A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose) Read online

  “My wife was going to be receiving a chest, arriving on this train,” Eli said. “It contained a wedding gift from my family. And two of our family friends are in the hospital in your town. We would like to check on their baggage. Is there a place where it’s all gathered?”

  The sheriff looked real tired. He didn’t care that we were newlyweds, that we had injured family.

  “Luggage and gifts aren’t important, considering the people who’ve died,” I said. “We’re doing what we can, Sheriff. Anything is better than hanging around the hospital.”

  That struck the right note. The white-mustached man straightened his back, and after a glance around at the debris and the empty slope where the line of dead had lain, he said, “I’m Clyde Lathrop, sheriff of this county, Mr. and Mrs. Savarov. Do you know which car the chest was in?”

  “It was in a car with a group of guards,” Eli said. “My brother told me the guards were in a passenger car, not a freight car.”

  “Oh. Oh, my goodness.” The sheriff looked unhappy. “Well, the account we got, there was such a gun crew in one of the derailed cars, and most of the people in the crew are dead or in the hospital. In fact, just an hour ago, we found one of them in the field over there, with a very suspicious injury. There was a smashed crate beside him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand. An injury not caused by the … derailment?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  I can’t tell you how strange it felt to be a “ma’am.”

  Sheriff Lathrop continued, “I’m pretty sure he was murdered. I’m real sorry to tell you this, but maybe that crate was a temptation to someone who took advantage of the chaos.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. I leaned heavily against Eli. That was easy, because I was just as tired as the sheriff. I tried to make tears come to my eyes as I looked up at Eli, but I could not make that happen. “We have to find out what happened to the poor man, and to the crate. I’m afraid your brother will take it personal, if we can’t retrieve …”

  “It was a family piece,” Eli told Clyde Lathrop. “We’re very anxious to track it, if that’s possible. And of course, we want to claim the poor man’s body for burial.”

  “Mr. Savarov, everything we’ve gathered together from the wreck is in that tent yonder, now that the injured have all been moved,” Sheriff Lathrop said. “The crates and boxes and so on are on one side, the personal luggage on the other. You are welcome to look. I don’t believe there’s anything that would shock your missus.” The sheriff cut his eyes toward me significantly.

  I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep my face still.

  “Thank you, sir,” Eli said.

  “If you don’t find what you’re looking for, you may feel free to look among the wreckage. But Mrs. Savarov should remain here if you do so. And the dead have all been taken to the funeral homes in town.”

  “Again, thank you for your advice, Sheriff.” Eli nodded gravely and we started over to the tent that had formerly housed the wounded. Now it was the salvaged goods depot.

  If I had truly been a gently bred lady, there were still some things that would have distressed me … maybe. There was blood on some of the items that had been retrieved, and of course blood had dripped on the ground from the injured. Now it had dried on the trampled grass. No way to get rid of that until the tent came down and there was rain.

  I bravely pretended I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to come all over faint. I held a hand to my forehead, palm out, to mask the awful sight.

  “Would you stop it,” Eli hissed. “I can see you’re trying not to laugh.”

  “Yes, my manly protector,” I said. I didn’t dare look up.

  I wasn’t laughing after ten minutes’ hard searching. No chest. I hadn’t believed it would be here. No one would murder Jake and then leave the booty to be carried to the lost-and-found. But we had to look.

  Jake would have used his gun if he hadn’t believed the person approaching him was a friend. That idea popped into my head, crystal clear.

  “He did the best any crew leader could do,” I said.

  “Don’t you think I should go look over the wreckage?” Eli said. I could hear that encouraging note in his voice that said he really wanted to do that. And I could also tell he knew the fact that I couldn’t go with him would be real irritating to me.

  “That might be a good thing to do,” I said. “Sweetheart.” I tacked that on since we were newlyweds. Eli squeezed my arm a little too hard.

  “Then consider it done,” Eli said gallantly. “Solnyshko.”

  And he led me to an intact wooden crate in the shade in the middle of the tent, so I could sit while he hared off and saw what there was to see. I puredee hated that.

  A Negro trustee—at least that was what I thought his black-and-white-striped uniform signified—came over to me, eyes lowered, and asked if I would care for a glass of water. The sheriff thought I might be feeling a little overcome. I thanked him nicely, and accepted.

  When he came back, eyes still lowered, I said, “You know a family around here, Reva and Hosea Clelland?”

  I’d kept my voice low, but he still flinched. “Yes’m.”

  “I don’t want to make trouble for them, but I knew their daughter Galilee. If they can come to the Pleasant Stay Hotel, or let me know where to meet ’em, I’d like to talk to them.”

  “Yes’m,” he said, and scuttled away as fast as he could. I’d kept our exchange too quiet and quick for anyone to take notice, on purpose. If I behaved wrong, this man would pay. Not only had Galilee told me stories, but I could tell from the way the Negro people acted that they’d rather do anything than draw attention to any conversation they had with white people, especially white women.

  Bored and restless, I began to pick through the personal bags and luggage we hadn’t yet checked. I found one I was sure was Maddy’s. Her initials were scratched on the outside. There were so many that were similar I had no way of knowing which were Jake’s and Rogelio’s, but I found Charlie’s. I could send its contents back to his family.

  After that, all I could do was drink water, sit on the damn crate, think about how lucky I was to be in the shade, and wonder what “Solnyshko” meant.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  By the time Eli came to fetch me, I was almost stunned with boredom. It wasn’t really that hot, but the air was a lot wetter than I was used to. I didn’t know how anyone could live here. Or why they’d want to. It was supposed to be fall.

  “Ready to go back to the car?” Eli said. He looked grim and sweaty.

  “I have been ready since you left me here,” I said.

  “Look sweet,” Eli reminded me.

  “I don’t have any idea how to do that,” I snarled.

  He raised my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.

  It tickled, and I smiled.

  “There now, not so hard,” Eli said, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Let’s go to the hospital now,” I said. “Oh, here are two bags from my crew. Since you’re such a big, strong man, you can carry them.”

  “Of course,” Eli said smoothly. “Anything for you, my frail flower.”

  I snorted.

  The hospital was only two blocks away from the hotel, so Eli parked the car behind the Pleasant Stay and we walked. Turned out that had been a good idea. We couldn’t have found a parking spot anywhere closer to the hospital. I was so tired I was staggering, though. Despite my nap in the green forest, I was exhausted. And I wasn’t looking forward to going inside the hospital.

  I’d only been in one once. In Segundo Mexia, most people believed you went to the hospital to die, and the only hospital was quite a distance anyway. We did have a real doctor, who lived a few miles outside of Segundo Mexia. He was a drinker. You had to get there in the morning.

  Ballard Memorial Hospital was a long one-story building shaped like a T. Its outside was red brick. It was built up off the ground like most structures here. After we went up the step
s and through the big double doors at the front, we were blocked by a large desk. You could walk around it if you went right, but clearly that would be a terrible thing to do.

  Behind the desk sat a nurse in a starched uniform with a ledger in front of her. Like she’s waiting to admit people to heaven, I thought. She had a name tag that read MISS MAYHEW.

  “How can I hep yawl?” Miss Mayhew said. Her accent was so thick it was like molasses.

  Eli and I looked at each other, at a loss.

  Miss Mayhew gave us a sharp look. Then she repeated, “How can I hep yawl?” in a louder voice, in case we were hard of hearing.

  It was noisy; the floor was wood, and heels made big sounds on it. Since the hospital was full of people, there were lots of voices crossing each other. Somewhere in the building behind a closed door, a man was screaming.

  Miss Mayhew wasn’t listening to the screaming at all. It might as well not have been happening.

  My brain burped up a translation. Miss Mayhew wanted to know how she could help us.

  “We’re here to see Maddy Smith,” I said. I tacked on a “please, ma’am” after Miss Mayhew’s gaze got even sharper.

  Miss Mayhew deigned to look down at her ledger. “Maddy Smith,” she said. “One of the injured from the train?”

  “Yes’m.” I’d learned my lesson.

  Miss Mayhew pointed to a set of doors behind her, in the left wall. “She’s in the open ward with all the other women just brought in. The ward’s completely full. First time I can remember. Please limit your visit to ten minutes. We have an awful lot of people coming in and out today. Sign in here, please.”

  She reversed the ledger and Eli bent to sign it for us. I’m not sure what I would have written.

  “Thank you, Nurse Mayhew,” said Eli, with his best smile.

  But Miss Mayhew was immune. Blank stare. I loved it.

  We walked past the desk into the wide hall. There was a sign sticking out on the left: WOMEN’S WARD. The men’s ward was across the hall. A door at the far end said EMERGENCY—OPERATING THEATER—PRIVATE ROOMS. The screaming came from there.

  The double swinging doors to the women’s ward were closed, I guess to cut down on the noise or for modesty. Eli pushed one open and we went in. It smelled, of course, though maybe it would have been clean and clear if the train wreck survivors hadn’t been there. The engine smell was strong. Fear, sweat, blood, dirt, and all other body fluids added to the bouquet.

  The women’s ward was a long, open room containing twenty beds. As Miss Mayhew had said, they were all occupied. There were also a few cots set up running in a line down the middle of the room. They were occupied, too.

  I could tell most of these women had been on the train; they had broken limbs, head injuries, and fresh bandages. Though there were three nurses, and they were all working diligently, some of the patients had not been cleaned yet. Their faces were smudged with dirt or blood, and they were still in their train clothes, just as soiled.

  I saw Maddy halfway down on the left side. She was in a hospital gown. Due to the heat, she was on top of the sheets rather than under them. Her leg was heavily bandaged. She didn’t look good.

  Maddy looked at me as I stood by her bed. For a moment, she didn’t know me. It was almost funny, the expression she wore when she figured out who I was. I’d put the new outfit from my mind. I put a finger across my lips to let her know not to make a big to-do about my transformation.

  “Lizbeth?” Maddy said cautiously, kind of feeling her way through the situation. I nodded. She looked past me at Eli. “I remember you from the wreck. Thanks for helping me.”

  “We came to see how you are feeling,” I said.

  “My leg isn’t as good as I had hoped,” Maddy said. She was unhappy and worried and in pain. “They did some cutting and stitching on it, got the bullet out. I just woke up. I thought after they’d bandaged me I’d get back to the station to see if I could get a train going the other way. But the doctor says I can’t walk on it for a week, at least, and then I got to use crutches. If I don’t take care of it now, I’ll be a gimp the rest of my life, he said. If it opens up again, I might bleed to death.” Maddy looked gloomy, as well she ought. “But I have to get home and get work. And I got to pay the hospital bill. Maybe you can send Jake in here? He should be willing to front me the money for the return trip, plus my wages.”

  I could tell she’d been sitting there thinking and fuming and worrying. Who wouldn’t? I hated to bring more bad news down on her. “Maddy, I have to tell you something. After I helped you onto the wagon, we went back to Jake, to fetch him and take him to town, along with the crate. But when we got there, he was dead. Someone had cut his throat. And they stole our cargo.”

  Maddy looked at me. After a long moment she gasped real deep and rough, like she was taking the first breath after a blow to the chest.

  “We left him to get killed,” she said, her voice ragged. “We left him.”

  I had already thought that twenty times. It made me sick. “Yeah, we did. I did,” I said, so she’d know I wasn’t sparing myself. “No way around that. But Jake was alert and armed. I went directly back to him after we’d talked to you and Rogelio. Couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.”

  Maddy looked down at her clasped hands, her lips pressed together. “I’ve been with Jake for three years,” she said, presently. “I’ve been to dinner at his house. I introduced him to his boyfriend.”

  I kept silence until she got herself under control. After a bit, she took a deep breath.

  “So, who’s this friend of yours?” Maddy asked. She jerked her head at Eli. “Where’d you find him?”

  She didn’t remember we’d talked about this at the train wreck, and that was not surprising. “I knew Eli from my last job,” I said. “I had no expectations of seeing him here. His job has crossed mine, again.” I didn’t want Maddy to think I’d arranged some kind of rendezvous.

  “He a wizard? Holy Russian?” She leaned a little to look past me, her face telling me clearly that Maddy didn’t trust Eli as far as she could throw him.

  “You can talk to Eli directly.” I was having my own struggle, to sound neutral. “I’m not his mouthpiece.”

  “He why you’re all rigged up?”

  “No.” Yes. “I’m all rigged up because women here have to be, or they get … mistreated. I have to track the cargo.”

  “What can I do?” It was clear Maddy was not pleased with me, or trustful of my ally, but she knew we had to finish our job.

  “Get well,” I said. “Jake would be the last person in the world to want you to get crippled, trying to find out who killed him. And Rogelio is here, he’ll help, unless he’s more busted up than I figured.”

  Maddy looked angry, and frustrated, and then … resigned. “It is true that I can’t do any good while I’m bleeding from the leg,” she said grudgingly. “I have to be able to walk, or no more jobs for me. And the pain is more than I’d counted on.” She was white around the mouth.

  I nodded, being no stranger to pain. “Do you know a name or address where I can get in touch with our employer? To see about what to do now, how to get paid? At least they owe us for the trip here.”

  Maddy shook her head. “Maybe Rogelio does. Jake treated Rogelio like he was second-in-command. I guess you checked Jake’s pockets?”

  I hadn’t checked Jake’s pockets. I clenched my fingers into fists to keep from smacking myself in the head. “We’ll do that,” I said. “You know where Rogelio is?”

  Maddy said, “I haven’t laid eyes on him since the wagon brought us here. I guess he’s over in the men’s ward.”

  “I’ll come back when we find out something. I don’t know how long that’ll be.” I patted Maddy’s hand. “And look, I found your bag.”

  “Mr. Eli, if you’d draw back a minute, I need to talk to Lizbeth,” Maddy said. Her voice was steady and determined.

  Eli nodded politely and wished Maddy a swift recovery. I watched him stride
out of the ward, his long braid swinging across his back.

  Maddy barely waited until Eli was out of earshot.

  “Thanks for looking for my bag, but Jesus, Lizbeth! What are you doing with him? You know he’s a grigori! Where’s your sense, girl?”

  “Me and him worked together,” I said again. I had a hard time getting the words out between my teeth. I was running out of sympathy. “I trust Eli, Maddy. He’s all I got to work with. I have no money, no contacts here, no names to track.”

  “Okay,” Maddy said slowly, thinking it over. “You don’t know this place. People here are different, seems like.” She stared at my face some more. “I wish I’d never come here,” she said, suddenly, in a burst of anger.

  “You and me both. I’m going to find you money to go home,” I said, promising her and myself. “I’ll be here again to see you. Please do what the doctor says, so you can get well. I’d like to work with you again.”

  Maddy smiled, a little shy now. “I feel the same way. You’re good to have on a crew, Lizbeth. You’re a fine shot and a reliable woman.”

  “You know it’s going to be days before anything moves in or out of here,” I reminded her. “They got to clear away the wreck. They got to repair the track. I’ll figure out a way to get us home. We’re owed.”

  “Watch out for that grigori,” Maddy said, just as I was turning away. “Trust him or not, you know he bears watching. And that woman, that Harriet Ritter, and her sidekick. Those two are wrong.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open,” I said. I was glad she hadn’t noticed the wedding ring. I gave her a final wave before I followed Eli out to the main hall.

  Maddy was right to think the man and woman we’d met on the train had a lot they should tell me … if they would. But tracking down Harriet Ritter and Travis Seeley wasn’t at the top of my list.

  First we needed to visit Rogelio, and then we had to track down Jake’s body, since I’d been so stupid I hadn’t gone through his pockets.