Jane, I am glad to hear that you have ever so many companions with whom to while away the hours. There is no greater gift than the gift of friendship. Just make sure that those you give it to are deserving of such a fine thing.
After a silent walk down the dirt road to the proper side of town, Katherine and I end up in front of the house where she’s been staying since she arrived in Summerland, right next door to Lily and the Spencers. Lily and a small boy play in their front yard, and even though our eyes meet neither of us acknowledges the other. Lily knows how to play the long con; her brother’s made sure of that.
Katherine’s house is downright luxurious, particularly when compared to the squalor I’ve gotten used to. The door opens onto a nicely appointed sitting room, the small windows opened to catch any bit of a breeze. Oriental rugs cover the wood plank floors. In the bedroom to the rear there is a sumptuous feather bed for Katherine and a relatively clean cot has been brought in for me. The bowl and pitcher on the dressing table are real china, nicer than most anything else in Summerland, and there are several lovely dresses hanging in a wardrobe for Katherine, as well as a lady’s dressing gown.
The kitchen has no stove but it does have a large sink with a pump, just like the tub and cistern the Duchess showed me back at the cathouse. The sitting room has a hearth and a modest stack of something that looks to be dried dung. I decide that I’m glad for the warm weather. On the end table is a jar of peaches and a simple note from Mr. Gideon: “Please enjoy this modest gift.”
The sight of those peaches causes a warm feeling to spread through my middle. I ain’t seen the tinkerer since the day of my whipping, and I owe him a hearty thanks. Without his salve my back would still be a ruined mess, and I don’t think it’s a great leap of reasoning to think that I owe him my life.
As soon as we close the door Katherine sighs and her shoulders slump. “Would you please help me get out of this thing?” she asks, all traces of haughtiness gone.
I walk over and begin to unfasten the row of tiny buttons along the back, slipping it over her head once it’s loose enough. I follow her into the back bedroom, hanging the dress up on one of the wooden hangers in the wardrobe as Katherine pulls the lacing to remove her corset, donning the dressing gown, a bright silk garment that features embroidered dragons along the front.
I bend down and pick up the corset, a smile finding its way to my lips. “Did you get that robe from one of the Duchess’s girls?”
Katherine gives me a glare that would stop my heart if looks could kill. “No. The sheriff gave it to me as a gift. Said he got this from a Chinese man that used to live here.”
My stomach drops as I remember the Duchess’s comment about the lack of Chinese in Summerland. What happened to the man who had originally owned that robe? Nothing good. I read an article entitled “The Great Yellow Menace” in which the author went to great lengths to malign the Chinese immigrants out west in California, who apparently charge very steep rates to protect folks from shamblers. I’d only read the article because I’d thought it was about shamblers, not immigration. It seems strange that in these very fraught times folks would be more concerned about hardworking people trying to find a better life than the monsters that actually want to eat them.
Katherine heaves a sigh and doesn’t speak again, and I perch next to her on the bed. “What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head and looks down at her lap, not saying a word. I wait, and after a moment she begins crying—soft, ladylike tears that make her eyes pretty and bright. Somehow I envy her and pity her at the same time.
“Katherine—” I begin, but I don’t get much more than her name out before she cuts me off.
“Do you know what it’s like to have every man in this miserable town panting after you like a rabid dog? Do you know what it’s like to have to spend weeks pretending to be like the rest of them, to say such despicable things about yourself, to laugh at jokes that cut like rusty knives?” She keeps her voice low but the emotion is still clear.
I shake my head, as Katherine ain’t really looking for a conversation.
“I hate this. I hate pretending to be white, to be like most of the folks in this town. I hate the way they think. And I hate knowing that my face is worth more than all the rest of me.”
“Well, maybe not all of the rest of you,” I mutter, but Katherine doesn’t hear me.
“Do you know what Miss Anderson told me before we got in the train car to come here? ‘I wish you weren’t so pretty, Katherine. Maybe then someone would’ve taken you on and you would’ve had a chance at a future.’ I had a chance, Jane, but because of my damned face, no one would take me on as an Attendant. I was first in our class.”
“Well, only because I’m terrible with a rifle. Besides, we still had final evaluations to go through, and my rifle work has greatly improved—”
“Jane, please, shut up. Don’t you get it? No white woman would have taken me on as Attendant because of my stupid face, and colored girls don’t like me because I’m too light by half. My future, if we ever get out of this miserable patch of dirt, is to belong to some man, just like my momma did. I left Virginia to escape that fate, yet it seems to have found me anyway.”
I laugh softly, and shake my head. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” She looks at me and I smile. “You’re passing fair, Kate. No one in this town doubts that you’re white. That’s your future. Your manners are pretty enough that everyone believes you’re from a fine family, without a moment’s hesitation. You could make your way to a nice place, marry some fine man and become respectable, set up housekeeping and have fancy dinner parties that would put the mayor’s to shame.”
Katherine sniffs. “But don’t you see, Jane? That’s exactly what I don’t want. I don’t want to live the rest of my life as a liar. To turn my back on my own people. And I definitely don’t want to be someone’s wife. I don’t want a man.”
I shift uncomfortably next to her. “Is this your way of telling me you fancy women?” Not that I mind that. I’ve been distracted by a pretty face every now and again myself. But trying to imagine Katherine pledging herself to a life as a spinster doesn’t quite fit.
Katherine jumps to her feet and begins to pace. “No! I don’t fancy anyone. I’ve seen the way you look at Mr. Gideon and I’ve seen the way you look at Jackson. I’ve even seen the way you used to look at Merry Alfred when she was at Miss Preston’s.”
My face heats. “Well, Merry was very pretty and she had that amazing right hook.” Merry was also a very good kisser, taught me everything I know, but Katherine doesn’t need to hear about that.
She keeps talking like I haven’t said a word. “But I don’t feel that way about anyone, Jane. I never have and I’m not sure I ever will.”
“Oh, well, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But that’s what makes it so hard. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to chase after some man or set up housekeeping with another woman. I’m just not interested. I want to see the world! I want to write my own future, like Hattie McCrea.”
I laugh. “Well, everyone wants to be Hattie.” Hattie McCrea’s story is the dream of every Attendant-in-training. She was the first real Attendant, assigned to Martha Johnson, President Johnson’s daughter. They say she single-handedly killed a horde that tried to swarm the White House back in ’69. Whether the story is true or not, it made Hattie famous. She traveled the world after that, her name made, teaching girls how to defend themselves against shamblers, and finally marrying a handsome French duke. Well, at least that’s how the story goes. She could’ve just as easily been killed by some random shambler in a swamp down south in the Lost States, for all we really know.
Either way, Hattie was the example we all strove for—Hattie and her selflessness, or Hattie and her fame, or even Hattie and her ability to make her own decisions about her life, free from the restraints the rest of us labor under. All of us Negro girls wanted to be like Hattie, respected and admired.
Even Katherine, who could’ve passed as a fine white lady if she wanted.
“If you want to see the world like Hattie, you can. I ain’t never met someone half as determined as you are.” I put my arm around her shoulders and squeeze. “We just need to get out of here, first. I am truly sorry I’ve put you through this, but you do understand that your pretty face is just as much a weapon as your rifle, right?”
Katherine wipes her eyes and gives me a strange look, like I just sprouted an extra nose. I lean back a little. “What? What did I say?”
“Jane, I’ve never thought of it that way, that beauty could be a weapon.”
I laugh. “That’s because you’ve never met my momma. She used to say the only thing more lethal than a bullet was a woman with a pretty face.”
“Strangely enough, that actually makes me feel better.”
“Good. But let’s not forget that isn’t the only weapon in your arsenal now. You’ve still got the promise of your virtue.” I give Katherine a wry smile. “The thing is, what are we going to do with all of this admiration you’re getting? More important, what are we supposed to do once we get clear of this place?”
Katherine purses her lips in thought, the storm of her earlier emotions subsiding. “Well, that is a question. I’d figured we’d go back to Baltimore, but since Miss Preston’s is no more, there isn’t much there for us.”
I shake my head, because I’d never planned on going back there except to kill Miss Anderson, but now that’s not going to happen. I’m a little disappointed, but the gnawing worry in my gut is stronger. How many survived that devastation? Are my friends out there in the wild somewhere now, or are they still in Maryland, yellow-eyed shamblers all?
I take a deep breath and push my worry to the side. One crisis at a time, thank you very much. First, freedom. Then, everything else.
“Well, I think for now there ain’t much we can do besides find our rest. A fine lady like yourself, well, this heat would just be entirely too much for you. You should get some sleep.”
“What are you going to do?”
“For now, the same. Tomorrow I’m going to implore the good doctor for some laudanum.” Katherine arches a brow at me. “You know, for your lady problems.”
“Jane . . .”
“Look, I’ve got plans, and it isn’t just stealing some supplies and hoping I can make it to the Mississippi River and hitch a ride south, like Jackson. I told you before, that boy is all impulse.”
“And what plan is this?”
Quickly I fill Katherine in on how I’d planned on dosing the sheriff.
“Jane, that’s thoroughly dishonorable!”
“I ain’t planning on killing the man, just turning him shambler.” Of course, I’m going to kill him after. Nuance is important, that’s what I always say.
Katherine disagrees. “You turning him into a monster is just the same as murdering him, Jane.”
“Not if he’s already a monster.”
Katherine sighs. “I want to be rid of him as much as you, but—”
“Yeah, you tell me that after he’s taken the lash to your back,” I snap, the fear and pain and humiliation of the memory rising up quick and sharp. Katherine falls silent, her expression troubled. I sigh. “I’d have no problem putting a bullet in the man in a duel, Katherine. But there’s no way we’d make it beyond the berm if I do that. He ain’t a good person, and I ain’t pretending like he deserves to live. Think about the way he’s starving most of the Negroes and drovers in town while he and his boys and all the good white folks stay fat. Summerland was supposed to be about a better life for all, but it’s worse here than it was in Baltimore. Do you think that’s the word of a good person?”
“But that’s the point, Jane. If you kill him, that makes you no better than he is.”
“I’m okay with that.”
Footsteps outside on the porch silence whatever else Katherine was going to say. She gives me a wide-eyed look of alarm. “I don’t think I can handle any more company today.”
“Well then, it’s a fine thing that you have an Attendant to handle it for you, ain’t it?” I jump up from the bed, closing the door to the bedroom behind me. I don’t bother stopping, just go straight to the door and yank it open.
Mr. Gideon is on the other side, hand poised to knock. He startles as he looks at me, adjusting his spectacles before doffing his hat in a lovely display of manners that I’ve seen men lavish on white ladies, but I sure ain’t used to. The movement draws my attention to his fetching eyes and the fullness of his lips, and a flutter starts up somewhere low in my belly. Katherine’s words about the way I look at him ring like a fire bell in my head.
Lordy, I hope this foolishness is due to my having missed lunch. Ain’t nothing good going to come from losing my head over the tinkerer.
“Miss McKeene,” he says.
“Mr. Gideon. I’m sorry, but Miss Katherine is indisposed.” I put a bit of a drawl in my voice, stressing the natural cadence of my words. Hopefully he won’t hear the lie in them. For some mysterious reason I find it difficult to lie to the tinkerer. Perhaps because I get the distinct feeling that he sees through each and every one.
His brows draw together slightly. “Oh, I do hope she’s okay?”
“Oh, yes, she’s just feeling a mite dizzy because of the heat. Was there something I could help you with?”
“Well, perhaps, but I’d rather wait to discuss it when both of you are present. I know I’m being terribly forward, but would you and Miss Deveraux consider joining me for the noon meal tomorrow?”
“That’s a fine idea,” I answer before I’ve properly thought through why I’m so eager for the tinkerer’s company.
His expression brightens, and he dons his hat once more, settling the bowler into place. “Fantastic. I’ll come by tomorrow at noon to escort Miss Deveraux to the lab. Sheriff Snyder said that he is in the process of refortifying the town’s defenses in the wake of an unanticipated shambler pack pressing against the eastern wall, and it’s all for the better that Miss Deveraux remains in her rooms until the problem has been rectified.”
“Of course, Mr. Gideon. I wouldn’t want Miss Katherine to come to any harm.” There’s a hidden warning in his voice, and I sense that he knows more about the current dangers in Summerland than he’s letting on.
He strolls off and I watch him go, his limp more pronounced than usual.
As I close the door, I worry that he’s pressing himself too hard, and just that little bit of concern is enough to make me realize that I’m in a heap of trouble.
My heart ain’t never going to be safe.