“Excuse me, Miss.” The young woman approached Alice at the information board near the ticket desk of the Chicago train station. “Could you please tell me how to get to the platform for Track 6? I don’t seem to be able to find it.” She stood several inches shorter than Alice, giving the impression of youth, but Alice concluded they must be the same age. Her jaunty traveling hat perched in front of a knot of pale hair tied at the back of her head. Her dark green outfit matched her eyes.
“I’m sorry I don’t know that,” Alice apologized. “but if you want to come with me, I’m just going to ask the clerk at the ticket office because I’m going to Track 6 myself.”
“Oh! Are you going to Denver, too?” the young woman exclaimed.
“Yes,” Alice replied. “We should travel together. I’m Alice Abrams.” She stuck out her hand by way of introduction.
The girl shook it heartily. “I’m Maggie Clement. Good to make your acquaintance.”
“Yours, too,” Alice assented. “Where are you coming from?”
“I’m coming from Cincinnati,” Maggie told her. “I was born and raised there. How ‘bout you? Where are you coming from?”
“I’m from Greensborough, North Carolina,” Alice related. “Is Denver your final destination?”
“Oh, no!” came the answer. “I have a long way to go beyond Denver! I’m going all the way up to the Snake River, in Idaho. I’m going to meet my fiancé there and we’re going to be married.”
“Oh, how nice!” Alice responded. “Have you been engaged very long?”
“No,” Maggie informed her. “I’m a mail-order bride. The match was arranged through a service that provides brides to single men out on the Western frontier. I only found out the man’s name a few weeks ago. Then, it was all a rush to get packed up and get the train tickets purchased.”
“Really?” Alice gasped. “I’m a mail-order bride, too! I’m on my way to meet my fiancé in Bend, Oregon.”
“Really?” Maggie returned. “What a coincidence!”
“We should definitely travel together,” Alice suggested. “We’ll go together to get on the train for Denver, and we’ll travel together as far as we can. It’s hard enough facing such an unknown situation alone.”
“You’re right,” Maggie agreed. “Traveling alone into such strange territory is the hardest part of the whole proposition.”
“I’m very lucky,” Alice admitted. “I have a friend traveling with me, so it isn’t so daunting. You are more than welcome to come with us.”
“Thank you so much,” Maggie gushed. “I would love to.”
“The place you’re going sounds fantastic!” Alice observed. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of the Snake River.”
“I never had heard of it until my fiancé wrote to me about it,” Maggie concurred. “Even he sounds fantastic. Parker Chapman is his name. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Parker Chapman. I imagine all sorts of things when I try to picture what he looks like. And the place he lives is very wild and majestic, he says. I can’t wait to get there.”
“Well, come on,” Alice nodded toward the ticket office. “We better find out where our train is. It’s getting close to the time for our departure.”
The two women shouldered their way toward the ticket office.
“We could have difficulty getting there with all these people around,” Maggie noted from beside Alice’s shoulder.
“I know,” Alice agreed. “The station is packed. I’ve never seen crowds like this before. We arrived on the train from Baltimore at nine o’clock last night, and the station was deserted. I never imagined it could become so crowded so quickly. I hope we can get up to the ticket counter, find out where our track is, and get there in time with these crowds everywhere.”
“Look.” Maggie pointed to the ticket office. “Look at the line of people waiting to purchase their tickets. We’ll never get there in time. We’ll have to find someone else to tell us where the track is.”
The two women glanced around the station, but a sea of indistinguishable bodies hemmed them in on all sides.
“I wish we could find Jesse,” Alice remarked. “That’s my friend. He probably knows where the track is. But I can’t see him anywhere in this crowd.”
“Well, we aren’t getting any closer to it by standing here,” Maggie pointed out. “Look, there’s Track 1 over there. Let’s just start walking. Maybe the crowd will thin out the farther we get from the ticket office.”
“Okay,” Alice agreed. “And it’s five-thirty now. They’ll be calling us to board in not too long. We have to find the track before it gets any later.”
They dove into the crowd and shouldered their way toward Track 1, but the thick clusters of people remained as solid as ever, blocking their way. Walking side by side proved impossible and before long, Maggie fell in behind Alice. Alice lost sight of Maggie in her single-minded effort to part the tide of bodies and reach her objective.
Track 1 offered an even greater challenge to the two women than the ticket office. A great flood of people exiting the train surged against them in their rush to disembark. At the same time, those passengers eager to board the train pressed the two women forward from behind, trapping them in conflicting waves of shoving and jostling.
As soon as they reached the platform for Track 1 and Alice saw the state of affairs there, she quickly made up her mind to press onward toward Track 2. Not knowing any more direct route to Track 6, forcing her way through the chaos of one track after another until she reached it remained her only option. She dared not pause to explain her decision to Maggie, nor did she dare to check if her new companion still followed her.
She made the same decision to press on at Track 2. A brief glimpse of the big clock above the platform sent a jolt of panic through her. Only fifteen minutes left before her train departed. Where was Jesse? Was he searching the station for her with equal futility? Was he standing in the carriage door, hanging from the handrail, waiting to sweep her into the train at the last minute?
She remembered her trunk and her valise, already stowed in the baggage car of the Denver-bound train. She and Jesse arranged for porters to put all their luggage aboard the train when it first pulled into the station. She only stepped away from Jesse briefly to check the information board and to buy herself a box of nuts to eat during the trip. Several trains arriving and disgorging their passengers all at once caused a massive glut of humanity in the station, preventing her from finding the right platform. Then she got caught up in the excitement of finding another mail-order bride like herself.
If the train left without her, she would be stuck here in Chicago with no money, no clothing, nothing. She had only her handbag in her hand, which didn’t contain enough money for her to leave the station for any destination whatsoever. She doubted it contained enough money even to buy her another meal. Barely breathing, she threw herself forward into the wall of bodies standing in her path.
Track 3, and ten minutes to go. She bit back a sob rising in her throat, while behind her, she heard an audible snuffle from Maggie. Alice strictly forbade herself from succumbing to weeping and plunged headlong toward Track 4. Gratefully, she noticed a slight ebb in the cluster of people opposing her progress. She redoubled her efforts. Jesse, her mind screamed silently. Jesse, help me!
Onward she struggled, through torrents of sweat-damp woolen suits and crinoline skirts. Track 5. Five minutes. A train whistle shrieked, and the voice of a conductor bellowed above the crowd. “All aboard! All aboard for Denver, Colorado!”
Jesse, don’t leave me! Alice sniffed back her tears. Panting desperately, she pushed people away out of her path, sending men and women stumbling aside. “All aboard!” the conductor screamed again. “Last call for Denver, Colorado!”
Track 6 at last! Between billowing gusts of steam from the engine, Alice spotted the conductor standing at the door of the passenger car. As he stooped down to pick up his wooden step stool from the ground, another head appeared in the doorway. A man bent down and shouted something to the conductor. Jesse! Jesse, wait for me! He had to lower his mouth almost to the conductor’s ear to make himself heard over the crashing din of the engine. The conductor shook his head and shouted something back.
As Alice and Maggie reached the platform, the mass of people parted, drawing back from the train about to lurch forward on its way out of the station. Their movement provided just enough of an opening for the two women to rush forward to the edge of the platform. Jesse saw them and pointed, shouting down at the conductor. The conductor shot a look of annoyance over his shoulder. Just as the engine bolted forward on its rails, the conductor spotted the two women running toward the door of the passenger car.
A shudder reverberated through the coal car behind the engine and it shook from its place into slow, ponderous movement. The conductor dropped his stool to the ground and herded the two women toward the door. Motion translated through the coal car to the dining car behind it, and the dining car cracked from its moorings as its coupling made contact with the coal car. Jesse reached down and seized Alice by the hand, lifting her bodily into the passenger car. The pain shooting through her arm and shoulder brought a cry of gratitude to her lips.
The conductor circled Maggie’s waist with his hands and hoisted her into the doorway. He set her on her feet on the wooden floor just as the passenger car jerked into motion. The conductor tossed his stool into the car, walked briskly along beside the car as it gradually picked up speed, and finally swung himself by his handle onto the step. Each gust of steam escaping from the engine sent the train lunging forward toward the west. The train chugged out of the station.
Inside the passenger car, Jesse threw his arms around Alice and embraced her. “I thought I’d lost you,” he gasped.
Alice laughed and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “I’m here,” she murmured.
Jesse took her by the hand. His fingers squeezed hers so tightly they hurt, but Alice only laughed and cried harder, squeezing his hand back. She would have thrown her own arms around his neck, so happy was she to be with him again.
She turned toward Maggie. “This is Maggie Clement,” she introduced the girl to Jesse. “She’s a mail-order bride like me, and she’s going on to Denver. Maggie, this is Jesse McDowell. He’s the friend I told you about.”
Maggie put her hand out. “Very good to meet you.”
Jesse shook hands with Maggie. “Good to meet you.”
“I’m going into the dining car,” Maggie informed them.
“We’ll go into the passenger car and find a seat,” Jesse replied.
At that, they separated. Holding her hand tightly, Jesse led Alice into the passenger car. The car was full to bursting, with only one bench left unoccupied. Without letting go of her hand and without discussing the matter with her, Jesse deposited Alice in the seat by the window and sat down next to her. The train rattled away across the flat plains toward the mountains. Alice nestled her hand inside Jesse’s.
Next to her, his imposing presence offered a sanctuary into which she could bury her whole self. She leaned her shoulder and her side against him, steadying herself against the jarring of the train and the uncertainty of the journey ahead of her. All around her, the imposition of other bodies and other lives pressed in on her, but he sat between them, protecting her from them all.
After a time, she murmured to him, “Thank you for waiting for me.”
“I didn’t wait,” he contradicted. “I wanted to, but the conductor wouldn’t hear of it. He was going to leave without you. I would have had to jump off the train to go find you. Fortunately, you came up just as I was getting to jump down.”
“I’m sorry we became separated,” she returned. “I won’t let it happen again.”
“No, it won’t happen again,” Jesse stated. “because I won’t let you out of my sight again.”