“I don’t know why I thought you could,” he said with the same accusatory gleam in his eye that Miss Clay had been giving her all week, for exactly the opposite reason.
“Oh, leave it be,” she said with irritation and a half-full mouth. When she’d swallowed the whole thing down, she went on. “What do you want me to say? I told the captain the truth, same as I told you the truth—and I didn’t rat you out to nobody yet, and I’m hoping you’ll treat me the same. My reasons for heading west have nothing to do with the war, and I’m sick of it anyway. I don’t want a whole trainful of folks hating me because of where I worked and where I’m from.”
“So your sympathies lie not in Virginia?” he asked, with a veneer of false innocence.
“Don’t you go putting words in my mouth. I love my country same as you love yours, but I’m not running any mission for my country. I’m no spy, and I’m too tired to fight for anyone but myself right now. Sometimes, I think I don’t have the energy for that, either.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“I didn’t ask you to,” she snapped. “Same as I didn’t ask you to pull me off the street and feed me. Just because you and me might be sort of on the same team, that’s no excuse for us to hang together.” She took another jab at her plate, knowing there was more to it than that. She mumbled, “You’re gonna get me in trouble, I swear.”
He asked, “And what if I do? What do you think’ll happen to you, if they all find out what you’re keeping quiet?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe they dump me off at the next stop, in the middle of noplace. I don’t have the money to pay the rest of the way out to Tacoma again. Maybe I get stuck a thousand miles away from where I need to be, with my daddy maybe dying out there. Or, Jesus,” she said suddenly, as it had just occurred to her. “Maybe they’ll arrest me, and say I’m a spy! I can’t prove I’m not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’d arrest me before they’d arrest you.”
“Why? Because you’re doing your job in someplace that ain’t Texas?”
“Something like that,” he said in a way that made her want to ask more questions. “Fact is, I think there is a spy on the train—but I’m not sure who yet. That coupler didn’t break all by its lonesome. Someone wants to sabotage the train so the Rebs can catch it, but it sure ain’t me. And I can’t prove it. But I probably look good for it.”
“So what are you doing on this train? Knowing that being here is asking for trouble?”
He took a deep breath and the last quarter of his sandwich in one bite, and took his time chewing before answering her. He also took a minute to glance around the room, checking the faces he saw for familiarity or malice. Then he asked, “How much do you keep up with the newspapers, Mrs. Lynch?”
“More lately than usually. They gave me something to read while I was coming west.”
“All right. Then maybe you’ve heard about a little problem Texas has right now, with some Mexican fellas who went missing all in a bunch.” He said this conspiratorially, but not so quietly that everyone would try to overhear whatever secret was being told.
“I’ve seen something about it, here and there. Mr. Cunningham aboard the Providence—he gave me the background on the situation.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Not a damn thing. I imagine he’s got opinions on it, and I imagine they’re not altogether different from mine. But it’s my job, not my opinion, to sort out what became of the dirty brown bastards and what they’re up to. They went wandering north—”
“To help relocate—”
“They went wandering north,” he talked over her, as if he wasn’t really interested in political discussion. “And they went wandering right off the edge of the map. I’ve been chasing every rumor, snippet of gossip, and wild-eyed fable from every cowhand, cowpoke, rancher, settler, and Injun who’ll stand still long enough to talk to me, and none of it’s making any sense—not at all.”
Honestly curious, she asked, “What are they saying?”
He waved his hand as if to dismiss the whole of it, since none of it could be true. “Oh, they’re saying crazy things—completely crazy things. First off, if word can be believed, they went off course by a thousand miles or so. And I’ve got to tell you, Mrs. Lynch, I’ve known a backwards Mex or two in my time, but I’ve never heard of one dumb enough to go a thousand miles off course in the span of a few months.”
“That does sound unlikely.”
“It goes well beyond unlikely. And I don’t think Mexico knows what’s happened to ’em either—that’s what really gets me. Likewise—and I’m in a pretty secure position to know—the Republic didn’t touch ’em. Whatever happened happened somewhere out in the West Texas desert hill country, and then something sent those men on some other bizarre quest—”
“All the way to Utah?” she interjected.
Derailed, he stopped and said, “Utah? How’d you know that?”
“Because you told me that’s how far you were riding the other day. The Utah territory’s a long piece away from West Texas, I’d think.”
“Amazingly far,” he confessed. “But that’s what the intelligence is telling us. Something strange happened, and the group shifted direction, drifting north and west. The last reports of Mexican soldiers have come from the Mormon settlements out there—you know, them folks who have all the wives and whatnot. The Mormons may be swamp-rat crazy themselves, for all I know, but they’re scared to death.”
“Of a legion of soldiers? Can’t say as I blame them. Lord knows it’d give me a start to find them in my backyard.”
“That’s not all there is to it, though,” he said, and he shook his head some more, as if there was simply no believing what he was about to say. “Reports say these Mexis have gone completely off their rockers. I heard,” and he finally leaned forward, willing to whisper, “that they’ve started eating people.”
“You shut your mouth!” Mercy exclaimed.
“But that’s what people say—that they’re just mad as hatters, and that something’s gone awful wrong with them. They act senseless, like their brains have leaked right out of their heads, and they don’t talk—they don’t respond to anything, English or Spanish. Mrs. Lynch, people are going to panic if word gets out and nothing gets done about it!”
“Well . . .” Mercy tried to process the information and wasn’t sure how to go about it, so she racked her brain and tried to think of something logical. “Do you think it’s some kind of sickness, like rabies or something? People with rabies will do that, sometimes; bite people—” And she cut herself short, because saying so out loud reminded her of the Salvation Army hostel.
The ranger said, “If these fellas have some kind of disease, and it’s so catching that a whole legion of ’em came down with it and went insane, that’s not exactly a comforting thought. Whatever’s going on, we need to contain it, and maybe . . . investigate it. Figure out what’s wrong, and figure out if we can do something about it. But I’ll be damned right to hell if I have the faintest idea what’s going on,” he said before stuffing bread and potatoes into his mouth.
She said, “I wonder if it’s got something to do with sap.”
“What, like tree sap? Oh, wait, no. You mean that stupid drug the boys on the front are using these days? I don’t see how.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it either, till I wound up in Memphis. I saw some fellas there, some addicts who’d used the stuff almost to death. They looked . . . well, like you said. Like corpses. And one of ’em tried to bite me.”
“An addict trying to bite a nurse ain’t quite the same as cannibalism.”
She frowned and said, “I’m not saying it is. I’m only saying it looks the same, a little bit. Or maybe I’m just crackers.” Then she abruptly changed the subject, asking before she had time to forget, “Say, you don’t know anyplace around here where I could send a telegram, do you?”
“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a Western Union office at the station. You could ask around. Why? Who’re you reporting to, anyway?”
“Nobody but my mother. And the sheriff out in Tacoma, I guess. I’m just trying to let folks know that I’m still alive, and I’m still on my way.”
When the meal was over, she thanked him for it and went walking back to the station, where she did indeed find a Western Union and a friendly telegraph operator named Mabel. Mabel was a tiny woman with an eye-patch, and she could work a tap at the speed of lightning.
Mercy sent two messages, precisely as she’d told the ranger.
The first went to Washington, and the second went to Virginia.
SHERIFF WILKES I AM WESTBOUND AND PRESENTLY IN KANSAS CITY STOP EXPECT ME WITHIN A FEW WEEKS STOP WILL SEND MORE WORD WHEN I GET CLOSER STOP HOPE ALL IS WELL WITH MY FATHER STOP
DEAR MOMMA PLEASE DO NOT BE ANGRY STOP I’M GOING WEST TO VISIT MY DADDY WHO MAY BE DYING STOP IT IS A LONG STORY AND I’LL TELL IT TO YOU SOMETIME STOP DO NOT WORRY I HAVE MONEY AND TRAIN TICKETS AND ALL IS FINE STOP EXCEPT FOR I GUESS I SHOULD TELL YOU PHILLIP DIED AND I GOT THE WORD AT THE HOSPITAL STOP GO AHEAD AND PRAY FOR ME STOP I COULD PROBABLY USE IT STOP
After she’d paid her fees, Mercy turned to leave, but Mabel stopped her. “Mrs. Lynch? I hope you don’t mind my asking, but are you riding on the big Union train?”
“Yes, I am. That’s right.”
“Could I bother you for a small favor?” she asked.
Mercy said, “Certainly.”
Mabel gathered a small stack of paper and stuffed it into a brown folder. “Would you mind dropping these off at the conductor’s window for me?” She gestured down at her left leg, which Mercy only then noticed was missing from the knee down. “I’ve got a case of the aches today, and the stairs give me real trouble.”