Olivia goes West

Chapter 2

The train station at Green River wasn't very busy. It was merely a short pit stop along the route from New York to San Francisco. The train only stopped for ten minutes before moving on, passengers were told not to leave the train unless disembarking there, or they'd be left behind. The town had dried up, the gold mines which kept it alive and thriving dried up over a decade ago, and the railroads, which used to refuel here, now got most of their coal and water from the next town over, Helper. Neither human nor mouse had much of a reason to disembark here, at this lonely, decaying desert outpost. Nellie Brie's reason; her latest, and hopefully last, undercover report for the Daily Nibbler.

The legendary New York reporter stepped off the train, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying an umbrella to protect her from the desert sun, was followed by her appointed assistant, Vartan Mookian, a teenaged paperboy who Reed Daley found sketching pictures on the job, and naturally, made him Nellie's assistant just to give her someone to baby-sit, someone who hardly spoke English at that. From what Nellie could gather he was a refugee from the Ottoman Empire. Armenian mice were being severely mistreated and oppressed by Turkish cats there, Nellie knew from occasional news reports. But he was still the first Armenian refugee she'd ever met. He was living in the streets before landing his job as a paperboy. Nellie really felt for him, but he wouldn't tell her much about what had happened to him before he made it to America.

Reed's constantly trying to get under her fur increased a lot since she turned him down for Basil, after their brush with death at the hands of Madame Mousey. She couldn't work with him very much longer. Nor did she want to. For the past several months she pulled her money together, and now, with Ratigan out of the picture, she was finally ready to move to London and try her luck at landing a reporting job there. She would finally be reunited with Basil, after four long years of waiting.

"Come along, Vartan. The saloon should be right around here somewhere," she said, carrying a suitcase.

Vartan carried two other suitcases. He wore loose black pants with a red sash, black vest and white undershirt. His black hair blew in the hot desert wind.

"We are finding Cet R. Waul, che?" he asked in his Armenian accent.

"In due time. And not so loud. Remember, we're only here doing a report on Green River's New Yorker migrants. Not a word to anyone to the contrary."

Vartan tilted his head, straining to understand her English. She looked back at him and sighed. Of course, that was only their cover story; even Reed thought that was all they were doing. But Nellie had been digging up dirt on Cat R. Waul for a long time, ever since the Warren case. And Vartan had given her a juicy tip; apparently Waul had commissioned three orphans Vartan knew from the streets to swindle an immigrant family into moving out west for some unknown purpose. Was Waul up to his old tricks again? There was only one way to find out.

"Don't say anything about Waul to anyone. It's a secret," Nellie repeated in simpler terms.

Vartan nodded, "I now understand."

"Good. Now just follow my lead."

The two of them hopped down from the waiting platform and walked in the shade of the wooden sidewalks, fighting against the dusty breeze until they found themselves in front of the saloon. Tossing their suitcases onto the sidewalk, they climbed up and walked beneath the two large swinging doors. The building had been abandoned by humans. Since Waul's last departure from Green River, Miss Kitty took ownership of the saloon, turning it into a bar where all species, dogs, cats and mice, were welcome. Any cat caught harming a mouse would be swiftly dealt with, though to keep things safe the mouse portion of the barroom was inside the walls. The second floor of the saloon had rooms that were used as an inn for travelers. Nellie and Vartan would be staying within the walls of Miss Kitty's room; an old friend of Nellie's. They passed through a mouse hole.