” Hawke said.
“Well? Ha! That’s because you don’t see the bruises and blisters I have on my feet now.”
“No, I mean you did well because you didn’t complain all the way here,” Hawke said. “You’re a strong woman, Miss Dorchester.”
“It’s the Brit in me,” Pamela said. “And the fact that my father would have it no other way.” She sat down and gingerly unlaced her moccasins.
“Your father must be quite a man.”
“Brigadier Emeritus of the Northumberland Fusiliers, Sir James Spencer Dorchester, Earl of Preston, Viscount of Davencourt,” Pamela said as she rubbed her feet.
“That’s quite a mouthful.”
“Of course, here in America he is simply Mr. Dorchester. He gave up his title and his holdings when we left England.”
“And your title too,” Hawke said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You would be Lady Dorchester. No, that’s not right, it’s your father’s title, not your husband’s, so it would be Lady Pamela.”
Pamela tilted her head and looked up at Hawke with a quizzical expression. “Oh, my, I’m very impressed, Mr. Hawke. How is it that you know such a thing?”
“I picked it up somewhere,” he replied.
“I’m beginning to suspect that you are not quite the itinerant you appear to be.”
Hawke chuckled. “Thanks. I think.”
“I don’t suppose you have a watch?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” he said, and pulled his watch from his pocket. “It is lacking fifteen minutes of seven.”
“Ah, very good. We shall have no more than a fifteen minute wait.”
“You carry a timetable in your head, do you?”
“In a manner of speaking. The westbound train reaches Green River at nine P.M. every day. We are forty miles from Green River, and the train proceeds at a velocity of twenty miles each hour. Therefore, it will be here at seven o’clock.”
“I can’t argue with that logic.”
As Pamela had predicted, fifteen minutes later they saw a train approaching. Hawke knew that it was running at a respectable enough speed, but because of the vastness of the prairie, it appeared to be barely moving. Against the great panorama of the wide open spaces, the train seemed very small, and even the smoke that poured from its stack made but a tiny mark on the big, empty sky.
He could hear the train quite easily now, the sound of its puffing engine reaching him across the wide flat
