He presented himself at the door to the King Street Flat, smiled broadly, and tipped his cap. “Good Morning, Mrs. Malone. I am here to help the ladies with their luggage!”
It wasn’t unlike portaging, he decided while wrestling with Jem’s heavy suitcases and Merinda’s rucksack. He wondered why it clanged so much.?
It wasn’t long before their train was screeching out of Union Station and chugging away under a bright blue sky.
Benny and Merinda settled across from each other in the dining car while Jem looked for the lavatory at the end.
“It’s only in the past few months that I have become accustomed to trains,” Benny said.
“Accustomed?”
“They’re so fast. I couldn’t believe anything went so fast. Or needed to go so fast. In Regina, I used to take a horse out to the track and bump along, and when the train first chugged out of the station, it was easy for me to keep pace. But then it sped up too quickly… ” He shook his head. “And I lost pace. There was nothing even the swiftest animal had on the machine’s steel and wheels.”
“Your life is so different from mine,” Merinda said, watching him.
“And my first automobile ride? When I first moved to training? That was something else. Jonathan talked me off my ledge. I was apprehensive. He said it was like a metal horse.” Benny chuckled. “But an automobile doesn’t feel, nor does it nudge your shoulder with its nose. With your horse, there’s an equilibrium. He talks, just not in the human language, and you form some sort of communication. With an automobile? It doesn’t know what you’re thinking. You can’t clench your feet and move your knees to let the horse know you want to go faster. You can’t jiggle the rein or pull on the bit. You have a wheel and a pedal and a gear.”
“It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?”
“The world’s moving too fast for me, Merinda. Women in trousers and big electric lights? They wouldn’t believe me if I told them at my post up north.”
“How do you get any news up there from… from civilization?”
Benny laughed. “Oh, there’s civilization up at Fort Glenbow. It’s just different from what you’re used to with your streetcars and your marquees.” He kindly took the cup of tea the waiter offered him, and Merinda followed suit. “Mostly the community westward takes a lot of patience and communication. What you find is two very different groups of people trying to understand each other. I don’t always speak the language the natives do. When I try, they lapse into English with far more proficiency than I would ever share in their tongue. We live with nature too. And animals. I can tell when a wolf is near. I can trail a criminal using a path of broken twigs. I can map the stars.” He shrugged. “And who needs the city when he can see the stars?”
Merinda was spellbound, but she couldn’t let him know that. So she said, “I can see the stars.”
“Can you? High above those skyscrapers? That big arcade on Yonge? The rail building? It’s the tallest in the empire, isn’t it? Blocks the stars.”
“I can!” She was adamant. “Besides, what company do you have out there with you? Just you and a few wolves?”
Benny nodded thoughtfully. “It can get lonely. But I’ve never minded much being on my own. I understand the world better when I can live in my own thoughts.”
“When you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone,” Merinda translated.
“Exactly.”
“When you don’t have to worry about anyone mistaking your tone or the way you talk for being… cold… or odd.”
Benny smiled. “Of a sort.”
Merinda traced the windowpane with her index finger, thinking it would be nice if the train took forever to reach its destination.
Jasper Forth had never done anything quite so spontaneous, so reckless or foolhardy, as telling Tipton he was taking leave. First Tipton asked why he needed a warrant signed for Spenser’s requisition and shipping orders. Jasper lied for the second time in his life.? When pressed, he had described the time off as “well, a sort of vacation, to see about an old friend.” And then he’d dashed to the train station to secure a ticket to Chicago.§
Now, parched and unsettled, wishing for something to settle his nerves as he pursued a trail of uncertain consequence, Jasper twisted ungracefully through the aisle. He had not yet mastered the art of squeezing his tall frame through enclosed, moving spaces. Bumping up against another passenger, then, was not wholly a shock to him. But stepping back and registering that person? A shock indeed.
“Jemima!” His eyes went wide. Her face betrayed the same surprise.
“Jasper!”
“Jem, you look most unwell.” Indeed, her skin was almost translucent.
“I’m not used to the motion.”
He nodded. “Me neither, eh? I plum ran into you.”
“I need to sit down for a moment,” she said. Jasper quickly found them two seats and guided her into a chair. “I wish the world would stop spinning,” she said after a minute, opening her eyes.
“You’re sure you’re all right?”