Breath and Bones (35 page)

He drew out a large sheet of yellow paper and unfolded it. Famke read one enormous word,
WANTED
, and recognized a crude drawing of herself.

“What is that?” she asked, but the answer was perfectly obvious.

“There were several incidents of vandalism in Prophet City around the time of your departure,” Noble informed her, not ungently. “Shall I share my theory? I consider this to be the moment. I think . . .” He paused to finger his side-whiskers. “. . . I am almost certain, in fact, that this gang is
not
a band of angry miners, as some correspondents would have us believe. I think—they are orphans.” He picked up the cigar again and stuck it between his teeth, grinning widely.

“Orphans?” Famke's voice trailed upward.

“Orphans?” Mag and Mrs. Cinque laughed.

“Unhappy orphans, clearly, left as parentless as yourself. Now I shall explain. There have been several incidents on mercy trains heading west—ministers thrown out of immigrant cars, trains deserted, dynamite stolen on its way to mines. I have put two and two together and come up with a most spectacular sum: The orphans have formed a small army, and they are setting explosions where they will most trouble the wealthy folks who refused to adopt them!”

Harry looked around the room at the three women. Clearly he expected a reaction. “Well?” he prompted them. “Is that not splendid material for my features?”

“It's a story, for certain.” Opal scratched her red-wrappered elbow.

“Where do you think Albert is?” asked Famke.

For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it
.

—P
EARL OF
G
REAT
P
RICE
132: 22

Harry Noble asked the other women to leave the room then, and he leaned in close to Famke and spoke in a half-whisper.

“A most splendid painting was sold at auction in Denver last month,” he said. “One of your Albert Castle's finest; an early work, a sister to the canvas that hangs in Mrs. Cinque's parlor now. A much larger sister she is, being at least seven feet tall and sold at a hundred dollars a foot; she is called
Vivien, Betrayer of Merlin
. I interviewed the wily auctioneer, Royal Barnes, who attests he acquired her in New York with the idea of moving her west. In these benighted hills, men are more likely to buy what he calls buckeyes and potboilers; obscure works by unknown artists, Miss Summerfield. This
Vivien
was bought on behalf of a hos—”

“I don't know anything about that painting,” Famke interrupted, “and I don't care to know now. Tell me where you think Albert is!”

Before he answered, Harry Noble bit his tongue elaborately, the same gesture a snake might have made; but Famke did not notice. She was listening hard. She heard him say that he could not be certain as to where Albert had gone: Both Albert and Dante Castle had doubled back on their own paths so many times that he'd never been able to sort out exactly when and how frequently, for example, each of them had visited Denver; but there was more than an even chance that, wherever Albert was now, before long he would be joining his painting—which was now in a place called Hygeia Springs, California.

“The buyer is as rich as Croesus”—Famke did not know what that meant, and she didn't ask—“and he owns a mountain that has yielded more gold than most miners dream of. In fact, his wealth comes from the miners and not so much from their gold, as his father, who bought the mountain, rented out the right to mine it and the water with which to sluice the diggings.
He made his first fortune before the gold gave out. And now his son is making a second fortune with—”

“Tell me about
Albert
.”

“My dear impatient Miss Summerfield, the story goes that this son, once prey to the very same lung fever that plagues yourself—”

“I don't have a lung fever,” Famke said. “Cracklin' Mag said it was septic throat.”

Harry Noble raised his eyebrows but refrained from comment. He also stopped his story midstream and stood as if waiting for her to prompt him to continue.

Famke did not notice, for her mind was racing. “And this man has sent for Albert?”

“If he has not precisely sent for Mr. Castle, it is almost certain that a painter whose work has fetched such a sum will seek out the man who paid it and see if he is willing to pay more. Your ‘brother'—lover, employer, whatever he may be—will surely visit soon and likely stay.”

Famke did not respond to the obvious question in Noble's speech; she would not explain her relationship with Albert to him or to anyone. Pressing hard against the Chinese cook's flat pillow, she chewed on her lip and tallied up what might remain in her pockets after Mrs. Cinque had extracted the dollar a day for room and board. How long had she been here? One day? Three? No one wanted
Evening of the Ladies
changed, and anyway, her canvas patchwork would not show well under electric light . . . California would be a long journey at a steep price . . .

“
Hvad behager
?” she croaked, realizing Noble had spoken further. She had virtually no voice left, and her mind and body were exhausted from this conversation. “What did you say?”

“I asked you,” he said in a voice so quiet that she actually shook her head and checked to be sure a new man had not entered the room, “if you would accept my protection for the journey there.”

The first weak snow had come early that year, though as far as Myrtice knew, thus far it had fallen only in Prophet City. Snow lay now over the red-and-brown hills of the Goodhouse place like the talc she'd spilled
on her dresser and hadn't seen a need to wipe up yet. Maybe there was no snow anyplace but around this one particular house; she had no means of going elsewhere to find out, and soon it would be improper for her to leave the house even for weekly worship. She would miss the Christmas celebrations in Salt Lake; but perhaps that was best, for the strictest Mormons did not observe the holiday, and Heber and Sariah had always been strict.

So she slouched in the window with her belly pressing against the glass, and she stared moodily out at the snow while she unscrewed the lid of her arsenic jar. She licked an index finger and collected some of the powder, then licked the finger clean again.

This was of course not exactly her arsenic jar but Viggo's, and yet she was so certain he would not return to claim it that she had taken to carrying it around in her apron pocket and having a taste now and again during the day. Some women in the part of Georgia where she was born and where she'd spent those useless years in normal school were said to eat dirt while they were breeding. Myrtice had never seen anyone actually doing that, but she could understand it. There was something deeply satisfying about a bitter taste, aside from the fact that this particular powder would make her complexion clear and creamy. She had had the most embarrassing trouble with spots since becoming pregnant; it was a wonder that nice Mr. Viggo had been able to tolerate looking at her.

“Myrtice, you'll make yourself sick with that junk,” her aunt had scolded her that very morning.

Myrtice told herself she simply did not care. Arsenic was neither stimulant nor relaxant, and if she did fall sick she could take to her bed and no one would notice. Heber was gone chasing Ursula and there was no telling when he'd be back; Viggo had gone, too. Any day now the Goodhouse women could expect to hear news that one or the other of them was en-folding Ursula in his arms and carrying her off to enjoy the full pleasure of his attentions. It had been weeks since they'd had a letter from either man, and Viggo's had been incomprehensible, something about the yellow hand-bills and women dead of diphtheria.

“You don't need to be thinking about your complexion anyhow,” Sariah had concluded. She looked at her niece uncertainly, and with more tenderness than her tone had conveyed. True, arsenic wasn't strictly forbidden, but if it was used in Viggo's work Sariah didn't think it could lead to much good.

No, there was hardly any reason for Myrtice to bother with her complexion, except that she had to look at herself in the mirror when she put up her hair. She was still doing that, at least, like a proper Saintly wife with a view to hygiene. She took another tiny dab at the powder.

“Cousin Myrtice?” It was Sariah's youngest daughter, Miriam, the plain and stocky one who resembled Myrtice herself. “Mama says you're to come downstairs directly and help her with the dusting. She broke one of the little coffins this morning and she's in a powerful mood.” Miriam looked at the jar. “What's that?”

Myrtice offered her a bitter fingertip. “Taste.”

Miriam did, and she made a face. “Heber the younger says some crazy likings take hold of ladies when they're in a condition.”

Myrtice's spirits were too depressed even for scandal or umbrage at that remark. She looked out the window again, expecting the satisfaction of seeing her mood reflected in the landscape.

But now there was a new interest to the setting. Coming down the road to the house was a four-wheeled buggy, one as heavy and black as the weeds Myrtice had been wearing this last year. Her heart began to beat fast, her stomach to churn; she sent Miriam to her mother with a sharp word.

Every Mormon knew what a buggy like that would be carrying: men to strike fear into the bosom of every participant in a celestial marriage. That, Myrtice told herself as she lurched for a basin in which to vomit, was the buggy of a U.S. government agent.

Harry had given Famke money to buy some decent clothing, but she didn't see as it mattered terribly where she got it. She made sure she had her secret pocket tied around her waist—sketch, newspaper clippings, lucifers, a great emptiness where the tinderbox used to sit, a nice heaviness from the coins Harry Noble had left her—and drew the top blanket from her bed around her like a cloak. Barefoot and still quivering from her illness, she took the steps one by one and entered the girls' hallway from the back stairs.

She paused to listen. It was early yet, and from the noise she surmised that all the girls and Opal were in the parlor, listening to the professor's
piano and entertaining the evening's first customers; chatting and giving the men an illusion of real friendship and delighted conversation. Famke was safe. She found the room assigned to Mag—the name painted on the door and surrounded in forget-me-nots too reassuringly clumsy to be Albert's work—and stepped cautiously inside. She had no idea what Mag would do if she found Famke there.

Mrs. Cinque's place was so nice that the girls had real oak furniture in their rooms: not for their own enjoyment, Famke realized, but to give their customers the illusion, again, of comfort and refinement. The door of Mag's wardrobe creaked under the weight of its mirror, and when it opened, a strong scent of stale perfume, alcohol, and smoke assailed Famke's nostrils, along with something else that could be described only as the scent of Mag.

The smell awoke the memory of feverish dreams, and Famke sat weakly down on the bed for a moment. She would never know how real those dreams had been or if she'd ever given Mag more than that one desperate kiss the first night in the parlor. Considering how ill she'd been, Famke rather doubted so; and anyway there could have been no harm in it.

Mag aside, Famke had to get to Hygeia Springs, California, as soon as possible; Albert would be arriving any day, and he might leave just as quickly. So she got up and plunged into the soft, bright fabrics, clawing through till she found what she wanted: a relatively plain dress of plum-colored silk, with a ruffled skirt and a high collar to the basque. When she felt its softness, she understood why Heber and Sariah had devoted themselves to cultivating the worms that produced it. Fortunately, Mag was long-waisted, and the pieces fit together even on Famke's taller frame. The Mormon underwear was, of course, gone, but Mag had plenty of under-things too—corsets and corset covers, bloomers, and camisoles lined with starchy ruffles that Famke concluded must be the source of Mag's nickname. There was a definite crackling noise as she drew the neck string tight and pushed the ruffles into place.