Walking Home
This is for everyone who doesn’t believe I really am quite that clever at figuring things out by just looking around.
They (whoever “they” were) hauled me out of Merryland and onto a freight train car. Trains are everywhere in the Lincoln World, short lines and military Special tracks that connect the whole country, even in the boonies. While my body was still saying Hey, what the hell, and fighting off the laudanum, they put a not-comfortable leather girdle around my middle and secured me with about six feet of rope threaded through an eyehole bolt in the pine slat wall. It wasn’t some kinda nineteenth century kink, it was a pretty clever way of securing someone you didn’t want to treat roughly. Why go to the trouble of tying me up, and having to untie me when it was time to eat or go to the bathroom? This way I had some freedom of movement to eat some of the food and water they provided and use the clever toilet installed in the floor (yes, they have both toilets and paper). As I recovered I heard the spooky whirring noise of a train heading somewhere at speed.
How did detective Ronnie figure all this out?
Most of it came to me after a loud explosion…and opening my eyes to see I was hanging upside down by that leather harness. Trying to breathe normally while looking down from what had now become the ceiling of the rail car. Before someone used explosives to knock the car over.
What else? Well, all the food and water was spilled out onto what was now the “floor.” The built-in toilet seat hung ridiculously open next to me – thankfully, no water in it.
The rail car's sliding door was now pinned, so no way in or out. A middle aged Indian woman was scrambling for a gun that had skittered away. (Indian is the word here; Native American has a whole different meaning.) The woman, who looked like who you’d get if you called Central Casting and asked for a jail matron, needed a few seconds to get her gun before someone went and made themselves a new door.
See? Those were the clues I used, and, yes, I did figure it all out just before another boom blew a hole into the rail car side, spraying me and the matron with splinters.
While I was swinging back and forth, hanging like a giant bologna.
Two filthy, rough men jumped into the car, pistols out. One aimed at the matron. He checked with his buddy: message clear. Shoot her?
“Ja,” the other one said.
Oh, jeez, Bavarian wild men, survivors out in Indian Country.
Robbing a train, and about to shoot this woman. Who was hardly my friend, right, but I wasn’t just going to hang here upside down and not even try to do something. (Would I be brave if I wasn’t invulnerable? Hell no.)
She looked at them. About Ma’s age. As little fear as you could expect. Weird detail: her face displayed a long lost fight with acne.
I hoped my throat was recovered.
„Frosch!” I yelled. „Ellen wird dich in einen Frosch verwandeln!“
Frog! Ellen will turn you into a frog!
Well…he didn’t pull the trigger.
But he didn’t tremble in fear, either. The guy with the gun pointed at me and laughed.
“Look what we have!” he said in the mother tongue. “Do you believe the luck?”
Right, like they didn’t know it was me in here.
“The woman is a witness,” the tough guy said. “Kill her.”
Tough guy. Good cop, bad cop.
Time to take a different approach.
“Not buying it, guys,” I said in English. “Cut me down.”
The matron stared at me, eyes widening.
The train robbers didn’t move. A one stepped in.
“The train is empty!” he snapped in English. Then he looked “What is –?”
“She thinks we are playacting,” pistol guy said. “Says she will turn us into frogs.”
“I said Ellen – never mind! I swear, if you shoot her…”
“What will happen?” The new guy asked. “Frogs might be improvements for us.”
Stepping away from the woman, the good cop used the pistol barrel to push me a bit. I swung back and forth again.
“Ugliest pinata I ever saw.”
The new guy, the leader, reached out and stopped me.
“Leave the food and water,” he said. “Get her down, and no funny business.”
He hopped out of the train car without looking back.
The good cop and bad cop exchanged some knowing look.
“‘Funny business,’” the bad cop said. “She’s just a kid.”
Well, they got me untied and I gave them high marks for following orders. No one bothered the woman (they did take her gun, of course). I was freed with a minimum of fuss.
“Too bad,” the good cop said when the harness thing dropped to the floor. “It was rather fetching on you.”
“Let me go and I’ll treat you all to hot baths in Merryland,” I said.
More of the smart aleck courage I wouldn’t normally have.
That got a chuckle from both of them.
The matron, though, stared out with a look of hate I didn’t like. Even though it wasn’t directed at me.
I didn’t think.
***
They put me up on a horse, sharing one with the leader guy. Right up behind him – no funny business guaranteed.
No one used names. You have to go out of your way for that.
I’d have given them my own names but I just didn’t care.
Why did he do it?
Christopher Wren had a whole life ahead of him. He’d just made his fortune.
And he never had a prayer of stopping four armed men. Didn’t have to worry about hitting me, even, but…the guy was a pro. He knew it was impossible.
And, sure enough, they cut him down.
Mr. Wren was unbearable. Disrespected Ellis, threw himself around town like a lord. Even Colonel Blevins didn’t like him. By any world’s standard, he was a racist.
And he sure didn’t like me.
But – like he said. Sometimes a man has to fight.
Now he was dead.
I wasn’t tearing up, I was crying. And I was a little ashamed, because part of it was that Mr. Wren died without ever knowing he was wrong about Ellis. And why should that matter?
Mr. Wren didn’t know Ellis would’ve don’t the same thing back home. He was extraordinary there, but he wasn’t super strong and he wasn’t invulnerable. He would have died, just like Mr. Wren did.
And now I could say honestly I was crying about Ellis. Mr. Wren wasn’t wrong, Ellis had power, real power. But there was a price. He wasn’t really invulnerable. He was risking everything if he didn’t come home. He knew that, he knew I knew it.
And he still wouldn’t come home. Not yet. Ellen ordered him to do it. Normally that would have worked. She was six minutes older and all the authority in the world to him.
But something had happened. A year had passed in the Lincoln World for Ellis. Only two days had passed for us. When we saw him here, he had a beard. And it had filled in pretty good.
But it wasn’t just that he was older now. He was different. He’d been a follower, yes. A doormat, no, absolutely no. But no one to look for trouble.
But of course that was why he was here. Ellis had a battle to fight before he could come home. The same fight Mr. Wren was talking about. So the guy was wrong. Again.
I cried a little harder. The guy in front of me looked over his shoulder for a second, but didn’t say anything.
We rode. Another fifteen minutes in the pitch black.
Jesus! Who were these guys? Where could they be heading without a road or lights?
I didn’t care. But I wanted to get off this stupid horse.
A little way more, then our fearless leader raised his hand. Pointed.
Yes. A firelight. Hidden by a dune. Very clever.
Maybe it was a hobo camp. That would be just great.
Oh! It finally hit me.
I think it was the way they all were sitting around their campfire, one dirtier than the other. Name calling, hollering, all of it shutting up when the three riders (plus one little troll) rode up. It made me think of Blazing Saddles, but it was the wrong movie.
Gone With The Wind.
They were Confederates. Much more like the destitute, desperate survivors in our world’s 1864. Of course Ellis told me that, I wouldn’t have known. Here, in the Lincoln World, the Confederacy was a tiny but real country. Parts of Arkansas and Alabama, propped up by England and France. Another part of the unutterably weird stuff the Lincoln World threw at you.
Because the Confederacy here was rich. I couldn’t even repeat all the political reasons it existed. But one thing did matter to Ellis – and I had to bet that was the reason they had taken me from whoever kidnapped me in the first place.
The Confederacy was one of the “flags” making up the supposedly rogue Four Flag Army. The one gathering to storm Southern California out of Mexico and take Carnaval Midway.
The battle Ellis said he had to fight before he came home.
And that’s what me and Ellen had been dealing with the past week or so we’ve been here. Seventeen year old Sheriff Ellis, the version with a beard. The noble, doomed Colonel Blevins. Thousands of settlers, refugees, spies, and speculators who’d built Merryland under the eyes of Colonel Blevins’s outmanned Union Army.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I snapped. “How did I not see this!”
I let the guy help me down from his horse because, well, no funny business.
“I can’t believe you did this!” I snapped at him. “What did you think this would accomplish?”
“Sorry, Miss?” the leader guy said.
“Look, you need to give me a name,” I said. “It can be a fake name, but –”
“You can call him Loverboy,” the good cop said, raising a huge laugh.
“Yeah, well, I’m calling you Pinkie and you the Brain,” I said. “Or, I dunno, you and your buddy can be Heckle and Jeckle, how’s that?”
That was one of…his…little gems, cartoons that were old a long time ago. I’d never admit it, but I thought it was hilarious..
“That sounds fine,” Heckle said. The bad cop shook his head. “You’re Jeckle, hear?”
“You can call me Hal,” leader guy said.
“Never mind! Enough playacting. I know you’re not refugees. You’re not Confederate deserters, are you?”
Hal shrugged.
“Could be we are some of both?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure. And you just happened to kidnap me.”
“Now hold on,” Heckle said. “We did not kidnap you.”
I just harumphed.
“He’s not lying,” Hal said. The Southern vibe was there. “I am, was, a Confederate officer.”
“He’ll be hanged no matter who catches him,” Heckle said. Jeckle nodded his agreement.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
They all started cheering for Hal to get hung. Then they pretended to cry because they were all going to hang. Figured out what they were, finally.
They were frat boys.
“Wow, and so you guys just hang out here in the desert, in Union territory –”
“Well, now, Miss, let’s be fair,” Hal said. “We weren’t hasslin’ anyone, then your Sheriff boy and his carnival of yours showed up.”
Okay, that was true. And I’d had enough of this conversation.
“Okay, great,” I said. “How about you show me to the ladies’ room and get some place for me to sleep? We can be rested when Ellis or Colonel Blevins finds you.”
They looked around at each other. Pretending they had a dilemma on their hands.
“Okay,” Hal said. “You got us. Our secret plan is blown up.”
“Seriously, Cap,” someone said. “Why did you bring her? Can’t she just walk home?”
That actually quieted them down. It dawned on me I might be wrong. They might actually be the bums they looked like.
Hal sighed.
“Come to think of it,” he said. “Probably shoulda done just that.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Hold on. I can’t walk home from here.”
“Didn’t say you would,” Hal said. “Get her a kit!”
“Wait! What’s a kit?”
“Just something to sleep on,” Hal said. “Told you, not saying you’ll have to walk back.”
Someone ran up to us with what looked like a bedroll.
“But I’m not saying you won’t, either.”