I can’t.
Jackson is right. I’m a survivor, and in this world, that means doing what needs to be done. I think of all the choices I’ve made to get here—the shamblers I’ve put down, the lives I’ve saved, and the ones I’ve taken, all of it coming together in the long, dusty road that stretches behind and before us, a path I will keep walking until the end of my days. That feels more realistic to me than any kind of fairy-tale ending.
I realize, as the last of the sun sinks below the plains in a brilliant show of pink and orange, that I will forever be alone.
Because that’s how a killer survives.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
—John 8:32
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 4
Notes on a Restless Night
After an unexpectedly tasty dinner of roasted rabbit alongside roasted potatoes—Nessie had found some in a long-abandoned garden—we settle on who will sleep and who will take watch. Jane, her face an inscrutable mask, volunteers for the first shift, despite my objections. This is the second night in a row that she will be running on limited sleep. There are more than enough adults in our group for Jane to sleep the entire night. But no amount of reasoned discussion will get her to budge, and I know better than to keep arguing with her once she has that look on her face, jaw set and gaze distant, an unmistakable sign that her mind is made up. So, like everyone else, I make myself as comfortable as I can in the small house and drift off into an exhausted sleep.
I am startled awake what seems like only a few moments later by Jackson, shaking my shoulder. “Your watch,” he mumbles, stumbling off to find his own rest. I grab my weaponry before making my way out of the small house: my Mollies as well as several throwing knives and a rifle. I attend to my bodily needs before washing my face at the pump. There is enough moon to see by, as it is waxing, thank goodness, but not enough to cut through the darkness beyond the edges of the property, so I have to listen very carefully for the dead, trusting my ears to sense what my eyes cannot.
Which is how I hear Jane’s approach before I see her.
Her soft footfalls are as familiar as my own thanks to lives lived parallel to each other, our identical training. It is strange to know a person so well without really knowing them, and I turn toward her as she stands in the moonlight, painted in silver and shadow, her face hidden by the brim of the hat she still wears. Sheriff Snyder’s hat. It is a gruesome reminder of all that we have been through, and yet Jane refuses to part with it. I fail to believe she could not have found something else to keep the sun out of her eyes, and besides, there is no sunshine at night. But I do not bother querying her on the matter. She has had quite the day, and I know how Jane can take offense at even the most benign of comments.
I stick to an easier topic. “You should be sleeping.”
“I tried. The Duchess had second watch, and once she’d relieved me I laid down in the wagon out back, figuring that tiny little house was already full up.” She goes to the pump and drinks deeply, as though whatever restless sleep she took left her parched.
“Sleeping out of doors? Is that wise?”
“If the dead are gonna come for me, my penny will let me know, wake me up before anything happens,” she says, fingering the necklace tucked into her shirt.
I have long known about Jane’s penny. The story goes that her aunt gave it to her before she went east to Miss Preston’s, and that it is some sort of hoodoo. And I believe it. I spent nearly a year in the swamps with the Laveaus, the most famous voodoo queens in all of Louisiana, and what I learned in the bayou was that there are things that those with experience in such areas can do that defy explanation, and it is better to just keep an open mind.
But that does not ease my worry over Jane. She is going to push herself too hard, because that is her nature, but out here in the wild mistakes can be deadly. I need her fresh and ready to fight. Despite urging Jane to caution earlier, I have no doubt that once we get to Nicodemus we will find an untenable state of affairs. Perhaps it is cynical, but after Summerland I no longer believe in happy endings for Miss Preston’s girls.
At least, not without a fight.
“Jane, you need to give sleep another try. It is going to be a long walk to town.”
“I know that, Kate, but it’s too damn hot. And don’t give me that ‘language, Jane’ nonsense. The sun’s gone down and it’s still sweltering. Only hell can be this unrepentantly hot.”
I grin and swallow my laughter. “I fail to see the difference between this and Baltimore.”
Jane snorts. “And that was too damn hot in the summer as well. Plus the stink from the wharf? I miss Rose Hill. I never remember it being this blasted hot.”
I stare into the dark, letting myself think of home, my for-real home, for the first moment in a very long time. The memory is delicate, and I crack it open like an egg, swift and precise. “Louisiana is just like this. Once summer gets on, with the mosquitoes and the fever, I swear, you start to think you will never be comfortable again.”
“Louisiana? I thought you were from Virginia.” Jane moves out of the yard and comes closer. She leans against the porch railing, and I know I have piqued her interest with even that small bit of my history. At Miss Preston’s, I had been happy to let the girls think I was from somewhere else, mostly because it made it easier to pretend to be someone other than who I truly was. What girl wants to try to explain that she comes from a long line of women who made their living on their backs? Especially knowing the scorn folks like to direct at fallen women? I know Jane would give me a tongue-lashing if she were to know I felt such shame, but it is not easy to just throw aside something you have lived with your whole life, and I will never forget the way some people would look at my mother when they realized she was not an independent free Negro of means. I never wanted anyone to look at me that way.
Maybe it is wrong to care what people think. But I do. Deeply. I suppose that is the remnants of my mother’s instruction. She was sure to teach me very early of the need to be able to slip on a second self like it was a corset—an identity that men would find pleasing and would protect the fragile truth of oneself. I did it at Miss Preston’s in the hope that being the perfect student would somehow win me an early appointment, a way to earn some money so that I could one day do something with my life. Even though I have eschewed many of my mother’s teachings, that was one trick I never completely unlearned.
Jane is too taken with the possibility of a secret to notice my maelstrom of emotions. I sigh and stand, head out into the yard to take a walk around the house, checking on the horse and patrolling the grounds to make sure the dead do not sneak up on us. “Louisiana is where I’m from. Nawlins,” I say, letting my voice fall back into the distantly familiar lilt of my hometown.
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, ain’t you just full of surprises.”
“A girl needs to have a few secrets.”
“Indeed.”
She follows me like an out-of-sorts shadow, dogging my heels with her black mood. I ignore her and see to making sure our temporary homestead is safe. The dead are not the only concern out here on the prairie. While we have not seen any Indians in our time here I know they must be out there, living their lives unfettered since the Army headed back east to confront the dead so many years ago. I have no idea whose ancestral lands we might currently occupy, but the tribes in this part of the world have no love for Easterners, and rightly so. Some people I had met in Summerland, a family of white homesteaders, had related tales of the Comanche they had run into in the southwest, near the Texas border. “Between the dead and the Indians, heading west is near impossible,” they had said. “One wants to eat you, the other just wants you gone, however that might be accomplished.” I had no quarrel with anyone, but that did not mean I could ignore the potential dangers of the world.