Karen's eyes snapped open. She was sprawled in a serene forest clearing, morning light dappled through the branches, dotting the lush floor around her with green and gold. She felt something soft beneath her, and shifted her gaze to see that she was laying in a bed of thick moss.
A slight chill touched her, but she didn't feel too cold; like an early morning in the spring, the air damp with dew that was starting to settle on her skin. The familiar sounds of the forest surrounded her, chirping birds and the small scratches of unseen things scurrying through the grass. She was comfortable enough to rest here for quite a while, drift through the day in a haze, but something felt off.
She felt like she had been in the middle of something important, but couldn't remember what it was. The longer she tried to chase the thought, the further it slipped from her grasp. As the sensation nagged at her, she started to feel a gentle prickle on the back of her neck. The moment she noticed it, she became sure something was watching her. Pressing one hand into the moss, she righted herself, sitting up and whipping her head around.
At the edge of the trees on the opposite side of the clearing stood a stag. It loomed tall and imposing, still as a statue until it blinked, its head turned so that one large brown eye looked right at her. Its coat was varied shades of dusty brown, cut into by bands of off-white around its eyes and wide, square nose. The slope of its great neck was dark, fading to the lighter auburn of its body, and two huge, six point antlers grew like tree branches from each side of its head.
Then its muscular form went taught, ears swiveling to listen for something she couldn't hear. Its round, amber eye glanced past her into the trees. She shifted to get her hands under her and push off the ground, but as she stood the stag turned and bolted down a winding path. Some kind of urgency tugged in her chest, and she stumbled after it without thinking.
As scattered pine needles crunched under her toes, stinging her skin, she realized she was only wearing her undergarments. Her feet were bare, the neckline of her worn chemise scooped low, exposing the soft skin of her cleavage. Her drawers fit her almost like short, light trousers, and she was able to run in them easily.
She wasn't shy, sleeping most nights in nothing more than what she was wearing now. If the boys wanted to look, she let them. She wouldn't fuck anyone at a discount. If they wanted her they paid full price, or risked her anger at touching her without permission. Only Bill, drunk as the day was long, had ever tried. She'd given him enough reason not to try again.
The stag disappeared into the thick foliage ahead of her, hooves beating down the worn footpath that tracked into the trees. The sound started to fade quickly, and she dashed through the clearing after it, pushing her way into the branches. Brambles grabbed at her clothes as she ran, ripping them and scratching her skin.
At first she saw glimpses of the creature ahead of her, but never clearly; always as a blur through the gaps between leaves, or a fluffy tail disappearing around a corner. The forest around her was becoming denser, crowded branches blocking out the light from above. The soft green and gold of morning had shifted to a murky grey, like the steely haze that accompanied a thunderstorm. She started to smell wet dust rising from the soil at her feet.
The pounding of the stag's hooves faded in and out as Karen pursued it, seeming to recede further into the distance the faster she ran. Anxiety swelled in her chest, urging her forward, warning her that something wasn't right. Then the sound of one set of hooves became many, the heavy drumming of horses galloping through the forest ahead of her. Voices echoed through the trees, muffled from distance, but familiar.
She heard the recognizable twang of Dutch's voice as he shouted an order, and bellowed responses from the boys, but could make out nothing but the telltale pop of gunfire. The sounds seemed to run together like ink in water before they reached her ears, words she should know floating past her. She surged onward, calling out for her companions.
"Dutch!" She wheezed. Her breath wouldn't come, and it was difficult to make a sound above a whisper. "Hosea! Arthur?"
Suddenly, she could see the stag again. It raced ahead of her, just a rush of brown fur through the trees. The shouts and hoofbeats of the gang were growing louder, but no more distinct. Her heart pounded, ricocheting in her chest as she forced her legs to carry her faster.
Another glimpse of the stag, shiny black eyes locking with hers for a fraction of a second. The gang's shouts started to sound frenzied, panicky notes cresting above the rhythm of their approach. Her breath came in gasps that didn't fill her chest, making her head swim. The stag again, just ahead of her this time, around another tight bend in the path. The knock of hooves was unbearably loud, rattling her teeth in her head. The faster she approached her friends, the tighter the fear clutched behind her ribs.
She rounded the corner as the noise peaked into one, deafening shot. The crack of the gun was so close, it could have been pointed straight into her chest. She stopped dead, and the air fell silent. The moment hung still, weighted with the shock of sudden quiet. Instead of the stag ahead of her, she saw that the path opened out again to a wide, deserted street. It stretched on in both directions, tall trees arcing over each side of it; the seam of sky she saw between them was grey with churning clouds.
She took a few hesitant steps forward, feeling the dry earth dusting the soles of her feet, then stopped short. A sick feeling settled in her stomach as she looked at the ground in front of her, stained dark red and slick with fresh blood. It was smeared across the dirt, like a body had fallen and been dragged.
The trail of blood led a short distance down the road, and ended in a pool around a crumpled form. His face was turned away from her, but even from where she stood at the treeline she recognized the tousled ginger hair, the dusty grey jacket now marred with red. A faded green bowler hat lay beside him, the dark liquid soaking into its lining.
She didn't want to see this, she wanted to turn away, but her feet carried her toward the body at a run. She threw herself to the ground beside him, shaking him frantically with both hands; like somehow he might wake up, flash a half-smile and start complaining over his ruined jacket.
"Sean! Sean?" His body felt limp in her grasp. Her voice cracked, and she was choked by a panicky sob. She gripped his shoulder, rolled him over to face her, and screamed.
Half of his face was gone. The skin and muscle on the left side had been blasted away, exposing shattered fragments of his jaw, teeth, and skull. One eye was entirely missing, the other clouded and glassy. Bone, and something else thick and grey sprayed the ground where his head had been. As she moved him blood gushed from his wound like a spigot, running down her hands and painting them bright red. She dropped him and scrambled away. He landed heavily against the ground, his empty eye staring straight into her.
Then, behind her, hoofbeats. She didn't stop to think, just shoved herself up from the ground and ran, chasing the sound. Tears blurred her vision so she couldn't see the stag ahead of her, but she knew it was there. Her feet smacked against the hard packed dirt of the road as she ran blindly. She wiped at her eyes, but the street ahead of her remained blurry, indistinct.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and she felt the heavy crackle in the air that promised lightning. Where was the rest of the gang? She'd heard them so clearly only moments ago, they had to be nearby. The absence of noise around her now was almost alarming, broken only by the steady clip clop of a single set of hooves.
Still, she couldn't quite make out the stag or much of anything in front of her; the road ahead just drifted further out of focus the longer she looked. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and she found herself dropping her eyes to the ground as she trailed the noise. She lost track of time for a moment, driven by equal parts panic and morbid curiosity.
She was walking, not running, when she came fully into her own mind again. Immediately she had the sense that something around her had changed, but couldn't put a finger on what. The road was the same, lined by trees whose leaves shivered in the growing wind. A fat raindrop landed next to her, coloring the ground with a splash of dark. She slowed to a stop, listening, and was greeted by silence. No hoofbeats rose off the dusty surface of the street. Dread pooled cold in her stomach as she stood there, waiting.
Another raindrop fell, this one hitting her cheek, then another in front of her feet. Soon she was caught in a steady downpour, with no shelter to speak of. Her nightclothes were drenched, clinging to her body immodestly, coils of her silvery wet hair sticking to her face and neck. She ran for the treeline, already shivering.
Twigs snapped under her feet, biting into her as she made her way back into the endless forest. As soon as she was off the street she heard a rustling behind her. She spun around, rain pounding against her skin, only to be met with more woods, wildflowers and fallen branches. There was no road, or any sign that a road had ever been there. She gasped and jumped back, turning around to reorient herself, but there was not even a path to mark her position by. She turned again, and again, dizzying herself so that she had to rest her head in one hand. The rain continued, cold and unyielding, barely allowing anything to be heard above it. But... she did hear something.
She lifted her head, tilting it to listen. The sound was a violent, familiar one. The repeated, heavy impact of a fist. A wet cough, and a voice choking out what must have been a plea. She shoved herself through the thickening forest, back past the brambles that grabbed at her hair and clothes, hastening toward what she had heard.
The forest ended at the edge of a farm. It was a cozy looking place, a little log cabin surrounded by green grass. A small garden bed was fenced in near the house. The change was so sudden and unexpected that Karen braced herself against a tree to avoid falling forward, and clutched her chest in surprise. She hadn't seen the break in the trees ahead of her, because it hadn't been there to see. One moment she'd been running through dense woods, then she was looking out across a homestead she had never seen in her life. She caught her breath, raindrops rolling like tears down her face, as she watched the two figures by the fence engaged in a heated argument.
One of the men was scrawny, even from a distance he looked sickly and fearful, but she didn't recognize him. The other was tall and broad-shouldered, his body well muscled and tan from years of manual labor. When he spoke his voice came out in a growl. Her breath caught in her throat. It was Arthur. The relief that poured over her was more potent than moonshine, and she almost cried out for him, but stopped herself. He was holding the other man against the fence by the collar of his shirt, shaking him.
Arthur's face was splattered with blood, his features contorted in rage. He was shouting, but she couldn't make out the words. He raised his fist, already dark with blood, to hit the man again. Karen was rarely fazed by fighting, she'd grown up around enough of it. Hell, she'd caused enough bloodshed of her own; she didn't suffer from a weak stomach. She'd watched scenes like this play out from the sidelines too many times to count, so really, she didn't know why she did it. She couldn't stop herself. She stumbled forward, out of the trees.
"Arthur!" Her voice came out in a breathless gasp, and she was shocked when he heard her over the whipping wind and rain. Their eyes locked and he dropped the other man, who fell lifeless to the ground. Arthur opened his mouth to say something, to call back to her, and choked.
He coughed, hard, doubling over at the waist. His powerful shoulders shook violently, and he seemed to be unable to stop. She wanted to rush toward him, but found herself rooted to the spot. The distance between them seemed to grow, just slightly.
"Arthur!" She called again, her voice colored by her increasing desperation. He raised his eyes back to hers, and she saw that they were bloodshot. Deep hollows sat beneath them, like he hadn't slept in days. He opened his mouth again, trying to speak, and a thick stream of blood poured from behind his lips. His eyes were panicked, locked on hers like he needed to tell her something, but no sound would come.
Blood ran down his shirt, reddening the dirty white fabric. It stuck to his chest, mixing with the rain water and diluting some of the red to pink, but more kept running down his chin and neck. He teetered on his feet, face tightening with regret, and then fell heavily to his knees. She watched his eyes begin to glass over, and she screamed his name, unsure if he could still hear her through the buffeting storm.
She woke with a gasp, heart hammering in her throat. It was pitch dark and freezing, and it took a long moment for her to remember where she was. Once she had, she didn't find it any easier to shake the unease that hung over her from the dream.
The wind outside moaned like a wounded animal, creaking the loosely stacked logs they were choosing to call a cabin. There were gaps between the wood where the cold cut right though the room, rendering her thin quilt next to useless. She'd slept in her clothes, and she felt the cold sweat of fear that had soaked into her coat. The other girls were all asleep, and she needed to get warm as fast as possible, so she heaved herself off the thin mattress she'd commandeered and set to work.
Next to the fireplace sat a few broken chair legs and some kindling they had scrounged together last night. She saw Grimshaw asleep on the floor near the embers of the fire she'd kept burning, grey hair wild and loose around her face, and inched past her. Karen knelt down by the fireplace and began stacking the chair legs into a structure, before feeding some crumpled paper into the embers to revive the flames. She blew on it gently until fire began to lick its way up the cracking paint on the wood.
Her stomach gnawed with hunger, and her whole body ached from the cold, but the warmth of the fire soon wrapped around her fingertips, allowing her full use of her hands again. As soon as someone else was awake to make sure it didn't go out, she'd have to go on the hunt for more firewood. The dancing flames were beautiful, casting shifting light across the other girls' faces.
Mary-Beth's usually neatly styled brown curls were disheveled, bunching around her cheeks in tangles that showed she'd been sleeping fitfully. She looked even paler than usual, her freckles sticking out like coffee spilled in snow. Tilly's tight curls were pinned back behind her scarf, her weariness only evident in the way her cheeks hollowed a bit. Her dark skin was still vibrant, kissed with gold under the firelight. They huddled together on a single mattress, one blanket stretched between them.
Karen felt hot rage stoked like coals in her stomach. The Pinkertons had done this to them, and she'd see the bastards die for it. She curled her hands into fists twice, before fumbling around for her nearly empty pack of cigarettes. Popping one into her mouth, she leaned forward on her knees, tilting her head as she lit it on the edge of the now crackling fire. She held it with two fingers and inhaled deep, watching the tiny cinder burn bright as the paper dissolved to ash in her hand.
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Notes:
Karen is a sex worker, so this story is going to include a fair bit about that. consider yourselves warned!