Cherie Priest - Dreadnought

Captain Greeley saw Mercy watching the new Texian board and find his way to a room. He told her, “That Horatio. He’s a real piece of work, as they say.”

“How’s that?”

The captain shrugged, and lowered his voice just enough to ensure that everyone on deck would listen closely. “You may as well know: He’s a Ranger of the Republic.”

“That’s some kind of lawman, right?”

“That’s right.” He nodded. “I’ve known Ratio going on ten years now, and I’m glad to have him aboard. Not that the going’s been rough, because it surely hasn’t been. It’s been a smooth ride, wouldn’t you say, Mrs. Lynch?”

She said, “Yes sir.”

“But sometimes the trips aren’t so easygoing; and sometimes, the passengers aren’t so easygoing either. I don’t mind telling you, I think that having a woman on board might’ve had a . . . a civilizing effect on some of the lads.”

“Now don’t you go blaming a boring river run on me, ” she said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it! But it’s a given: without you there’d have been more drinking, more fussing, and more cardplaying . . . which means more fighting, almost definitely. I know you’re leaving next stop, and I won’t hold that against you, but I hope Horatio stays aboard awhile. He’ll keep me out of trouble. I’d hate to go to jail for throwing a fellow overboard-whether he deserved it or not. I’d rather leave that to the ranger.”

The last night’s supper was a good one, and the next day’s trip was as uneventful as the previous week. When the Providence pulled into St. Louis, Missouri, Mercy was itching to debark and pin down the next leg of her journey. The docking and the settling took half the morning, so by the time the boat was ready to let her go, she stayed one last meal to take advantage of the readily available lunch.

Finally she said her good-byes to the captain, and to Farragut Cunningham, and to Ranger Korman, who was cool but polite in return. She stepped out onto the pier and idly took the offered hand of a porter, who helped her to leave before he occupied the gangplank with the loading and unloading of whatever was coming and going from the boat.

Mercy dodged the dockhands, the porters, the sailors, the merchants, and the milling passengers at each stall as she left the commerce piers and went back onto the wood-plank walks of a proper street, where she then was compelled to dodge horses, carriages, and buggies.

She found a nook at a corner, a small eddy of traffic that let the comers and goers swirl past her. From this position of relative quiet, she pulled a piece of paper out of a pocket and examined it, trying to orient herself to Captain Greeley’s directions. A fishmonger saw her struggle to pick the right road, and he offered his services, which got her three streets closer to Market Street, but two streets yet away from it. She intercepted a passing soldier in his regimental grays, and he indicated another direction and a promise that she’d run right into the street she sought.

He was right. She ran right into it, then noted the street numbers on the businesses, which got her to the edge of a corner from whence she could actually spot the lovely new train station whose red-roofed peaks, towers, and turrets poked up over this corner of the city’s skyline. The closer Mercy drew, the more impressed she was with the pale castle of a building. Although the Memphis station had struck her as prettier, something about the St. Louis structure felt grander, or maybe more grandiosely whimsical. It lacked elaborate artwork and excessive gleam, but made up for it with classic lines that sketched out a medieval compound.

At one end of the platform, there was a crowd and a general commotion, which she skipped in favor of finding the station agent’s office. She followed the signs to an office and rapped lightly upon the open door. The man seated within looked up at her from under a green-tinted visor.

“Could I help you?” he asked.

She told him, “I certainly hope so, Mr.-” She glanced at the sign on his desk. “-Foote.”

“Please, come inside. Have a seat.” He gestured at one of the swiveling wooden chairs that faced his desk. “Just give me one moment, if you don’t mind.”

Mercy seated herself to the tune of her skirt’s rustling fabric and peered around the office, which was heavily stocked with the latest technological devices, including a type-writer, a shiny set of telegraph taps, and the buttons and levers that moved and changed the signs on the tracks that told the trains where to go and how they ought to proceed. Along the ceiling hung a variety of other signs, which were apparently stored there. STAY CLEAR OF PLATFORM EDGE read one, and another advertised that BOARDING PASSENGERS SHOULD KEEP TO THE RIGHT. Another one, mounted beside the door in such a way as to hint that it was not merely stored, but ought to be read, declared with a pointing arrow that a Western Union office was located in the next room over.

When Armistad Foote had finished his transcription, he turned to the telegraph key-a newfangled sideways number that tapped horizontally, instead of up and down-and sent a series of dots and dashes with such astonishing speed that Mercy wondered how anyone, anywhere, could’ve possibly understood it. When the transmission was concluded, the station agent finally pushed the device to the side and leaned forward on his elbows.

“And what can I do for you today?”

“My name is Mrs. Lynch. I don’t mean to interrupt your afternoon, but I’m about to take a real long trip. I figured you could tell me what the best way might be to head west.”

“And how far west do you mean to go, Mrs. Lynch?” He was a bright-eyed little man, wiry and precisely tailored in a striped shirt with a black cinch on his right sleeve. He smiled when he talked, a smile that was not completely cold, but was the professional smile of a man who spends his days answering easy questions for people whom he’d rather usher out of his office via catapult. Mercy recognized that smile. It was the same one she’d used on her patients at the Robertson Hospital.

She sat up as straight as she could manage and nodded for emphasis when she said, “All the way, Mr. Foote. I need to go all the way, to Tacoma.”

“Mercy sakes!” he exclaimed. “I do hope you’ll forgive me asking, Mrs. Lynch, but you don’t plan to undertake this trip alone, do you? May I inquire about your husband?”

“My husband is dead, Mr. Foote, and I absolutely do intend to undertake this trip alone-seeing as how I don’t have too many options in the matter. But I have money,” she said. She squeezed at the satchel as she added, “In gray and blue, what with this being a border state and all; and I brought a little gold, too-since I don’t know what’s accepted out past Missouri. It’s not a lot, but I think it’ll get me to Tacoma, and that’s where I need to go.”

He fidgeted, using his heels to kick his own swiveling seat to the left, and then to the right, pivoting at his waist without moving his torso or arms. He asked slowly, as if the question might be delicate, “And Mrs. Lynch, am I correct to assume-by the cadence of your voice, and your demeanor-that you’re a southern woman?”

“I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything. Heading west ain’t like heading north or south, is it? But I’m from Virginia, if you really must know,” she said, trying to keep the crossness out of her voice.

“Virginia.” He turned the name over in his mouth, weighing what he knew of the place against the woman sitting before him. “A fine gray state, to be sure. Hmm . . . we have a train leaving very shortly-within the afternoon-for the western territories, with a final destination of Tacoma.”