Life at Rose Hill is much the same as when you were here, although I must admit that we all sorely miss your sunny disposition. . . .
The next few days are a lesson in slow torture. The train car is an oven, and the vibration of the wheels rattles our bones until I’m positive we will arrive out west little more than a bowl of jelly. Every so often the train jerks to a stop, throwing us violently to the side, the door opening up to reveal Mr. Redfern. He gives us water and hard bread before taking us out to relieve ourselves along the track. We have no weapons, so it’s nerve-racking to squat amongst the tall weeds and do our business. The movement and the fresh air are a brief respite before we are loaded back onto the train and we begin our journey once more.
I lose all track of time, although I do eventually pick up the packet of letters. It’s too dark in the gloom to read them, but there’s no mistaking my name scrawled across the front in my mother’s handwriting. I hide them in my skirt pocket next to Tom Sawyer. I ain’t sure when the last letter arrived, but just looking at them is enough to ignite my rage all over again.
One day I will return to Baltimore, and when I do, there will be hell to pay.
We don’t talk much on the trip. I suppose we’re all stuck in our own dark thoughts. At night, when the train car cools enough for us to sleep a little, I hear Katherine crying softly, trying to hide the sound of her tears by burying her face in her knees. I feel bad for her. She really did get the worst kind of deal. Here she is, following the rules for years, working toward nothing more than being some lady’s Attendant, and the powers that be decide she’s too pretty for such drudgery and ship her out west. It’s the worst kind of betrayal.
The third night that I wake to her crying, my guilt gets the better of me. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I’m sorry you won’t be an Attendant,” I say. Katherine laughs in the dark, the sound flat.
“Oh, Jane, I never much cared about being an Attendant. All I ever wanted was to be free.”
Her words give me too much to think about.
“Why do you think the Survivalists lied about Baltimore being safe?” she continues.
“Power,” Jackson says, bitterness lacing his voice. “It’s the only thing that men like them want.”
“People wanted to believe them,” I mutter, thinking about poor Othello from the lecture and his willingness to die for Professor Ghering’s delusions. “They wanted everything to go back to the way it was before the war. Before the killing, the shamblers, the walls, all of it. That’s how men like the mayor maintained control. You believe strongly enough in an idea, nothing else much matters.”
“If everything the Survivalists have been saying is a lie, then no one is safe,” Katherine says.
“We never were,” I say. The memory of Miss Preston’s betrayal stings anew.
There ain’t much to say after that.
After what seems like months, but in reality is only about five days, the train stops once again. This time when the door opens wide, and my eyes finally adjust to the too-bright light, there are three rough-looking fellows holding shotguns.
“Welcome to the great state of Kansas. Wonder how long you’ll survive,” one says, his voice high and squeaky. He gives us a gap-toothed grin.
It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. After nearly a week of being cooked alive and shaken out of my skin I’m irritable and in no mood to deal with a bunch of toothless bullies. I hold my chained hands up. “One of you gonna unlock these, or are you just going to stand there wasting daylight?”
Squeaky takes a step back, his grin fading to a look of surprise. I reckon most folks show up scared as a mouse in a trap after such a brutal trip, but Miss Anderson’s revelation and the long, slow ride to mull it over has just given me a mean feeling. Right now, I don’t care about much else but the two tasks before me.
First, find my momma. My mother is alive and probably thinks I am dead. I have to find her and tell her the truth. That means I have to find a way back to Rose Hill, and quick-like.
But I have to bring Katherine and Jackson along as well. I can’t leave them stranded on the prairie. Plus, I’m going to need their help to survive the trip.
Before I can do any of that, though, I have to survive. By any means necessary. And from the stories I’ve read of the Western frontier, that ain’t going to be easy.
The three dimwits staring at us don’t move, so I shake my chains at them. “Yo! You want us to get out or not?”
“Gentlemen.” Mr. Redfern’s low voice causes the louts to step aside uncertainly, and he leaps into the railcar with an easy grace. He unlocks our chains, and for a moment I think about hitting him upside the head and making a run for it. But just like before, like the many stops along the way, I don’t. I have no idea where I am and how to get back to civilization. No weapons, no food, no nothing. I will plan my escape, but now is not the time or place.
Unfortunately Jackson is not possessed of such calm and reasoned logic. Once his hands are free, he hauls back and punches Mr. Redfern in the face. The man ain’t expecting it, and he goes down like a sack of rocks.
“Let’s go!” Jackson yells before launching himself from the train car and running off. Katherine is still chained to the floor, and our eyes meet in surprise and disbelief.
Mr. Redfern climbs to his feet, fists clenched and jaw locked. I hold my hands up. “That boy is all impulse. I ain’t running nowhere.” He gives me a short nod and jumps down from the train car. “Hey, at least leave the keys so I can unlock Kate!”
The keys fly backward over his shoulder and I snatch them out of the air. I unlock Katherine’s chains and help her to her feet. “Ugh, you smell,” she says, holding the back of her hand delicately to her face.
“You ain’t a bed of roses yourself.” I jerk my head toward the opening. “Come on. I wanna see what they do to old muttonhead.”
We jump down from the railcar, unsteady after so many days locked up. Katherine and I are just in time to see Jackson tackled by the three men a little ways down the street that leads away from the rail yard. Mr. Redfern runs down to help, and I cross my arms and watch as the scene unfolds. Katherine frowns.
“Well, that wasn’t wise.”
“Nope.”
Jackson struggles against the men, finally slumping in their arms after Mr. Redfern gives him a little payback by way of a fist to the chin.
“What was that boy thinking?” Katherine murmurs, shaking her head. I wonder as well. Jackson’s had run-ins with the mayor’s men before, what does he expect in a place like this? The West is lawless as all get-out from what the papers say. I doubt a town founded by Baltimore’s no-good mayor and his Survivalist pals is going to be much better.
“Do you think they’ll kill him?”
“Naw, not yet.” At least, I hope not. I am not proud to say it gives me a perverse kind of joy to see Jackson take a few licks. After all, it’s mostly his fault I’m here in the first place. Him and those damned blue-green eyes. “They went through a lot of trouble to bring us all this way. We’re needed for something, so I don’t think they’re going to be so quick to kill us right yet.”
The men pick Jackson up and haul him toward a wooden front building with bars on the windows. I ain’t sure if the bars are meant to keep the shamblers out or people in. My accommodations didn’t exactly give me the bird’s-eye view of the town, and what I’m seeing now is just mystifying.
Everything here is new. The buildings ain’t anything like I’d imagined in a frontier town. Everything is whitewashed and a boardwalk runs along the front of the buildings, raising the foot traffic above the dusty main street. I spy a saloon, bank, dry-goods store, and a hotel. The road is flat and well maintained, and beyond the town is the flattest land I’ve ever seen. There’s a cluster of houses off in the distance, but there’s no telling how big they are or if they’re even occupied. The plains are golden yellow, fading into a sky so pale it’s like a sun-bleached version of the sky back in Maryland. It’s hotter than Hades, and the sun beats down mercilessly. Far off there’s a strange ridge, even and uniform, and I can’t make out what it is even as I squint against the sun.
Katherine shades her eyes and looks around. “Oh my. Is that a barrier wall?”
She points in the same direction as the ridge, and I shake my head. “It can’t be. A wall that large . . . how could they maintain it?”
Mr. Redfern returns to where Katherine and I stand, and he gives us a quick bow. “My apologies, ladies.”
I snort. “You kidnapped us and dragged us to the middle of nothing, and you’re apologizing for putting a hurting on Jackson? You’re a strange man, Mr. Redfern.”
He gives me what I’ve come to think of as his death glare and turns to Katherine. “If you would please follow me, Sheriff Snyder is waiting to meet you,” he says, completely ignoring me.
We make our way down the street, our passage kicking up dust that coats my skin and clogs my nostrils. If I didn’t feel like a mess before, the short walk to the sheriff’s office from the rail station definitely does the trick. In Baltimore the roads are all cobblestone, civilized and clean. Even the country roads around Miss Preston’s are a dirt so hard-packed that they might as well be stone. But even though the street here looks lovely from far off, close up the pockmarks reveal themselves. Large piles of something that looks suspiciously like feces dots the lane. I point it out to Katherine, raising my eyebrows. She shrugs.
“It’s horse manure,” Mr. Redfern answers out of nowhere, and both Katherine and I look at him in disbelief.
“Horses?” Katherine asks.
“You have horses?” I squeak. I’ve never seen a horse, apart from paintings of them. Great beasts that people once rode, before the shamblers made them a ready food source. The iron ponies replaced horses as transportation, and I’d love nothing more than to see a horse up close.
Momma used to talk about her favorite horse, Cassandra, named after some doomed woman from ancient myth. Apparently the name was prophetic: the first time Rose Hill was hit with a wave of shamblers they went after the horses, tearing into the poor beasts before Momma and Josiah, the big dark man who led the field work, could put them down. It was a small group, and we were lucky. It gave us enough warning to prepare for future attacks. Most of Rose Hill’s neighbors weren’t so fortunate.
Next to me Katherine sighs. “I’d love to see a horse.”
I nod. “Me too.”
Mr. Redfern gives us a bit of side-eye. “Well, you’ll get your wish. They ride horses along the perimeter fence. I don’t know what the sheriff has planned for you, but it will probably include some patrols. There aren’t nearly enough bodies to fill them properly.” There’s something behind his expression that tells me there is more to his words than he’s letting on, but I leave it alone for now.
We stop short outside of a building with a large, fancy hand-lettered glass window proclaiming “Sheriff” and a flag of red and white stripes. Survivalists.
Mr. Redfern holds the door open for us, and Katherine and I file into a plain-looking office. “Good luck,” he says under his voice before falling in behind us. What he means by that, I can’t know, but his tone is earnest.
Even with the large front window, the room is gloomy. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust, and when they do the vague shapes form into a desk, some chairs, and a cell along the back wall that is currently occupied by Jackson. The whole place carries the smell of unwashed bodies and tobacco smoke with a faint air of decay.
The walls are bare wood, with notices breaking up the empty space: a large sign proclaiming “No Drinking After Eight”; a weekly prayer-meeting schedule; two sets of town laws, one for coloreds and another for whites; and, most curious of all, a long document labeled “The Summerland Bill of Rights” posted right next to the door.
“These the girls the mayor wired me about?”
Katherine and I halt at the deep voice, and a loud thump follows, the sound of boots hitting the wide plank floor. I’m half wondering where they got all of this wood from. I ain’t seen a single tree around here, just that golden grass and flat landscape. Did the mayor bring all this building material west on the train? No wonder he was carrying on about investors.
Behind us Mr. Redfern clears his throat. “Yes, Sheriff. Jane McKeene and Katherine Deveraux, both recent graduates of Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls.”
“That’ll be all, redskin. Tell Bob and William they need to come back to escort these two after I’m done talking with them.”
“Of course.” Mr. Redfern’s voice is tight, but a glance over my shoulder reveals nothing, his face impassive. I know he has to be hot over being called “redskin” like that, which is an insult in the highest degree. After all, his skin isn’t even red. But, his expression is mild. I sure wouldn’t want to play poker with Mr. Redfern.
The door opens and closes as Mr. Redfern departs, and I turn my attention to the sheriff. The white man who stands before us has the reddened skin of someone who has spent many long days in the shadeless sun of these plains. He wears a wide brim hat even though we’re indoors, and I figure that a place as lawless as this probably ain’t got much use for manners. His sandy mustache droops on either side of his mouth, and despite his relative youth, his movements as he sits are slow and deliberate. I suppose he would be considered attractive, yet there’s something I don’t like about him. There’s a spark in his blue eyes that makes me think the man is more dangerous than he looks, the way they say gators in the swamps down South pretend to be logs before taking a bite out of a man. This is a man who likes to be underestimated.
“Jane McKeene. Your reputation precedes you.”
“Well, sir, I don’t see how that could be. I’m nobody.”
“A nobody who makes the front page of the Sun.” The man reaches back on his desk and grabs a newssheet. It’s the paper from nearly a month ago. The date puts it the day after the lecture and the headline reads MAYOR AND THE MISSUS SAVED BY NEGRO GIRL’S DERRING-DO. The illustration that accompanies the story is a crudely drawn version of me, my hair sticking up in twenty different directions, my lips thick and my eyes wild as I gun down no fewer than ten shamblers.
“Sheriff Snyder, I must confess, this is the first time I’ve seen such a headline. Might I borrow your newssheet to peruse the story at my leisure?”
An expression I can’t identify crosses his face. “You read?”
There’s a sudden tension in the room, and I hunch my shoulders and shuffle a bit, letting a slow drawl enter my voice. I prefer to be misjudged as well. “No, suh,” I say, my words slow and deliberate. “I jes like to look at the pictures, if’n that’s okay.”
The sheriff hands me the newspaper with a grunt before leaning back against the desk and crossing his arms, and I tuck the paper into the top of my boot while the man talks. “So, the ground rules. Curfew at eight each night unless you’re assigned to a patrol. You will be responsible for the protection of this town. Scythe, sickle, knife, club, you want it, you got it. But no guns. We don’t let the darkies carry ’em, only my boys. I used to run patrols back in Georgia before the war, and I know how crafty you people can be.” The sheriff’s voice goes hard, and I swallow.
He takes out a pouch of tobacco and begins to roll a cigarette as he continues. “You ain’t slaves, because as far as I know that’s still illegal, more’s the pity, so you’ll be paid two dollars a week plus your room and board. You also get a bath once a week, should you choose to use it. I know your kind have an aversion to water.”
Katherine and I exchange a look. Who is this man? And just how many Negroes does he know?
“Also, no drinking and no fornication. Summerland is a town of high morals, so none of that will be tolerated. Breaking my rules results in swift penalties. Do you understand?”
For a moment the world falls away and I can see the future as it opens up before me: toiling away, working in the fields or on patrols, killing the dead while people like the sheriff live a life of safety and leisure. On the surface it seems to be equal to my potential future in Baltimore, but there I still had a choice. Well, at least the pretense of one. It always seemed I could strike out on my own should I choose to leave Miss Preston’s. It would’ve been an ill-advised choice, but an option nonetheless.
Here, there’s not even the subterfuge of such a possibility. The trap is sprung well and tight. I know what things were like before the War between the States, and even though the years after were chaotic, at least colored folks like me were free. But this place is the brainchild of a bunch of Survivalists, built on a dream of prewar America, which is how I know that my next words will change everything.
“Suh,” I say, “I ain’t sure why you’re making Miss Katherine listen to all this. She ain’t a Negro.”
The sheriff turns to me as Katherine’s eyes go wide. Behind me, his men shift; I’ve gotten their attention.
“Jane,” Katherine says, fists clenched, color riding high in her cheeks. “What are you—?”
“It ain’t your fault the mayor put you to the side, Miss Katherine, ain’t your fault at all. And I know you’s about to be cross with me, but you can’t toil in the field. You’re better than that.”
Katherine buries her face in her hands. I ain’t sure whether she’s laughing or crying, but I use the moment to finish my plan before she can ruin it. I step closer to the desk. “I graduated from Miss Preston’s, that’s the Lord’s own truth, Sheriff, but Miss Katherine here is a lady, my charge. The mayor took a fancy to Miss Katherine and his old windbag of a wife conspired to have her sent here. That’s why she’s dressed like an Attendant. She was tricked.”
Katherine is now staring daggers at me as the sheriff turns to her, a glint of interest in his eye.
“That true?” he asks.
Katherine turns her head, refusing to meet the sheriff’s eyes, her lips clamped shut. Even after five days of rough treatment, she’s still beautiful, which is how I know this is going to work.
The sheriff turns to Jackson, who’s sat up enough to watch the goings-on in the office. “You there, boy, this woman white or is she a darkie?”
Jackson’s jaw clenches, he looks the sheriff in the eye, and slow as winter molasses drawls out, “She definitely ain’t a darkie.”
The door opens behind me. The sheriff looks over my shoulder and says, “Go fetch the professor, tell him I need him to bring his tools.” I look over my shoulder as one of the men that waited for the railcar nods and ducks back out of the door. The other man leers at me, and I just give him a flat stare in return. I’m tense from the ride, and I’d like an opportunity to knock some sense into one of these boys.
The sheriff sighs. “We got ways of figuring out whether or not someone’s colored, never you fear. We’ll table that discussion until the professor gets here. So, as I was saying: Summerland is a town of high morals. Church every Sunday, a dance the last Saturday of every month, providing there’s been no infractions. Bible study on Wednesdays and Fridays. The pastor seems to think the word of the Lord will keep your kind in line, but I ain’t so sure,” he mutters as he licks the rolling paper, sealing his cigarette closed. He lights the thing, and blue-gray smoke fills the room.
I say nothing, but Katherine looks like she’s about to cry. The sheriff has taken every opportunity to insult us and remind us of the circumstance of our dark skin, and I’d like nothing more than to tell him what I think. I can take down a pack of shamblers like nobody’s business. I am clever and can work my way out of any bad situation. I know I am more than my skin color. But there’s nothing to be gained by an outburst right now. I need to get the lay of the land and figure out how to get myself a few hundred miles east in one piece.
“Oh, and one last thing,” the sheriff says as the door opens behind us. “You step out of line and you’ll find yourself swiftly reminded of your place.”
A tall white boy wearing a bowler, a blue waistcoat, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms pushes past me and Katherine. The sheriff looks at him and puffs on his cigarette. “’Bout time. This one says she ain’t colored. I need you to measure her up. And you can use the other one as a test subject for your new experiment.”
“Sheriff, how many times do I have to ask that you send them down to the lab? I can’t do anything here, and it takes a while to distill the vaccine.” The boy turns around and I realize he’s older than I first thought, maybe early twenties, with stubble darkening his cheeks. He ain’t handsome, but there’s something indescribably appealing about his face. He’s pale—not sickly, but like he doesn’t get out in the sun much. His dark brows are pulled together in a scowl, and his muddy hazel eyes dart around the room like he’s calculating . . . something. There’s an intelligence there that draws me in. I don’t much mind looking at him, even though he’s probably a rat bastard, since he’s working with the sheriff.
The sheriff, for his part, just continues to puff on his cigarette. “Fine, take them to that hole of yours. I don’t need your back talk.”
“Of course.” The boy’s words are clipped. He might still be a bastard, but I’d wager he doesn’t like the lawman too much, which maybe counts for something.
The sheriff doesn’t seem to detect the tone, though. He kicks his feet up onto the desk, leaning back in his chair with a smile. “Welcome to Summerland, girls. Try not to die before I can replace ya.”