Carolina, of course, is beside himself. He dogs my heels as I walk toward the perimeter of the Conestoga wagons, stretching my muscles and yawning widely as I finish waking. “You’re a heartbreaker, Katherine Deveraux.”
“That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them,” I say, blowing on my coffee before sipping it. There is chicory in the brew, and I drink it appreciatively while we walk. “I have already had to tell more than one of them that I am not interested in courtship, thinking about courtship, hearing about courtship, or talking about the possibility of courtship. What is it with men thinking every woman they meet must be half in love with them?”
“You can’t blame them, Katherine. You’re the prettiest face in three states, and it’s only natural for a man to want something beautiful in this life.”
I sniff. “Well, then maybe they should consider taking up painting instead of trying to wife me up.”
Carolina laughs, drawing looks from a few of the other folks nearby. I realize now that it is no accident most of the dandies have signed on to my shift. Drat. This is Doc Cornelius and his puppy eyes all over again.
Taking in the garb of the men on patrol with me, I am a bit surprised once more to see that not everyone in San Francisco was in as dire straits as Miss Mellie May. Quite a few of the men sport gold teeth and tastefully embroidered waistcoats, clothing better suited to a drawing room than the rough-and-tumble wilds of the trail. Still, the fact that they are here on the road with us is a testament to the fact that stacking up a bit of coin does not erase the hardship of being colored. When I was a child, the richest woman in the French Quarter was a dusky-hued Negro woman who was the daughter of a French viscount. That did not keep her from having to pay twice as much as white women at the market. It just meant the pinch did not bother her nearly as much. All the money in the world cannot make a colored person worthy to some folks.
I wonder yet again what we will find in Sacramento, and beyond, in this town of Haven. Yesterday, I stopped and chatted with a few of the folks I was watching out for, asking them what they had heard of this town. No one knew much, but one woman, a schoolteacher, had handed me a flyer.
“This was in the Voice of the Negro last month,” she said. I had heard of it; it was the only Negro-run newspaper in the West. “They’re looking for men and women to help with construction jobs in the town.”
The advertisement was a crude drawing of a town, complete with a water tower and a nearby lake. “Negro-Friendly!” was emblazoned across the top, and a list of needed trades as well as “Haven is happy to welcome all colored folks!” It looked like yet another town of Negroes trying to make a go at life in this new frontier. But they seemed overly eager for new citizens . . . and for some reason I cannot help but think of Summerland.
Carolina said the Survivalist ideology never much caught on in California, mostly because the robber barons and their survivor capitalism was too strongly entrenched; and the Negro population was too small, the Indian tribes too dispersed after the Spanish were finished terrorizing and exploiting them. The Survivalists never had much of a chance. But that did not mean California was without its ills. Those captains of industry were no better than the evils we had left behind. Just a different kind of paint on the same woes.
Now, as Carolina and I make our way around the perimeter of the camp, him telling me some story about a boy he once met in New York City before the Years of Discord, I am thinking on plots and threats and working my way through another small panic. Our wagon train is comparatively small; most families are sharing space because they’d had few enough possessions. I cannot help but think of how much these folks have already been through. Many people came west after they found their freedom—walking, working on steamers, whatever they needed to do to survive. They have already paid a steep enough price for a better life, and it is time they had it.
I refuse to let anyone fall into anything like Summerland, no way, no how. Why, what kind of Miss Preston’s girl would I be to let these good, hardworking people flee San Francisco only to land in a hell of another sort? If Haven is just a Survivalist trap in disguise, a way for those dastardly sorts to lure hapless Negroes to their cause, then I will find a way to crush that town and undo those men.
How? I have no idea. But that does not mean I should not try.
It is what Jane would have wanted.
A shout goes up from the rear of the encampment, and Carolina gestures for me to check it out while he holds his position. I run over to find a couple of boys holding farm tools and poking at a man lying on the ground. A small shaggy dog stands a few feet away, barking excitedly.
“What happened to him?” I ask, as other folks begin to walk over.
“He just ran up and collapsed,” one of the boys says. “I think he’s dead.”
“Stop with the poking,” I say. “Is that your dog?”
The other boy shakes his head. “No, ma’am. He was chasing the man.”
People are starting to gather, too many. I gesture to one of the dandies who had been making eyes at me earlier. “Get everyone back to their places on the perimeter. It could be bandits, some sort of a trap,” I say. When they do not hop to I put my hands on my hips. “Sorry, was that last direction unclear?”
The man tips his hat at me, muttering as he goes, and instructs the other folks running up to do the same. A large man comes over—Doc Nelson, from the Capitán. As though I did not have enough vexation in my life.
“Miss Deveraux,” he says, slowing his gait. “I was wondering when we might have opportunity to converse again.”
“Dr. Nelson,” I say with a nod, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “I did not realize you were part of this wagon train.”
“I did not join until a few towns back. It turns out that my prospects in San Francisco were not as bright as I had hoped.”
“That seems to be a common theme. Would you mind taking a look at the man on the ground?”
Someone has brought a lantern over, and now it is easy to see that the man, who appears to be white, was on the losing end of a very bad fight. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and his breath comes in rabbit-quick huffs. Blood soaks through his clothing, and there are slices all over his face and his body, as though someone went after him with a knife. But they are a curious sort of injury.
Who would slice at a person rather than stabbing them outright?
“I’ll know more once he wakes, but it looks as though he has been badly beaten. There are also several lacerations here that look like knife swipes.”
The sound of a gun cocking echoes across the otherwise still night, and I look up. There, just outside the circle of the lantern, is what appears to be a woman. It is the long single braid hanging over her shoulder that gives her away. The tiny, shaggy dog goes over to stand next to her, still barking at the man on the ground next to Dr. Nelson.
“Salty, hush,” she says.
It takes me a long moment to realize the woman only has one arm, her left sleeve is pinned up like I sometimes see with old war veterans who have had a grievous injury. The woman is terrifying, and there is something about her presence that seems familiar.
“Good evening,” she finally says after a long moment. “Sorry to inconvenience you folks, but could you possibly step away from that man? I aim to kill him, and I ain’t as sharp a shot as I once was.”