#hell on wheels

That was not an answer. I adjusted my grip on the reins and tried again. “Have you worked for my father long?”

“Nope.”

“Ah.” There went my theory of him being an established railroad man. Our horses continued at a walk through grass that was growing steadily shorter as we neared a stand of trees. I chewed on my lip. “What were you doing before you joined the railroad?” Quiet. Alright then, maybe a different tactic. “You’re from the South, aren’t you? I visited Virginia once. Before the war, of course.”

I bit my lip harder. I should not have mentioned the war. But still silence. I looked over at Bohannon. He was holding his reins loosely, eyes focused on the ground in front of us. Finally, he glanced at me. “You ask a lot of questions, Miss Durant.”

“Well…yes.”

“Probably best not to.”

And that had been that.

The railroad progressed. The sun rose earlier and sunk into the west later and the men worked longer days. There was a murder, of who and over what I didn’t know, but I heard bits and pieces of information. As the work grew busier, my father became more distracted and his watchful eyes turned less watchful. I took longer walks away from the train car, down the tracks to the makeshift station where they would unload new loads of ties and rails and supplies. The mud was constant and I stopped trying to keep my skirts entirely clean. I stayed far enough back that no one spoke to me but I could feel eyes on me. I observed the camp from a distance, never venturing in, just watching the men go out to the end of the line in the morning and return at night. The men watched me back.

 I didn’t know what was said about me. Of the daughter of Thomas Durant who had come back with him from a sudden trip to Chicago and had been living in his train cars for over a month but was rarely seen. I didn’t know what to think of myself, either. My life had turned into a constant string of “next week” and “next week,” with no plans for the future except knowing that I had to get back to civilization but without any idea of how. So I took the freedoms that I could find and I waited.

“I received a telegram from Chicago this morning,” my father said one day over dinner. It was late and the sun had set, with just a few streaks of light still shining in the sky out the window. Railroad business, which seemed to be the description of everything my father ever did, had run him late. Again. “From your mother.”

My fork clattered onto the plant as it slid from my fingers. “You did? What did it say?”

“It said,” he broke off with a sigh and a shake of his head, “that she’s still worried about your ability to conduct yourself in a ladylike way, should you return. And that maybe it would be best if you continued to stay out here, with me, for another few weeks.”

“Another few weeks,” I repeated.

“That’s right.” My father tossed back a gulp of his whiskey, draining the glass. “Just until the talk has died down.” He uncorked the whiskey and poured a few fingers worth into his glass. “Because apparently there is still quite a bit of talk.”

“The talk… Daddy, this isn’t fair!”

“Not fair?”

“No! I didn’t do anything, you know I didn’t do anything, he’s telling lies because he’s angry that—”

“Not fair?!” I jolted back as my father slammed the glass down, sloshing whiskey across the tablecloth. “Not fair? Not fair that I’ve had to bring my daughter halfway across the country to rescue her from complete ruin? Not fair that I now spend half my waking hours trying to make sure you aren’t looked at wrong? Half the men in this camp are murderers and thieves and now I have to worry about keeping them away from you instead of building my railroad!”

I shrunk back from the table that shook under the weight of his hands as he shoved himself to his feet, voice roaring.

“Because heaven forbid that anything is ever easy. But no, that is not the life of Thomas Durant.” He tipped back the glass again. Emptying it again. “So, forgive me, Ellie, if I don’t sympathize that your self-inflicted exile is not fair. Maybe you should have thought about that before you broke off your engagement for no good reason and expected the boy to take it lying down.”

My chair teetered when I stood up and I caught it just before it fell. Then I ran out of the train car, with my father still yelling something behind me. The night was starting to cool and I sucked in a breath of fresh air as soon as my feet landed in the dirt beside the rail spur that had somehow become my home. I started walking with no clear direction, just needing to move. My father’s voice rang in my head but he wasn’t following me. I didn’t know what I’d do if he was. There wasn’t anywhere I could go. But I kept walking, my feet carrying me on the path to the rough planks that served as a station, only there wasn’t a train parked there now. It was empty. If there was a train, maybe I could have snuck aboard and ridden it away from Hell on Wheels. I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing my arms. It wasn’t cold. I shouldn’t have been shivering. But I couldn’t stop.

The boards creaked under my feet when I climbed the two steps and walked to the edge to look down at the tracks. The twin metal lines shone in the light of the nearly full moon. Those tracks. This place wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the railroad and if it didn’t exist then I couldn’t be trapped here. I would be back in Chicago, in my own home, and my mother wouldn’t have sent me away because of lies that everyone should have seen for what they were. I rubbed my palms roughly over the sleeves of my dress, trying to quell my shivering, and squeezed my eyes closed against the dark.

Behind me, the boards creaked under something heavy. I spun around and for a moment, when I saw the tall figure at the other end of the small platform, the ghost of every story I’d heard or imagined about this place felt real. Then the shadow stepped closer, put his hands on his hips, and spat. When he spoke, the voice was familiar.

“Evening, Miss Durant.”

“Mister Bohannon! You frightened me!” My heart was racing and I kept my arms crossed, like a shield in front of me.

“Yeah, well, it ain’t safe out here for a lady like yourself.” He didn’t make the title of lady sound like a compliment.

“I’m taking a walk.” My voice was still a little shaky. But not from Bohannon. I had a hard time forgetting the roar of my father’s voice whenever he raised it.

“I can see that.”

“I can’t live inside that train car!” I didn’t know if my sudden shouting surprised him or me more. Probably me. At least, I couldn’t see any reaction from him, but I also couldn’t quite make out his face in the darkness. He just stood there, tall and imposing with his hat silhouetted around his head and his coat fanning out around his knees. Right then, he looked like the image of every gunslinger in every story I’d ever heard, gun on his hip and hat on his head. I wondered if he was used to people shouting at him. Or shouting at them. I turned away, looking back out across the tracks and into the dark fields.

He stayed standing behind me, not leaving but not speaking. I scrubbed my hands over my face. He was always like this. Quiet. Just a tip of his hat or a hand either on my reins or offered out wordlessly to help me up onto my horse. Rough and worn. Taciturn. Obstinate. I lowered my head and squeezed my eyes closed until I saw stars. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be able to walk down the street without fear of what was out in the darkness.

“Mister Bohannon, are there really Indians out there?”

“Yeah.”

“How many?”

“Hell if I know.”

“But they wouldn’t, you know, attack us, would they?”

“Quick as they can if they get half a chance.” I opened my eyes and took a step backwards from the edge of the platform. “Like I said, you shouldn’t be out here. Ain’t a place for a lady.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to be here.” My voice was still shaky. The darkness was falling more completely and I turned around, away from the dark plains, to face Bohannon. He was just a tall shape against a few lights in the camp beyond. He spat again onto the rough boards of the platform. “That’s a disgusting habit.”

“Yeah.”

I dug my fingers into my arms until my muslces ached, trying to squash down whatever was welling up inside me. The dark pressed in on all sides. A breeze blew in from the plains, still carrying a hint of spring’s chill. I shivered, from cold this time. I hadn’t worn a jacket or a wrap. It would be warm back in the train. I could go in at the other entrance, directly into my own car. My father wouldn’t come looking for me. Wouldn’t check if I had returned or if I was still out in the dark night. He had probably already finished that bottle of whiskey he’d been pouring from. He wouldn’t noticed if I… What?

I didn’t have any option but to go back inside. I was trapped until my mother decided that I’d paid enough for what I’d done and until she came up with a plan to quiet the gossip. Until she decided I could be ladylike.

“You fixin’ on staying out here all night?” Bohannon asked, as if reading my thoughts.

“No. No, I’ll go back in.” Down the rail line, light was shining out of the curtained windows of my car. It was comfortable in there, at least. More comfortable than standing out here shivering in the cold. But I didn’t move. Couldn’t make my feet move. The pit of loneliness in my chest wasn’t better out here in the dark, it was worse, but at least that loneliness felt more at home with the chill breeze and the insects clamoring out in the grasses than it did in the suffocating comfort of a railcar. I could breathe out here.

I smelled smoke. Bohannon’s face lit with a golden glow that vanished just as quickly as it had come and then he exhaled a cloud of smoke that went curling up around his hat. He sucked in another drag and the fiery tip of the cigarette lit his face once more. He held it in his lungs for a long moment and then he pulled the cigarette from his lips and tapped it between his fingers. I glanced back at my train down the tracks. Back at Bohannon. I shouldn’t be out here with him, I thought. Shouldn’t be alone with a man who I knew nothing about, a man who was dangerous enough to be the foreman of this ragtag group who were pushing the railroad west, who spoke with a Southern drawl and wouldn’t talk about his past. Who was the kind of man who could make the scandal that sent me out here seem like nothing.

“Come on, Miss Durant. I’ll walk you back.”

“Alright, Alright.” I gave in and climbed down off the platform. Bohannan fell in beside me. He didn’t offer me his arm, nor did he speak again until he stopped short of my rail car as I climbed up the stairs and onto the small platform at the back, but he waited until I’d opened the door to turn away.

“Night, ma’am.”

“Mister Bohannon.” He stopped. I finally asked the question. “Why did you offer to accompany me riding? The first time?”

My father didn’t comment the next morning on what had happened. I took a seat at the table, prepared for a scolding for having run out, but he seemed engrossed in a stack of telegrams that had him shaking his head and mumbling to himself. He didn’t seem to realize I was there.

“Didn’t have nothing better to do. You have yourself a good night.” He tipped his hat. And then he walked off, disappearing into the darkness. I went inside my car and locked the door.

“Yes, I’ll definitely have to go,” he mumbled.

“Go?”

My father’s head snapped up but I wasn’t sure if he saw me. “Yes. Immediately. It can’t be helped.” He tossed the telegram in his hand onto the stack. “Just for a day or two. Maybe three. Until I can get it sorted.”

“Where are we going?”

“Chicago.” He nodded again, then noticed his own coffee and swallowed a gulp before slamming it down. “Henri! Hot coffee, not cold!”

“We’re going back home?” I asked eagerly as Henri replaced the coffee with a fresh cup.

“We? No, of course not. You’ll stay here.”

“Stay here? You’re going home and you’re making me stay here?”

“That’s enough, Ellie! I don’t have time for this. I’ve had a fresh batch of telegrams this morning and there’s things I need to deal with. You’ll only get in the way.”

I could only sit, stunned. “But you’re going home without me.”

“I’m coming back, for God’s sake!”

“But it’s not safe here!”

“It’s only a few days, Ellie! You’ll stay in your train car. I’ll have someone check in on you.”

“But what about the Indians?”

“The Indians? What about them?”

“Mister Bohannon said that they’ll attack if they ever get the chance.”

“Well, you shouldn’t listen to Mister Bohannon. I pay him to build my railroad, not frighten my daughter. If he’s filling your head with nonsense then I think that’s quite enough of you going out riding.”

“No, he’s not,” I said a little too quickly. “He’s not, I just… you always say how dangerous it is for me to go anywhere but now—”

“Which is why you’ll be staying in the train car. I leave today, you’re staying here, and that is final.”

He picked the thick stack of telegrams back up and started thumbing through them. I ate my breakfast. He did not. Later that day, my world shrunk from the size of two train cars to one. I listened to the scream of the whistle from my sitting area, seated on the yellow upholstered chair and watching the tea in my cup slosh softly side to side from the vibrations coming down the rail.

I didn’t eat dinner and Henri brought me a fresh pot of tea and plate of cookies that had been stale yesterday. Evening was falling and the camp was filling up with the workers returning from the end of the line. They were probably heading to whatever passed for a bar here. I knew enough to know that wherever there were men, there would be a bar. I stood and walked to the back of the car, out the door to stand at the railing to watch them disperse into the sea of tents. I gripped the rail. It wasn’t safe enough for me to go out walking or riding, but it was safe enough for my father to leave me here for days when he didn’t want to put up with my company on the trip to Chicago and back.

Maybe I could make my own way home. I could saddle up my horse and start riding east. The railroad would be easy to follow. It couldn’t take more than a few days. Could it? And I could survive that, surely. I’d bring water and whatever food I could fit in the saddle bags. I gripped the railing until my knuckles turned white. Was this my life now? Out here on these endless plains, confined to the area of a train car in case my father…

But my father wasn’t here. He was miles down the rail now, likely a glass deep into a fresh bottle of whiskey and forgetting I was here. And I wasn’t going home next week. Or the week after. I’d already been here for six weeks, or was it seven? I wasn’t quite sure. But I did know I wasn’t going to be able to sit and drink tea by myself and pace the short length of the rails and simply wait. I wasn’t going to sit while the sick pit of my stomach grew heavier and heavier with the realization that I had almost married a man who was trying to destroy my reputation. I had nearly married him, but maybe the worst part was that even if he hadn’t turned out to be a complete villain, I still would not be missing him.

What was wrong with me? My other friends were married or planning for marriage.

I climbed down off the train, smoothing my hands over my dress and lifting the hem when I stepped down over the tracks toward the camp. It was still noisy—it was always noisy—but the workers had quickly gone off to wherever they went at the end of a long day of work. I walked toward the camp, picking my way through the dirt that turned more and more to mud. I stopped when it sucked at my boots and I pulled my hem up even higher to try to protect it. This was worse than around the train car. The sun was still shining, despite starting to sink into the west, and it reflected off the wet mud that seemed to spread through the entire camp. I tugged my foot loose and kept moving, coming to a patch of boards that looked like an attempt at a walkway that only extended about a half dozen paces before turning to mud again. The camp was full, and I found myself watching every man who crossed my path. A few tipped their hats. A few stared. Most of them stared. I kept moving but I couldn’t keep myself from continuously turning from side to side with wide eyes.

I had always known the camp was an endless sea of white canvas tents. Now I saw that some of them were raised up on the same type of boards that made up the walkways, but many more were sunken directly down in the mud. I was on what would be the main street if it were a street and if this was a proper town. At least, it looked like the larger tents on either side were establishments of some sort. I passed a tent with a sort of front porch with a sign reading “Office” hanging at the front. The front was open, revealing a desk and worn bedframe. I wondered if that was the best accommodation here. Further ahead, a cross rose up into the air high enough to see over the shorter tents. I’d heard something said about a Reverend but I hadn’t known there was a church here. I started towards it and passed a larger structure with an open doorway and the unmistakable line of a bar along the back canvas wall. Ah, so there it was. It was packed full, noisy, and the smell of whiskey made its way even out to where I was standing.

I kept walking.

Around a corner I found the church. It was just a tent, of course, and the large doorway was opened to reveal rows of empty pews. Across the way, another line of tents sprung up from the mud and, in contrast to the vacant church, the area in front of these tents was swarming. I froze.

I had known I wasn’t the only woman in Hell on Wheels. I’d known there were women here who followed the railroad as it moved west, women who sold services to the workers in exchange for money. But vaguely knowing that fact and seeing it were two quite different things. The women strutting in front of or reclining back against the tent poles were indecent, half naked, wearing the corsets of dresses with sleeves removed, or petticoats that didn’t fall much past their knees and had draped folds that hiked them up even higher. One woman gripped a man by his collar and dragged him inside the tent, laughing. Another was stroking her fingers over her exposed bosom, pushed up obscenely high by an overly-tightened and ill-fitting corset.

I was stopped, mouth open and eyes wide as I took in the scene, when someone slammed into my shoulder from behind and I stumbled. The man muttered a “Sorry” as he stormed passed towards the brothel and I managed to steady myself before falling into the mud. But I dropped my skirts in the process and when I looked down, the hem was already deep in the muck.

“Oh, no.”

“You looking for a job, sweetheart?” My chin snapped up and I found one of the women laughing at me, waving me over. “Come on, honey, we got a room all ready for you.”

Another of the women, wearing a red corset with stained white skirts that were parted to show her thigh, blew me a kiss and I stepped back. “Bet you could charge double.”

“For Miss Durant? At least triple!” They erupted in laughter, brash and loud.

I turned and bolted, pulling up my skirts again even though they were already filthy. I went back the way I’d come, around the tents, somehow ending up on the other side of the saloon and stumbling around a group of men who were pushing their way inside. I pulled back, directly into a puddle, and my feet nearly went from under me. I steadied myself and stood still in the mud, catching my breath and gripping my hands in my skirt to keep them from shaking.

This place really was Hell. How did people live like this? I lifted my eyes finally. A few men had started singing inside the bar. They sounded Irish. I could still hear the laughter of women, even though I couldn’t see them, and a few raised men’s voices. Was this really the camp that I had been curious about for all these weeks? There was nothing here worth seeing. No wonder Bohannon kept telling me I didn’t belong. I didn’t run back to my train car. I couldn’t because of the mud. But I did walk very quickly.

Henri didn’t say anything about my dirty dress when I dumped it in a heap onto the floor. I took a long bath and dressed in clean clothing afterwards and finally ad a late dinner, alone and in the quiet. It was nicer this way, with my father gone. Maybe he had been right and staying away from everyone here was better. This wasn’t any kind of place for me. But while I sat in my private car and turned up the lamp so I could read, I found myself smiling. I had gone out into the camp and I had returned safely. No catastrophe had befallen me. No lasting harm had been done.

Of course he had. That’s why anyone ever came to the train, why anyone was even here in this so-called Hell on Wheels to begin with. My father and his railroad. Although, this man did look familiar. He had been here before. I couldn’t remember his name or what he did for my father. He certainly knew my name, although that was not surprising. I was sure that the arrival of Ellie Durant, daughter of the great railroad man Thomas Durant, in Hell on Wheels had spread quickly over the last few weeks. “My father isn’t here.”

“Yeah, I can see that, ma’am. You expect he’ll be back soon?”

“I wouldn’t know.” I uncrossed my legs and crossed them again at the ankles, smoothing out the wrinkles in my pale-yellow skirt instead of looking up at the man. “You’ll have to come back.”

I turned my attention to the newspaper in my hands but didn’t really focus on the words. When I didn’t hear the sound of the door opening again, I looked up. He was still standing here, hat in hand, leaning a little back onto his right foot. He didn’t look like he was preparing to leave or had paid any attention at all to my request.

“I said you will have to come back, Mister…?”

“Bohannon, ma’am. But your father asked to see me and I ain’t keen on runnin’ round camp looking for him only to end up back here.”

“You ain’t keen.”

“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”

The man, Mister Bohannon, kept his eyes fixed on mine, not turning away like many of the other men at camp would on the rare occasions I crossed paths with any of them. But he wasn’t looking anywhere else, either. Just my face. I stared back. He tapped out a rhythm onto his hat with his forefinger and raised his eyebrows. I was the one who finally looked away.

“Well, if you insist on waiting for him…” I didn’t finish the sentence and instead picked up my newspaper. I flipped to the second page and then the third. Of course there was nothing interesting. I could have moved to the other car, to the one that was mine alone with a small sitting area and bedroom, but I refused to get up and leave while this Mister Bohannon was standing there staring. I would not be run out. I glanced up at him.

He was leaning against the wall in the corner, focusing on straightening a section of his hat and acting for all the world like he belonged here.

“What is it you do for my father, Mister Bohannon?”

“I’m the foreman, ma’am.”

“The foreman.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I resisted the urge to sigh. “Yes, but what does a foreman do?”

“I’m in charge of the walking bosses, keep the work moving.” He settled his hat back on his head, apparently satisfied with whatever he’d done to it.

“That’s it?”

“Yep, that about sums it up.” His voice was level, sounding almost bored. His slow, southern drawl was mostly to blame for that, drawing out his words like he had all the time in the world. Like he had stumbled into being foreman of my father’s railroad by accident. Whatever reaction I was trying to pull from him with my questions—and I was not sure what it was I was after—I didn’t get it.

“Well, that doesn’t sound too difficult.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would to you, ma’am.”

I glared at him and went back to reading. Neither of us spoke again until my father appeared and of course I was instantly asked if I didn’t have something I’d rather be doing in my own car instead of having to be bored with railroad business, so I collected the paper and a discarded bit of embroidery and left through the back, closing the door on the voices of both men.

Suppertime saw my father and I seated at the small dining table, eating steaks that Henri had cooked for us. My father was occupied with a stack of telegrams and we ate in silence, until he suddenly set down his whiskey glass.

“Any of the men of the camp bother you and you’re to tell me, understand?”

“Yes, you’ve told me, daddy.”

“I mean it,” he added, pointing a finger at me to drive home the point. “Bad enough you’re out here in this godforsaken place, but I won’t stand for anyone disrespecting you.”

I gripped my fork at another reminder that I wasn’t wanted here. They were constant. But it was not as if I could forget that I wasn’t here by choice. “No one’s said anything to me. Most of them won’t even look at me.” I wasn’t certain if he was trying to avoid disrespect that would be directed at him if there was word that he couldn’t protect his own daughter from the men around camp, or if he was really concerned about the effect it would have on me. The few weeks I had spent here in the west were the most time I had spent with my father in, well, forever, and the only thing I had learned was that I didn’t know him.

“Good. I don’t like leaving you alone in a place like this, but it can’t be helped when there’s business to attend to. But Bohannon, he’s smarter than most. Smart enough not to try anything.” He raised his eyebrows and took a long swallow. “He knows there would be hell to pay.”

Something in my father’s voice sounded almost smug.

“Bohannon’s your foreman, isn’t he?”

“How do you know that?”

I pushed some potatoes around the plate. “He told me. While he was waiting for you.”

My father huffed and I heard him uncork the bottle. “Yes, he’s my foreman. And that’s enough from you about railroad business. You don’t need to be sticking your nose into things you don’t need to know anything about. You’re leaving in a week, anyway.”

I took another bite and the meal ended in silence.

Leaving in a week. He’d said the same thing last week. And the week before when we’d arrived in Hell on Wheels and I’d looked out over the makeshift shanty town of dirty tents in horror. But I knew as well as he did that the scandal that had sent me all the way out here from Chicago was not going to blow over in another week or two. Broken engagements, and the rumors that followed in their wake, did not simply disappear from people’s minds. The worst part was that while I was exiled out here in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t do anything to try to fix things. All I could do was wait.

The days I spent in the Nebraska territory all ran together. I had learned early on, when I asked about taking a walk or going riding, that my father would not allow me to go far. The short walks I did take were just down the track halfway to the makeshift station we had arrived at, or the other way to the end of the short rail spur that had become my home. There was never conversation with anyone beyond my father, even rare as that was, or attempts with Henri. After my first question about whether there were any other women living here who I could go walking with or visit was met with laugher, I had learned that the only other women at the camp were ones of ill-repute. I also found that I would not be allowed to walk through the camp even if I did want to associate with them. I didn’t.

The same rules went for riding as went for walking: it was always only short rides and only within sight of Hell on Wheels and my father always sent one of the Swede’s men with me. I thought his name was Lacey but I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. Whoever it was, my father didn’t trust him (or me) enough to let us go riding far so I stopped going altogether. I didn’t know who the Swede was, either, other than that he made my skin crawl and that I avoided my father’s train car whenever the man was present.

The result of all this was two weeks spent trapped in cramped quarters watching my father, and the men who worked for him, come and go with barely a look in my direction. Another week passed. Another week-old newspaper. Another seven nights curled up in my bed in my train car with the doors locked, listening to the sounds of men and coyotes. Another stack of letters written to friends back home that I didn’t know how to deliver. Another parade of memories playing across my eyelids when I tried to sleep, an endless repetition of the man I’d planned to marry and his face when I told him I could not go through with it. Of the aftermath.

I was being driven mad. The endless plains around us provided no distraction, no diversion from the bleeding of one day into the next. No woman should have to exist in a place like this, I repeated to myself like a mantra. Not when I should be back in Chicago, going riding or walking or visiting friends. One was recently married and we had planned to settle into our new lives as wives and keepers of our own homes together. My decision to call off my wedding had put an end to that and somehow that had led to being stranded here, where I wasn’t even allowed to walk far enough to keep my body from practically aching with unrest and inactivity. I’d been exiled to a place where I wasn’t even allowed to walk down the nonexistent streets and my former fiance was back in Chicago continuing to tell the lies that had sent me here.

The sun was just an hour or two over the horizon on a particularly beautiful spring morning when I went barreling into my father’s train car, dressed in my riding gear, only to find it empty. I flung open the door and started down the rail line toward where I saw him and his distinctive white hat.

“Daddy, I’m going riding,” I called when I was still a dozen paces away. He was with someone, talking, and the conversation stopped when I interrupted. His foreman. What was he called? Bohannon? It didn’t matter, I was here to talk to my father and I wasn’t going to be put off or dismissed or asked to go move to another car because the men were talking. Not this time. Not again.

“Not now, Ellie.” He waved a hand at me, still looking at Bohannon.

“I’m going out riding, properly. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I said, not now. We’ll talk about it over dinner.”

“I want to talk about it now.” I crossed my arms. My mother would have said I was being petulant, I was sure, and that just frustrated me more. I wasn’t being childish or spoiled. I was just being driven crazy in a prison the size of a Pullman Coach.

My father sighed and finally turned to me. “Alright, what is it?”

He hadn’t listened to a word I’d said. “I’m going riding.”

“Oh, no, that’s far too dangerous.”

“I’m going.” I crossed my arms. Bohannan sighed and looked away down the railroad, like he would rather be anywhere than here. I sympathized.

“You will not,” my father responded. “You are perfectly safe back in the train, which is where you should still be.”

I glowered up at my father. “I’ve been in the train for nearly a month. It’s only riding, it can’t be that dangerous!”

“Mister Durant, if you…”

“Not now, Mister Bohannon!” My father’s loud voice was sharp in contrast to Bohannon’s quiet drawl. “Ellie, you are not going riding alone and that’s final.”

“But there’s no one to go with me out here!”

“What about that fellow that works for me, what’s his name? Lacey?”

“I don’t like him! And he smells, worse than the horses!”

My father groaned in frustration. “Well, you should have thought of that before—”

“Isn’t there anyone else?” I pleaded. I needed to escape this place, even if it was just a few hours.

“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m trying to build a railroad, not run a riding camp for—”

“I’ll ride with her, Mister Durant.”

My father and I both turned. My father’s face was positively red from being interrupted so much and I didn’t know if the flush on my own cheeks was much better. Bohannon was standing where we’d left him with his hands on his hips. When he had our attention, he spat on the ground. “Men have the day off on account of the rain yesterday. I can ride out with her, make sure there’s no trouble.”

He was looking at my father, not at me. Of course. This wasn’t about me. But that was alright.

“Okay then, go.” My father gestured away with a shooing motion. “Heavens, I wish I’d had a son.”

I flushed and turned away before I could see whatever reaction Bohannon had to that statement. The horses weren’t far and I walked in that direction without waiting another moment. Bohannon caught up with me within a few feet, falling into step beside me with his much longer legs. I didn’t look at him while he saddled the horses. I used the block to climb up onto the horse and we started off.

I broke the silence almost immediately. He was too self-assured, too comfortable, almost smug in how he’d so selflessly offered his presence.

“I didn’t ask you to ride with me, Mister Bohannon, so I hope you don’t expect any thanks.”

“Can’t say I did.”

I glanced over at him. He had a good seat on his horse, leaning forward a little and looking relaxed at the easy pace I was setting. Like he’d been born to ride a horse. “Good.”

“Sure sounded like you were asking, though.”

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“Right. Just for your father to find someone.”

“Yes.”

“Who you like. And who don’t smell.” Bohannon leaned over the side of his horse to spit. “That’s a tall order ‘round these parts, Miss Durant.”

“Every man here smells like horse, sweat, or whiskey.” My white mare stepped toward Bohannon’s bay as I leaned toward him and I adjusted the reins to steer her back straight again.

“You’re in the wrong country if you’re looking for parties and men who smell pretty.”

I gripped the reins tightly and my teeth tighter. “I am very aware of that fact, Mister Bohannon.”

He laughed. I nudged my horse faster with my heels and started off at a trop that turned into a canter as we passed through the tall grass of the Nebraska plains. The ground was still wet so I didn’t push for a full gallop but even at this pace I could feel the wind in my hair and the pounding of blood in my veins. I leaned low over the saddle and gripped the reins and watched the ground fly under the feet of my horse. For the first time in weeks, even with my breath coming short, I felt like I wasn’t suffocating. Like my world hadn’t shrunk to the size of a few train cars, a father who I didn’t know, and the surly voices of men who wouldn’t be allowed into the New York neighborhood where I was raised or the Chicago one that I had, until recently, called home.

Finally, heart pounding, I came up to the low banks of a river and pulled my mare to a stop. The river gurgled over rocks and into shallow pools as it cut its way across the landscape. A few of the pools had trees growing up around the banks and those led into more forested land away to what I thought was the south. Purple buds were still visible on some, while others had already given way to green leaves.

My horse nosed at the shorter grass beside the water and I slid down off the saddle. My riding boots sunk into the soft soil whe I led her over to the water to drink. A little way downstream, Bohannon did the same with his own mount but he didn’t speak. Rushing past my feet, the water looked clear and cool and I was almost jealous of my horse as I watched her swallow mouthfuls. I stroked her neck instead.

“Good girl. There you go.” I patted her neck and stepped back, turning and coming up short when I found Bohannan much closer than I’d left him.

“Here.” He held out a canteen.

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought to bring one and he knew it. I glanced down at the flowing water.

“You wanna join your horse down there, you be my guest.”

“No, thank you.” I took the canteen and unscrewed the cap, swallowing down a few mouthfuls. I handed it back to him. He took it back without a word and turned toward the east where the sun was rising higher in the sky. A few drops of water clung to his beard and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. I stepped out into the grass and let it tickle at my palms. The stalks pulled at the hem of my dress as I moved a little further into the endless meadow. The sun had risen higher and I took off my hat to feel it full on my face. It was warm. Calming. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed deep.

It was quiet out here. Quieter than the camp where there was always the sound of men's voices, usually yelling or cursing. Horses. Dogs. The roar of the train. The clank of wagons or of wood and steel for the railroad. And it was quieter than Chicago with its noisy street and endless busyness. Here, out in this wilderness, the only thing I could hear was the wind and the calling of birds and buzzing of insects. Grasses rustled by the wind tickled against my palms and I opened my eyes.

“It’s beautiful.” The words fell out of me in a whisper.

“Yeah. It is.” Bohannon’s tall form appeared at my side. His hat was still firmly on his head and it left his eyes in shadow. I had almost forgotten he was there. I settled my hat back on my head and tucked back some yellow hairs that had escaped from my braid. The buzzing of insects became louder as the day grew warmer. More insistent, like they were demanding to be heard.

I wanted to ask Bohannon why he’d offered to ride with me when it was obvious that he hadn’t wanted to, but I didn’t. I heard a cry from somewhere up above and looked up, holding onto my hat as I found a bird circling high above us.

“Is that an eagle?”

“Chickenhawk. He’s got a red tail on him, see?”

“Oh.” I squinted up at the shape as it wheeled overhead. As it turned, I caught sight of a flash of red. “How did you know that?”

“Seen enough of ‘em.”

“Oh.” I watched the bird continue to circle above us. Hunting, probably, for whatever a bird like that ate. I doubt there were many chickens for it to find out here. I picked the head off a stalk of grass and pulled apart the tiny seeds and fluffy strands. The wind pulled them from my fingers.

Bohannon was still standing quietly and I sneaked a glance at him. He was looking out over the hills. He didn’t seem as rough as the other men who I saw around the camp, but I didn’t know anything about him or where he had come from. At least he didn’t make me want to crawl into a hole and disappear like the Swede did. I supposed that being the foreman required more respectability than a common laborer. Maybe he had been with the railroad since the beginning. But he was a southerner, that much was obvious. I doubted he had fought in the war, my father wouldn’t hire someone who had fought against the Union, so maybe he had been in the north for a long time. I opened my mouth to ask when he turned to me.

“Should be heading back.” Then he spat in the grass. My nose wrinkled before I could stop it. Disgusting habit.

“We just left.”

He didn’t answer. Just raised his eyebrows at me again, like he was waiting for me to realize that he was right and I was wrong. “You think your daddy’s not counting the minutes ‘til we get back?”

I turned back to my horse where she had drunk her fill and had begun nibbling at the grass alongside Bohannon’s. She looked rested. I hadn’t pushed her hard, after all. I walked over to her and took her reins in hand, stroking her neck. Her skin shivered under my palm and she flicked her tail at some insect that was buzzing too close. Bohannon wasn’t wrong. One of the things my father did seem to care about, at least since I had come out west with him, was knowing where I was at all times. He would probably lock me up in his safe if he could.

“You heard the man, Daisy. Should be heading back.” I reached for the saddle horn and lifted my foot for the stirrup but on the soft ground and without the mounting block, I couldn’t reach. I tried again.

“Oh, dratted…”

“You need a hand with that, Miss Durant?”

“No, I’ll manage.” I gripped the saddle horn tighter but Daisy was already annoyed with me and she shifted, forcing me to hop along with her until Bohannan grabbed the reins.

“You sure about that?”

“Would you…” I dropped back down on both feet. “Do you have to do that?”

“Do what, Miss Durant?”

“Talk like that all the time.”

“Well, this is the only way of talkin’ I know how to do.”

He sounded so infuriatingly calm, standing there and holding the reins to my horse and just watching me. His eyes were bright on his tanned face, standing out from his mass of black hair, some of it speckled with grey.

“Yes, but you don’t have to…” I let out a sigh. There wasn’t any point. This man had seen me practically beg my father for someone to go out riding with me and here I was refusing his help to even get back on my horse. I squeezed my hands into fists. None of this was fair. And it was turning me into someone who wasn’t me. “You can help me up onto my horse, Mister Bohannon.”

“Well, now I ain’t so sure.” My eyes had barely widened when Bohannan let out a laugh and stepped closer with his hand out. “Come on, then.”

His hand was rough, calloused, and warm when I finally took it and his other palm was on my waist for just a moment before I was safely in the saddle and he pressed the reins into my hand. I adjusted my seat on the horse, and then my hat on my head, and then smoothed my skirts while Bohannon mounted his own horse. I rode up beside him.