Chapter Text
“Are you in second class as well?”
Maggie turns. The woman standing by the stagecoach has hair the color of the sun.
She holds a carpet bag in front of her. Practical boots on the muddy street under elegant layers of a well-made skirt. Gloves, like a real lady. A lady who’s looking at Maggie.
“I’m Claire. What’s your name?” she smiles, easy as morning.
She looks at Maggie, and Maggie, for what feels like the first time in years, is seen.
“I want to go sit on the top,” the boy whines, tailored little suit making sounds where he shifts, his unease alive against Maggie’s side.
“Hush now David,” his mother scolds. The trip is wearing on her. She’s pale, dabbing sweat from her lip with a handkerchief; the romance of a journey had lasted about as long as it took them to lose sight of Cheyenne. “You know that’s not allowed.”
“I’ll be ill again.”
“No you won’t, now be quiet.”
Maggie hopes his mother’s right. The last time he was sick they had to stop for over an hour to wash out the cab.
“I will,” his voice was getting higher again. “I will, I will, I—”
Claire’s arm reaches across Maggie, she stretches, grasping the window latch to pull it open. Spring air floods the cab, bringing with it the sound of horses, the driver’s gentle chat, the light into Maggie’s eyes.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Claire smiles at the rich woman. Effortless. Maggie has stared at women like her all her life and wondered what it was that made them move like that, as though they simply fit into the world and always had. “It’s such a beautiful day after all.”
“No,” the woman smiles tightly. “Not at all.”
She pressed closer to Maggie’s side when she reached across her and hasn’t moved back. She smells like soap and linen and a subtle perfume Maggie can’t name.
The carriage hits a stone. The rich woman gives a short shout. David bounces half out of his seat. Claire laughs.
“What brings you to Helena, Maggie?”
They’re picking their way along the side of a ravine, the two carriages in front making slow but steady progress. The road looks as though it’ll be too rough for all passengers to ride for at least the next mile or so, but Maggie doesn’t mind. It’s warm for what feels like the first day in years and she’s been sitting too long.
“Ranching,” Maggie lies. “My aunt has a horse farm a little south west of town.”
“I bet it’s stunning. I’ve heard that part of Montana is one of the most beautiful places in all of the West.”
“Mm, so I’ve heard.”
“Has she been there long? Your aunt I mean.”
Claire’s little brown boots seem comfortable as anything making their way over the ruts in the road. The drivers had offered to let her stay aboard with the first class passengers, but she had insisted on getting out to walk as her ticket dictated. They hadn’t made the same offer to Maggie.
Up ahead, the other second and third class passengers pick their way along, all men. The youngest one with the auburn hair and silver watch chain glances back in their direction every once in a while.
“Been there most of her life,” Maggie says.
“And what about you, Maggie?” Claire asks. “Where have you been most of your life?”
Maggie smiles into the collar of her canvas jacket. “Nowhere for long enough to count.”
Claire is watching her again. No — seeing her again. Maggie knows she can’t, not really. She can’t see the trail of sharped poker tables weaving from New Orleans to Boston. She can’t see the horse she stole to get out of Atlanta or the man she left a bullet in between Memphis and Chicago. She can’t see the twenty thousand in cash she has lining the folds of a bag tucked under her seat in the cab. She can’t see her. But she still smiles like she can.
“Have you been to Helena?” Claire asks.
“Nope.”
“Me neither. But I have a feeling that it’s going to be just the place I’ve always been looking for.”
Maggie can’t help snorting.
Claire’s smile widens. Her teeth are very bright. “You think I’m being naive?”
“Can’t say. Like I said, never been.”
Claire hums. A washed out rut widens underfoot. She doesn’t look down as she keeps pace with Maggie easily. “It’s the richest city in the world, Helena. Did you know that?”
Maggie hums, keeping her eyes on their feet as they navigate the path.
“Isn’t that incredible? A little corner of Montana, richer than Paris or Rome or Constantinople. I’ve heard that just months ago, a Colonel Charles A. Broadwater opened a hotel that has a swimming pool covered by a roof! ‘The largest covered plunge in the world’ they say. Can you believe that?”
Maggie’s smiling despite herself. She seems to keep doing that. “I suppose if people keep making money they’ve gotta keep finding ways to spend it.”
“Well in Helena it sounds like there’s plenty to go around.”
“Is that why you’re going there?” Maggie asks, half teasing. “To make your fortune?”
“Oh no, I’m a governess.”
The answer surprises Maggie so much she nearly loses her footing for a moment.
“You’re surprised?” Claire laughs.
And she is, even if she doesn’t know exactly why. She’s seen plenty of beautiful young women working as governesses, but there was something about this one that felt… well, damned if she could say. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Oh please, I don’t mind.”
They’re quiet for the next spell, then, “It’s a new name, you know.”
Maggie looks over. “What is?”
“Helena,” Claire looks up at the sky overhead. “Do you know what they used to call it?”
“Nope,” Maggie lies. She’s not sure why. Maybe she’s just used to getting people to tell stories. It helps you know the way they bluff. Then again, maybe she just wants to hear her say it. There’s a way words fill her mouth that feels like it fits just right in the warmth of a spring day.
Claire smiles, watches, sees. “’Last Chance’.”
On the third morning they find David’s body.
His mother’s scream wakes Maggie up before the light can.
She doesn’t see what happened exactly, only a small shape wrapped in stained canvas. His mother has doubled over. The man with auburn hair is trying to comfort her despite the stricken look on his face. One of the drivers makes his way across the camp towards her.
“What happened?” Claire asked. Maggie turns. She’s stood just beside her, face hollow.
“Don’t know exactly,” the man manages, expression wretched. “Paul found him down by the river when he went to water the horses. Animals, wolves maybe. Must have wandered off in the night.”
“Terrible,” Claire says. “God, just terrible. Wolves, you said?”
“Maybe. Wolves, or bear. Coyote even.”
Maggie feels a sickness settling over her. The man holding the shape in the canvas doesn’t seem to know what to do. David’s mother catches sight of him again and wails. A horse startles, the man turns, hurrying to take the wrapped shape away.
“Does this happen often?” Claire asks.
The driver glances up at her with a shadow of surprise. “I… yes ma’am. Sometimes. This is still wild country. Folks can’t go wandering off.”
She nods. Quiet.
It’s slow going as sorrow hangs over the camp, but by noon they are back on the road.
The man with the auburn hair rides in their carriage. David’s mother sits close beside him, face gaunt, watching the world pass as though it’s made of paper.
The man seems uncomfortable but resigned to his role in the aftermath of this tragedy. He’s watching Claire. Maggie sees him catch her eye, smile.
Claire smiles back. Small, polite. On their side of the cab, Maggie feels her shift just a breath closer to Maggie’s side.
They stop earlier in the day this time. Everyone seems keen to set up camp and get a fire going before the darkness settles in around them.
Maggie waits until everyone is occupied with their tents before stealing back to the empty carriages. A horse snorts as she approaches, she clicks her tongue at it. Quietly, she opens the latched door, reaching under the seat. She pulls out her bag, feeling the comforting squared off edges of bills through the leather side. Satisfied, she pushes it back.
“Urhm—” a voice sounds as she makes her way back into the camp. It’s the man with the auburn hair. He looks uncomfortable, uncertain. “I don’t suppose… you haven’t seen Miss Swift have you?”
Maggie gazes across the camp. There’s no sign of Claire. “She’s not here?”
“She said she was going for a walk,” he manages, “only it’s getting dark and—”
“Joseph,” a fragile voice calls. Maggie follows it to where David’s mother sits near the campfire. One of her hands floats up like a blown leaf beckoning him. “Please?”
Joseph makes a pained expression.
“Don’t worry,” Maggie says. “It’s not dark yet, and I’m sure she didn’t go far.” She turns away. “I’ll go.”
The woods are bright with all the sharp, eager life of spring. The light shifts, shadows going long and strange as gold is swallowed up into blue. The leaves are fresh and smell young and defiant, the crystal of evening bird songs falls from the trees all around her as she follows the sound of a stream.
It’s so loud with life that Maggie feels quiet even without trying to be. The truth is she’s always felt ill at ease in the woods. She’s spent most of her life learning how to move through cities, through the people that made them up and all their perceptions. She’s good at that, but the woods are different. You can’t see the eyes of trees.
The tree-line eases and she sees the shape of the stream through it. On the stones, there’s a small pile of linen like shed skin, then dark water, and a pale body stood in it.
Claire’s hair is down, and in the gathering dark, standing that still, she looks like a stone. Until she turns.
She looks at Maggie. The light catches her eyes and for a moment they’re nothing but two green circles in the dark shape of her twisted body. Looking, seeing.
Maggie stumbles back.
Something hot and cold at once lights behind her stomach. It scrambles at her throat, turning her with shame or fear or something else all together and she knows it’s wrong, knows it’s stupid, knows she should just say something, wait for her, anything, but she turns instead, hurrying back through the trees as the light dies and the spring screams.
Maggie sits by her tent. The light of the campfire plays against the others as they talk in low voices over their meal.
David’s mother has been fed what she would eat and put to bed. Joseph smiles pathetically at Claire as she chats with him by the carriage. Maggie looks away, turning down to her cornbread, that confused shame still alive in her body. What was she even doing out here anyways? There was plenty of money in Portland, in San Francisco, plenty of millionaires far from east-coast warrants. Helena was just another city, it wasn’t anything special.
“How’s the stew?” Claire asks.
Maggie looks up as Claire sits down beside her.
“Could be worse,” Maggie manages.
“Here,” Claire says in a hushed voice, leaning closer.
Maggie glances over. She slides a small flask subtly between them. “An apology.”
Maggie frowns. “What’d you mean?”
“It was silly for me to go off on my own this afternoon, especially… well. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you, or anyone."
Maggie reaches down, lifting the flask. “Where’d this come from?”
“Joseph has been very galant,” Claire smiles. She manages to do it like a secret even though it’s out in the open, as though between their spread out companions and the crackle of the fire, that smile is just for them. “I said I’d appreciate something to help with the shock.”
Claire shakes her head, that smile sneaking up on her all over again.
"And I do promise I won't be so foolish again. Anyways, it would be much safer with two."
Maggie looks at her, and Claire simply looks back.
That night, Maggie dreams of trees.
There’s a shape moving between them. Dark and swift. Water, maybe. Running, running. Toward what?
No, it’s too fast for water, too sharp, too full of potential. Like a turned back.
Fear, bright in her throat. Fear and something else, something just as raw, something shivering that fills a mouth like spring.
She wants to hide. She wants to press into a bar or a street or a crowd by a station and disappear. But there’s nowhere to hide in the woods. No one to be but yourself, alone, with a shape that moves so swift in the dark. A shape that watches, that turns, that sees.
She feels the seeing, sudden and bright, like a knife pressing into the softness of her stomach, pulling up her, spilling her out, only there’s light in her too, more and more and she opens her mouth to scream but there’s nothing left. Nothing at all.
Maggie’s breath catches in her tent. She blinks, the familiar, present darkness of the canvas and the shape of her bedroll steadying her breath.
Outside there’s still the glow of the fire, the shifting of drivers taking watch, and beyond, cutting through the dark, the coyotes sing.