***
As Nellie walked through the dining car, she tried to see the world through Ian’s dark eyes and find the brushstrokes. True, she was an investigative reporter, who had once feigned insanity in order to investigate conditions at an insane asylum. She knew how to pull details like weeds. What she didn’t have was Ian’s cold, inhuman observations of the world around him. His mind was like reading a geologist’s journal. Nellie tried to find that same indifference in her soul, but it wouldn’t surface. Her editor had picked her apart for that before, saying that she got too entangled in her subjects and couldn’t distance herself from her articles. She once thought that was her greatest strength, but her short time with Ian was beginning to make her question that. Can you truly study a world that you’re apart of?
By then, Nellie had stepped onto the rickety vestibule between the dining car and first-class. Before she opened up the door to the sleeping car, she took a deep breath. It was time to make her strange friend proud.
She opened the door and immediately felt like she had just walked onstage in the middle of a tragic play. A crowd of first-class passengers and porters had crowded the door to the Rowes’ sleeping compartment. The women there had their hands to their mouths, the mask of shock. The men looked grim, shaking their heads in disbelief. If Nellie had the time, she would have thought about the marathon of scares running through their minds. She would have thought about how they reserved a spot in the first-class car, thinking that they would be insulated from just how real the world can get. To have a murder occur just feet from where they slept made them feel violated, as if the walls around them were just in their imagination.
But Nellie didn’t have the time to dwell on thoughts like that. She had seconds, if that, before the marshals arrived and closed off the sleeping compartment as a crime scene. She had to inhale as much of the details as possible. As Nellie made her way through the crowd, she spotted the Coburns huddled together, Selina washing her face with tears, Martin’s knees shaking without his knowing.
Feeling empowered, Nellie hissed at Martin, “Run into the dining car and distract the marshals!”
“Why…” Martin began, but stopped when he saw the acceleration of fury in Nellie’s eyes. Suddenly realizing that now wasn’t the time for an explanation, Martin said, “Okay.”
Her eyes wide, Selina tried to reach out and grab Martin’s shoulder, but her husband had already made his way towards the door. Turning to Nellie, Selina demanded, “Don’t you remember the last time my husband talked to the marshals…?”
But Nellie had abandoned Selina too. As she wrestled her way through the crowd, Nellie excused herself as politely as she could as she elbowed people aside. Then abruptly, Nellie found herself at the door to the sleeping compartment. She immediately felt the chill in the air, as streamers of frost slipped through the window that was cracked open. Nellie then fought down the urge to vomit as she looked into the shadow of the human spirit.
The first body she saw was that of Owen Bristol, the last remaining bodyguard to the Rowes. He had his back to the door when he was shot, and when Nellie had opened up the door earlier, his body had fallen out into the hallway, almost landing on her. From the floor, Owen’s eyes were staring back up at Nellie. His lips were locked in a painful grin, as if he had heard a punchline in the gunshot. There was a jagged circle dug into his forehead, where the bullet had drilled through and scrambled his brains. A slug of blood was trickling down the side of his head and dripping on the floor.
The second body she saw was that of Clark Rowe, one of the more famous names in ranching in Wyoming. With his salty beard and wrinkles irrigated in his face, Rowe still did not have the look of a man prepared to meet his end. His body was sprawled out on the couch, a limp arm dangling just an inch off the floor. Clark’s jaundiced eyes were open and staring in horror at the ceiling. Even from where she stood, she was distracted by the golden color of his eyes, and it reminded her of the ancient tradition of placing coins on the eyes of the dead. Of all the money that Clark had accumulated through his life, this was the only gold he was taking with him into the afterlife.
And the third body belonged to Adele Rowe. The slim lady, with straw-colored hair knotted tightly into a bun, Adele once looked as warm as the sunshine, but now she was as cold as the moonlight. Her face had leaked its burning color, and her jaw was slack as if her scream had outlived her. She was propped up against the back wall of the compartment, underneath the blizzard-black windows. Her left leg was stretched out in front of her, her right curled awkwardly to the side. She had the revolver in her right hand, the elbow still leaning against a cushioned chair. From where Nellie stood, it was hard to tell where the bullet had entered Adele’s skull. But there was blood draining down the side of her neck, ruining her pearl necklace, and so the wound must have been just behind Adele’s ear. Nellie found it so hard to believe that someone with so dainty hands could have been responsible for so monstrous a crime.
Nellie was able to absorb all of this information in just a handful of seconds. She was startled by this to say the least. She wondered if this was what it was like to be Ian. She then wondered if Ian ever became startled anymore.
Just then, there was the sound of a door opening, and Nellie heard a heavy parade of boots enter the train car. She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was, mostly because she heard the one marshal snap at Martin, “For an innocent man, you sure have been found at the scene of a lot of murders lately.”
Martin mumbled something forgettable about bad luck as one of the marshals roughly pushed Nellie to the side before saying, “Step away, lady. Let us do our work in…oh, God.”
The marshal forgot what he was saying as he saw the grisly scene before him. Nellie quietly melted back into the crowd as the marshal shook his head. He said to one of his fellow marshals standing behind him, “Remind me when we get to Cheyenne that I have to start a drinking problem.”