Mercedes Lackey: The Fire Rose

She took to her bed early, like the nurses who had awakened her, for her first train left the station almost at dawn. After so much walking and emotional turmoil, she was exhausted and drained.

Her last thought before sleep finally caught her was actually one of wonder-wonder at herself, for having made so clear and final a break between her past and her future. Perhaps it was true that despair could drive people to heroism and daring.

But she went into sleep, not with a feeling of excitement, but of resignation. She might be stepping off into the unknown, but it was not with a sense of adventure.

Perhaps that, too, had died with her father. She had once greeted each day with anticipation. Now, her only hope was that the new day would not be worse than the old.

And when all was said and done, for that, too, she had an answer, in a small bottle in her valise....

CHAPTER

TWO

Rose ignored the rocking of the railway car and the steady, vibrating rhythm of the wheels as she ignored the stares of the rude man across from her and kept her eyes firmly fixed on her book. This fellow had gotten on the train at a stop outside Los Angeles; with his "snappy" checked suit and well-oiled hair, pomaded with brilliantine, he evidently thought he cut quite a fine figure and that she should be well aware of the fact.

She wasn't certain why he had fixed his attention on her, but she wished that he would go away. He had been trying to attract her attention for miles, and she could not imagine what attracted him to her. She was grimy with days of nonstop travel; she hadn't had a bath since Mrs. Abernathy's boardinghouse. Her hair felt so greasy that she thought she must resemble one of those outlandish aboriginal people who coated their locks with oil. Perhaps it was only that she was the only unaccompanied female in the car below the age of sixty. By the huge leather case under his seat, she suspected that he was a drummer-a traveling salesman.

Whatever he's selling, I want none of it.

She was weary to the bone with days of hard traveling. Mrs. Abernathy had awakened her before dawn on the day she had left, with the welcome news that the man who carted away boxes and other "clean" rubbish was willing to take her and her trunk to the station for half the cost of a cab. She had also given Rose some sound advice in the matter of traveling attire.

"Whatever you put on," she had warned, "make certain that it won't show stains, and that it is something you will be willing to throw away at the end of your trip. Believe me, child, you won't want it after that."

Rose had followed her advice, wearing the dreadful black Manchester-cloth street-skirt and sateen waist she had bought for her father's funeral. The clothing was cheap, but serviceable enough to last the journey and look respectable. She had thought that Mrs. Abernathy had meant that after wearing the same clothing continuously, riding and sleeping in it for days, she would simply never want to see it again.

That might also have been true, but what Mrs. Abernathy had been too well-bred to explain was that the floor of the common railway-carriage-particularly in the West-was filthy. The uncouth men who shared the carriage with her chewed tobacco, and often did not bother to travel to the end of the carriage to use the spittoon. They brought mud and worse in on their boots, and the dust of the plains blew in at the window. The floor was sticky with the residue of tobacco juice, and coated with the ashes that often floated in through the windows. The outsides of the carriages gave no hint as to the state of the floors; the carriages were kept as clean as possible given the circumstances. Try as she might to keep her hem free of the floor, it dragged whenever she sat, or when the carriage lurched as she walked, and she was forced to drop her skirt and clutch at the backs of the seats for balance. She did not think that she was ever going to get the skirt clean again, and she only hoped she could prevail on some hardy soul in Mr. Cameron's employ to clean her boots, for she was nauseated by the notion of having to touch them, sticky and odorous as they were.

She had observed the travelers in the parlor cars and the occasional private carriage with raw envy. The hard wooden bench-seats of the common carriage were too short to lie down upon, and if one could sleep, one woke with a stiff neck and a headache from being wedged into an unnatural, upright position. The most comfortable naps she had taken had been in stations, on the benches reserved for waiting passengers, as she also waited for the next train, guarded by the watchful eye of the curiously paternal stationmasters.

At least she had not starved, although she had expected to spend at least part of the time hungry. Her meals were, indeed, taken care of, and she ate as well as anyone else taking the common carriages. Those same stationmasters saw to it that when there was no dining car attached to a train she was provided with a packet of thick ham or cured-tongue sandwiches and a bottle or two of lemonade. This, evidently, was on the orders of Mr. Cameron, since she saw no one else being so provided for, and occasionally her preferential treatment aroused glances of envy akin to those she bestowed on the wealthier travelers.

There had been sights she would never forget: the fury of a prairie thunderstorm, as lightning formed a thousand spidery legs of fire beneath the heavy, black clouds; the brilliant skies at night, with more stars than she had ever seen in her life; the mountains-every day held its share of natural wonders, more astounding than any of the seven wonders of the ancient world. If she had not been so exhausted, she probably would have been able to appreciate them more.

She had been looking forward to her first sight of the Pacific Ocean, but with this boor trying to catch her attention she was unlikely to be able to appreciate this particular vista.

At least she never tired of this book, The Odyssey in the original Greek. The advantage of having the original before her was that she need not be confined to one particular translator's view of things; she was able to discover nuances and new interpretations every time she read it. It never mattered that she was tired, that the long stretches across the empty plains had seemed interminable. Even with the eyes of another upon her, she was able to reach beyond this journey, to a strange and wondrous journey of a different sort, infinitely more perilous than her own, fraught with the machinations of gods and terrible magic's, with-

"Well, excuse me, missy!"

The boor, seeing himself spurned in favor of a mere book, had elected to take things a step further and try to gain her attention directly. She pointedly ignored him, turning away a trifle, although that cast the pages of the book in shadow. Surely he won't persist if I make it clear I want nothing of him.

Undeterred, he persisted. When he got no response from his verbal attempts, actually poking her foot with his toe so that she looked up at him in shock and affrontery before she could stop herself.

"Well, there, missy," the rude fellow said, in a falsely hearty voice. "You sure have been buryin' your nose in that book! What's it you're readin' that's so interestin'?"

She stared at him, appalled by his impoliteness, then replied before she could stop herself, "Homer's Odyssey.

He wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. Evidently his sole exposure to literature had consisted of what lay between the covers of the McGuffy's Readers. "Homer who? Say, missy, that's all Greek to me."

"Precisely," she replied, lowering the temperature of her words as her temper heated, and she turned her attention back to the book. He's been snubbed, surely he won't persist any further.

Only to have the book snatched out of her hands.