I blink, and then return her smile. “What gave me away?”
“That pretty little frown line between your brows. Louisa makes the same face when she’s vexed about something. You’re right, we don’t have enough security. The lack of shamblers in most parts of the state gets people to feeling unreasonably safe, and my dear Louisa is no different. Especially since funds are short. I’ve told her a number of times what kind of havoc the dead can wreak on an unprepared caravan, but this is the best we can do, so we’ll make do. Hopefully we can add some more able fighters to the train in Sacramento right before we start to head up into those hills.”
“Louisa said it should take a week to get to Sacramento?” I ask, scanning the horizon for any signs of trouble. The road we walk is not far from the Sacramento River, and the barges and ships making their way inland are visible. Still, I dislike being out of the confines of a city. I suppose when one grows up behind a wall, it seems like safety, even when it is not.
“Well, we could make it even faster if we were to push ourselves, but the weather is still cool, and it’ll just get colder as we head up into them mountains. There’s no need to rush when we have neither the inclination nor the desire. Not a lot out here to harry us along.”
“I find that curious,” I say. “The apparent lack of the dead.”
Juliet shrugs. “They say it’s because the desert and the mountains wear the dead down long before they can reach the California Republic. A bunch of rich fellows even commissioned a study couple years back, and a few different churches have out and out proclaimed California the new Eden.” Juliet laughs. “Either way, the only dead are the ones who are made here, and as long as folks are savvy about putting someone to rights when they pass, we’re good.”
I want to ask why San Francisco has a wall—especially one people are so enamored of—if the dead are not a threat, but a shout goes up from the front of the wagon train, so Juliet and I hotfoot it to see what might be amiss.
The oxen pulling the front wagon low out their displeasure and a group of men have all crowded around, scratching their heads. Carolina is there with them, and I grin when I see his face.
“Got your land legs back yet? Looking a mite bit unsteady there,” I say.
My first few days at sea I had been abysmally ill, and Carolina had been kind enough to tease me over it at every possible opportunity.
He turns, and his frown melts into a bemused smile. “Very funny. Lucky I also carry a big sword to lean on.” He waggles his eyebrows, and a few of the men around us chuckle while I smack his arm.
“Fresh!”
Carolina truly does carry around a large sword. He wields a two-handed broadsword that is very good at clearing an area, a weapon that happens to be strapped across his back. Just seeing him eases some of the worry in my breast.
What security we have is very good, so things could be worse.
“What seems to be amiss here?” I ask.
“Broken axle.” Juliet lets out an exasperated sigh. “Barely half a day out of the city, and already a delay.” She moves off, and Carolina steps in close to me.
“Can I have a word with you?” he asks, voice low.
“Of course.”
We walk away from the wagon train, toward the edge of the road and up and around, walking a perimeter to make sure there are not any threats looming on the horizon. But all I see are wetlands and the tall, waving grass. Great white birds fish in the shallows, and every now and then the air is split by a particularly raucous cry that I trace to a black bird with a red upper wing. It is peaceful and beautiful, the sun hanging low in the sky as it makes its way home for the evening.
I wish Jane could have seen it.
“You talked to your young Miss Lily?” Carolina asks, pulling me from my reverie and sending me down another path of thought.
“Not since we left this morning. Why, did she get into a scrap with one of the other children?” Lily had been alternately sullen and aggressive since we left New Orleans. I am not worried about her, she has always been smart and self-reliant, but the way Carolina is looking at me right now has me nervous.
“Katherine . . . I think your girl Lily is haunted.”
I am not quite able to swallow the bubble of laughter that burbles up, and it explodes out of me before I can quite call it back. A few of the families turn to look over where we are, and I give them a jaunty wave while I regain my composure.
“I’m serious, Katherine,” Carolina says, his face impassive.
“My dear, while I appreciate that Lily might sometimes find herself in a right mood, and I truly do believe in spirits—I am from Nawlins; it is practically a crime there if you do not—I sincerely doubt that Lily is haunted by anything but the specters of what she has been through of late.” I sober and stop walking, so that Carolina is forced to stop as well. “In the past two years the girl has been taken from her home and spirited west; watched a town be overrun, twice; lost her brother; lived amongst soldiers; fought the dead; and lost any kind of mooring to anything concrete in this world. That lack of stability would make anyone feel haunted.”
The crease between Carolina’s eyebrows deepens, and he studies me a little too closely. “Is this why you were so set on starting a new life in San Francisco?”
“Partly, yes. Lily needs a place where she can thrive, where she can find herself. She is young, and she needs a place to play and learn to read and do all the things girls her age are supposed to be doing.” As I speak, I cannot help but think back to my own childhood. There were happy moments, but mostly I remember the fear of my body changing and growing, because I knew at some point I would have to take a husband, or a patron, like my mother and her friends did. That was just the way of things back in New Orleans. Some women took in laundry and some women worked as maids in the houses of the fine Creole ladies, but the smartest and prettiest ones lived off their charms. The thought of a man’s hands on my body left me cold, and it still does. Nor is the idea of a female companion, like Miss Mellie May’s lost love, something I desire. But until I ran away, there was never any kind of a hope for any other kind of a life.
And that is the last thing I want for Lily. No one should have to live like me, or Sue, or any of the girls at Miss Preston’s. She deserves a life without the constant specter of death and loss—something more than the bite and the turning.
I pat Carolina on the shoulder and give him a smile, though there is not a bit of joy in my heart. “Carolina, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am certain that Lily will be fine once we get to somewhere we can settle down for a while. All this traveling . . .”
Carolina nods and moves off, and I continue to patrol around the perimeter of the wagon train as we make camp for the night. The restless feeling inside my chest—part panic, part worry—returns, and I sigh.
I have to find a solution that provides Lily with a measure of stability and does not make me feel trapped.
I am just not quite sure what that looks like, yet.
One such legendary hunter is a one-armed colored woman that goes by the name of the Devil’s Bride. Her true name is unknown. Few have seen her face and lived to tell about it. This humble recorder of history has heard it rumored that any who see her face are taken aback by her beauty, and the smile she wears as she gleefully chases down her quarry, whether they are guilty or innocent. But the truth is rarely so easily known.