Authors: Katherine Webb
“Well, what?”
“Well, Dinny’s here,” I tell her.
1902
T
he journey from New York to Woodward in Oklahoma Territory was a long one, covering a distance of nearly two thousand miles. State after state rolled out beneath the train, ever westwards. At first, Caroline was awed by the scene beyond the window. As they left behind the familiar towns of New York State, settlements became fewer and further between. They passed through woods so thick and dark that they seemed to belong to another age, closing the train in for mile after countless mile. They passed through fields of wheat and corn no less vast, no less astonishing; and towns that grew smaller and smaller, as if compressed by the wide expanses of land all around them. Beside the tracks in one station, rough dwellings had been built and children were playing, running alongside the train, waving, begging for pennies. With a start, Caroline saw that their feet were bare. She waved to them as the train eased away again, and turned to look back as their fragile homes shrank into miniature, and the land yawned away on either side. It was truly untamed, she thought, this land to the west. Men lived upon it, but they had not yet shaped it; not in the way they had shaped New York City. Caroline sat back in her seat and studied the distant purple hills with a pull of unease, feeling the once mighty train to be a mere speck, an insect crawling across the endless surface of the world.
By the time Caroline changed trains for the third and final time, at Dodge City in Kansas, she was heavy with fatigue and stale in her clothes. Her stomach felt hot and empty because the picnic Sara packed for her had run out a day and a half ago; Sara, who could not conceive of a journey so long that a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs, an apple and a pork pie would not be provisions enough. Caroline joined fellow passengers for lunch at El Vacquero, the Harvey Hotel beside the tracks in Dodge City. It was a brand new, brick building, and Caroline took this as proof of the new wealth and stability of what had recently been frontier land. She looked around discreetly, too curious about her surroundings to resist.
The unmade street outside thronged with people and ponies and buggies and wagons, making a muted noise quite unlike that of a New York street. Saddle horses were lined up along the hitch racks, resting their rumps on one tipped-back hoof. The reek of slurry was strong, drifting over the town from the nearby stock pens, and it mixed oddly with food smells and the hot bodies of people and animals. Confused, Caroline’s stomach did not know whether to rumble or recoil. Men sauntered by with pistols strapped to their hips, their shirts untied at the throat, and Caroline stared at them in amazement, as if they had walked straight out of legend. Her heart beat hard with nervous energy and her throat was dry. For one instant, she almost missed Bathilda’s indomitable presence at her side; missed having the barricade of her respectability to hide behind. Ashamed, she straightened her shoulders and reread the menu card.
The restaurant was busy with the lunch crowd, but a crisp girl in a neat uniform soon served her; bringing out consommé with vermicelli, and poached eggs, and coffee.
“Are you travelling far, miss?” a man asked her. He was sitting two seats away along the table, and he smiled and leaned toward her, so that she colored, shocked to be spoken to so casually. The man was unshaven and his coat cuffs were shiny.
“To Woodward,” she said, unsure whether she should introduce herself before speaking, or indeed if she should speak to him at all.
“Woodward? Well, you’ve not too far to go now, I guess, considering how far you’ve come already—New York, if I can tell by your accent?” He smiled again, wider now. Caroline nodded quickly and concentrated on her eggs. “You got family there you visiting? In Woodward I mean?”
“My husband,” Caroline replied.
“Your husband! Now that’s a crying shame. Still, lucky this place has opened up now, isn’t it? The Fred Harvey place before this was in a boxcar on stilts! Did you ever see such a thing back east?” he exclaimed loudly, and Caroline tried to smile politely.
“Ah, leave the girl alone, Doon. Can’t you see she wants to eat her lunch in peace?” This was another man, sitting next to the first. He had an ill-tempered look, deep creases around his eyes. He had combed his hair fiercely to one side and there it remained, held fixed by some substance or other. Caroline hardly dared look at him. Her cheeks blazed.
“Beg pardon, missus,” the first man mumbled. Caroline ate with unseemly haste and returned to the train with her hands tucked into her fox-fur muffler, in spite of the warmth of the weather.
The country after Dodge City was wide and sparsely punctuated. Mile after gently featureless mile of prairie rolled by as the train now turned southward on the Santa Fe line. Caroline slouched in her seat and longed to loosen her stays. Too tired to keep a ladylike posture, and since she was alone in the compartment, she tipped her head against the glass and stared into the endless, eggshell sky. The horizon had never been as wide, as flat, as far away. Gradually, the mighty span of it began to give her a slippery feeling like vertigo. She had expected to see snow-capped mountains, emerald fields of farmland, and quick rivers running. But the earth looked hot and exhausted, just as she felt. She took her copy of
The Virginian
from her bag instead and fancied herself like Molly Wood, fearlessly cutting her home ties, boldly heading to a new life in an unknown land. After a while, though, she stopped feeling like Molly Wood and started to feel afraid again, so she thought of her husband, waiting for her at Woodward, and while this seemed to slow the train and prolong the interminable journey, it did at least reassure her.
The train arrived at Woodward late in the day, as the sun began to set smeared and orange against the dusty window glass. Caroline had been dozing when the conductor strode past her compartment.
“Woodward! Woodward the next stop!” His shout woke her, sent her heart skittering. She gathered her things and stood up so quickly that her head spun and she had to sit back down again, breathing deeply.
Corin
, was all she could think. To see him again, after so many days! She peered eagerly out at the station as the train squealed to a halt, desperate to catch a glimpse of him. Catching her reflection in the glass, she hastily patted her hair into shape, bit her lips to redden them and pinched some color into her cheeks. She could not keep calm, could not keep herself from shaking.
She climbed stiffly from the train, her skirts clinging to her legs, feet swollen and hot in her boots. She looked up and down the wooden platform, her heart in her mouth, but could not see Corin among the handful of people quitting the carriages or waiting at the station. The train exhaled with a weary sound and crept toward a siding where a water tower bulked against the sky. A warm wind greeted her, singing softly in her ears, and sand on the platform ground beneath her feet. Caroline looked around again and felt suddenly empty, suddenly unbound, as if the next rush of wind might carry her off. She straightened her hat nervously, but kept her smile ready, her eyes searching. Woodward looked small and slow. The street leading into town from the rail track was wide and unmade, and the wind had carved tiny waves into the sand all along it. She could smell the tar on the station building, hot from the sun, and the pervading stink of livestock. She looked down, sketching a line in the grit with her toe.
As the locomotive moved away a new kind of quiet settled, behind the rattle of a passing buggy and the creak of the trolley as the station man pit his back against the weight of her luggage. Where was Corin? Doubts and fears bubbled up inside her—that he regretted his choice, that she was abandoned, would have to take the next train back to New York. She turned in a circle, desperate to see him. The station porter had paused with her luggage and was trying to catch her eye, to ask, no doubt, where he should take it. But if Corin was not here, Caroline had no idea. No idea where to go, where to stay, what to do. She felt the blood run out of her face and a rush of light-headedness spun her thoughts. For a terrifying moment, she thought she might faint, or burst into tears, or both. She took a deep, trembling breath and tried desperately to think what to do, what to say to the porter to conceal her confusion.
“Mrs. Massey?” Caroline did not at first register this as her name, spoken with a slow drawl. She ignored the man with his hat in his hands who had come to stand to one side of her, his body curved into a relaxed slouch. He looked to be about thirty, but the weather was wearing his face as it was fading the blue from his flannel shirt. His scruffy hair was shot through with strands of red and brown. “Mrs. Massey?” he asked again, taking a step toward her.
“Oh! Yes, I am,” she exclaimed, startled.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Massey. I’m Derek Hutchinson, but everybody around here calls me Hutch and I’d be happy if you would too,” he introduced himself, tucking his hat beneath his arm and holding out a hand, which Caroline shook tentatively, just with her fingertips.
“Where is Mr. Massey?” she asked.
“Corin was due back in time to come and get you, ma’am, and I know he sorely wanted to, but there’s been some trouble with cattle thieves and he was called upon to ride out and see to it . . . He’ll be back by the time we are, I’m sure of that,” Hutch said, seeing Caroline’s face fall. Tears of disappointment blurred her vision and she gripped her bottom lip in her teeth to halt them. Hutch hesitated, unnerved by her reaction.
“I see,” she gasped, swaying slightly, suddenly longing to sit down. Corin hadn’t come to meet her. In sudden terror, she began to guess at reasons he might have to avoid her.
Hutch cleared his throat diffidently and shifted his feet in an awkward manner. “I . . . uh . . . I know it truly was his wish to meet you here himself, Mrs. Massey, but when there are thieves to apprehend, it’s the duty of the landowners to help one another in that mission. I have come in his stead and I’m at your service.”
“It’s their duty to go?” she asked, tentatively.
“Absolutely. He was duty-bound to it.”
“Are you his . . . manservant, then?” she asked.
Hutch smiled and tipped his chin. “Well, not quite that, Mrs. Massey. Not quite that. I’m foreman at the ranch.”
“Oh, I see,” Caroline said, although she did not. “Well. Will we be there in time for dinner, do you think?” she asked, fighting to regain her composure.
“Dinner, ma’am? Tomorrow, do you mean?”
“Tomorrow?”
“It’s nearing on thirty-five miles to the ranch, from Woodward here. Now, that’s not far, but too far to make a start this evening, I think. There’s a room waiting for you at the boarding house, and a good dinner too, for you do look in need of a square meal, if I can be as bold as to say so.” He studied her tiny form and the pallor of her skin with a measuring eye.
“Thirty-five miles? But . . . how long will it take?”
“We’ll set out early tomorrow and we should get there by noon time on the second day . . . I had not reckoned on you bringing quite so many boxes and trunks with you, and that might slow the wagon down some. But the horses are fresh, and if the weather stays this fair it’ll be a good, smooth ride.” Hutch smiled, and Caroline rallied herself, finding a smile for him in return in spite of the weariness that even hearing about another day and a half of travel made her feel. Hutch stepped forward, proffering his arm. “That’s more like it. Come with me now and we’ll get you settled. You look fairly done in, Mrs. Massey.”
The Central Hotel on Main Street was managed by a round, sour-faced woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Jessop. She showed Caroline to a room that was clean if not spacious, while Hutch oversaw the switching of her luggage from the station trolley to the covered wagon that would take them on to the ranch. Mrs. Jessop scowled when Caroline asked for a hot bath to be drawn, and Caroline hastily produced coins from her purse to sweeten the request.
“Go on, then. I’ll knock on your door when it’s ready,” the proprietress told her, eyeing her sternly. The latch on the bathhouse door was flimsy and there was a knot in the wood through which a tiny glimpse of the hallway outside could be had. Caroline kept a careful eye on this as she bathed, terrified of seeing the shadow of a trespassing eye fall over it. The bath was shallow, but it restored her nevertheless. Blood eased into her stiff muscles and her sore back, and she rested her head at last, breathing deeply. The room smelt of damp towels and cheap soap. The last of the evening light seeped warmly around the shutters, and voices carried up to her from the street outside; voices slow and melodious with unfamiliar accents. Then a man’s voice sounded loudly, apparently right below the window:
“Why, you goddamned son of a
bitch
! What the
hell
are you doing here?” Caroline’s pulse quickened at such obscene language and she sat up with an abrupt splash, expecting at any moment to hear more cursing, or a fight, or even gunshots ringing out. But what she heard next was a rich guffaw of laughter, and the patting of hands against shoulders. She sank back into the cooling bathwater and tried to feel calm again.
Afterwards, she dried herself with a rough towel and put on a clean white dress for dinner, forgoing any jewels because she had no wish to outshine her fellow clientèle. Without Sara’s help her waist was a little less tiny, and her hair a little less neat, but she felt more like herself as she descended at the dinner hour. She looked around for Derek Hutchinson and, not finding him, enquired of Mrs. Jessop.