“There,” said Omie, pointing again. Zoe looked closer.
“Zanzibar. I believe the weather is appallingly hot there, my darling.”
“Well, then, you pick where, Mama, only make sure it’s over the sea.”
“Very well.”
She stared at the globe. It began to spin, although no one was touching it. “Are you doing that?” Zoe asked.
“Yes … I haven’t done anything like it for such a long time. I wasn’t even trying to, Mama.…”
“Slow it down so I can see all the countries.”
The globe lurched to a clumsy stop and rocked a little on its polished wooden stand.
“I’ve always wanted to see England. Would that please you? The climate there is mild, and the people speak the same language as us.”
“It isn’t very far, though.”
“If you wanted to, we could go further, and see Europe.”
“Yes! Oh, Mama, when can we leave? Can we go tomorrow?”
“Not so soon as that, but as fast as we can. First we must go by train to New York, then book passage on a steamer for England.”
“No, a sailing ship!”
“Very well, a sailing ship if we can find one.”
“We can stay away till Papa misses us and says to come home.”
“Europe is further away than you might think. We would be gone for at least a year, or even longer.”
“I don’t care.”
Zoe realized that she did not care either.
The departure of mother and daughter from Glory Hole was sudden. Leo Brannan heard of it from his coachman, who had taken Zoe and Omie to the station. Paying his first call to Elk House in two weeks, Leo found a letter on the mantel shelf of his room, explaining in vague terms the itinerary the runaways intended following. Zoe made it clear she expected letters of credit to be made available for her to pick up in New York City prior to embarking for Liverpool. She allowed Leo a year or more in which to come to his senses. If he did not, she wrote, there would be an unseemly public dissolution of the marriage. Annoyed at the brusqueness of her tone, and the utterly unapologetic manner in which she had absented herself and Omie from his life, Leo tore the letter to pieces and flung it into the fireplace. He wondered, as he descended from Elk House, what Rowland Price and the Praetorians would have to say about it.
Traveling the broad valley between Leadville and Buena Vista, Zoe was aware of the staring directed at herself and Omie. She could not be sure if the passengers had recognized them as the wife and stepdaughter of Leo Brannan, and were confused to see such illustrious folk riding in a common car, or if they were simply unable to detach their eyes from the unusual sight of a one-armed woman and a blue-faced girl. Either way, it was an annoyance, but she revealed nothing of her feelings, preferring to stare right back at the starers until their gaze faltered and was turned away for several minutes, when curiosity brought about its return. Zoe had worn a heavy veil to guard against recognition, and saw now that it had been a waste of time.
In time, Zoe tired of matching looks with her neighbors, and sought distraction elsewhere. Omie seemed content to watch the country rolling by, but she had the advantage of the window seat. Zoe’s attention was drawn to the young man several seats away who had passed his eyes across them just once, then looked away, whether from politeness or sympathy she could not tell. The young man had recently shaved off his beard, the nose and cheeks being sunburned, the upper lip and chin pale. He appeared to be concentrating mightily on something in his thoughts, and his features changed subtly from moment to moment as he cogitated, granting him the look of a thinker. Zoe was convinced, simply by watching him, that the young man was both intelligent and troubled. She liked his face and form very much, and was reminded that her husband liked nothing about hers.
Closing her eyes, Zoe asked herself again if she was being bold or cowardly. If she had been asked for the truth at gunpoint, she would have admitted that her love for Leo had never been strong. It was not so much the loss of him that upset her, but his loss to a woman of such physical attraction. Zoe’s anger over Imogen Starr’s beauty was far more intense than her annoyance with Leo for having first neglected herself and Omie to concentrate on his shady doings with Rowland Price, and then abandoned them completely for the woman who paraded behind Zoe’s eyelids like a lovely ghost come to haunt her waking hours. She must hope that Leo would tire eventually of so exotic a companion and assume the duties of husband and stepfather in time for their return from Europe. If his lust was not played out by then, Zoe was fully prepared to divorce him and begin her life over again, as she had done before. With mysterious Omie by her side, she would not lack for the necessary strength.
The handsome young man was watching her as Zoe’s eyes opened, but his gaze was not intrusive. He smiled at her briefly, then looked out the window, his brow knitting as before. Zoe wished she could have sat beside him and talked of the things that caused him such an appearance of worry. Of course, she would do no such thing. Zoe allowed her eyes to close again. She was tired, having slept very little the night before their departure, and was looking forward to the arrival of night, so she might catch a little sleep in her seat. By morning they would be in Denver, where they would transfer to the Union Pacific line and continue east.
She opened her eyes again, fearful of nodding off and falling from her seat. The young man was gone. She looked around for him despite herself, but he was no longer in the car. The train was slowing down, but Zoe knew they were not yet anywhere near Buena Vista. Other passengers were becoming aware of the slowdown, and were craning their necks to see why.
“Mama, there are men on horses by the track.”
Now there was an undercurrent of murmured alarm inside the car as the brakes were applied and the train slid to a gradual stop. “The men are coming, Mama.” Zoe could see them herself, a half-dozen riders, all armed, their faces hidden by bandannas. “Robbers!” screeched a woman further down the car, and fainted dead away. The riders had dismounted and were boarding the train, two per car.
Zoe was in the lead car, immediately behind the baggage car attached to the tender and locomotive. One man stepped up onto the platform and came inside, but when he walked through the door from the platform, he was accompanied by another—the young man Zoe had so much admired. She thought at first he might have been a hostage to ensure the cooperation of the other passengers, but there was a pistol in his hand, and she felt a blow of disappointment to realize that it had been none other than he who had gone forward, probably over the roof of the baggage car, to point his weapon at the engineers and bring the train to a halt.
“Beg pardon, ladies and gents,” he said, “but we have to cause you a little delay this fine morning. I thank you in advance for your good sense in not reaching for concealed weapons, or otherwise risking life and limb. Reach instead, if you please, for valuables and cash, and when these have been collected to our satisfaction, we’ll be on our way. You first, sir, with that fine watch.”
The second man stood watch at the end of the car while his young partner worked his way along the aisle, cajoling jewelry and wallets from stone-faced passengers. Zoe was angry with herself for having misinterpreted his character so foolishly. When the young man smiled at her and proffered his hat, already brimming with loot, she glared frostily at him and said, “I have nothing of worth.”
“Oh, ma’am, that can’t be so. Think harder and I’ll bet you can recall a little something to surrender.”
“She won’t,” said Omie, and the young man was seen by others to become hesitant, presumably because he was unused to being defied in the course of a robbery by two such unusual females as these.
“Ma’am, come on now, I don’t have time to waste.”
“Your life is a waste,” Zoe told him.
“The ring, ma’am, it looks like gold from here.”
“Oh, you wish to steal my wedding band from me? That must certainly be easier than working for a living.??
?
“Ma’am, please …”
“Here, take it if you must.”
She thrust her left arm at him. The young man stared at the ring. Every other passenger who had lost rings had twisted them from their own fingers, but a one-armed woman obviously could not.
“Well?” Zoe challenged him.
Omie was staring at the Colt aimed at her mother, and nearby passengers observed that its muzzle began tilting upward in a series of tiny jerks. The young man was watching it himself, as if unable to understand why his own gun in his own hand should be doing such an unusual thing. Making a small sound of exasperation, he holstered his weapon and reached for Zoe’s ring.
“Shame,” muttered a woman nearby, and the young man stopped. It was then that Zoe noticed that the little finger was missing from his left hand.
“Get the hell moving, why don’t you,” said the man at the end of the car. “We ain’t got all day, goddammit.”
Drew backed away from his sister and niece with a smile and said, “Excuse me, ladies, I wasn’t thinking.”
He moved on to the next seat, and Zoe dropped her arm. Her heart was thudding in an alarming fashion, and she wished she could have hit the handsome young man with a cane or an umbrella for having disillusioned her with his fine and friendly eyes and beardless face. So great was her agitation, she was not aware when he left through the platform door at the far end of the car, and his companion turned and exited through the door he had guarded.
“They’re getting on their horses, Mama.”
Zoe looked through the window. Similar assaults on the other cars had been concluded, it seemed, and the robber gang was assembling to ride off with their takings. She searched for the young man, and thought she caught a glimpse of him behind a tall man with a feather in his hat, then the riders turned as one and set spurs to their horses, and were swallowed by dust as they rode for the western slope of the valley.
When Zoe and Omie reached New York they began looking through the newspapers for reports of the train robbery they had lived through, but found no mention of it. The Denver papers had included it in their evening editions before Zoe and Omie boarded a Union Pacific train and departed for the east. Apparently the story held little interest for New Yorkers, or else was already stale news, having occurred four days earlier. Instead, she found the front pages filled with news of the reward Leo had posted for the capture of the cannibal known only as Slade.
There were rehashed accounts of the Grand Mogul’s collapse and the eventual discovery of a miner’s gnawed remains. The hunt for Slade had been extended to most of the western states and territories, and there was talk of extending it nationwide, given the munificence of Leo Brannan’s reward. There were many illustrations of Slade, each of them depicting, with variations, a brute of a fellow with wildly flying hair and beard and a deranged look about the eyes; in one of the city’s less literate journals the picture actually suggested the man had fangs of a wolflike nature projecting over his lower lip. The reports simply confirmed for Zoe the great distance that had opened between herself and Leo in recent months. She had been given no prior inkling of his plans to boost the search for what the newspapers called the Colorado Cannibal.
Omie found the coverage fascinating. “Will they find him, do you think, Mama?”
“I couldn’t say, and frankly, Omie, I would prefer not to be reminded of anything we have left behind us.”
“He looks like the wild man from Borneo.”
“And will probably be pickled and put on display if they capture him, like a freak of nature.”
“Can we go see him if they do?”
“Omie, please! Now turn to the back pages for the shipping lists.”
After considerable searching, they determined that the schooner Acropolis was scheduled to depart for England in two days’ time. Zoe asked if Omie was still determined to go by sail rather than steam. “Yes,” said Omie.
“Have you … seen that we will arrive safely?”
“No, Mama; I haven’t seen anything lately. I don’t know if I can anymore.”
“Well, no matter. I’m sure the Acropolis is a sturdy vessel. We’ll book our passage first thing tomorrow.”
“Will there be pirates when we cross the ocean?”
“No, there will not. I daresay there are more train robbers in the country nowadays than there are pirates in the whole world. The most we will lose on our crossing will be our supper. Steamships are far more stable, Omie. Won’t you change your mind?”
“I want to see the sails flapping. Can’t I?”
“Very well, but don’t lay the blame at my door if you become ill.”
“Can we see all the lights tonight? There are so many!”
Omie had spent much of the time since dusk at the window of their hotel room, amazed by the gas and electrical lighting of New York.
“After dinner, yes, we’ll take a stroll.”
Their walk around lower Manhattan was a delight. Zoe, as a girl in Schenectady, had never been near the big city, and its towering buildings were like something from a fairy tale, its bustling crowds like some eastern bazaar, and the brilliant lighting in the streets a scientific marvel. They paused outside a theater marquee studded with what appeared to be hundreds of lights, a frame of electric radiance around a sign declaring: NOBLE BURGIN’S GREATEST THEATRICAL OFFERING—THE NATION’S MOST POWERFUL DRAMA—SEE IT HERE UNDER EXCLUSIVE PRESENTATION—“RED HELLIONS” OR “BROTHERS IN BLOOD”—A TRUE STORY OF OUR TIMES—YOU WILL BE SHOCKED OR YOUR MONEY WILL BE REFUNDED.
“Mama, I haven’t ever seen a play, have you?”
“No.”
“May we see this one? It must be ever so thrilling.”
“It sounds ghastly,” said Zoe, recalling reports of its debut in Denver, to scorching notices that did nothing but persuade the public to witness for themselves the outrageous bloodletting on stage that had so irked the critics. She bought two tickets anyway, and they went inside. Despite all the success Red Hellions had brought to himself and the Arcadian Players, especially since its transferal to New York, Noble Burgin was restless. The play had been penned almost a year ago, and his literary urges were again hounding him for release. As he applied makeup to his face for the evening performance, Noble could not help but wonder where he might possibly venture next, dramatically speaking. The very nature of the current success precluded any return to his former fare. He had established a bold precedent with his volatile mixture of mayhem and savagery, and was obliged to follow through, his current theatrical manager had advised, with another play of the same ilk. But where was the story to come from? The deadly redskins had been handed to Noble by way of the press, and his muse had seen instantly that it was the stuff of literary notoriety. His muse had not, however, seen fit to provide anything further, and Noble’s enjoyment of his newfound riches was diminished as a result. He knew this to be the proof that he was indeed a true artist, less concerned with profit than with authoring a drama to last down through the ages, as the best of the Greeks had done. Noble yearned to be placed alongside the geniuses of ancient times, but knew it was not possible until he wrote another masterpiece, the equal of Red Hellions.
There had been comments concerning his portrayal of Augustus Chillington, the youth who had unwittingly released Panther Stalking and Kills With a Smile upon the southwest. The critics were unkind in their condemnation of a middle-aged man (Noble blanched at this) acting the role of someone thirty years his junior. Noble thought it outrageous that attention should be drawn to the extent of his waistline and the contour of his jaw, when Art was the thing being offered for consideration, not youthfulness. What callow actor of Augustus’s age could possibly handle the delicacy of emotion that Noble conveyed, as realization that his childhood companions had become deadly killers of white settlers brought Augustus to a feverish resolve, and he swore on bended knee over the family Bible to avenge every unmerciful killing. No, it was a job for an experienced thespian, not some smooth-c
heeked newcomer, and Noble was not about to allow any wet-behind-the-ears usurper to steal his thunder away, even if Hortense and Marcie had both been henpecking him over the issue. “You are becoming a laughingstock,” his wife had said, and Marcie had been even more cruel. “When you rescue me from the burning stake,” she had said, referring to the climactic scene, wherein Augustus saved his bride-to-be from a fiery fate before dispatching the redskins with his pistol, “kindly do not squeeze me so hard against your belly, or the audience will not be able to see me. And your breath, Noble, has deteriorated of late.”
Noble was aware that Marcie, who in times gone by had permitted him various liberties about her comely person, no longer allowed such intimacy in shadowed corners and behind locked doors. She had made it known that she had eyes for Monty, the strapping stagehand who dreamed of becoming an actor himself someday, “The perfect type,” Marcie had hinted, “to play Augustus—beneath your masterly direction, Noble, of course.” The same suggestion had been made by Hortense, who saw Monty as a means of reclaiming her husband’s affections.
It was all becoming too much, Noble thought. He might consider surrendering the role, he admitted, if only he had some other project to occupy his attention. The writing of another play would fill this requirement admirably, but the necessary inspiration had not shone down upon him. He had tried many times to cudgel a suitable drama from his brain, but nothing came of it but a sense of frustration. Where was the story that would deliver him from his travails!
Noble’s mood suddenly brightened. He set down his paints and rushed to the door of his dressing room. “Johnny!” he called. “Johnny, my lad, where are you!” A boy of fifteen answered his call and came at a run. Johnny was the theater’s general factotum, its fetch-and-carry boy, and he was in awe of Noble Burgin. “Yessir, Mr. Burgin, sir?”
“Johnny, put wings upon your feet and bring to me without delay the evening editions.” He handed the boy ten cents. “You may keep the change if you return within five minutes. Now fly like the wind!”