In an America that might have been, two war orphans from a divided nation, one in the north and one in the south, meet across a vast battlefield, striking out to forge a future together in the west. It's 1892, the fourth and bloodiest year of the Ci...
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Kay left her grandmother's house in the early morning. There had been no meal. Just some cold bread and meat. Already buyers had come to look at the house, and Grace would stay until it sold. Kay would never see it again. The carriage driver, despite his peg leg and Kay's vigorous objections, took her trunk across the old plank and loaded it in the back of the carriage.
Kay and Grace hugged, and cried.
"Please be careful," her aunt said as she held tightly to Kay's hands.
"I will," Kay said.
"Please write."
"I will."
"Don't go anywhere alone."
"I'll always stay near people," Kay promised.
After more tears, Kay finally turned and walked to the carriage. The morning felt cool and bright, the hum of the city was immediate. She thought that she might have caught a whiff of fall in the air. She looked back at her aunt as she rode away and they both waved, and then there was only the road.
Her life seemed to be one long ending, with people dying and places drifting away. This was just one more ache.
Already the streets were full of people, horses, and wagons. They turned from the boulevard towards the city, where the men were still turning off the gas lights. She could smell the day's bread just out of the city's ovens.
At the train station she paid the carriage driver. The next Negro porter in line picked up her trunk to carry it to the platform and the waiting luggage cart. She tipped him and he tipped his hat, turning to get back in line. She stood near the cart, partly because she didn't want to lose her trunk, but also because she felt that her luggage was probably more likely to get on the right train than she was.
The train station was a vast lace of iron and glass. So much enclosed space was breathtaking. Even the whistles of the trains seemed lost in it. The trains themselves were huge, higher than a house. The black iron engines barely seemed able contain their steam inside. It leaked out here and there, and occasionally jetted into the air when they blew the whistle. Men in dirty work uniforms climbed all over them.
On each platform there hung a clock, square in the middle, and she could see she was still early, and so she sat on a bench and waited. More people arrived. People came and sat on the bench with her. Eventually two men came over and began to push the cart away and she, and another woman both rushed over to the men.
"Excuse me!" Kay called.
"Oh yes, please!" the other woman said.
The men stopped.
"This is my trunk," Kay said.
"Yes, and I was wondering . . ." the woman added.
"Yes, ma'am, ma'ams?" one of the men said, looking back and forth.
