Devon Monk - Cold Copper

As if in answer, the entire car swung hard to one side and back again. Rose almost lost her balance, but grabbed a brass rail above her to keep her feet.

“I’ve flown on an airship, Mr. Wicks,” she said. “I know how to keep my boots down and my head up.”

“Excellent. Here we are.” He pulled open the door. A great rush of wind and smoke and dust curled up into the train. There was a walkway between the cars and enough railings to hold for balance. They made quick work of crossing the short space, Rose going first and Mr. Wicks making sure to shut the door firmly behind them.

The next car was much like the one they had left. A single aisle down the center, a stove in one corner, and seats crowded with people down both sides. They strode through it and three others like it. One of the cars contained the mail and telegraph station, something she would have liked to have seen, but that car only had a narrow hallway to pass through, with two locked doors on each side where the mail and telegraph men worked.

“Next stop,” Mr. Wicks said as they paused on the crossway. “First class.” He opened the door and they stepped across the threshold.

She was surrounded by luxury.

The ceiling, walls, and floor glowed with the warmth of deep, rich cherrywood, and the large, plush seats were all red velvet with gold trim. All the brass shone to a mirror finish, and chandeliers dripping in cut crystal glittered merrily across the arched ceiling, making the pastoral scenes painted there dance.

There was even a neat little piano to one side in the middle of the car that stood silent, waiting for someone to strike a tune.

While the other cars had been crowded and jolly, with plenty of people and plenty of talking and wailing babies, the Pullman was much more sedate.

Men in sharp suits and the shiniest shoes she’d ever seen sat reading papers, smoking cigars, and drinking from cut crystal glasses. Women in jewel-colored dresses that Rose only dreamed of were reading books or tending to needlework, fine china cups on the tables beside them. She noted the young men with shiny shoes at a table, smoking and playing cards.

Wide windows set close together strung down both sides of the car. For a moment, she felt a little dizzy as trees whipped by quickly to each side of them.

“This way,” Mr. Wicks said, with a gentle pressure on her elbow.

She walked down the aisle, feeling more out of place than a duckling in a desert, but then even that passed. She forgot to worry about her dusty boots and disheveled hair; instead she wondered how the bunks hinged down and stowed away, how the heat here remained so steady and pleasant—likely from hot water piped through from the engine itself—and other such minute details of the construction of the place.

Mr. Wicks led her over to the empty chairs and waved his hand toward one by the window.

Rose settled her skirts and took the lush seat while he took the chair opposite her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s…it’s wonderful, Mr. Wicks.”

“Please. Thomas. And it is rather, isn’t it? They have a library too. Just a small stash of books, but some worthy reads to pass the time.”

She looked about the car and he pointed to a shelf not far from the piano. “Are they for any passenger to use?”

“Any in first class. Or his friend, of course.”

Rose smiled and Thomas settled back, looking pleased as could be. He removed his bowler hat and placed it on his knee. His hair was wavy but combed back, so the worst of the curls seemed to fall in a semblance of order.

“Your destination is Des Moines?” Rose said. “I’ve never been.”

He shrugged. “It’s not nearly as exciting as the big cities, but it’s grown quite a bit with the rail. There’s a man I need to see about a business he’s starting. Exciting prospect that I hope to have a hand in.”

“What sort of business?”

Wicks glanced out the window and his eyes narrowed just a bit. “Shipping, I believe. Although it will require my knowledge of the telegraph system and, if I may say without it sounding too much like a boast, my skills as an operator.”

There was something about his manner that made Rose think he was being very careful with what he told her. Perhaps there was something about this business that wasn’t on the level.

“That sounds very exciting,” she said. “So many opportunities for someone with your skills.”

“This is the land of opportunity,” he said, brightening. “Not a road any of us can’t follow. I plan to follow a lot of them. And you, Miss Small, what is it you do to occupy your time?”

“Please, Rose. Just Rose.”

“Very well then. Rose.”

“I have a few handy skills. Know how to mind a store, keep a ledger. And I enjoy working with metal and steam. Thought I’d work a boiler on an airship for a while there. But now I am following new horizons.”

“I see. And what distant shore are you and your companion, Captain Hink, traveling toward?”

He leaned forward just a bit and seemed a little too keenly interested in Hink.

“Oh, I’m not traveling with him. He’s not my companion. Well, he was—we traveled together, with a few other people before landing in Kansas. But now…now he’s just…well, we just happened to be leaving on the same train, is all.”

“You’ve known him for some time then?”

“No. Not really for long at all.”

“But you must have a destination,” he pressed.

“Must I?” She glanced out the window. Snow was falling, tiny flakes like seeds of white planting the fields with winter. The train could take this kind of weather without a pause. It wasn’t like airship travel, where too much snow and ice would bring a dirigible down to the earth like a rock in a river.

“I thought I’d step off at Kansas City. Find a job, see what the town has to see, then save up for a ticket east.”

“How far east?”

“As far as I can go. Big cities. Universities, sciences, industry. I want to see this great new world we’re building. I want to see it all.”

“Alone?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess if I must.”

“Sometimes it is better to go it alone,” he said.

She looked over at him. He was staring out the window too, though he watched the countryside as it pulled away from them, seated as he was with his back to the engine, whereas the world all seemed to be rushing toward Rose.

“I was…grateful to run into you, truth be known,” he said without looking over at her. “I know we’ve only briefly met, but I rarely run into anyone who is so…curious.”

“Curious?” she asked.

He looked away from the window. “Oh. Not in an odd sort of way.” He folded his hands over the book in his lap and looked up at the ceiling as if reading words there. “Inquisitive. Yes, far better choice of phrase. You have a wonderfully inquisitive way about you, Rose.” He lowered his face and smiled.

The reflection of bluish light from the window frosted the lenses of his glasses, hiding his eyes in the pale glow. “From the moment you nearly ran over me”—Rose rolled her eyes—“I thought,” he continued, “‘This person is lovely and self-assured.’ And now that I know you’ve traveled with an airship captain, I simply must know everything about you.”

“Mr. Wicks—Thomas,” she corrected when he lifted one long finger. “I am certainly flattered you think me interesting. But really, we’ve only just met. Other than a taste for books, and a remarkable ability with telegraphing, I don’t know a thing about you either.”

He sat quietly for a bit, then leaned forward to look at her from over the top of his wire glasses.

“I’m not a very interesting story, I’m afraid.”