“Thank the goddess and the Lord and all good spirits everywhere. You’re alive and well and standing right here,” he whispered. “It’s a miracle.”
“Photographs?” Lizzie said to no one in particular. “Pigeons?”
“Every solstice, I sent one of my pigeons to your coordinates. Every solstice, it came back,” he said. “A little blond girl grew into a young woman, and no matter where I was, I knew what you looked like.”
If he had struck her, it could not be worse than this. The color rose hot into Alice’s face, and her jaw worked before words came out. “You sent a pigeon to photograph me, but you couldn’t send a letter to let us know whether you were dead or alive?” Tears clogged her voice, as bitter as the words tasted in her mouth. “You took the time to invent that kind of device, but you couldn’t have told me in fourteen years that you cared? That you were sorry you left? That you were even alive?”
“Alice.” He said her name like a blessing, the way Malina had said the name of the goddess. “Ned Mose had a price on my head. If I had contacted you or your mother in any way, he would have found me and put a bullet in my skull.”
“I s’pose that was why Ma married him.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, as though the poison she’d kept hidden deep inside had finally been lanced.
“She married him to save her life. And yours. A deal went bad—oh, I’ve made mistakes, sure enough. But one mistake I didn’t make. I got myself out of his way and that was the price I paid. Never to see you again. Or rather, never to let him know I saw you. But the birds told me how to make a way.”
“The pigeon came back with no plates of you. He thought you had died,” Malina said to her gently, going to his side. “He mourned you as if you had.”
No wonder the children had looked so overjoyed at the sight of her appearing so suddenly in their midst. For them, she would have come back from the dead.
“I ain’t deIt>
Lizzie’s eyes widened. Frederick Chalmers’s ruddy face turned pale.
“Do you know what Ma had to do to put food on the table? Huh? She was a desert flower, that’s what!”
His throat worked, but he didn’t speak, so Alice struck again, like a rattler, mindless and terrified—anything to make these feelings go away.
“And now she’s a different woman—a hard woman. The kind it’s easy to leave. So I did what you did, Pa, and I left her, too. And you know how that makes me feel?”
What could he do but shake his head?
Now the tears were coming in earnest. She had to say the rest of her say quick, before she broke down and did something completely stupid, like throw herself on his chest and bawl.
“I came all this way to look for you, and now that I have, I just want to spit in your eye. But I won’t, because there’s young ’uns here and I got responsibilities. Instead, I’m going to leave you, too, Pa.” She caught her breath, pushed it in and out. “Don’t bother sending any of your dadburned pigeons after me, either. I’m a darned fine shot, and if I see one, I’ll shoot it out of the sky.”
She made it to the door without her knees collapsing. And turned.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Malina,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Claire, I’ll be with Tigg at the landau.”
And then she did exactly what she said she’d do.
She left, and she didn’t look back.
*
If his head didn’t fall off or his spine snap, it would be a miracle. Then again, if his head did fall off, at least this cursed journey would be over.
The huge vehicle with the continuous track in place of wheels jounced into a pothole the size of a pond and labored out the other side. “Is this the only road?” Andrew shouted in the ear of the young man who had been their guide, who possessed the unlikely name of Errol Eliot.
“Don’t need any more than this,” was the hollered reply. “There’s nothing out here but the Esquimaux and a whole lot of nothing.”
Andrew doubted that the Esquimaux considered their home nothing, but it was too difficult to talk over the roar of the steam engine powering the vehicle. Andrew could feel the heat from its exhaust stack against his