The Black Country

hooves, didn’t move. Maybe it couldn’t. He supposed the beast was warmer on the inside and thought about cutting it open, but he needed that horse to get away from the village once Campbell was dead.

His fingers were limbering up a bit. They still stung, but he could move his trigger finger easily and that was all he needed. He withdrew his hand from the young horse’s belly and set the Whitworth back across the dead old horse’s back, pointed it at the depot, hunched down, closed his eyes, and made himself still. He opened his eyes and stared down the sight at the depot’s window and saw the blank white face of Calvin Campbell staring back at him.

The American pulled the trigger.

–

Another tremor hit the depot and the boxlike building bucked and swayed just as Hester Price rose from her bench in the middle of the room and approached Calvin Campbell. The big Scotsman was staring hard out the window and, when the building began to sink into the earth, he grabbed the windowsill. Hester heard the crinkling of broken glass and she drew in a last sharp breath, worried that Calvin had cut himself.

There was a whistling sound and then a faint pop from somewhere far away, and Hester’s knees gave out and she fell.

–

Calvin heard the distinctive whistle of a hexagonal Whitworth bullet and ducked, though he knew it was too late. If you heard the whistle, you were already dead, you just didn’t know it yet. But the tremor was shaking the ground hard, and he hoped that might be enough to throw off the shooter’s aim.

He let go of the windowsill and turned and saw Hester falling, the top of her head open like a bowl full of gore and Calvin fell, too, fell toward her, reaching out, trying to put himself in the path of the bullet that had already passed him.

He went down on his hands and knees and scrabbled across the floor, grabbed Hester up in his arms, leaving some essentials of her behind, and crabwalked with her to the wall. He didn’t cry out, didn’t make a sound, but his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, as wide as it would go. His throat was tight, unrelenting, and it kept his grief bottled in his chest. He cradled Hester, protected her, and waited for Grey Eyes to come and finish the job.

Waited for his death and welcomed it.

–

The American immediately understood that he had missed. The bullet had passed right by Calvin Campbell and on into the building. He tried to adjust for the next shot, but the ground was shaking under him and he couldn’t hold the rifle still.

The young horse whinnied behind him, and he turned just in time to watch it disappear, pulled all at once down into the ground. The old horse toppled toward him and he tried to move, leapt to the side, but he wasn’t fast enough. He hit a high drift, sending spumes of snow into the air, and the horse fell against him with a loud whuff, pinning his leg and hip.

He couldn’t tell if anything was broken; there was no sensation at all, he was so cold. He pushed out against the old horse, but stopped and turned his head at a wrenching sound nearby. The back wheels of the carriage sank into the ground, and then its long wooden tongue lifted up and the entire thing tipped back and rolled away, out of sight somewhere below.

The American panicked and hit the old horse, beat his fists against it, reached for the Whitworth and smashed its butt against the horse’s back, but the beast didn’t budge.

He was surrounded by a roaring sound, as if he had stumbled into the fast-moving stream of a waterfall, plummeting blind through the churning foam, and then he was actually falling and the horse was falling with him and the world went dark around him and the sky receded.

He hit the floor of the shaft below him, hit it hard, and the horse came a second after. It landed heavily on his right foot. The foot jounced violently to the side, twisted like something strange, some inanimate thing that wasn’t connected to him, and there was a crunching sound and a blinding flash of pain that ended deep in his right shoulder.

He looked up and saw a mountain of ice and snow and dirt funneling down at him, on top of him. His open mouth filled with it, and his eyes shut automatically.

62

Day was worried about the boy’s bare feet. He had taken off his tattered gloves, shoved them on the ends of Peter’s feet, but he doubted they did any good. Still, it had made the boy giggle to see that he had monkey paws, and he had not complained about the cold.

Dr Kingsley also seemed to be struggling, carrying the girl through the snow. She hadn’t awakened yet, and that worried Day, too. Henry was the only one of them who seemed to be doing all right. Jessica had woken up and asked to be put down, but Henry had refused. He trudged along with her, polite but stubborn, his large body hunched over the schoolteacher as much as possible to protect her from the blowing snow.

The tremors hit them hard. Both Day and Kingsley fell down, dropping the children. Day heard a rifle’s report, but the crack of it echoed back and forth around them and he couldn’t locate it. He motioned to the others to stay down. Henry stood where he was, unaffected by the tremor, sheltering Jessica with his arms.

The girl, Anna, woke up, sat in the snow, looked around at them all. She opened her mouth to speak, but Peter shushed her, watching Day’s face to see what he should do next. Day smiled at the boy and listened for another rifle shot.

But there was no other sound and the tremor stopped. Day nodded at Peter and the boy crawled over and hugged his sister. He helped her to her feet. Jessica pressed a hand against Henry’s chest, and he finally let her down. Day gave his lantern to Jessica, held out his hand to Kingsley, and pulled the doctor up. They stood, looking into the distance, seeing nothing.

“We need to get the children inside,” Kingsley said. “Someplace warm. Or, at least, out of this wind.”

“I still think the depot’s in this direction,” Day said. “We must be close.”

“I can see the fire there,” Kingsley said. He pointed to an orange glow on the horizon where the inn blazed away, still busy cremating the bodies of Oliver Price and Bennett Rose. “Which means you’re right, I think. If we just keep going. .”

“But there’s someone shooting out here.”

“Surely not at us.”

“Whoever they’re shooting at, it can’t be good for us. We don’t want to stumble across something. Not with the children.”

“We’ll be fine,” Anna said.

“You let us be the judge of that,” Kingsley said.

“No, thank you,” Anna said.

“Anna!” Peter said.

“We’ve done very well on our own, so far.”

“That may be,” Day said. “But we’re all in this together now and we need to rely on each other. You know this place much better than the doctor and I do. We’d very much appreciate your help in finding the train depot or we’ll freeze to death.”

Anna looked at Peter. He raised his eyebrows at her. Day worried that if the boy stood in the snow much longer, with nothing but gloves on his feet, he might lose his toes.

Anna sighed. “Very well,” she said. “I think it’s this way.” And she marched off into the night, expecting the rest of them to follow. They did.

Jessica caught up to Day and touched his arm. “You’re very good with children,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, barely audible.

“Thank you,” Day said. “I’m expecting my first at any moment.”

“I know. You’ll do well, I think.”

He grinned at her. “I do hope so,” he said.