All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred forty-one)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Nine

City Ways

(part two hundred forty-one)

Out the window she saw crows, a bustling river of crows, the train like a rowboat drawing their ripple in its wake. The crows were at the corn, where some harvesting had been done early. Like her father, she named the things she saw planted in the fields, most of it corn, otherwise hay, none tobacco. Too flat, too open. The plants would limp along, a good part be stolen…

Where they passed hayfields, woodlots, wagon roads, they passed camps. A scabby horse or mule standing tethered, clothing pegged on fenceposts, bedrolls tossed near smoking fires. Figures were chiefly male; some random children, and dogs, kicked at.

These people were following the road, from the south someplace, to Chicago?

Where the express passed a slower train on a siding, she saw men with shotguns on the cars’ roofs, letting blast a few times. Ragged men by the track jogged, fell back, picked up…doing rude things with their hands. Now what did all that mean?

“Are they trying to jump the cars?”

“Those drawing off the guards’ attention, do you mean?”

“Ha. Is there really any harm in it?”

He gave her an eyebrow, and so she added, “They ride the freight cars, don’t they? The freight’s paid for.”

“There’s a legal argument in that. Phelan!” Monaghan jostled his seatmate. “Gather your wits. The lady anarchist wants to know why the vagabonds should pay their fare.”

Phelan shook his head.

“No,” Élucide said, “I have a worse thought. Why don’t the guards actually shoot them? The law wouldn’t do a thing. According to Walter, they’ve fired at the organizers.”

“That’s for trespassing,” said Phelan. He remembered a cigar that wanted smoking. Monaghan trailed off at his friend’s back.

“Look, Libby, the floodwaters are up.”

“I suppose the porters would come warn us, if we can’t get through.”

“Oh!” The comment had been without point, only to gauge Libby’s mood. Élucide said, “That would be an ordeal. Hopefully not.”

“You ought to be careful with that policeman,” Libby said, after another while.

They passed the rears of a number of brick boxes, each with a clapboard porch, screened to keep soot out, the houses not many steps from the rails. Ditches rife with thorns, the water making crabbed arms of them, reaching above its brown face while the little gardens drowned.

Dogs barked, chained in every yard.

The picture came of a wary population, not farmers but laborers on the road itself. The vagabond camps crept north, to pass them by, and they waited to be warned of it. A woman, unheard over the churning wheels, mouthed at some boys playing in the flood. She swept a long-barreled gun with her gestures.

253

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)