Greasy black smoke billows from the building that housed Gideon’s lab. I look down the path where Daniel and Gideon disappeared, and I hesitate a second before sprinting back toward the lab as fast as I can. Gideon Carr deserves to die, but Katherine doesn’t.
The door to the lab hangs off its hinges, and the smoke is thick. I try to run inside, and the flames are so high that I am pressed back by the heat. Only a madwoman would enter such a scene.
I holster my pistol, crouch down, and run inside anyway.
I cannot stand, because the air is thick with smoke, so I crawl along on hand and knees toward the cage. It’s an awkward and slow business with only one hand, but I make do. My eyes water and I cough, the smoke a damnable curse, but I cannot leave without Katherine.
“Kate!” I call, but there’s no answer.
I find the body of Gideon’s assistant and right next to him is Katherine, her dress soaked with his blood. I sob in relief when I see her. Her breathing is shallow. I have to get her out of the building before the whole damn thing comes down around us.
I sit on my rump and use my right arm to hitch her up into my lap. And then I dig my heels into the floor and push both of us back toward the door. The air is too smoky to stand and this is the best I can do. It’s hard work, and my middle burns from the awkward effort. The backs of my legs are not much better, but I just grit my teeth and keep going.
I ain’t got any other choice.
“Jane?” comes a shout. Redfern? I cannot tell with the roar of the flames.
“In here!” I manage to yell back, despite my coughing.
“You’re gonna die if you don’t get it together,” Jackson says, his ghost standing amongst the flames. He wears white head to toe, fairly gleaming against the smoky backdrop of the lab. I grunt and push-pull back another couple of feet.
“You ain’t real,” I say. Toward the back of the building timbers fall, and as they do the air leaves the room in a whoosh. I gasp. The fire is stealing all the breathable air, and I realize that I will be smothered long before the flames reach me.
“No, I ain’t,” Jackson says. “But if you don’t move faster, you’re gonna be just as dead as I am.”
“I loved you and you broke my heart again and again,” I say. “But I love Kate as well, and I ain’t letting her die.”
He grins at me and tips his hat. “Finally. Be happy, Jane McKeene. Whatever that looks like.”
And maybe it’s my imagination, maybe it’s the way the fire is burning, but the smoke around me clears enough so that I can see the door just a few feet away.
I grab the back of Katherine’s dress and stand as much as I can, pulling her toward the door. The air begins to cool and continues to clear, and then we are out in the lovely spring air.
I cough, my lungs aflame. Katherine is still unconscious, even though she breathes, her chest barely rising up and down. I keep pulling her until were are safely clear of the building, my eyes watering and coughing fitfully as I do. Once we are a good distance away, I collapse next to Katherine, spread eagle, and take deep, clean breaths.
“Jane.”
I sit up, and Gideon Carr looks down at me, his pistol pointed right at me. Defeat crushes me, and I lift my chin as I peer up at him.
“I liked you, you know,” I say, a coughing fit overtaking me for a moment before I can continue. “In Summerland. I thought for a moment I could let myself fall in love with you. That maybe, just maybe, you were different.”
Gideon’s grip relaxes. “I know.”
“Can’t you see that all you bring is pain and misery everywhere you go?”
He tilts his head. “Then I guess we are more alike than I ever supposed. I liked you, too, Jane.”
I nod and give myself a moment to mourn what might have been. “I suppose you’re going to kill me now.”
He nods. “You know I have no choice. Neither of us ever did. Good-bye, Jane McKeene.”
A shot rings out, loud and incredibly close, and I have a moment of weightlessness. But then Gideon’s eyes widen and he drops his revolver as a crimson rose blossoms on his chest. His lips part, but no sound comes out as he falls to his knees and then collapses to the ground.
“Well, I for one always thought he was a bore,” Katherine says, her voice little more than a whisper.
I turn. Katherine still lies on her back, but she holds my pistol, and her hand relaxes as she coughs, the gun falling to the ground while her body arches with the effort.
“You . . . killed him,” I say, stupidly.
Katherine gives me a look that screams, Well, that’s obvious.
“It was a good shot,” I say.
“Best at Miss Preston’s,” she rasps out.
And then, for no good reason I can think of, I begin to cry.
Katherine is in no good kind of way. Her skin is clammy and there’s a terrifying blue tint to her lips. I struggle to lift her to her feet, and she groans.
“We’ve got to find you a cot or something,” I say, just as she begins to heave. I hold her as best I can while she vomits, and Redfern chooses that moment to come running back to camp. He skids to a stop, looks at Gideon Carr’s body and then Katherine.
“He injected her,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Is there any place we can take her?” Behind me, Gideon’s lab continues to burn.
Redfern nods, takes Katherine’s other arm, and together we walk her toward the back of camp, away from the burning lab and toward the creek. There’s a small cabin complete with a dusty cot, and we set her down gingerly. She immediately passes out.
“You stay here, I’m going to go and make sure those boys you killed don’t return.”
I nod and do what I can to make Katherine comfortable. I gently untie her boots and loosen her dress a bit. I hover over her like a mother hen until Redfern returns and tells me, “Two days. If she hasn’t died by then, she’ll be fine. All you can do now is make her as comfortable as possible.”
So that’s what I do. While Redfern burns the dead I fetch water, an awkward task with only the one arm, but I make do. The lab collapses on itself, and the fire has burned so fast and so hot that it smolders, no longer a real threat, by the time I decide to try a bit of foraging. I find a henhouse out behind the decrepit building, and although the chickens are in a bit of a tizzy I find a few eggs for a nice broth. Killing one of the chickens would be better. But there will be time for that later.
On my way back I take a little detour, out into the woods, away from the camp proper. And there, where no one can see me, I fall to my knees and pray.
Now, let me be clear that I do not hold truck with a lot of that Bible nonsense, and I ain’t sure why any kind of benevolent God would let mankind carry on the way it’s wont to do. But Katherine believes, and so I pray for her because she cannot do it for herself.
And then I cry. I sob for Katherine and Gideon, and the lost chances in a world that doesn’t give a whole bunch of opportunities to girls like me. And once I have carried on a bit, I scrub my sleeve over my face and go back to living.
There’s a cook set in the cabin and a wood stove that’s cold, and by the time Redfern returns, sooty and smelling of smoke and the stink of cooking meat, I’ve got a pot of water boiling, an egg and salt added to give it something worthwhile. He takes one look at the stove, walks outside, and comes back with a handful of wild onions. I find my Bowie knife in my pile of weapons next to the door, not sure where they came from but I’m willing to bet Redfern bears some responsibility, and he slices the onions up with my knife and adds them to the pot while I check on Katherine. She’s sleeping, her breathing a little wheezy but that is only to be expected. Redfern and I sit on the floor next to the cot and pass the eggy soup back and forth, eating straight from the hot pan since there ain’t a dish to be found. It’s disgusting but filling, and I ain’t of a mind to complain.