Karen Memory

Chapter Fifteen

It’s not every night a wild Comanche tumbles in your bedroom window. Some folk might consider that sort of a pity, but it suits me just fine. Especially since the one time it ever happened to me, he managed it so quiet that I didn’t wake up and notice him until he was well inside and closing it behind him.

I woke with a start to a slim man silhouetted against a gray sky, and I probably would have shrieked like a teakettle if I hadn’t been struck completely dumb with terror. By the time I’d gasped in a breath, I recognized Tomoatooah and that he was holding a finger to his lips. “How did you know which room was mine?”

There were probably other questions which bore asking first, mind, but that was the one I managed to think of.

He smiled and pointed at the little wooden horse on the ledge. My da made that for me when I was just little. It was a stiff little critter with a tossing mane — and he mended the leg, too, when I broke it.

“Guessed,” he said. “Also, I peeked inside. You should lock your window.”

“If I locked my window, what would I do for Comanche?” I got up, glad I was wearing thick flannel, and went to the window. “You hiding from somebody?”

He nodded and stood aside so I could get a look. I made sure not to rustle the curtain when I peered around it.

The sky overhead was graying, but the streets were shadowed and dark. Down by the waterfront — about two blocks away — I saw the flicker of torches moving around the street in a pattern that suggested a search. I heard ’em calling back and forth to each other through the mist.

“Lynch mob?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I didn’t stay to ask.”

“They didn’t see you come in here?”

He shook his head. “I came down from the roof.”

“Hm,” I said. “Something tells me you ought to get out of Rapid, pronto.”

“No flies on you.”

A sarcastic houseguest. That was just what I wanted to be awakened by at dawn. I sighed.

“Well,” I said. “As long as we’re up, we might as well get some breakfast.”

I managed to rustle up some of yesterday’s bread and scrape some dripping into a pan while Tomoatooah blew up the banked fire and got a little flicker going. I fried up the bread and warmed some cold coffee without waking Connie in her room down the hall — she would have cooked us two breakfasts apiece, but she deserved her sleep as much as any of us — and we ate the greasy salty bread standing up over the plank work top, hands cupped to catch drips.

By the time we were done, Connie had woken up of her own accord, and she got Crispin to help her hide Tomoatooah under some empty coffee sacks in the back of the wagon so we could spirit him away. Crispin promised to get him to the edge of town and then personally take a message to Marshal Reeves as to what had happened and where the Comanche would meet him — Connie suggested an old sawmill up the river two miles — and when that was arranged I went the hell back to bed.

It weren’t the most successful endeavor I ever undertook. Mostly I laid there with a pillow over my face, worrying. Tomoatooah wasn’t safe in the city no more, not with Bantle convincing half the town he was the killer. And how safe was Marshal Reeves going to be without his posseman?

I didn’t like any of it. Not at all.

Hell, for fifteen minutes I even wondered if there was any sense in going to see Horaz Standish and seeing if some kind of a truce could be brokered. He had the reputation of being a reasonable man.

But I figured Madame Damnable would consider that interfering with Bantle without her permission, and at this point I figured if I did that she might just break all my fingers for me before she tossed me out on the street.

* * *

So began a long, cold wait.

I read somewhere that there’s little in this world more frustrating than having a plan and the desire to carry it out and being thwarted in expression. But thwarted I was, and all I could do was work, read, write, and fuss over Priya. And frankly, there just weren’t that much work to be getting on with. The parlor was nearly empty most nights — there was more girls than men, even counting Crispin and the Professor. Madame came and went at strange hours, and there was three or four men I didn’t know who came in, spoke right to Miss Bethel, and went up to Madame’s office without further ado. Crispin walked each one up, but they came back down on their own and left likewise.

We got some business from the constables, if you can call it business when they didn’t pay. In fact, I saw Miss Bethel handing at least one of them a little cloth purse as he left. Seems to me as you should take your bribe in money or flesh. To ask for both seems like trying to use your fat to fry and spread it on your cornpone, too. But I suppose if you’re taking grease from a whorehouse, you ain’t too concerned with the appearance of venality.

I kept hoping to see the Marshal or Merry Lee, but other than one quick note from Bass Reeves delivered by a street urchin, I heard nothing from either one of them. Priya didn’t go back to see her sister, either, though I know Aashini sent her a letter in some language that looked to me like a whole set of brush doodles. Pretty brush doodles, but Greek made more sense. Going to see her would of been too dangerous — anybody could have followed Priya to wherever Merry had Aashini holed up. Priya, though — she was walking on air the whole time.

And Priya and me … well, whenever she was around I was walking on air, too. I taught her how to braid rugs, and things was so boring she made me one in about three days, to replace the one I’d given her. And there was more kissing, too, although sometimes we’d be curled up all comfortable together and she’d suddenly have to get up and pace or she’d find something needed doing right desperate like, and in a different room.

That’s all I’m going to say about that except the other girls — and Crispin, even — got to treating the two of us as if we came as a set and that didn’t gripe me none at all.

That note from Reeves just told me to hang tight and watch my back. Because I hadn’t been doing that without his urging, nor Priya’s back, neither. It hinted at progress but didn’t spell none out, which made me wonder if he weren’t just telling me something good to keep me quiet and out of trouble. As if I needed anything more than Madame’s threat against Priya to manage that.

I tried like hell not to fuss when I didn’t hear again. Maybe they was lying low or tailing Bantle’s Russian mechanic and they didn’t have much time to chat.

I didn’t tell Priya what Madame had threatened, because I knowed what she would say. That she could take care of herself and that she’d help me go get Bantle any time I said the word. Hell, she’d lead the charge and I’d be the one holding her gloves.

So mostly I got a good big lot of sewing done. Sewing sewing, I mean. Not the other sort, though I took my turn with the constables when it came around and pretended to like it. Priya and Miss Lizzie had turned that Singer into the next best thing to a steam shovel, and the sewing went quick. Priya got another pair of trousers and two shirts including the pretty one — she hid her face in her hair when I gave it to her — and Miss Francina got the trim work done on a bodice, and I had to let down all of Beatrice’s hems because she wasn’t getting any bigger around, but she was shooting up like a stem.

* * *

One good thing that happened, though, was when Priya took me to the circus as a thank-you for the rug and coverlid. Mostly good, anyway. Well, the circus itself was a great idea. There was all those elephants, and a pink poodle that drove an automaton after some clowns, and a trapeze act with rocket packs. There was a tiger who jumped through flaming hoops and didn’t seem very impressed with the whip the trainer kept cracking. I liked the tiger fine, and the popped corn, and the dog-faced boy — but I could have done without the whip. Given what we’d found out by the trash bins, I don’t think Priya or me really needed the reminder.

There was some trick riding, though, that was Cossacks and the equal of anything Da could’ve done. Maybe better. Neither he nor I could have managed a bareback handstand. I had to look away from the horses after a while, though, and watch the girls in their tight bathing costumes sailing around under the big top on buzzing mechanical wings.

Priya wanted to go around the back after the show and see the elephants. She said she’d heard sometimes you could ride on them or feed them peanuts.

I didn’t feel the need to make the acquaintance of an elephant, but I was happy to go wherever Priya led. She could look at elephants and I could look at her, and we would both be happy. I didn’t want to stay too long — I was thirsty and didn’t want beer, and God knew what could be in the water out here: cholera, the dysentery … tiny piranhas.

There was a good crowd out by the elephant pen. I say “pen,” but I don’t believe for an instant those split-wood rails would do one damned thing to slow down an elephant that wanted to be on the other side of them.

Priya pushed up right by it anyway, leaning on the rails, so I came and stood beside her. The elephants mostly seemed interested in their hay — they picked it up with their long curly noses and stuffed it into their mouths — and I didn’t expect any trouble from ’em. Some folk had brought apples or peanuts to tempt ’em, and pretty soon one of the smaller ones wandered over to the fence and started to lift goodies from people’s fingertips. One of the keepers was loitering nearby, keeping an eye on what people fed to his charge, but he didn’t seem concerned overall.

Priya, though, looked stricken. And I thought I knew why. We hadn’t brought anything to feed the elephant with.

I touched her on the shoulder.

She turned to me, dark eyes wide under her arched brows — the prettiest thing I have ever seen. “Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a quarter hour.”

“These are Indian elephants,” she said with a smile. “I will stay right here.”

I hadn’t known there was more than one kind of elephant, and I made a note to myself to ask her later what the differences was. Right now, though, I threaded through the crowd, dodging at least one would-be rump squeezer along the way. There was a line at the concession stand, but I wrinkled my nose and joined it, flicking the skirts of my iris-colored day dress smooth. I’d told Priya a quarter hour, after all. And I didn’t think she’d run away if I was a few minutes late — but I also realized that I hated being away from her.

Ain’t love grand?

But I was set on my surprise, so I stayed in line.

There were two men in front of me talking politics and I ain’t proud of it, but I made a mule ear over at ’em while all the while pretending to search in my reticule for Christ knows what. Eavesdropping’s a sin, but ignorance is fatal. Take your pick.

“… we haven’t done so bad with Stone,” the tall one said.

The smaller took a swig of his flask. “We haven’t done so good with him, either. You think Bantle would put up with those Chinks spreading cholera and syphilis all over the city?”

You ever hear somebody blithely say something so amazingly plastered over with bullshit it just makes your eyes bug? I swear to God, I found my nail scissors in my bag and dug it into my fingertip to keep from opening my mouth. It hurt less than biting my lip. I wanted to ask him what Bantle was blackmailing him with to get him to spread such categorical lies.

“Besides,” said the one with the flask, “Stone won’t run. He’s too afraid of what would come out. I bet he’s swindled the city out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by now.”

I remembered something Pollywog had said about her secret client not seeming like himself lately and bit my lip. But I was saved from whatever I might have said because they got to the front of the line and had to order. Fried dough, bratwurst, fritters, and beer. They were too busy stuffing sausages into their faces to continue the conversation when they left, thank Christ.

I got up and ordered two caramel apples, two beers, and a bag of peanuts, but when I pulled coins from my reticule to pay, a hand reached over my shoulder.

“I’ve got the lady’s order,” someone said over my shoulder.

When I turned around, I startled. It was René, a gold miner from Quebec I knowed from Madame’s house. Sometimes he’d just sit in the parlor and buy Bea drinks and they’d talk at each other in two different kinds of French. He hadn’t come in in a month or so, though. He was a good tipper with good breath, and all the girls liked him.

I said, “That’s very generous.”

He handed me the caramel apples. “How were you going to carry all this?”

“I manage,” I said. We turned away. “I haven’t seen you in lately.”

He shrugged and frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t had much gumption to come visiting of late.”

I thought about how business had been falling off. “Have you been going somewhere else?”

He snorted. “You know that’d be like hot dogs after caviar, Karen honey. Begging your pardon.”

I took a bite of one of the apples. The caramel was chewy and thick, the apple inside a lick of crunch and juiciness. It’d be a challenge not to eat it all. “Did you hear about the murder?”

“Right outside your door, it was, non?”

I nodded. “The Ancient and Honorable Guild of Seamstresses is getting up a Vigilance Committee. Patrols. You don’t need to be afraid to come see us.”

He shrugged, one of those eloquent Frog shrugs with a whole paragraph in it. Pity Bea wasn’t there to read that paragraph to me, because it was in a language I could recognize but not speak much of. “I heard some girls went to Horaz Standish to ask for protection,” he said.

I made myself swallow instead of spit, but it weren’t easy. “They better be careful they don’t wind up in Bantle’s cribs. Oh, here we are. René, this is my friend Priya. She’s … she’s one of our mechanics.”

That seemed safest. She looked down, and I held the second apple out to her. “There’s peanuts for the elephant,” I told her. “And I got you a beer.”

You have never seen a face light up like hers when I said “peanuts,” I tell you true.

René didn’t seem to mind being seen with a couple of whores, or maybe he enjoyed watching the elephant’s hairy, ridiculously dainty nose tip whisk peanut after peanut out of Priya’s slender fingers. She even let me try once, and the prickle of fine hairs and the huff of warm breath reminded me of a horse’s lip feeling for carrots so it almost made me weep. Priya and René were both generous enough to pretend not to notice, though.

Afterward, Priya and me took our leave of René and walked home slowly. It was getting on sunset but sunny and we hadn’t needed our umbrellas. We were companionable and it was fine indeed — but our peace and goodwill lasted only until we climbed down the ladder by Madame’s and walked into the parlor.

Nobody was there but the girls, the Professor, and Crispin. And all the girls was there — even Madame. All gathered around Francina, who sat on a love seat with her head on her hands.

I slipped up next to Bea, who was at the back of the group — or the front, depending on your perspective. Closest the door, anyway. Priya ghosted behind me. “What happened?”

Bea’s lips compressed. “One of Miss Francina’s specials went down with a gold ship.”

I blinked, stunned. Then something awful occurred to me. “Wait, that same ship?” I remembered reading in the paper about one that had gone down some time ago.

“No,” Bea said. “A second one.”

“Criminy.” Sure, the seas got rough in winter — but those modern ships were huge things and expected to weather anything short of a hurricane. To lose two in the space of a month was bad luck indeed. “That’s awful.”

“She just heard,” Bea whispered.

“Well,” I said. “I’m going to get her some coffee—”

But Connie had beaten me to it. She came out of the back with a tray and set it down, and started shooing girls away from Miss Francina like so many busy chickens. The Professor went back to his bench and started picking out something skipping. Crispin came over by the door.

I stood there feeling useless until Priya took my hand and led me over to sit down near Miss Francina and Miss Lizzie, where we talked about the circus and not shipwrecks at all.

Priya’s not just smart about machines.

* * *

After Miss Francina got herself together, she wanted to look for conspiracies. And we had next to no johns come in that night, so talk in the parlor was all of the Russians and the Brits and rumors that they was allying up in Victoria to pincer into Alaska and take it back, now that they knowed it was full of gold.

The Professor eventually wandered off his bench and came over to opine that the Russians wouldn’t even put up with the Brits, even for all the gold in Alaska. We were working up to a good old cheerful row over that, and that color was coming back into Miss Francina’s cheeks something wonderful, when Crispin jumped up to answer a knock and we all fell silent and turned.

I’m sure we didn’t look the least bit suspicious at all.

Crispin opened the door, and in walked that constable, Sergeant Waterson, and one of his towers of muscle. He paused inside the door, shifting from foot to foot as if embarrassed, and said, “I’m sorry, ladies, but I’m here to investigate a complaint that there’s a woman on the premises dressing in men’s clothing.”

He very carefully didn’t look at Miss Francina, and Miss Francina very carefully kept her back turned to him. She was perched on a bar stool, leaning against Miss Bethel, and though they each took a breath, neither one of them acknowledged Waterson in any way.

Madame happened to be in the parlor herself just then, and she stood up slow, leaning on her cane. “Sergeant?” she said in her warning voice. “Who was it, exactly, that swore out this complaint?”

“It was anonymous,” he said. “And you know I don’t take it seriously, Madame. But you know I have to make a visit.”

“Right.” She sighed. “Bethel, my cash box, please?”

Waterson held up a hand. “There’s no fine.”

We all blinked. If he wasn’t going to take a bribe, then what was this all about?

He scuffed a boot on the edge of the rug. “I can see there’s nothing amiss here. I was asked—”

He quailed under Madame’s advance, though, and whatever he might have said next was lost. He dug in his pocket and produced an envelope. He held it out to her.

She slit it with a thumbnail smooth as I might have used a pocketknife. It took her fifteen seconds to read the half sheet within. Then she grunted, crumbled the whole mess in her hand, and pitched it underhand into the fire.

“You tell Peter Bantle that I’ll kowtow to him when he breaks both my knees,” she said evenly.

“Madame—”

“And another thing, Christopher Waterson,” she continued. “He ain’t gonna win this. So you better decide right now which side you think you’d like to be on.”