“Hey, George!” The young man in the dinner suit called out.
Although the porter’s name was Laurence and not George, he still turned at the sound of the name. A young, black man with a neat mustache and trimmed hair, Laurence had to fight down a groan that rose in his throat like vomit. He had only been on the job for two months, and already he was tired of being called everything but his own name. The other porters – who were black as well – told him that he would get used to it just like they did, but Laurence couldn’t see why he should.
“Yes, Mr. Coburn?” The porter asked, getting the man’s name right.
“I want you to come over here and smell this awful smell,” Martin Coburn demanded.
“I’d rather just take your word for it, sir.”
“It smells like mold,” Martin continued. “I’ve never smelled mold before, but I imagine that this is what it smells like.”
Laurence sighed, making sure that Martin did not see him sighing. He walked through the tight corridor of the first-class sleeping car, excusing himself as he squeezed past another couple. He poked his head into the Coburns’ sleeping compartment and took a whiff. He looked back at Martin and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid your nose just has an imagination.”
Laurence wasn’t going to admit it, but it did smell like death in the compartment. While Martin had never smelled mold before, Laurence had plenty of times, and it took all he had not to gag. A recent torrential downpour had hit the Kansas City area, causing the Missouri River to become engorged and spill over onto the shores. The rail yard had been caught up in the floods, and this car was among those that had drowned. The workers thought they had wrung out all of the train cars, but it appears that they missed one. But Laurence wasn’t going to admit this, especially not to paying customers.
Martin sputtered, not sure how to respond. Standing next to the young man was a woman with goldfinch hair and sky-blue eyes, her looks richer than the outdated dress that she wore. She was day to her husband’s night, with his brown eyes and even darker hair. And where her love stumbled for his words, she didn’t so much speak as she stabbed with her words. “Don’t go through the trouble of lying to us. You’re going to find us other sleeping arrangements, or my husband will have the papers back home drag your company through the mud.”
“Please, Selina…” Martin begged.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Laurence said, throwing his hands up in surrender. “The rest of the first class is entirely booked. As a matter of fact, the entire train is booked. The only option I can give you is to squeeze in with the third-class passengers. I’m sure they’ll make some space for you on the benches.”
“That’s an awful idea!” Selina snapped.
“It’d be an adventure,” Laurence said, gently rephrasing what she said.
“A rose by any other name,” she scoffed. “You’re either making room for us here, or we’re getting off the train.”
Laurence could barely contain his smile as he gestured towards the window, the scenery flashing by. “Well, just make sure your dress doesn’t get caught up in the wheels when you jump.”
“Why you insolent…!” Selina began, spit crackling from her lips like lightning.
“Excuse me,” a voice called out, building a wall between the woman and the porter. The Coburns and Laurence turned to see the diplomat. She was leaning against the doorway into her sleeping compartment. Her white blouse was wrinkled like clumps of sugar, and she cocooned herself with a thick overcoat the color of a dark forest. She wore a wide skirt that looked but didn’t ring like a bell. Her eyes were nuggets of emerald and her chocolate hair waltzed in the wind that wasn’t really there. She looked sharp but her words were soft like a dull knife.
“My compartment is far too roomy for one person,” she continued. “You two are more than welcome to make it more uncomfortable for the time being.”
The Coburns hesitated, unsure of what to do. Selina was the first to speak. “We accept,” she said, brushing past the porter and stepping foot into the stranger’s compartment. Martin followed close behind, as if pulled by the gravity of his wife, his world. The compartment was indeed too roomy for one person, with a generous aisle separating a plush couch from a bed that you could vanish into like quicksand. In the corner, pushed against the window, was a little writing desk.
“We’ll stay, but only for a little bit,” Martin said, looking down at his pocket watch.
“Nonsense!” The lady said gallantly. “Come – sit.”
As the Coburns planted themselves, trying to look as dignified as possible, the stranger sat down hard on the bed’s edge. Her feet dangling just an inch off the floor, her hands drilled into the mattress around her, the stranger said, “So, your first time riding first-class?”
“No,” Martin said quickly.
The stranger cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because usually, first-class travelers know that money can open up doors for them, especially doors to empty sleeping compartments. That black man out there is paid next to nothing in wages, and he survives on tips alone. Every first-class traveler knows that, although none of them will admit to it.”
“You admit to it, though,” Selina pointed out.
The stranger smiled. “Ah, but I’m not first-class, not in the slightest. I didn’t pay for the room – my employer did. If it was up to me, I would have sat in the back with the poor folk and spent the difference on whiskey when we reached Cheyenne. If you want, you two can take the bed in here tonight. I’m far more comfortable sleeping on a bench, to be honest.”
Both of the Coburns were taken aback by the rough edges on what they thought was a polished lady. The stranger noticed this and grinned. “You look surprised, as if you thought my head would be mounted on the wall of a hunter’s cabin. I’ve been told that a woman like me is a rare catch: someone who’s comfortable in any clothing, whether it’s a socialite’s or a working-girl’s.”
“Well, anyway, thank you for your charity in letting us stay here,” Martin said, trying to change the subject. “It’s very Christian of you.”
The lady laughed. “I don’t follow Jesus – I follow a good story. And that’s what I saw when I saw you.”
This caught Martin off-guard, because no one had ever called him interesting before. The woman continued, “Not only are you unfamiliar with first-class etiquette, but you also have a crooked bow tie on, which means that someone – possibly a parent, given your age, but more likely a servant given your status – has been dressing you your whole life until very recently. With that in mind, your dress shoes are unpolished too. You’re learning how to be your own man, but you’re still learning. This, and your newlywed wife, tells me that you ran away from home or that you got kicked out.”
Martin blushed hard, and Selina asked, “How did you know we’re newlyweds?”
The woman shrugged. “It’s simple – you two are too happy to be anything else.”
Martin finally found his words. “How did you know so much about me?”
“I know just enough to ask questions. It’s why I’m a reporter.”
Martin breathed in sharply. It suddenly dawned on him who they were talking with. From his short stint working at his father’s newspaper, he knew of only one female reporter. “You’re Nellie Bly,” he said.
“You make it sound like an accusation,” Nellie said with an easy laugh. “But yes, I’m guilty of being Nellie Bly.” She didn’t have to say what it was she did. Her name alone was famous after she went undercover as a patient at an insane asylum and exposed the horrors there. Nellie then went from being undercover to being overseas. After reading Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, she decided to bring the book to life. And while it took the characters in Verne’s book eighty days, it only took Nellie seventy-two. She made her newspaper columns come alive like pop-up books, and her readers loved her for it.
All of this acted out like a shadow play
against the candle in Martin’s mind, and it terrified him. Nellie watched, fascinated, as Martin’s face turned different shades of white. She turned to Selina and said, “I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark. What’s his father’s name?”
“Ernest Coburn,” Selina said. She then added, “He’s the editor of The News.”
“Selina…” Martin begged.
“Oh! I know that paper well enough,” Nellie chirped. “It’s what I read when I want to know what’s wrong with Baltimore.” She looked in Martin’s direction. “You’re afraid there’s no honor among thieves, and that my next article will be about a rival editor’s son running away with the new bride. If you’re worried about that, then you’ve never read one of my articles before. I’m interested in the bigger picture, one so large that you can only see it in pieces, pieces like the ones I write. My editor sent me out here to write about the poor immigrant masses living in San Francisco.”
“This train isn’t going to San Francisco, though,” Selina said, confused.
“Of course not – I was in Kansas City waiting for my ride out to California when I heard the good news. You do know who’s on board with us at this very moment…don’t you?”
Selina looked genuinely baffled while Martin gave a nervous cough. Smiling, Nellie continued, “We have the charming Sheldon McKenna onboard with us.”
Selina gasped. “The murderer?” She asked.
“Not so much a murderer as he is the plague itself. Rumor has it that he’s killed hundreds, but you know how rumors are,” Nellie said conversationally.
“What in the world is he doing on this train?”
“The marshals have been chasing him halfway across the country after what happened in Wyoming. They found him in Kansas City, where he was in jail for the disappearance of a prostitute. Normally, the police wouldn’t care what happens to those poor girls, but this particular girl was the daughter of a state legislator. Anyway, he was waiting trial when a marshal spotted his name on a dispatch and told Kansas City the catch they just netted. So the marshals are taking him back to Wyoming, where he’ll answer for what he did there. When I heard about that, I just couldn’t resist tagging along.”
“But to have a murderer onboard…” Selina said, looking sick.
“Relax – I saw him getting loaded onto the train at Kansas City. He’s wearing shackles like Cleopatra wore jewelry, he has a regiment of marshals escorting him, and they have him all locked up in one of the refrigerated cars. As long as he’s chained, he’s nothing more than a slab of meat that used to be a bull. But he’s more than that. Just think of the potential.”
“The potential for what?”
“Well, when he gets to Cheyenne, the trial of the century is going to be waiting for him. Do you remember what happened back in April? About the fight between the ranchers out in Wyoming?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” Martin admitted.
“Well first, if you thought you were leaving behind the evils back East when you took the train out west, you were mistaken. Out in Wyoming, you have the Wyoming Stock Growers Association – the WSGA – which is made up of all of the rich and powerful ranchers. And since Wyoming is cattle country, they essentially own their state. The federal government just leases the state from them, really, by buying their steaks. But not all of the state bleeds the WSGA – there are small ranchers out there, folks with a few heads of cattle. For the past few years, the big ranchers have been trying to take over the small ranchers, because apparently the WSGA doesn’t have enough of a monopoly. But how do you justify taking over another rancher’s land? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way.”
The Coburns were silent, and Nellie shook her head. “If you want to live out West, you have to start thinking like they do. The big ranchers claimed the little ones were rustling their cattle, and that’s a capital offense out here. You could burn down an orphanage and get a lighter sentence than you would for stealing a single cow. Oftentimes, the ranchers don’t even wait for the sheriff – if you ever see a man hanging from a tree out here, it means he rustled from the wrong rancher, one with plenty of friends and even more rope.
“Now, whether or not the little ranchers were actually rustling cattle from the WSGA is an argument for another day. Some think they did, while others aren’t as sure. Regardless, the WSGA used that as an excuse to take some of the small-time ranches out of commission and invade their land. A group of ranchers got wise to the act and formed the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers’ Association, the NWFSGA for short although an acronym like that doesn’t seem much shorter. Anyway, they hoped that by banding together, they could compete with the WSGA. But where others see competition, the WSGA saw conspiracy.
“So this past spring, they hired dozens of the vilest gunmen out in these parts, promising them a tremendous bounty for every rustler they killed. As the gunmen went on a rampage through the countryside, killing any poor rancher they found, the sheriff raised an army of townspeople numbering in the hundreds. The two sides met at a ranch, the hired gunmen manning the garrison while the sheriff’s army laid siege to the castle. The sheriff probably would have slaughtered them if President Harrison hadn’t ordered a regiment of cavalry to the battlefield to stop the fighting. The cavalry arrested the gunmen hired by the WSGA, but they inexplicably let them go on bail and every one of them fled the state. And of course the government forgot to file charges against the WSGA. Apparently their idea of cleaning up is to sweep everything under the rug.”
“And Mr. McKenna?” Selina asked.
“The WSGA had hoped that people would forget what had happened out here, and the people did, because while a person can be smart, the people are always stupid. No more than a few weeks after the crisis, the papers stopped reporting on it because nobody wanted to listen, and you always give the audience what they want. But what do you think is going to happen now? Every journalist hopes for a circus in the courtroom, and McKenna is going to be my clown. I mean, when he used to work in the rail yard, he would skin his victims and package their flesh with the slaughtered cows being shipped to Chicago.”
“You actually think that people will want to read about the trial just because they want to hear about a monster of a man? What a grotesque notion.”
“Every good story has a villain. You wouldn’t have the Bible without Satan, if you think hard enough about it. McKenna is going to draw in my readers, but they’re going to find themselves wanting to hear more about the puppeteers that moved him and his fellow gunmen-for-hire during that war for Wyoming’s soul. The only way any good can come of this is if I get the public riled enough back home to force Congress into looking at the WSGA’s monopoly. If I can be the cause of that, I’ll die as happy as I lived.”
“You know,” Martin said thoughtfully, “with all of this talk of conspiracy and murder and fights between the classes, it sounds like you’re talking more about back East than anything else.”
Nellie wanted to ask Martin what he could possibly know of conspiracy and murder and fights between the classes, even being the son of a newspaper man, but she held her tongue. Instead, she said, “East, West – they’re just directions on the compass, nothing more. Don’t believe everything you read about the West. It’s just as depressing as things are back home, but in a fresh and exciting way. You look disappointed to hear that, Mr. Coburn.”
“Oh, I am. Selina and I were hoping for a new start out here, a life where we can be equals instead of master and servant as we were back home. And by the sounds of it, our past is following us wherever we go.”
“It’s much more than that, Mr. Coburn. Your past will be waiting for you at the train station in Cheyenne with open arms,” Nellie said, giving a little laugh. She had to laugh because the Coburns certainly weren’t. “I once had a failed teacher – which is a shame, because he was good, really good – explain it to me like this. We – and when I say that, I m
ean everyone – we’re all a flu, and a contagious one at that. Ever since the Greeks put ideas to papyrus, we’ve been dreaming of the West. It’s why the Romans invaded England, why the Huns conquered Europe, why the Spaniards colonized South America, and why the prospectors chased after rumors of gold in California. And why do we always look west? Because we sicken everything we touch. Look at the cities we’ve left behind: they’re all choking on fumes, being robbed by bandits, dying from the gangrene of a thousand sins. You and your wife are out here because you heard that the West is a dream you can see when you’re awake. But the West you’ve heard so much about is always one mile west of where you’re standing. You can chase it all you want, but you’re never going to find it.”
“You’re a reporter,” Selina said, smiling humorlessly. “It’s your calling to report the bad news – of course that’s all you see.”
“A few years ago, one of my colleagues reported a story that came out of Kansas. Two families were arguing over a creek that divided their property, both wanting the water for their cattle. One thing led to another, and before you knew it, there was a gunfight that killed or wounded every man from both families. In a place as huge as the West is, the fact that men are killing each other over a creek is a sign that the East has truly invaded. Thoughts?”
Martin pretended to look down at his watch, when in reality he had nothing to offer. He was beginning to wonder if it would be less depressing to sit with the poor in coach. Lucky for him, his wife rescued him by saying, “I think…that we’re hungry. If you’d excuse us, I think we’re going to put the dining car to use.”
Nellie motioned towards the door. “Well, by all means. I was told by the porter that the pheasant’s pleasant, although I’ve always been a soup person myself.”
Nellie watched with wry eyes as the Coburns hurried themselves from the room. They were acting out the two reflexes every soul had in the face of trouble – they were running away and eating. Perhaps they weren’t supposed to learn about such things while enjoying their honeymoon on the run. But the Coburns had to learn the truth about the world rushing past the train window, and if someone had to tell them, it was best that it was a reporter. This is in spite of the fact they were probably not old enough to be ready for the bad news.
“But really, who is old enough?” Nellie asked the empty room.
The day she realized that she was a problem in search of an answer was the same day that Nellie became a reporter. She realized that most people saw everyone but themselves as fools at best and madmen at worst. It was her duty as a writer to strip the scales from their eyes. It was only when people could accept the evil in themselves that they could find the good. It was a long journey from that moment of discovery to how tall she stood now. It was only a few days prior, when she was standing on the train platform in Kansas City, trading in her ticket to San Francisco for one to Cheyenne, when she got some unexpected news. As Nellie stepped away from the counter, a man standing in line behind her introduced himself. Mr. Olivier said that he had overheard her name and guessed that he was talking to the famous Nellie Bly – she loved the way he said the word famous. The man said that he was from the Pittsburgh area as well, and that he read her work whenever he had the chance. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she was no longer living in the shadows but she was throwing her shadow across the world instead.
She smiled to herself and picked up the copy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and returned back to her reading, her feet propped up on the luggage the Coburns had left behind.
Chapter 3