When finally her senses sprang back to life, Miranda looked up. She could see the Chicago skyline disappearing off into the distance. Beneath her, the train rocked with a steady motion. The sun baked down on her black clothing, adding to the perspiration that coated her skin. She reached up one hand, found her bonnet dangling by its ribbons.
Slowly, she scrambled to her feet, her fingers clutching the handrail. She tried the handle on the door at the end of the car. Unlocked. Miranda went through. It was the mail car, with boxes and parcels stacked on both sides of the narrow passageway. A thin man in a white shirt with sleeve garters was sorting letters into slots on a wooden rack.
He stared at her. “Where did you come from?”
Miranda gave him a shaky smile. “I almost missed the train.”
He puffed out his narrow chest with an air of authority common to petty bureaucrats all over the world. “You can’t stay here,” he said. “This car is for authorized personnel only.”
Miranda sank onto a wooden crate. She could see the man wanted to tell her sitting on mail items was against the rules. She peered up at him from between her lashes. “May I rest here for a moment?” she pleaded. “I promise to move into another car at the first stop.”
The man bristled but appeared mollified. He resumed sorting letters into the wooden pigeonholes mounted on the wall. “How far are you going?” he asked. “Are you going all the way to San Francisco?”
“No. I’m going to the Arizona Territory.”
The man grinned with the smug satisfaction of someone who possesses superior knowledge and intends to gloat with it. “In that case, you’re on the wrong train,” he replied with thinly disguised glee. “This is a Union Pacific Railroad express service to San Francisco and all towns west.”
* * *
Miranda had never known hunger could cause such pain, as if tiny teeth were gnawing at her insides. She had lost the last of her money with her bag, and for three days she had eaten nothing but leftovers from meal trays waiting for collection outside the compartments in the first-class Pullman car.
At least she was safe from Cousin Gareth, for it would be impossible for him to catch up the express service. If she continued to San Francisco, she could take a southbound train to the Arizona Territory. The roundabout journey added to the distance, but she would eventually get to Gold Crossing—if she didn’t die of starvation first.
Already, the train had chugged through Iowa and Nebraska, where the endless prairie landscape could almost make one believe the world might be flat after all. So far, Miranda had been successful in dodging conductors, but the most recent one—a big, rawboned man with a bushy moustache—had his eye on her, she could tell.
At the next stop, Miranda switched to a second-class car and spent a moment inside the convenience, unstitching the ruby-and-diamond brooch sewn into her petticoats. Then she walked up and down the aisle, assessing the female passengers.
She chose a buxom woman who sat by herself, dressed in tight corsets and a gaudy purple gown. No respectable woman would buy anything from a stranger on a train, but this female possessed the right mix of expensive clothing and a common touch.
Miranda slipped into the empty seat on the padded bench beside her quarry. She clamped down on her scruples and opened her fist to display the lure of the jewel. “Excuse me for approaching you so boldly, but I am in urgent need of funds. I have a family heirloom I wish to sell. I thought perhaps you might be interested.” She gestured at the woman’s purple gown. “The rubies would match your dress.”
The woman peered down at the brooch, then returned her attention to Miranda. There was no mistaking the greed that flashed in her eyes. “What’s your name, darling?” The words came in a coarse accent, the voice raspy with whiskey and tobacco. The heavy scent of perfume failed to mask the stale, unwashed smell.
“I am Miss Fai—Mrs. Woods.”
Plump fingers fumbled at Miranda’s palm as the woman picked up the brooch. She inspected the jewel carefully. “It is real gold,” Miranda hurried to reassure her. “And the stones are genuine diamonds and rubies.”
“It says Fairfax here. I thought you said your name’s Woods.” The woman pointed at the engraving. To my darling wife. H. Fairfax.
Miranda swallowed. She was leaving a trail, but it could not be helped. “The brooch belonged to my mother,” she explained. “Woods is my married name.”
“I see.” The woman spent another moment examining the brooch. Then, as if losing interest, she dropped the jewel back in Miranda’s palm. “No, thank you.” She made a flapping motion with her hand, ushering the intrusion away.
Baffled, Miranda rose to her feet. She could see the shine of covetousness in the woman’s eyes, could see all her chins wobble with the eagerness to possess, and yet the matron had not even asked for the price.
“Thirty dollars,” Miranda said. “It’s worth three times as much.”
Ignoring her, the woman turned to look out the window. Miranda walked away, blinking back tears of defeat. She settled on an empty bench and rested her head against the wall, in the hope that sleep might offer a moment of respite from the gnawing hunger.
It seemed only seconds later the conductor was shaking her awake. It was the big, rawboned man with a bushy moustache, and he was scowling down at her. Behind him, the woman in a purple gown was standing in the aisle, gripping the seatbacks for support, her ample frame wobbling with the motion of the train.
“Search her,” the matron demanded. “She stole my brooch.”
The conductor’s large hand clamped around Miranda’s arm. “Stand up.”
“She came and sat beside me,” the woman went on. “All friendly like. Just plopped down next to me and started talking. I knew something was wrong right away. A respectable person does not approach strangers like that. It took me no time to realize she’d walked off with my ruby-and-diamond brooch.”
“Empty your pockets,” the conductor told her.
Not a request, with a polite miss or ma’am at the end of it. An order, harshly spoken, the sharp tone already classifying her as a criminal.
Anger flared in Miranda, fizzled out again. Hunger, fatigue, the hopelessness of her situation, all succeeded in curbing an outburst of temper where common sense might have failed in the past. She could see the lecherous glint in the man’s eyes. With a shudder Miranda realized that if she resisted the order, he might use her refusal as an opportunity to insist on a bodily search.
Not voicing a single word of protest, Miranda reached into the pocket on her gown, pulled out her mother’s brooch and displayed it in her palm.
“It has an engraving,” the matron said. “‘To my darling wife. H. Fairfax.’ Fairfax was my mother’s name. Nearly a hundred dollars it is worth. Real diamonds and rubies.”
The conductor put his hand out. “Let’s see your ticket.”
Miranda could hear the note of triumph in his voice. The man knew she didn’t have a ticket. Instinct told her he’d been harboring his own plans to benefit from her plight. If the woman hadn’t come up with her brazen scheme to acquire the brooch without paying for it, the conductor would have cornered her into an empty compartment, demanding intimate favors in exchange for a free passage.
The flare of anger finally won. “Here,” Miranda said. “Take it.”
She flung the brooch at the matron, hitting her squarely on the nose. The woman screamed, pretended to collapse into a swoon, but the real purpose of her fainting fit was to duck down and snatch up the brooch. She managed the motion with surprising agility for someone so amply built. The jewel safely clasped in her fist, she scurried back down the aisle to her own seat.
The conductor pulled