Chapter XXII
“EXCUSE ME, MISS,” an older woman said, interrupting her stupor. Mae's eyes flashed over to the woman. “Could I place my bag behind you?”
Mae's gaze slowly panned down to the woman’s wrinkled hand clutching the handle of her carpetbag.
The older woman swung the bag gently back and forth in the direction she wished to place it.
“Of—of course…” Mae stammered, moving to the side.
“Pardon me.” Mae looked around the car, searching for anyone who might still be lingering, surveilling, staring. There was no one.
Several quick strides put her back through the vestibule and into the observation car.
She could see from the end that Winona was still sitting in the same position, eyes still glued to the man with his legs crossed.
She had to collect her thoughts. The train had left the safety of the station and was now heading ever westward.
The desolate, expansive Great Plains whirred by, and Mae could not seem to focus on any particular object in its wake.
She raised a shaky hand to tuck her hair behind her ear as she scanned the room.
Her knees wobbled as she replayed the conversation she’d had with the man.
She needed to sit. Looking over to Winona again, she forced her feet to follow the path to her seat.
Her legs gave way as she slumped down into her chair.
Drawing in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and willed her racing heart to slow.
“Damn bastard,” Winona fumed. “The conductor came in an ‘spoke’ to the bastard, but he doesn’t seem any worse for wear…”
Mae heard her words but couldn’t respond. As she joined her trembling hands in her lap, her fingers tightened about themselves, turning her knuckles white.
“Where is Beatrice?” Winona continued. “She should be workin out ‘ere by now.”
The image of Beatrice disappearing on the platform burned in Mae's mind. She needed to tell Winona about her. But should she tell her about the man? Winona had given no indication that she had been followed by this man. She thought back to the moments when she’d seen him.
The room tilted slightly, and Mae willed her focus to stay on Winona.
“Mae?” Winona was looking at her intently. “Ye alright? Ye look as if ye’d seen a ghost.”
Mae's lips trembled as she tried unsuccessfully to turn them into a smile while she stared at her clasped hands. “I saw Beatrice.” It was all she could muster.
Winona zeroed in on her face. “Where? In the sleeper? We should go in and keep watch…”
Mae shook her head. “No.”
“She needs us, Mae,” she reasoned. “A tiny thing like that needs someone lookin’ out fer ‘er.”
Mae continued to shake her head, but this time she looked up and met Winona’s eyes. “She was on the platform in Kansas City.”
“What—”
“I think she was fired. I saw them escort her off the train.”
“Bastards!” A flush started in Winona’s chest and rose quickly up her neck to her cheeks. “I knew it! I knew they couldn’t be trusted.”
Mae looked back down at her laced fingers, the gold band standing out against the white skin.
“I know ye think we need to follow the rules, Mae, but look at where we women end up? Always more convenient to get rid of the problem instead of fixin’ it.
” She paused, and Mae could hear her breathing deepen.
“That poor girl did nothin’ wrong. She was jus doin’ her job.
It ain’t ‘er fault that she looks the way she do. And the powers that be always think it’s ‘er fault. That she must’ve been askin’ fer it. ”
Mae couldn’t raise her head. She couldn’t defend the train’s decision to let Beatrice go.
Was this really the way the world worked?
She had to believe that doing the right thing resulted in reaping the right reward.
Otherwise, why have rules at all? She looked at Winona then.
She saw the disgust—not only of the system actively punishing the victim, but of her disgust at the choice Mae had made to let them choose the consequences.
Her stomach turned over and bile crept up her throat.
Winona turned away from Mae and focused on the prairie flashing by the window.
When Winona finally spoke again, her voice was rough with emotion.
“There’s nothin’ to be done now. We need to focus on the bairns.
” She reached out and placed her hand over Mae's still-clenched fingers.
She squeezed them gently, and the warmth in her hands transferred to Mae's cold grasp. Mae knew it had cost Winona.
Frustration and grief and shame and helplessness swirled together and landed behind her eyes, burning with unshed tears.
The feelings of apprehension the man had caused resumed their residence within her chest. Her breath quickened and became shallow as she considered how to divulge his veiled threat to Winona.
Where should she start? Maybe she shouldn’t tell Winona at all.
After all, they were still going through the right channels; they weren’t creating ripples.
As long as they weren’t causing a fuss, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Winona stood. The warmth seeping into her hands withdrew as Winona announced that she needed to use the ladies’ coach.
Mae's eyes shot up to call her back, but her back had already turned and her visual request was not received.
She considered calling her name, but decided that telling Winona would only cause more drama—and drama needed to be avoided at all costs.
Mae sat quietly, trying to compose herself as she awaited Winona’s return.
They would be exiting the train soon. Winona was right—she needed to focus on what truly mattered right now.
Simon. For a moment, the similarities between Beatrice’s case and the children’s struck her as ironic.
Her mind swept it to the side though as she reminded herself that they were working with the legal system, not within the corrupted train system.
As she began to work through the legal argument in her mind, she thought about how to support Judge Matthews’s suggestion and attack the foundation.
She struggled to control her breathing as she forced herself to consider the copy of case law she had brought along.
Her mind drew a blank on the names of the cases.
By the time Winona returned, Mae had turned over every case name she could remember and was fairly certain she had the right ones.
“Looks like we should be gettin’ ready to get off,” Winona pointed out.
“This is it.” Mae looked at Winona and shared her worried expression.
“There’s no way I’m goin’ home without me Lily,” Winona vowed.
“We must get to the judge straight away. If we hurry, we may be able to get an audience with him today.” Mae's hopefulness did not reflect in Winona’s eyes.
“Judge or no, she’ll be comin’ wit me.” Winona’s jaw set firmly upon this pronouncement.
“We have the paperwork, Winona. We just need to present it formally, and both children should be released. I know the situation with Beatrice didn’t work out the right way, but this is different.
The law can be appealed, Winona. It can be reviewed.
But only if we approach it properly.” Doubt crept into Mae's mind. What if this wasn’t enough?
What if Mae turned out to be the girl standing alone on the platform as Simon was carted away?
Mae reached over to Winona and returned the squeeze of her hand to bolster her own fortitude.
Winona nodded, but Mae could sense her hesitation.
“C’mon, let’s get our things together so we can be the first to get off when we reach the station. ”
When the train’s arrival whistle finally blew, Mae and Winona were ready.
The station was smaller than most of the stops they had witnessed during their travels.
The bustle of porters and railway clerks felt familiar, but as the crowd dissipated into the small city and the departing passengers boarded, the station emptied out at an alarming rate.
A quick survey of the platform showed no sign of a man in a felt hat.
Still, the sense of having been expected pressed at her.
She thought of the train attendant who had been so friendly with him and scrutinized the remaining people she saw dawdling on the platform.
Topeka was certainly nothing like New York.
Although Mae had looked out the train window along the journey and noticed the flattening land, it was endless now at the edge of town.
The prairie extended to the horizon with nothing but snow reflecting the sun back to her for miles.
The roads were packed dirt that had turned muddy from the recent snowfall.
It was eerily quiet to her ears. No street peddlers hawking their wares.
No workmen’s hammers pounding out the rhythm of the day.
Just the rustle of the wind and the sporadic clopping of hooves as wagons rolled by.
Reluctantly, Mae eyed the ticket counter and turned to Winona, “We need to find out how to get to the courthouse quickly. C’mon.” She tugged at Winona’s arm before releasing it to cross the small wood-planked landing. The office window opened to the outdoors under an overhang.
Upon her approach, the clerk looked up from inside and smiled. “Hello, Ma’am, what can I do ye for?”
“Would you be able to tell me the fastest way to the courthouse?”
“Yes-siree…” His open face blossomed into a toothy smile as his chest puffed out.
“That there car,” he gestured toward a streetcar idling by a small lamppost, “that’ll take ye to the courthouse.
Rides right along Kansas Avenue. Just let the conductor know your stop and he’ll make sure ye get off at the right place.
Ye can take your time. Runs every ten minutes or so on the regular. ”
Mae thanked the man and shifted her suitcase to the other hand.
As she turned her attention to the lamppost, she saw a man in a charcoal coat waiting to board in the distance.
Her step paused, and she replaced her foot in the same place on the boardwalk.
The man was not wearing a felt hat. Could he be the same man?
She must get to the courthouse before it closed—and before this man if it were him.
Mae tried to keep her eye on the charcoal coat as she readied to catch the streetcar.
She forced her shoulders back and motioned to Winona, “We need to take the streetcar down Kansas Ave to the courthouse.” Winona nodded toward the streetcar and picked up her bag.
When they reached the small wooden platform, the streetcar had already begun to fill.
Unlike New York, most of the passengers waited politely for their turn.
Mae stepped up first, her nickel already poised in her hand.
Holding out the coin, she saw the conductor tip his hat.
“Ma’am.” He placed her fare in his coin belt and asked, “Which stop?”
“The courthouse, please.” A brief flush bloomed on her cheeks as his stare lingered on her face. As she shuffled to an empty bench, she saw the conductor scan over Winona and gruffly point out, “Five cents.”
Winona dug through her purse and retrieved the five pennies to drop them unceremoniously into his hand.
Without another glance, he returned to his seat and prepared to set the car in motion.
Winona plunked down next to Mae. Mae scanned the people from her seat and found the man in the charcoal coat.
Upon closer inspection, it was not the same man from the train.
This man had more blonde in his hair and a neatly trimmed mustache.
She sighed and turned her attention to the window.
The streetcar ambled down the packed-dirt road at a reasonable speed.
Mae could hear the conductor call out names for each stop—‘Stockyards,’ ‘Fourth Ward,’ ‘Church Street.’ Mae could see larger buildings looming in the distance and assumed they were the state buildings and courthouse.
Even the largest of these buildings would have been dwarfed in comparison to the buildings back home.
After stopping on the outskirts several more times, the smaller shops and housing coalesced into a more densely populated area.
Mae was relieved to hear a more familiar cadence of street traffic, although the hoofbeats were deadened slightly by the packed earth.
A larger brick structure came into view.
It had wrought-iron fencing framing a small, well-groomed play area.
Children of all ages were milling about, playing.
“Children’s Home,” the conductor announced.
As Mae strained to scan the playground for Simon, she felt Winona lurch over her, pointing as she gasped, “Me Lily! There she is, Mae!” Mae followed her finger and saw a small blonde girl bundled up in a gray winter coat wandering along the wrought-iron fence line.
She was walking alone, letting her hands slap along the iron posts as she walked along the perimeter.
In her frazzled state, Winona began to get to her feet. “I need to go to her.”
Mae grabbed her arm as she noticed several other passengers staring at them.
Her grip tightened as she saw a woman in a crimson velvet hat lean over and whisper to the man seated next to her.
“Not yet,” Mae breathed. “We must get to the courthouse before they close. I promise, we will go back right after.” Mae tried to sound convincing.
“If we make a scene, they may deem us unsuitable. They may even say we are trespassing. Then we will never get them back.”
Winona couldn’t break her gaze from Lily. Mae watched as the streetcar conductor looked back over his shoulder and raised his eyebrow. Mae shook her head slowly in his direction. He turned back to the front, and she felt the streetcar begin to move again.
Winona started shaking as Lily’s blonde hair receded into the distance.
Mae heard a low, guttural sound escape from Winona, and her heart began to crumble for this woman’s sorrow.
She wondered if Simon was inside that brick building.
Did he miss her? Her heart doubled back and crumbled all over again for her own sorrow.
Mae kept her grip on Winona’s arm, suppressing the urge to run back with Winona to search for Simon too.
They were so close. Just a little while longer and she would get the judge to agree.
She could do this. She could stay the course for just a few more hours.
She hoped the man in the felt hat didn’t make it to the judge before her.