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“You shall come and visit?”
“Let us know of your safe arrival.”
“Don’t speak to any strangers,” her mother said.
Melanie managed a laugh. She had no intention of making friends on the train. It would be pointless seeing as they were all headed in different directions. They embraced one more time. Stephanie glanced at her mother, crying hard into her father’s arms. Her father winked at her and she smiled, and then bounded up the platform.
It was a six day journey to Montana and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Melanie disliked enclosed spaces and as soon as she sat down in the sleeper carriage, she felt as though the walls were closing in. Three other women entered after her, one carrying a baby and a toddler, behind her a sour faced looking man.
The woman with the children mumbled a hello. Melanie said hello and turned her head to the window and watched as the train slowly exited the station. Her mind wandered to her mare, Midnight. Like her, he did not like closed spaces and she hoped he was alright.
The cry of a child interrupted her musings. It was the toddler and he was trying to clamber up his mother’s lap, who held the other baby in her hands.
“Can’t you shut him up!” the man who Melanie assumed was her husband bellowed.
The woman cowed and mumbled something about trying to. The boy, as though sensing he was the topic of conversation raised his cries.
“Bloody hell!” the man said. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Melanie bit on her lip. The other women passengers were pretending not to hear the exchange. Melanie noticed another man, an elderly one she had not seen enter look at the scene openly.
The man moved swiftly from his seat across from his wife and gripped her hand forcefully. The woman grimaced. Without thinking, Melanie stood up and tapped his shoulder. He glared at her but did not let go. His wife whimpered like an injured animal, but it was her eyes that tugged at Melanie’s heart. She wore a look of pure terror.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, Mister? I bet there are many men in this train who would be willing to take you on.”
The train swayed as the man looked her up and down.
“Why don’t you mind your own business,” he sneered, his small eyes growing smaller. “Or else…”
“Touch her and you’ll be out of this train in no time,” the older man said, coming to stand next to Melanie.
He let go of his wife’s hand violently, making her fall back into her seat with force. He glared at Melanie, then the man and then slunk back into his seat and stared morosely at the window. The woman gave Melanie a grateful look.
“Come here you,” Melanie said to the older child. “I know a game me and you can play together.”
He came to her uncertainly at first and she lifted him to her lap and angled him so that he could see the passing landscape.
“Let us see who can spot an animal?” she said to him.
“Cow!” he yelled.
“My you’re good. Let me see if I can see one.”
The family got off after five days in the last town of South Dakota. By then, the children were cranky and irritable and Melanie had not been able to distract the little boy for the last two days. She did not blame him. She herself was tired and despite the washroom in the sleeper carriage, one could only wipe themselves clean with a cloth.
“He wasn’t always like this,” the woman whispered to her as the train slowed down.
Melanie nodded in understanding. She did not have patience for men who mistreated women, irrespective of which problems they were going through.
“Thank you so much. Without you, the journey would have been a nightmare,” the woman, whose name she had learnt was Michelle, said and gripped her hand.
As the train embarked on the last leg of the journey, Melanie paid proper attention to the passing landscape. Melanie sighed at the miles and miles of open plains, yellow flowers growing between the grass. A distance away, she spotted a herd of buffaloes, grazing quietly on the pasture. She imagined riding Midnight in such open fields and sighed. A road was adjacent to the train track for a short distance, and she caught a glimpse of a wagon, over flowing with items and on top of them, several children. They waved at the passing train and Melanie waved back.
She had lost concept of time and now she glanced at her tiny, jeweled wrist watch. It was noon. As the train lumbered on, Melanie saw several ranches, with herds of cattle and sheep dotted on the hills. She would like it here, she decided.
The train reached Crab’s Creek at two in the afternoon. Melanie was the first out of the carriage and she headed straight to the back to check on Midnight and get him into the open air.
Chapter Ten
