ones.”
“Yeah, but you started it. And horses too,” the girl adds with a frown.
Blanche considers that. It’s true, in Paris she was raised not to be sentimental about food.
Out of the corner of her eye she spots the five-year-old, knock-kneed in the bulrushes. How long would it take Jeremiah’s soused parents to notice if he never came home from the pond? It occurs to Blanche that children expire every minute unless someone’s fighting to keep them alive: they sicken, suffocate, or burn. The odds against any one of them making it past a first birthday … “Shouldn’t you pull your little brother out of there before he drowns himself?” asks Blanche, too sharply.
“He knows all right,” says Kate.
The boy is squatting in the water now, slapping the green-scummed surface with pleasure.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Jenny’s high-wheeler?” asks Blanche.
Both children nod.
She’s excited. “Where?”
“Here, when she rode it,” says Jeremiah with a jerk of his head.
“No, I mean today? Have you seen it since she—”
The boy’s eyes are vacant. The girl shakes her head, and then her doll’s head. But then, thinks Blanche, her father and mother might have prepared Kate for that question; threatened her, to keep her mouth shut …
Oh, Blanche, let it go . She knows in her gut it wasn’t the McNamaras.
Blanche’s barely got the bag open before a biggish frog startles her by leaping through. She drops the sack. In ones and twos, the creatures spasm their way out. Some are only the length of her thumb, yet they’ve so much go in them, hurling themselves across the few feet of baked ground toward the water as if they can smell it.
“Can I’ve a few?” asks Kate with an expression Blanche belatedly recognizes as hungry.
“Help yourself,” says Blanche.
The little girl seizes a fat frog and smacks its head on a nearby rock. “Jenny said to bash ’em right away, or a knife to the neck, it’s only fair. Skinning them alive, that’s uncalled-for,” recites Kate. Her pocketknife out already.
Jeremiah picks up a hinged pair of legs and makes a jiggling puppet of them. “If you salt them, they dance by their selves,” he confides to Blanche.
She’s heard of that trick but never seen it. If she’s obliged to watch a five-year-old perform it this morning, the top of her head is going to explode.
Is that Cartwright’s wide sun hat outside the Canadian’s log cabin? This pallid mouse is thorough, Blanche has to grant him that; he clearly means to interrogate every living soul within sight of San Miguel Station. She almost pities the man for his wasted efforts in this heat. Perhaps she should tell him more about Arthur. Convince him to go up to town, to Sacramento Street, and ask around. Bohen wouldn’t listen to Blanche, but can’t an inquisitive newsman dig up evidence of guilt just as well as a so-called detective?
But here comes a puff of smoke on the railroad in the west. If Blanche stops to talk to Cartwright she’ll miss this train, and what if this is the last one heading into the City today? She mustn’t get stuck here for another night. So Blanche sets off at a run for the depot.
On the platform Mrs. Holt sits at her stall as if awaiting a horde of customers. Candies twisted into their dusty papers, misshapen apples, one incongruously bright orange … Blanche’s mouth waters and it occurs to her to buy it, but something makes her unwilling to carry away anything from San Miguel Station.
“Second class,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the shriek of the incoming train. The engine belches out its bilious gray. She scrabbles for coins in her pocketbook. She can’t quite afford second, but she never travels third. She’ll need to get hold of some real cash soon, but she won’t worry about that now.
Nobody gets off the train. Blanche heaves her carpetbag ahead of her into the brightly painted carriage. She drops onto a two-person seat, spreads her
“Yeah, but you started it. And horses too,” the girl adds with a frown.
Blanche considers that. It’s true, in Paris she was raised not to be sentimental about food.
Out of the corner of her eye she spots the five-year-old, knock-kneed in the bulrushes. How long would it take Jeremiah’s soused parents to notice if he never came home from the pond? It occurs to Blanche that children expire every minute unless someone’s fighting to keep them alive: they sicken, suffocate, or burn. The odds against any one of them making it past a first birthday … “Shouldn’t you pull your little brother out of there before he drowns himself?” asks Blanche, too sharply.
“He knows all right,” says Kate.
The boy is squatting in the water now, slapping the green-scummed surface with pleasure.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Jenny’s high-wheeler?” asks Blanche.
Both children nod.
She’s excited. “Where?”
“Here, when she rode it,” says Jeremiah with a jerk of his head.
“No, I mean today? Have you seen it since she—”
The boy’s eyes are vacant. The girl shakes her head, and then her doll’s head. But then, thinks Blanche, her father and mother might have prepared Kate for that question; threatened her, to keep her mouth shut …
Oh, Blanche, let it go . She knows in her gut it wasn’t the McNamaras.
Blanche’s barely got the bag open before a biggish frog startles her by leaping through. She drops the sack. In ones and twos, the creatures spasm their way out. Some are only the length of her thumb, yet they’ve so much go in them, hurling themselves across the few feet of baked ground toward the water as if they can smell it.
“Can I’ve a few?” asks Kate with an expression Blanche belatedly recognizes as hungry.
“Help yourself,” says Blanche.
The little girl seizes a fat frog and smacks its head on a nearby rock. “Jenny said to bash ’em right away, or a knife to the neck, it’s only fair. Skinning them alive, that’s uncalled-for,” recites Kate. Her pocketknife out already.
Jeremiah picks up a hinged pair of legs and makes a jiggling puppet of them. “If you salt them, they dance by their selves,” he confides to Blanche.
She’s heard of that trick but never seen it. If she’s obliged to watch a five-year-old perform it this morning, the top of her head is going to explode.
Is that Cartwright’s wide sun hat outside the Canadian’s log cabin? This pallid mouse is thorough, Blanche has to grant him that; he clearly means to interrogate every living soul within sight of San Miguel Station. She almost pities the man for his wasted efforts in this heat. Perhaps she should tell him more about Arthur. Convince him to go up to town, to Sacramento Street, and ask around. Bohen wouldn’t listen to Blanche, but can’t an inquisitive newsman dig up evidence of guilt just as well as a so-called detective?
But here comes a puff of smoke on the railroad in the west. If Blanche stops to talk to Cartwright she’ll miss this train, and what if this is the last one heading into the City today? She mustn’t get stuck here for another night. So Blanche sets off at a run for the depot.
On the platform Mrs. Holt sits at her stall as if awaiting a horde of customers. Candies twisted into their dusty papers, misshapen apples, one incongruously bright orange … Blanche’s mouth waters and it occurs to her to buy it, but something makes her unwilling to carry away anything from San Miguel Station.
“Second class,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the shriek of the incoming train. The engine belches out its bilious gray. She scrabbles for coins in her pocketbook. She can’t quite afford second, but she never travels third. She’ll need to get hold of some real cash soon, but she won’t worry about that now.
Nobody gets off the train. Blanche heaves her carpetbag ahead of her into the brightly painted carriage. She drops onto a two-person seat, spreads her
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