Once she found it, she smiled boldly across at him, bless her. She
had a fine smile, wide-mouthed, full of nice teeth. "Lydia Brown,"
she said as she reached forward.
They both leaned, her coming into the direct sunlight from the
window to offer her hand. She had large eyes, her salient feature. Big, round,
long-lashed eyes the color of honey. They were more than pretty, Sam decided as
he took her thin hand again in his; they were beautiful. He and she remained
connected like that across the space of the coach, wobbling together to the
rhythm of the road. He held her fingers longer than was cordial, enjoying again
how delicate they were. Soft, cool, smooth – this woman did no physical labor.
He enjoyed for a second longer how he, literally, held her off balance, then
let go, leaning back. "What do you do?"
She sat back deeper this time, into the corner of the seat.
"Do?"
"Yes, you sound cultured – is that rude to mention? And
you're traveling—"
"A lady's maid," she said quickly.
"Really?" He asked with wonder and delight.
He wouldn't say she was a bad liar. She wasn't. Anyone else might
have given her straightforward answers some credit. Just not a man who'd ridden
an hour and a half so as to get to a remote coach station so he could ride in
an extremely late, uncomfortable vehicle all the way across an English plain
that was as devoid of beauty as the inside of a rock.
"Yes, really," she told him, then looked out the window,
chewing her lip.
The vehicle jerked slightly. The carriage was picking up speed, if
that was possible. The horses complained, whinnying in excitement. They were being
driven too hard by someone who didn't have a good hand on them – something that
would take care of itself, Sam reasoned. The driver would have to slow down,
since the animals themselves couldn't keep this up.
He had to call to ask, "Who is in Bleycott?" He
remembered the name of the town from somewhere. It was her destination.
She pretended not to hear him, so he repeated the question.
She frowned for a second, then called back what she must have
thought would shut him up: "My husband."
She wasn't wearing a ring.
He puffed his lip, pulling his boot up to cross his knee, and
tapped his fingers on the leather. He looked at her, wondering what her real
story was and feeling a little bamboozled, since he'd told her his, lock,
stock, and shameful barrel.
He could think of no more inroads. They were at an impasse. While
the coach was becoming a giant pain in the backside, bouncing them around in
ways that promised bruises tonight. He watched her round shoulders bump against
the upholstery to the rhythm of the pounding horses' hooves. Her hand at the
strap held on so tightly her knuckles were white.
She lost her hold of it completely in the next instant, though, as
they were both thrown sideways – the carriage veered. Before they could brace
themselves, the wheels went off the road's shoulder and into a ditch. Sam
caught himself; Mrs. Brown did likewise, screeching at the top of her lungs.
They rattled along, racing at a catawampus angle before, miraculously, the
vehicle recovered itself, finding the road again. Lord, though, what a scare,
what a ride.
"That gosh-dang driver," he said. "The fellow up
there in the driver's box has more gin in him than good sense."
They didn't slow one bit.
Sam grabbed the top of the window frame then straightened his body
through the window, up and out, bellowing at their driver as he did. "Slow
down, you idiot!"
There was no answer, so he craned himself further out, hanging on
for dear life as he yelled louder. "You hell-bent, peanut-sized,
lizard-brained—"
His hair stood on end as, hanging outside the coach, he watched
it, with them in it, weave across the road then back – for all the world as if
no one drove them at all.
"Jesus," he breathed, then grabbed hold of the window
casement. He used his arms to leverage himself out the window to his hips.
"Hey!" he bellowed. "Hey!"
The driver was drunk, he told himself. Just drunk. Or deaf. Maybe
the fellow couldn't hear him for all the noise of the coach and road and
horses. Whatever the explanation, the vehicle veered again, all but throwing
Sam out the window.
Gosh-dammit. He hated what he was going to have to do. Bringing
his leg up, he hooked his heel into the window opening and heaved himself all
the way through it, twisting to hold on to the side of the coach. Outside, the
noise was blaring, all clatter and clamor and rasping, bouncing springs. It was
hard as the dickens to hold on as he climbed sideways along the vehicle. He
heart thudded as he inched his way toward the driver's box, each bump in the
road jarring him so hard he had to keep his teeth clenched to keep his jaw from
rattling or his teeth from biting his tongue. If he ever got a bead on that
driver, he'd shake him by the—
There was no driver.
Over the coach rooftop, Sam could see the whole of the bare seat.
There was no one to yell at.
Nothing else for it. Hanging off the coach, Sam continued his way
sideways like a crab toward the rail of the driver's box. The damn vehicle
leaned precariously, veering in the direction of his unbalanced weight. As they
headed for the ditch on the other side this time, he muttered curses and tried
to get a footing, his boots seeming to slip no matter what small leverage he
found. For a moment, both feet went and he hung by his hands, dangling like a
side of beef, swaying to and fro. Then a bump in the road swung him wildly
fro
,
away from the box, then enough
to
in the other direction that he got his
leg up and over, a kneehold on the rail of the driver's box.
He climbed over and sat down into the rocking seat. God only knew
how long it had been unoccupied.
At which point, the coach hit the far ditch, the one they'd missed
last time. The frightened horses swerved, taking the whole dang-blasted
carriage sideways with them. For an instant, as it turned sharply, the vehicle
only had contact with the road at two wheels. From inside, Mrs. Brown shrieked,
while Sam, if he hadn't had a good grip on the side rail, would have been
tossed from the helter-skelter vehicle as it descended straight down into the
ditch then all but overturned before it pitched its way back up and out.
Meanwhile, the reins, he realized, were dragging on the ground in
among twenty-four galloping hooves. Ah, hell, here was something he didn't want
to attempt. Yet even as he dreaded it, he'd already begun. He climbed down into
the harnesses, while, driverless and at the mercy of the stony moor and six
frenzied horses, the coach headed out onto open land, across the
Dartmoor
itself.
Sam had just managed to wrap a rein around his hand as, one foot
on the shaft, he clung backward to a harness saddle and the mane of a horse –
awkward
wasn't the word – when with a sudden whoosh and a rooster tail of water the
carriage suddenly came to a complete and surprising halt. Sam was thrown over
the top of the horses to land with a cold, wet splash into water. Of sorts.
He was dazed for a moment. Very quickly, though, he was aware that
he was up to his knees in bog scum. And sinking. For a few seconds there was
only the eerie sound of befuddled horses. They, too, struggled in mire. The
whole of the carriage and horses were caught in a kind of swamp. Into this
neighing, whinnying, and relative quiet, Mrs. Brown's voice called, tentative,
frightened. "Mr. Cody? Are you there? I can't get the door open."
The coach sat at a strange angle in the water. He realized not
only was he sinking in mud, but the carriage was inching down, taking Mrs.
Brown and the horses with it.
After few moments' struggle, he pulled himself up by the neck of
an uncooperative horse – the damn beast was so upset it tried to bite him. The
mud was silty and sucking, hard to fight. It took an age, it seemed, to lift
himself back and up through harnesses, poles, and over the break lever, then to
climb up onto the roof.
From there, he reached down and fought the bog for the door. Though
only a few inches of the door was underwater as yet, the muddy pressure was too
much.
"You'll have to use the window as I did," he told her.
"I can't get my foot up," she whimpered from inside.
"Give me your arms."
After a moment, two long, slender arms extended upward through the
window, while behind a horse screeched, then bellowed.
Sam leaned down, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Take
hold and let your feet climb through the window as I pull you."
He lifted, getting a grip around her back and waist as soon as he
could, and Mrs. Brown appeared through the window, disheveled but none the
worse for wear. She was wet and shaken – apparently the water had splashed
generously to the inside of the vehicle. She was probably bruised as well. But,
in fact, they would have both been fine, if only the carriage hadn't been
sinking beneath them.
He pulled her all the way up onto the coach roof.
Once she was safely deposited, he left her for a moment – with her
protesting – to climb forward, back down over the carriage toward the horses.
There, he took out his pocketknife and sawed till the small blade had cut
through the traces. Lighter now without the carriage taking them down, the
whole team struggled forward. The two lead horses seemed to be on firmer ground.
He hoped they could pull the rest out.
He turned his attention back to Lydia Brown, who sat folded onto
her knees and shaking on their unstable rooftop.
As he joined her again, he looked around. The bog was large and
covered in a thick layer of bright green moss. It lay like a blanket, broken
only around the area where the horses and carriage had sailed into it.
From the luggage rack of the rooftop, he unstrapped a long,
satchel-like case – it was more awkward than heavy, as if it had a fold-up
ironing board packed at the bottom. He lifted it over his head and heaved it
out across the marshy water.
"That's mine!" she yowled as it arced through the air.
To Sam's amazement, the bag hit with a slosh, bounced downward,
then bobbed back up. It remained where it landed, nestled in a cushion, a mat
of floating vegetation.
"The moss is thick," he decided, "and porous enough
to be buoyant. It's going to hold us." He hoped he was right.
Turning to Mrs. Brown, he said, "You're next."
"Ai-ai-ai—" she complained as he took hold of her and
glided her backward off the wet rooftop, dropping her, fanny first, onto the
thick, green quilt.
The moss promptly dipped at the edge where it had been cut through
by the coach. She slid down it partway into the water, her skirts soaked,
before she rolled, reaching, shrieking – and clinging by fistfuls of moss for
all she was worth.
Nothing like a little taste of mud and bog water to make a body
scurry. She managed to turn over and skittle forward, getting up onto her hands
and knees. Then a miracle: The lovely green pillow, quaking and shuddering
under her movement, became a buoyant surface for her crawl upon. There was a
path of it all the way across the mire to where he could see land, dirt,
blessed rocks. His idea worked. He almost couldn't believe it. Who would've
thought?
"Toward that rocky area," he called. "Where the
bright green dulls and looks drier. About twenty yards off, that's were it
ends."
A good, practical woman, if terrified, the good Mrs. Brown grabbed
up her skirts, hitching them into her bloomers (which were a lot fancier than
her outer clothes, a lot of lace and thin silk and ribbons; he was mesmerized
for a second), and began to crawl. Sam watched her silk bottom – two ivory-pink
moons with wet silk clinging to them – make its way out onto the bright,
velvety green float of vegetation. Under the circumstances, he thought maybe he
shouldn't have found her bottom pretty, but in fact it was downright
breathtaking. She had a dimple in over each buttock where it met the small of
her back. A neat, perfect matched set.
The skinny lady with the fine backside made her way, her hands up
to her wrists in water, her knees in puddles with each step, but she stayed
afloat and made progress. Sam could see her legs trembling.
"You're doing real well, darlin'," he called, then
corrected, "Mrs. Brown."
Behind him, he heard the horses make land in a frightened frenzy,
the sound of hooves on something harder than goshdamn mud and slime. Thank
God. Though, somewhat dishearteningly, he heard the ungrateful nags take off in
panic once their feet found traction. They galloped off.
No matter, he told himself. The horses'd settle down. He and the
lady could chase them once they got themselves sorted out.
Only then did he notice his knees were getting wet. The lowest
corner of the roof was going under.
Quickly, he set to relieving the coach of everything he could till
the last moment. The trunk in the boot was a lost cause, but he managed to lift
two strongboxes, a small and a large, from under the driver's box. He had just
tossed the larger, heavier one onto the bright green floating surface and
watched its corner tip – whatever was in it was unevenly balanced – cut into
the moss, and the whole thing drop into the dark underneath, when the entire carriage
gave a gurgle. He felt it drop suddenly under him.