I snort.
“It’s a good question,” Jackson says, laid out on the bed, ankles crossed. He wears a fine suit of all black.
“No one asked you,” I snap at him. Callie rears back, looks over at the bed, and climbs to her feet.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Callie sighs, tugging on one of her braids. “You’re talking to spirits, you’re torturing people, you’re killing because you can, and all the mirth has left you. This ain’t you, Jane. This hunting for bounties and for Gideon, it’s made you hard. You’ve locked up the best parts of yourself, and all that’s left is a woman that I don’t like, one who shoots first and asks questions later and talks to thin air in between.”
“The ghost thing might be a bit much, and that’s something I have to think on myself,” I admit grudgingly. Since we’ve gotten to California, Jackson has been making more frequent appearances. Nothing good can come of that. “As for the killing, well, executing someone who deserves it feels like a fine bit of work, like planting a garden or washing your face. You know it needs done, and while the work itself can be tiresome, the result is invariably worth it.”
“But who made you executioner?” Callie says, her voice low. “Do you really win anything if you end up just like the people you hate?”
“If it ends up with Gideon Carr in a pine box? Yes.”
The bleak mood I’ve been fighting for months finally descends upon me, just as there’s a knock on the door. Callie opens it and two Negro men bring in a copper tub as well as steaming buckets of hot water. They fill the tub halfway, and then leave two more buckets of water near the fire to keep warm. Callie hands them each a silver dollar and they leave with a tip of their hats.
As the two men leave, Jackson’s ghost looks at me and shakes his head. “The girl loves you, Jane, as impossible as that might be. Listen to her.” And then like always, the bastard is gone.
Callie and I stare at each other for a moment, not speaking, and I think this is my chance to tell her all the things I feel. This is where I should tell her that I’m sorry and I’ll do better, that I’m not the person she thinks I’m becoming: heartless, ruthless, killing without an ounce of remorse.
But I respect her too much to lie to her. Because no matter what else I do, I plan on hunting down Gideon Carr. I plan on doing whatever is necessary to the people I meet along the way who have aided him in his foul agenda. And when I find him, I plan on making sure he feels every ounce of misery that he has inflicted on the world.
And I am going to take my time doing it.
“You go first this time,” Callie finally says. “You’re covered in blood.”
I begin to undress, awkwardly, and she comes over to help. The moment for declarations has passed, and we are back to our usual rhythms. Her hands go to unbraid my hair, and I accept the help without complaint. She helps me climb into the tub, and I sigh as the warm water washes over my skin. For a moment I’m nervous, the same way I always am when I step into a tub. A bad experience with water as a child has always made me a little bit skittish, but as Callie starts to help me wash my hair my anxiousness melts away.
I get out of the bath. We use an empty bucket to drain most of the water, tossing it out the window that overlooks the rear of the hotel and pouring in most of the remaining hot water for Callie.
And we do it all without uttering a word.
I wash her back, planting a kiss on her shoulder when I’m finished. She reaches back and rests her hand on my neck, holding me close for a few heartbeats, steam wafting up around us. I’m half tempted to climb into the tub with her.
How is it possible to care for someone so much and still want more?
“Let’s just forget about Gideon,” she says. She releases me, and I take a few steps away from the tub. “We can head north, get ourselves a little homestead.” Her head is bowed and her voice is low. “We’ve got funds enough to set ourselves up right. Or maybe go back east? We could do our own private tour of the great deserted cities and the dead will leave us be. It would be like back in Nicodemus, after the fall.”
She ain’t pleading, but there’s a quaver to her voice. I sit on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, and say nothing. Because I don’t like to break a promise, and what I’m thinking she won’t want to hear.
None of this happiness is for me. Gideon Carr’s death is my only future.
After Callie rinses with one of the buckets, she drops our clothes into the tub, washing them and stretching them out next to the fire, stoking it so that it’s summer hot in our little room.
“Come lie next to me,” I say, and she obliges without a word. I wrap my good arm around her, and sigh as she presses against me. The heat and the relief of having finally caught Perry after weeks of tracking him descend upon me.
I fall asleep without ever answering her.
Or maybe, that is all the response she needs.
When I dream, it’s of walking hand in hand through the fields of Rose Hill with Callie. It’s a sweet taste of what I can never have.
If there is any doubt as to the necessity of westward expansion, the rising of the dead has thoroughly ended the debate. For America to survive she must find new lands to claim, conquer, and rebuild.
—Senator Jerimiah Springfield, 1867
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 28
Notes on a Curious Wagon Train
We spend the night at Miss May’s boardinghouse. She charges us only half the usual rate—a deal on account of three of us sharing a single room. The house creaks the whole night through, and I find myself missing the gentle rocking of the Capitán; but once I get to sleep, my rest is undisturbed, and I wake the next morning to sun filtering in through the window.
As I wake I take a moment to mentally revisit the events from the night before. Miss May had related the real reason she was heading up to Sacramento: San Francisco was not safe for Negroes. A few years ago everyone had been content to leave the Negro sector alone. But now there was a scramble for space behind the Great Golden Wall, which is what folks call the wall around the city that keeps the dead out, few and far between as they were. There were quite a few men of science that predicted that now that the East was lost the hordes would try once more to cross the Rockies, and that some might succeed. Of course, the constant attention of the Army in California had thus far kept the number of dead to a minimum, but there was a panic in the city as everyone scrambled for land.
And the Negro sector was the one place where no one cared if a few buildings burned.
“The good people in this city have fled, because good people have no stomach to watch their neighbors be burned out and then have their plots bought from under them,” Miss May said over dinner the night before. “And after this most recent fire, I have to say that I’m of a mind to finally head east into the mountains. I’ve heard there’s a Negro settlement out past Sacramento, place up in the foothills called Haven. Let the whites and Chinese fight over San Francisco, I’m going to find someplace where I can have a little farm and not have to worry about waking up in flames.”
That wasn’t the only reason Miss May wanted to leave the city, though. There was also a matter, mentioned briefly, of a close friendship gone south, but I was polite enough not to pry into the specifics. Miss May’s tears while packing up a studio portrait of her and a Chinese woman provided more than enough insight.