Текст книги "Dreadnought"

Автор книги: Cherie Priest

Соавторы: Cherie Priest
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

“Such an optimist you are,” murmured Theodora Clay, who replaced the lid on the crate Mercy had abandoned, then agreeably followed her back up to the ceiling and out onto the car’s roof.

Once they were topside, the two women mashed and heaved the hatch back into its sealed position and began their tricky trip back the way they’d come. Mercy grumbled, “That stink is going to stay with me all day. I bet it’s all in my clothes, and in my hair.”

“Don’t be silly. All this fresh wind will blow it right out of you.”

“I think I’m going to heave my lunch.”

“I pray you’ll restrain yourself,” Theodora Clay said, urging Mercy back down the first ladder, then up the next.

On top of the caboose, they scooted and dragged themselves forward, working against a soft breeze that came at their faces with more snow and tiny flecks of ice. Their silence was complete enough that they came down on the other side at the last passenger car, climbed inside, and breathlessly stomped their feet to warm them without anyone seeing them.

Relieved and shaken, Mercy escaped her companion and holed up in the washroom, since there were almost no passengers left and no one would be waiting for her to finish. She spent ten minutes unfastening her hair and shaking it, trying to air it enough so that when the locks brushed up against her face she didn’t smell the miasma of the rearmost car. Then she washed her hands, face, and neck.

By the time she’d dragged herself back to her seat, the crews were wrapping up the last of their work and the train was being reboarded by the soldiers, porters, and engineers who would carry them the rest of the way west. Outside her window Mercy saw Horatio Korman talking with the captain, their faces leaning together conspiratorially. She also saw two of the captain’s underlings shaking their heads as if they couldn’t believe that the two men weren’t fighting to the death on the spot.

When Mercy saw that the ranger was about to board, she hurried over to the front door, hoping for a chance to ask him what he’d learned at the stop. But when she got there, she found the two Mexican inspectors, who had also been watching the captain and the Texian with a mixture of nervousness and uncertainty.

Inspector Galeano stopped her and asked, “Do you think they’ll make us leave the train? We’re so close. We only need to make it to the next stop,” he said.

She said, “No, nobody’s going to make you leave the train. They’re just talking out there, and believe me, they ain’t friends. I’m going to try and have a word with the Texian myself in a minute, if you’ll excuse me.” Then the car door opened and the man in question stepped in.

Ranger Korman paused to see Mercy speaking with the Mexicans. He tipped his hat and said, “Mrs. Lynch,” then, to the other men, “Fellas. How about the four of us sit down here for a spell?”

Mercy was so surprised, you could’ve knocked her over with a feather. The car was otherwise unoccupied, so it took no great feat to seat everyone in one of the sleeper compartments for the illusion of privacy. Mercy sat beside the ranger, and they both faced the inspectors.

She asked him, “Did you get your telegrams? Did you really share them with the captain?”

“I got them, yes. And I shared most of them, just like I promised.”

Inspector Portilla said, “I don’t understand.”

The ranger waved his hand. “We might be on the verge of finding your missing people.”

“That is what we hope!” Portilla replied.

Galeano asked, “Was that your mission, too, upon this train? We could’ve spoken sooner.”

Korman said flatly, “No, we couldn’t have, but, yes, it pretty much ismy job to find out what’s been happening. Now, you and me,” he indicated the pair of them and himself, leaving Mercy out of the equation for the moment, “we’re all men working for our governments. Mygovernment didn’t have anything to do with what happened to your men, and yourgovernment didn’t have anything to do with it. So we’ve got a problem on our hands: the kind that can blow up into open war, because everybody’s pointing fingers. And if there’s one thing Texas don’t need right now, it’s another front to keep track of, do you hear me?”

The inspectors exchanged a glance and nodded. “Your support of the southern cause-”

“Is irrelevant to this conversation,” he interjected. “Except for how those stubborn jackasses are still bound and determined to take this train. You and me, we don’t want them to take this train. We want them to leave this train alone, so that we can all find our ways to our destinations. Can we agree on that much?”

Everyone nodded, and Inspector Galeano asked, “Why are they so determined to stop this train? I know that the engine is a war device, but we are nowhere near any of the war fronts.”

“Gold,” said the ranger. “Tons of it. She’sseen it,” he said, cocking a thumb at Mercy.

Somewhere outside, the conductor made the formal declaration that all should come aboard, and the engine’s whistle belted out its piercing note, punctuating the conversation strangely. They sat together in awkward silence as soldiers and porters followed directions and came back onto the train, bustling back and forth through the aisles as they came and went to their stations.

When the train finally jerked itself forward in the first tentative steps toward moving, Inspector Portilla spoke again. “The army won’t part with the gold. We cannot suggest that they leave it behind so the Rebels will leave the train alone.”

The ranger pointed a finger at him and said, “You’re right. I thought of that myself. I don’t mind telling you that I even thought of doingit myself-if everything important was tied up in that rear car, I might have cut the thing’s couplers and ditched it along the track, somewhere before we hit the mountain pass. I don’t mean to disrespect anybody’s war dead, but in this instance, the problems of the living ought to take precedence.”

Mercy said, “But the gold’s up front, and they’re still coming, aren’t they?”

To which the ranger replied, “Yeah, they’re still coming. The Shenandoahis burning up track, trying to beat this machine to the pass.”

“The . . .” Inspector Galeano struggled to wrap his English skills around the word. “Shenandoah?”

“It’s a train. Or it’s an engine,” Horatio Korman explained. “It’s a damn fast one, too-one of the fastest the ’federates have pulling for them. We designed it and outfitted it in Houston a couple of years ago, and it’s been running the cracker line back and forth through Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia ever since. She’s a V-Twin runner; the first of her kind, but not the last. And the engine system gives the thing a real boost, sending her gliding along the tracks like she’s barely touching them.”

“Can it catch us?” Mercy asked.

“In my opinion?” The ranger lifted his hat up with one finger and scratched a spot under its rim. “ Maybe. And if they beat us to the pass, they’ll dynamite the tracks to keep us. They know that most of the civilians are off the train now, and they figure anyone left is fair game. That’s the friendly warning Jesse gave me, anyhow. They’re going to come at us hard.”

“For money,” she said, as if she could hardly believe it of her own kinsmen.

To her surprise, Horatio Korman said, “No. That’s not the whole of it. There’s plenty your captain friend left out of his story. There’s more going on in that front car than plain old money. That deed you pulled, do you remember it?”

“Sure I do.”

“It was blank, and you know why? Because they don’t know who they’re going to give it to yet. They’re taking this load along the coast and down through California, recruiting all the way.”

Inspector Portilla asked with a frown, “They are going to buy soldiers?”

“They’re gonna try.”

“But folks out West,” Mercy said, “they don’t give a damn about what’s going on back East. Who in their right mind, all settled someplace quiet and safe, would go to war for a few dollars and a few acres of land?”

The ranger brightened, pointing at her now, because she’d asked exactly the right question. “I’ll tell you who: Chinamen.”

Mercy and the inspectors sat up and back in surprise. “Chinamen?” she asked.

“Chinamen,” he confirmed. “Out on the West Coast, they’ve got ’em by the thousands. By the tens of thousands, and counting-and they don’t want them there, that’s a sure fact. Some places even done passed laws to keep them from bringing their women and children here, that’show much they want to be rid of them.”

Inspector Galeano leaned forward again, steepling his fingers as he braced his elbows on his knees. He said, “The West doesn’t want its Chinamen, and the East wants more soldiers. The Chinamen want to stay here as citizens, and the Union can make them citizens.”

“They’re the only folks on the coast who might be able to be bought,” the ranger said. “And there’s a surplus of ’em, and they’ll do just about anything for a little respect. That’s what the Union’s offering them. Thirty acres and start-up capital for farming, out in the middle of noplace where they won’t bother no one but the Indians. Once they’re out there, they can fight each other or make best friends, for all the shit the Union gives. I don’t expect the government has thought that far ahead, to tell you the truth.”

“You’re probably right,” Mercy mused. “It’s a bold plan, though. If it works.”

“As you can guess, the Rebs would just as soon it doesn’twork. I can hardly blame them; and I sympathize with their plight, I really do; but I don’t know what to tell them.”

“What will you do if they take the train?” Mercy asked. “You’re not going to fight them, are you?”

He said, “No,” and then, as casually as if he were telling her what he had for breakfast, he said, “If they blow up the tracks and we don’t stop, I’ll die like everybody else, like as not. But if they cut us off and we’re able to halt ourselves in time, well . . . I sent word along to Bloody Bill’s old crew that I was still riding the train. I also mentioned that there was a woman here who they ought to look out for. I meant you,but I wasn’t real specific.” The ranger gave her a look that implied he’d told them she was a Confederate nurse, but he wasn’t going to air that extra bit in front of the inspectors. “As for you fellas, I don’t think they’d bother you none. You’re obviously not Yankees, so if you keep your head low and wait out the trouble, I bet you’ll mostly be all right, no matter how it falls.”

Mercy said, “Thank you, I think.”

“You’re welcome. Anyway, here’s why you boys are in on this talk,” he said to the inspectors. “The Rebs have told me they think they’ve seen your troops, and they’re scared just plain shitless, if you catch my speaking.”

The inspectors made noises indicating that yes, they got the unpleasant gist of shitless.

“They’ve made it way far north, fellas. They’re well outside of everybody’s jurisdiction now-mine, yours, the U.S. government’s. We’re so far gone from Texas, or any part of any state that might have been Texas, or might be Texas one day, that it’s just plain ludicrous. Nobody but those oddball Mormons are in charge out there, and they’re just barely afloat. But those troops are definitely working their way through Utah. When we leave this train, you fellas and me, I want us to make some kind of arrangement.”

“What kind of arrangement?” asked Inspector Portilla.

“A gentleman’sarrangement. Which is to say: I don’t like you, and I don’t want to be your friend any more than you want to be mine. But somebody’s got to vouch for each of us, you get me? When we find out what’s going on, I can’t have you accusing my government of something it didn’t do, and you won’t have me accusing your government of something it didn’t do, either. We’ll sort this out, make a statement, agree on it, and present it to both sides so nobody gets all up in arms about it, however the cards fall.”

After a few brief seconds of consultation in Spanish, the inspectors decided they were amenable to this and offered their hands. They shook on it. Then Horatio Korman told them, “I’ve got the latest rough estimate of the mob’s position. When we get off the train at Salt Lake City, we’ll go out there together and see what we can find out. It looks to me like they’re too damn close for comfort, if they’re . . .” He hesitated, then said, “. . . sick, or whatever they are. They’re coming up on cities, and people. Bigger places than they met out in West Texas.”

Inspector Galeano said, “And the more people they meet, the more the trouble grows. Yes, Ranger Korman,” he said, using the formal title like he’d known it all along. “Your terms are reasonable. And you are right: If we do not sort this out together, there could be more war, based on misunderstanding. And I will not have it on my watch.”

“Nor I on mine,” said the Texian. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a little chat with the nurse here in private.”

The inspectors made polite excuses and withdrew, ostensibly to the caboose, leaving Mercy and Horatio Korman alone in the deserted sleeper car. She rose and took the seat across from him, so they could face each other more directly.

He said, “This is the part where you tell me what you were up to an hour ago, when I saw the edge of your pretty blue cloak fluttering on top of the caboose. Gave me a hell of a start.”

“Mr. Korman!” she exclaimed.”

“Don’t play dumb with me; it’s too late for that. What’d you turn up back there? What did you and . . . Was it that uppity Yankee woman? That Clay woman, riding with her auntie?”

Mercy sighed and did not argue, which he took for a yes.

“What were the two of you doing up there, if not heading up and over, into that rear car? What did you find?”

“It was heridea. And we found bodies,” she told him. “And drugs.”

“Bodies? Drugs? Well, I guess I already knew about the bodies-”

“No, Ranger Korman, I don’t think you understand. All of this is tied up together. Your missing Mexicans; the dead men in the back of the train; the army scientist who’s off his rocker, scaring everyone away from the caboose exit with his Winchester . . . All of this is part of the same thing; I can feel it in my bones,” she said.

And then she told him the rest.

Seventeen

The first few days of the ride to Salt Lake City were tense and dark, overshadowed by a cluster of clouds that never quite dropped snow but never quite went away, either. The train rolled, darkened and patched, along the rails and out of the prairies and plains of the Midwest, climbing in and around the edges of the Rockies, and then up, and around, and through the narrow places and the frightening black tunnels. Gradually the train took on elevation. Sometimes the going was easy and the train chugged with something like merriment, as if it were a dog being taken for a swift sprint around a yard. But sometimes when the sky hung low and the train’s course took it higher up against the clouds, every firing of every piston felt like a horrendous chore that it didn’t wish to perform.

In Denver, the Dreadnoughthad experienced the addition of a piece of equipment that looked like it’d been forged in hell.

This new addition was a snowplow fixture as large as a small cabin, designed to replace the pilot piece in case of a storm-or, worse yet, in case of an avalanche across the tracks. The snowplow was circular and made of reinforced steel and cast iron, of such a size that four or five people could’ve stood within its opening. But inside the circular frame it was fitted with hundreds of interlocking and overlaying blades, angled to move snow, rocks, or anything else that was unfortunate enough to land within its path. It looked less like something made to move snow than something designed to bore tunnels in rocks . . . or process entire herds of cows into ground beef.

Every once in a while, often in the very deepest part of the night when things were the quietest, Mercy could hear something whistle or whisper among the mountain peaks and across the wide, blue lakes that met between them. So far away, and she could hear it faintly but sharply. It made her think of the prick of a pin left inside a dress after alterations: sudden, bright, and small, but faintly alarming.

One time, upon seeing that her car-mate was still awake, Theodora Clay blinked sleepily and asked out loud, “What on earth is that noise?”-but not so loudly that any of the few travelers around her, all the remaining civilians, would awaken.

Mercy murmured, “I couldn’t say.”

“It sounds like another train.”

“It might be, someplace far off. There are other tracks, here through the mountains. Other paths.”

Miss Clay yawned and said, “Yes, I suppose. They must all feed together for a while, until the pass at Provo.”

“What’s so special about the pass at Provo?” Mercy asked.

Miss Clay said, “Supposedly it’s the only spot where the mountains are passable for hundreds of miles in either direction. All the railroads have made bargains, deals, arrangements; however it works. Everything going west goes through that pass, except the rails that run from Chicago to the coast, and the ones that go through New Orleans, through Texas. I expect it will be impressive. All those tracks, side by side. Crowded into one stretch like that. I wonder how long it runs.”

And then they slept. In the morning, there was breakfast in the caboose with the inspectors, who never seemed to sleep, but always seemed very, very watchful. After the inspectors had retired with their coffee, Miss Clay put in an appearance. She seemed to have a special sense for when the foreign men would be absent, so she could “eat in peace,” as she put it.

Mercy privately thought that it was very like a Yankee, to go to war over the rights of people whom you’d rather die than join for tea. But in the name of peace, she kept this to herself.

Malverne Purdue also kept to himself, in that corner beside the caboose’s rear exit. He’d become a fixture there, a signpost of a man whose duty was only to declare, “No trespassing,” and threaten to enforce it with the Winchester across his knees. By and large, he was ignored, except when one of the porters would ask him about a meal, or Oscar Hayes would arrive to relieve him for a few hours of sleep.

Mercy could see him from the corner of her eye while she sipped her coffee, which she liked a bit better than the tea, all things being equal.

Theodora Clay could see Purdue, too, though she went to great and chilly pains to pretend otherwise. If ever she’d once looked at him with a kindly eye, the world wouldn’t have known it now. A reasonable observer might’ve assumed that there had been some kind of falling out between them, but Mercy figured that Miss Clay was only keeping her gaze clear lest her eyes reveal something of their adventure in the rearmost car.

Tea came and went, and with it the dull daily routine of life aboard the train rolled on, every bit as monotonous as the tracks beneath the wheels. Mercy missed the two easy virtue girls who’d taught her how to play gin rummy; but they were gone, and even if Miss Theodora Clay had owned a deck of playing cards, Mercy wasn’t entirely sure she would’ve liked to play.

Soldiers patrolled the three remaining passenger cars, from the gold-filled car up behind the fuel cars to the caboose, where a scowl from Malverne Purdue ended the circuit before it could reach the refrigerated compartment. Down to a man, they were tense and unhappy, all of them listening, always listening, for the hoot of a train whistle coming up along the tracks to meet them-trying to beat them-to the pass, beyond which there was no reasonable way for one train to sabotage another. On the far side of the pass, the rails went their separate ways once more; so if they weren’t caught before sprinting that span (which Captain MacGruder had told her was nearly thirty miles long), the odds of them being affected by the engine of southern origin were virtually none. If the Shenandoahdidn’t blow up the tracks by then, the Rebs would be out of luck.

Mercy didn’t think to wonder what had happened to the doctor until someone mentioned that he’d debarked in Denver, same as almost everyone else. This peeved Mercy greatly. No military regiment, legion, group, or gathering ever went anyplace near danger without a medical professional in their midst, or at least that’s how it ought to go. And the truth was, even if Mercy had been a proper doctor with a proper doctor’s training and experience, she had only her small satchel filled with basic equipment at her disposal. Anything much more serious than a broken bone or a bad cut could only be managed, not treated.

She felt alone, in the middle of everybody-even the other civilians who hunkered in the center passenger car and read books or played cards or sipped out of flasks to pass the time. She was the only medical professional of any sort on board, which meant that every stubbed toe, every rheumy eye, and every cough gravitated her way for analysis and treatment. It was the nature of the beast, she supposed, but even these small ailments did little to punctuate the wary boredom.

No one ever really nodded off anymore.

No one ever really paid full attention to the books, or the cards, or the vest-hidden flasks; no one enjoyed the passing scenery as the black-and-white mountains scrolled past and the freezing waterfalls hung along the dynamited cliffs like icicles off a gutter. No one listened with both ears to any of the chatter, or the rolling, pattering passage of the train. Everyone kept one ear peeled for the sound of another whistle splitting the icy air.

And finally, on the fourth day, they heard it.

It squealed high and sharp.

The whistle blew again, and the echo bounded around between the boulders and the tiny glaciers that slipped with monumental slowness down the perilous slopes.

And everyone seized up tight, hearts clenching and unclenching. One by one, everyone rose and went to the south side of the train, from whence the noise had come. And soon, all the faces on board-except perhaps the determined and devilish Malverne Purdue, and maybe the conductor, up front and invisible-were pressed up against windows that could not have been colder if they’d been sheets of ice instead of glass. Everyone breathed freezing fog against the panes, wiping it away with gloved hands or jacketed elbows. Everyone strained to hear it again, hoping and praying the first shriek had been a mistake, or had only been a friendly train, passing on some other track on the approach to the pass at Provo.

Norene Butterfield groped at her niece’s arm and asked, “How far are we from the pass?”

And Miss Clay said, without taking her eyes off the smudged, chilled window, “Not far. We can’t be far.”

“And once we get to the pass, we’re safe, aren’t we?”

But Miss Clay did not answer that part. She didn’t exchange the knowing glance Mercy shot her either, even though both of them knew good and well that the pass was a death trap if both trains were penned within it simultaneously. Only on the far side would they find anything like safety.

Mercy climbed down from the seat upon which she’d been kneeling, and whirled into the aisle. Horatio Korman had been hanging about in the third passenger car, and the captain had been hanging about in the first one-or else, in the car with the gold, from which she’d been specifically forbidden from entering again unless directly ordered otherwise. With this in mind, she turned to the right and headed for the rearmost door, opening the latch and dousing the steam-warmed car with a torrent of frigid wind. She shut the door as fast as possible, tugging her cloak up around her head and pulling it tight over her ears, trying to filter out the worst of the blizzard as she felt about for the rail and the platform space over the coupler. She moved to the next car easily, despite the temperature and the wind that felt strangely dry, as if it belonged someplace hellishly hot and not this winter place covered in snow.

In the third car, she found a sight similar to the one in the second, where she’d left Miss Clay and Mrs. Butterfield-except here, most of the faces pressed to the windows belonged to men in uniforms. Horatio Korman stood against the far wall alone, arms folded. He glanced up at Mercy when she came blasting in, accompanied by the weather, and he gave her a frown that told her to shut the door, already.

She did so and approached him, cheeks flushed from even that brief exposure, and hands shaking despite her gloves. She said, “Is it them, do you think?”

“Yeah, I think it is.”

“Can they catch us?” she asked for what must’ve been the hundredth time.

He sucked on his lower lip, or on the gobbet of tobacco he undoubtedly stored within it. Then he reached for a window, lowered it, and spit quickly before closing it again. His mustache ruffled and his hat pushed back by the wind, he shook his head slowly and said, “Not ‘can they?’ but ‘when will they?’ We’re less than five miles from the pass, and once we’re in, it’s cliff face straight up and down, on both sides of the rails-an expanse that runs maybe a quarter mile wide, with about twelve sets of tracks running through it.”

Mercy tried to imagine it: a frozen corridor like a tremendous wagon track in the snow, with no way up or out to the left or right, no way to back up and go around, and a race to get through to the other side.

He said, “If we’re lucky, they’ll only trail us. They can shoot at the train’s rear car all day-ain’t nobody inside there gonna give a shit. Or if we’re lucky another way, they’ll be stuck on some track far over to the south, far enough that they’ll be hard-pressed to do us too much damage, because they won’t be close enough, even if they manage to pull up alongside us.”

Pierce Tankersly turned away from his window and asked the ranger, “And what if we’re notlucky? What then, Texian? What will they do?”

“If we’re not lucky?” He adjusted his hat, bringing it back down low enough that he could’ve grazed it if he’d lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “They’ll overtake us, and muck up the tracks, just like they promised.” Tankersly gave him a quizzical look implying the soldier knew precious little about trains, so the ranger clarified. “If they blow the tracks up there, this train will go off the rails. Literally. Most of us’ll probably die on impact. Some of us might live to get shot, or freeze to death.”

The private said, “Then what are you standing over here for, man? They may be your allies on the map, but you’ll get killed same as us if they manage to undo the Dreadnought! Take up a position-hell, go find the captain and see where he’d like an extra man.”

But Korman said, “No. I can’t do that. I won’t shoot at my own fellows, or fellows that mightbe mine. I wouldn’t do it even if I thought it’d make a lick of difference to whether or not they take this train. That just ain’t how it works, junior. And if the shoe were on the other foot, you’d probably treat the situation just the same.”

“It doesn’t matter what foot what shoe is on. I’d fight for my life, regardless!” the young man said.

The ranger replied, “Well, all right, maybe I’m wrong. But I’m notfighting for my life. There’s nothing I could do to slow down that train, and not much you could, unless you want to go up to our front cars and run those weapons she’s pulling down. Otherwise, best I could hope to do is keep them out of the passenger car. I don’t know how many of them are dumb enough to try to board us like a pirate ship moving at ninety miles an hour, but I’m willing to bet the answer is none too many.”

Closer, definitely closer, the whistle blew again-shaking the sheets of ice that hung off the mountain.

Tankersly said, “What the hell is wrong with you, man? What if they do board us? What if, somehow, they stop us and you survive it-then what?”

“Then nothing,” he replied, as easy as thanking the porter for a cup of coffee. “They know I’m on board, and they won’t shoot me.”

“Then maybe someone should!” The private swung his revolvers around and pointed both at the ranger, who didn’t move a muscle.

He only said, “You? You want to shoot me? I guess you could, and I could even see where it might make sense to you. But keep this in mind: I could’ve taken you down one by one, throwing your corpses overboard without thinking twice about it. For the last five minutes I’ve had a nice fat shot at a whole row of you dumb sons of bitches, all of you with your backsides ripe for the aiming at. But I didn’t shoot you, because I ain’t got no problem with you. I’d like to see you succeed. I’d like to make it to Salt Lake City in one piece, and killing you off won’t do anything to help me reach that goal.”

He looked like he wanted to spit again, but maybe he was out of tobacco, or maybe he didn’t want to pull down the window and get another blast of cold air in the face. “Hell,” he said instead. “I’ve said it since I got on board, and I’ll keep saying it until I get let off or get thrown off: I’m not here to fight against you,on behalf of the Confederacy or the Republic or anybody else. Y’all leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone, like I’ve left you alone all this time. And that’s the best offer you’re going to get from me.”

Somewhere beyond the window, the whistle blew again. Even Tankersly looked over his shoulder, sensing it was close. And since the ranger hadn’t drawn, and hadn’t budged, the private reluctantly turned away. But he said, “I’m watching you, Korman.”

To which the ranger said, “Knock yourself out. Maybe I’ll do a little dance.”

Mercy turned away from the conversation and went to a spare square of window in order to see outside. At first she thought the glass was going opaque from too many eager breaths being puffed upon it, but then she realized that the visibility was shrinking from outside, not within. A dusting of snow billowed down through the pass-which she could see, just barely, because of the way the track bent ahead and showed her the curve of the train.

There it was: a gap cut between the mountains. At this distance, it looked immense, though she knew that the ranger must be right, and it couldn’t be any wider than a quarter of a mile. Feeding into it were about a dozen tracks, all lined up side by side so they made a pattern of stripes squeezed into the narrow corridor.