The Peculiars (4 page)

As if her thought had been spoken out loud, the nun suddenly dropped the valise. From the depths of her habit, the nun drew out something that gleamed in the gaslight. A gun! Lena had only seen pictures of them in books. Her hands grew moist. The gun was pointed straight at the conductor.

The red-haired man spoke. “Give us the prisoner, or we shoot the passengers.” His voice was high and reedy as he drew out his own revolver with one hand. With the other, he jerked the emergency brake, preventing the train from leaving the station. The two businessmen gawked with their cheeks bulging. The lone man dropped his newspaper, pages drifting to the floor, while a low moan escaped from the lady with her husband. Only the woman with poppies on her hat looked unperturbed and raised a curious eyebrow.

“Now. And I mean it. One of ’em will go first.” He swung the revolver in the direction of the low moan, pointing it at the elderly couple.

Meanwhile, the nun kept a gun pointed at the conductor,
whose mouth opened and closed like that of a fish. Lena could see a film of sweat shining on the conductor’s brow. He inched slowly toward the door to the next car, with the nun following, gun cocked.

“That’s right. Lead the way, old man.”

“Now, see here—” But before the conductor could complete his sentence, the red-haired man lunged toward the elderly couple.

Lena braced for a shot. Instead, the man slammed the butt of the revolver against the elderly man’s head. A sharp crack of metal against flesh and bone.

His wife screamed.

At that precise moment, the engineer swung through the door. “Who stopped this train?” Bellowing, he crashed straight into the conductor and the nun. They staggered. The gun went off. The wild shot sent a bullet through the paneled wall, leaving a hole to the outdoors. People shouted and the woman continued to scream.

Lena found herself under the table, peeking out from beneath the hem of the white tablecloth. She could see the black edge of the nun’s habit just a few feet away. If she could grab an ankle, she might tip the man off balance. Creeping forward as far as she dared, Lena grabbed for the black-socked ankle just below the hem of the habit. From another car Lena heard a second shot. And then everything was chaos. Her fingers closed on empty air. She could hear feet running, muffled cries, and someone quite nearby swearing a steady
stream. The black edge of the habit was gone. Then all was quiet.

Lena inched forward on her knees. The gray fabric of her skirt balled up and caught underneath her. She tugged it free. Her armpits felt damp, and a trickle of sweat ran between her shoulder blades. Moving the tablecloth just a fraction of an inch, she peered out. The car looked deserted except for the woman stroking her husband’s head. A trickle of blood ran from his ear. Were the other passengers hiding under tables the way she was?

The door swung open. Drawing back, Lena smacked her head on the edge of the table. Pain flared.

“The criminals have left the train.” In his blue uniform with polished brass buttons, the conductor stood wide-legged in the middle of the aisle. “A doctor is coming to examine your husband, madam.”

Amid rustles and grunts, diners appeared from under tables.

“I am sorry to report that the pretenders have escaped with a prisoner we were transporting to Scree. There will be a short delay, and then we will be able to resume our journey. I am most terribly sorry for the inconvenience.” But his last words were lost in a jumble of voices and the arrival of a short, stout man with a medical bag.

“What prisoner? Why didn’t we know a prisoner was on board?” A voice rang out above the others. It belonged to the lady with the flowered hat.

The conductor turned. “Trains to Knob Knoster sometimes carry prisoners bound for Scree. A federal marshal and deputies are on these trains.”

“Obviously incompetent. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” One of the businessmen was brushing himself off. His face was a pasty gray, his breathing ragged.

“It’s the first time a prisoner”—losing his composure, the conductor floundered for words—“has been . . . abducted.”

“What was his crime?” the woman persisted.

“Madam, this one was a bad sort: forgery, stolen goods, a web of crime. A real goblin, he is.”

JIMSON SNORTED. “MY FRIENDS AT HOME WILL NEVER BELIEVE
this. A prisoner escaping! Gunshots! And I missed it all. I heard something, but it just sounded like a series of pops. Wish I’d been in the dining car!”

Lena had just finished describing the ordeal, and she was still shaking. For the first time she was grateful for Jimson’s company. Now that all the excitement was over, she found it rather thrilling herself. Her appetite had disappeared along with the prisoner. She’d made her way back to her car as soon as they were allowed to move about. Every square inch had been thoroughly searched. Deputies with their guns prominently displayed swaggered up and down the length of each car, reassuring the few passengers who hadn’t been in the dining car. Jimson had been briefly questioned. He seemed to find that terribly exciting, Lena noted.

“And ‘goblin.’ It’s just an expression for anyone who’s up
to no good. You don’t think there are real goblins, do you?” Jimson’s blue eyes were glinting. “You can’t believe those old superstitions.”

“Well, the conductor called him ‘a real goblin.’ He said he was involved in a web of crime.”

“Have you ever seen a goblin?” Jimson persisted. “Outside of a book, I mean?”

Lena shook her head. She wished he would drop the subject of goblins. It made her stomach feel sick. And it reminded her of her hands. Jimson had been staring at them when she left, so why hadn’t he mentioned them? She was prepared for the usual questions, the usual jokes. Perhaps he’d forgotten all about them in the excitement.

“Exactly my point. Science will overcome all this superstitious nonsense once and for all. Then only uneducated people will believe clap like that. You do know about the scientific method, don’t you?”

When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “It’s an empirical method of inquiry. There would have to be observable evidence of goblins. It’s all in Pierce.”

“Of course I’ve heard of the scientific method, but I’m not sure it works for everything.” Lena bent to loosen the laces on her boots so he couldn’t read her face. She found his supercilious tone grating. “Besides, how would you know if you’d seen a goblin?”

“Well, he’d look different—small and kind of craggy would be my guess. But it doesn’t matter, because there are
no such things. Goblins are supposed to be Peculiars, right? Only superstitious, unenlightened people still believe in them or in any Peculiars. They’re old wives’ tales—like fairies. A successful, practical man needs solid, practical scientific knowledge. And I intend to be a successful, practical man.”

“Some educated people think Scree has Peculiars as well as convicts.” Lena deliberately folded her hands in her lap.

Jimson leaned forward but kept his eyes averted from her hands. Lena noticed for the first time that his nose was slightly lopsided, giving him a roguish air. “People—even some educated people—are afraid of what they don’t know. That’s why fairy tales fill the forests with all kinds of monsters. I’ve been hearing the rumors of Peculiars my whole life. There’s no such thing; evolution wouldn’t allow for it. Rumors of Peculiars are an excuse the government uses to control people. Just like sending convicts to Scree. It’s not as much about getting them out of our country as it is about getting cheap labor to colonize new territory and exploit the natural resources there. We want Scree’s coal.”

The train suddenly shuddered to life. Darkness had crept in slowly while they had waited. Now the gas lamps bathed the car in warm gold. Lena knew that most educated people were like Jimson. They believed that “goblin” was just a way of labeling undesirables, that real goblins no longer existed, if they ever had. Goblins and other Peculiars were inventions of fairy stories to keep children behaving themselves. Maybe they were right. Maybe there were no Peculiars. Maybe her
hands and feet were merely an accident of birth and nothing more. Her grandmother and the doctor didn’t think so, but they were old and superstitious.

The rush of adrenaline was gone, and she regretted that she’d walked away from her dinner. It might be too late to find food when they reached Knob Knoster. Lena reached for the novel she had left on her seat when she went to the dining car, but the tufted red bench was empty. Then a dreadful realization hit. Her drawstring purse was gone as well.

She groped on the shadowy floor beneath her seat. Her fingers found the spine of her book. She drew it out and set it on the seat beside her, her heart hammering in her chest, and bent again to search the floor. Most likely, the bag had slid from the seat along with her book. Had she remembered to take it with her to the dining car? She couldn’t recall. She’d left in a hurry, worried about her hands. On her hands and knees now, she crawled under the table.

“What are you looking for?” Jimson’s face appeared next to hers in the shadows.

“My bag. It must have slid off the seat.” Her words were coming out in funny little gasps. Most of her money was in the bag. The rest she wore against her ribs—pinned into the lining of her chemise. Her carefully planned map, the address of the boardinghouse where she planned to stay that evening, everything—gone!

There was very little room for two bodies to maneuver in the cramped space under the table and between the seats. They
bumped heads twice and one of Jimson’s sharp elbows jabbed her in her ribs. When she had covered every inch of floor, Lena crawled out and back to her seat. Her braid had come partially undone, and wisps of hair tickled like spiderwebs against her face.

“Is there anywhere else it could be?” Jimson’s face was pinched with concern. “Maybe you left it in the dining car?”

“I’ll go and look.” She smoothed her hair, forgetting momentarily about her hands. This time she noticed Jimson staring openly. She dropped them quickly to her sides and asked, “Has anyone been in this car besides you?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Just the conductor and deputy while I was here, but I left for a few minutes to refresh myself. Anyone could have come then.” He continued staring at her hands. “Are you a pianist?”

There was no point in asking why. Lena just nodded, and for the second time that evening, stood abruptly and made her way to the dining car.

The next passenger car was identical to hers. The curtains had been drawn against the night and only three people sat in the entire car: the silent man who had been reading the newspaper at dinner and the Jack Sprat couple. It was a domestic scene. The man was wearing a bandage on his head and his wife was pouring him a cup of tea. Glad to see that he had recovered, Lena hurried past. There were no passengers in the dining car. Fresh silver gleamed on tables. There was no sign of the
previous disorder. Lena hesitated only a moment, and then hurried toward the table where she had been sitting. Nothing.

“I’m sorry. The dining room is closed for the evening, miss.” A waiter spoke to her from a corner table, where he was engaged in conversation with one of the deputies.

“I was just looking for my purse. I thought maybe I’d left it here.”

A bear of a man with a handlebar mustache and sandy hair rose from his seat. A badge gleamed on his chest. “And did you find it?”

Lena shook her head, afraid to speak in case her voice quavered.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m Marshal Saltre. Were you in here when the, eh, incident occurred?”

Lena nodded, wishing he would let her escape before she began to cry.

“I wonder if you wouldn’t mind my asking you a few questions, and perhaps you could describe your purse for me as well.”

What choice did she really have? Lena sat down in the chair he pulled out for her. He smelled of something spicy—cologne, perhaps. From his pocket he pulled out a small notebook and flipped through the pages. Up close, Lena realized that he wasn’t as old as his commanding presence made him appear.

“Let’s start with your name, then.” He looked at her expectantly from under shaggy brows. His eyes, Lena noticed,
were pale and intense, as if a fire quickened behind them.

“Lena Mattacascar.”

“Well, now, that’s something.” He frowned, looked up, and then looked back at his notebook. He fired the next questions, one after another. Routine questions about what she had seen and what she had done. Lena found that she could answer them clearly and concisely. Even from under the dining table, she had been observant. A few times, he grunted in response. That was all.

Then he asked for details about her missing purse. He didn’t look up again until she had finished her entire account.

“And did you notice anything at all when the nun first came into the car?”

“I knew something wasn’t right. And then I saw the nun’s hands. They were a man’s hands.”

His eyes, pale blue under the bushy sandy brows, sought her own. “Ah, very observant. And something you would be particularly aware of, no doubt.” He looked pointedly at her gloved hands. Lena balled them into fists. “Mattacascar is an unusual name. I knew of a man once named Saul Mattacascar. My father tracked him for years.” The marshal’s voice was mild. “Could it be that you’re related to him?”