A Lady in the Smoke Read Free

cloak and all of her own. She shivered against me and dropped her face into her hands. But I watched the horrible scene before me, unable to look away.
    A second fire had sprung from a carriage in the rear, and all up and down the train, people still clambered and crawled out of doors and windows, the well-bodied helping the wounded, carrying them out on their backs and on makeshift stretchers. Near the front of the train, a woman jumped from a carriage, her dress in flames, and began to run; a man chased after her, but she raced on, her mouth open in a cry I couldn’t hear. Suddenly I thought of Miss Rush, riding in one of the forward carriages because I’d kept her from joining us.
    Out of the wave of guilt and shame came a desperate prayer that she was all right.
    And then I heard the shrieks of terrified horses, shrill and piercing, sounding so much like my black mare Athena that I had a panicked second before I remembered she was safe at home. I strained my eyes to find the animals amidst the smoke, plunging and struggling against their handlers—but there were none.
    It took a moment for me to realize what was happening.
    The horses were burning alive in the stock cars.
    The thought of them, tortured by the sparks on their skin, pounding the doors with their hooves and screaming in terror, brought hot tears to my eyes.
    I put my fists to my mouth to keep from screaming myself.
    Finally, the water-trucks arrived, the workhorses balking in the traces until the drivers used their whips to drive them toward the burning wreck. Men in shirtsleeves pumped furiously while others directed hoses toward the worst of the blaze until at last the flames began to subside.
    All around us people crowded, sitting in the dirt or on a few scattered rocks: old men and young, the landed gentry side by side with peasants, foreigners beside English folk, well-dressed ladies next to women in ragged shawls. The disaster made no distinctions. A low, savage cry made me look up. A man limped by, passing close enough for me to touch, holding a child to his chest as tenderly as if she were asleep and he were carrying her to bed. But her brown hair was singed short—her light blue dress was blackened and in shreds around her thin legs—and her arm—
    I could no longer look or listen. With a sob, I put my head down, clasped my hands over my ears, and shut my eyes tight.
    —
    How long had it been? Two hours, maybe three. It was growing dark. A light rain had fallen briefly, and we were drenched. The burning carriages had become black smoldering ruins against the gray sky, with stubborn bits of fire showing like darts amidst the wreckage. A chilling breeze still gusted across the field. Wagons and carriages had begun to appear, rolling amongst the crowd, making their own paths to retrieve friends and relations. Wheels creaked and scraped over the uneven ground, lanterns swung in yellow arcs, and voices cried out names. But thus far no one had called out for us.
    Our backs to the stone, Mama and I remained seated in the dirt. My head throbbed if I moved it, so I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my right temple on my forearm. The cut on my head had stopped bleeding, but the left side of my face and neck was sticky with blood. Mama was unconscious, slumped against my shoulder, but she was breathing normally, so I let her be. For once I was glad for laudanum’s soporific effect. It was better that she wasn’t awake for this. I wished I didn’t have to be, and I had never been so cold.
    Then I heard a man’s voice, close to my ear, and felt a warm hand on my shoulder: “Are you all right?” A pause. “Miss, I’m a surgeon. I’d like to help you, if I may.”
    I needed to respond, to move, to say something. But my whole body was achingly stiff.
    “Miss, can you hear me?”
    I lifted my head to see a man kneeling at my side. He looked to be only a few years older than myself. His dark hair was wet from the rain, and there were flecks