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HARRY FOLLOWED FIN off the New York to Chicago train. They stopped midstream to get their bearings. Panicked, wild eyes peered from above white influenza masks as people rushed onto the train, anxious to get out of the city. A man and woman, each holding tight to the hand of a child, pushed between them, almost knocking Harry off his feet and causing him to drop his pack.
A porter stepped forward and retrieved it for him. “Your bag, sir.”
“Thank you,” Harry muttered, brushing dirt from the bottom.
“Watch your step, now, and have a nice day.” The porter smiled and tipped his hat. He was the only person Harry came into contact with since returning to the States who hadn’t looked away in horror. A dirty bandage was wrapped over his missing right eye. It covered some of his scars, but not all.
“Could you direct us to the ticket counter?” Fin asked the man.
“Yes, sir. Just keep following the other passengers into the main station house. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.” Fin handed the man a coin for his troubles. The porter pocketed it with a nod, tipped his hat, and disappeared down the platform and around a corner.
Harry and Fin took their place in the ticket line. Normally, such a place in the heart of a city like Chicago would be swarming with people at all hours, but not today. All the talk of influenza had most people avoiding crowds, cowering behind locked doors and closed curtains.
The crowd dispersed as quickly as it formed. The train left for its next destination. The few who remained were the ones hoping to get a ticket to anywhere else, hoping to outrun death. They were the ones searching for some remote hiding place until it was over, although returning to what, no one knew. If they did notice him and Fin, they backed away, leaving a wide berth.
It was the same scene when they arrived at Union Station in New York two days earlier. He almost smelled their fear.
“It’s me.” Harry referred to the eye patch and puckered red scar leaving his smile almost sinister in appearance. “I’m a monster.”
“It’s not you.” Fin picked up a doll the little girl ahead of them dropped. She smiled at him, but when she saw Harry she screamed, dropping the doll again. Her mother snatched up her tickets and daughter and ran for their train. When a porter came to see what the problem was, a different man than before, older and tired looking, Fin handed him the doll and a coin.
“Could you see the girl gets her doll back?”
“Yes, sir.” The porter pocketed the coin and hurried to catch the fleeing woman.
“Your friend is right,” the man behind the ticket counter said when they stepped up to the window. “Except for the child, it’s your uniform that frightens people.”
“Our uniform?” Harry was confused. “Why would they be afraid of our uniform?”
“We’re supposed to be heroes.” Fin scanned the faces of the other passengers milling about. “We’re the good guys.” He announced to anyone listening. People turned away or stared at their feet.
“Newspapers all say it’s you boys who brought the sickness home with you from over there.”
Harry leaned closer to the cage separating them from the ticket master. “That so? We look sick to you?” A slow rage boiled up from deep inside him, replacing the self-pity. Was this what life would be like going forward? Screaming women and crying children? What about Alice?
The man squinted at him. “Don’t know. Are you?”
Fin nudged Harry aside. “What about me?”
“No way to say for sure. People wake up good, coughing by lunch, dead by dinner.”
“Why aren’t you afraid of us?” Fin leaned on the countertop.
The man stepped back. “Who says I’m not?”
Harry had his fill of the nonsense. “Two tickets to Pine Lake, Wisconsin, and you won’t have to worry about us anymore.” He slapped down more than enough to cover both fares. “And you can keep the change.”
“Nope.”
“What?” Harry looked at Fin.
Fin put his hands on his hips and shifted his weight. “What do you mean, nope?”
“I mean, I’m not going to sell you any train tickets, so you can be moving on now.”
Harry’s temper was soon going to get the best of him. “Are you saying the train’s full? When’s the next one scheduled? We’ll take tickets for that one, or the one after.”
“I’m saying, I’m not selling you tickets—to anywhere—on any train. Can’t risk it. I’m surprised New York let you on this last one. Find another way home. Good day.” The ticket master flipped his open sign to closed and slammed the window shut.
Harry punched the window grate, rattling the glass behind. “The whole world’s gone mad.” He shook his hand and flexed his fingers.
“You break it?” Fin nodded toward Harry’s hand.
“No.” Although he wished he could break the smug ticket master’s nose.
“Then let’s get out of here. We need to see a man about a horse, as they say.”
The porter who’d earlier retrieved Harry’s pack was talking to another man leaning on a broom. Whatever the man with the broom said, the porter laughed.
Fin motion him over. “Can you give us directions to a stable that might have a couple horses for sale?”
“Sure can.”
* * *
THEY WALKED NORTH TOWARD the outskirts of the city until they came to a stable with a sign for sales and rentals. Harry waited outside while Fin went in to bargain with the owner.
God, how he hated horses. He hated them at home before the war, he hated them at the front, and he hated them in Chicago. He hated the way they smelled and how finicky they could be. They represented the old ways—dirty farmers. But he’d done enough walking in France to last him a lifetime, so he could put up with them for a little longer. He would buy himself one of those modern automobiles as soon as possible. His father would give him a bank loan. All he had to do was ask.
As backward as Pine Lake was, Harry knew under his leadership as the next President of the Pine Lake Bank and Trust, he’d drag those old farmers into the new century—kicking and screaming, if necessary. He’d start with Kenneth Armstrong. Once he married Alice, her father would have no choice but to listen to him. Alice would see to it. Mr. Armstrong was one of the most stubborn regarding the old ways, but he also loved his daughter and would do anything for her. Harry was good at persuading people to do what he wanted. He had charm and good looks. At least, he did, once upon a time and not so long ago. Now he only had his charm, but add injured war hero, and he’d be good as gold.
Fin led out two old horses hitched to a wagon so rickety Harry was certain they’d never make it as far as the Wisconsin border before the horses dropped dead and the wagon fell into a million pieces.
“Best I could do,” Fin explained before Harry had a chance to complain. “It took every last cent I had, and even that wouldn’t have been enough if the owner wasn’t another one planning to sell and run.”
Harry grimaced and threw his pack into the wagon bed. To keep from getting slivers in his backside, he spread his blanket over the splintered bench.
Fin sat next to him and picked up the reins. “I’m serious. I got nothing left. You’ll have to get our supplies.”
* * *
THEY KEPT TO THE BACK roads, going wide around towns and avoiding farms. The effects of the influenza’s long reach were evident even from a distance. Streets that should have been busy with both commerce and recreation on a warm, sunny September day were deserted. Men weren’t loading their wagons with farm supplies, nor were they trading stories over a beer at the corner bar. Women weren’t hurrying home with groceries for dinner. Children weren’t playing ball in the schoolyard or racing down alleyways. Fresh graves were visible in every cemetery they passed. Some big enough to hold multiple dead in a single grave.
On the second day, they broke their rule about keeping distant and stopped at a farm for fresh water. A lone cow cried and pulled at the rope tying it to the pasture fence. Her bulging utter ready to burst.
Fin ran a gentle hand down the animal’s back. “I don’t think she’s been milked in days. They wouldn’t up and leave without her, would they?”
“If you’d asked me this before the war, I’d have said never happen, but now . . . now nothing makes sense.”
“We should milk her. Maybe they’ll let us have some for our trouble.” Fin reached for the barn door. Something inside crashed against it with a desperate scream. Fin stumbled and fell. He scrambled to his feet. The door shook from another hard kick.
“They left their horse, too?” There was no doubt in Harry’s mind something was not right.
The horse reared when the doors opened, and it was finally freed. Fin dodged for cover when its hooves came down dangerously close to his head. The beast’s eyes rolled from side to side, his nostrils flared. It was gone before either man had a chance to calm and capture it.
“Damn!” Fin watched the horse disappear across the field and into the woods.
Harry was already headed for the house. “Hello? Anyone home? We were wondering if we might fill up at your well.” Their only answer was a high-pitched drone from inside.
Fin knocked, and the door swung open. “Hello?”
They choked on the overpowering, unmistakable stench of death. Harry hadn’t smelled the likes since they’d left France. They tied handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths and cautiously entered.
The old woman was still in her bed, curled in a fetal position, lips blue, pink froth dried around her mouth. Flies swarmed the room.
They wrapped her in her blankets and buried her behind the house. Fin lashed together a crude cross to mark the grave. They didn’t know her name, figured it didn’t matter much as there didn’t appear to be anyone around to mourn her passing. The Lord would know who she was. That was all that mattered. They said a silent prayer and prepared to be on their way.
Fin found a couple empty crates in the barn. They loaded them with the dead woman’s canned goods, an unopened tin of coffee, and her coffee pot. Her pantry was well-stocked. It would be a sin to let it all go to waste.
They also helped themselves to her old shotgun and meager store of ammunition. They both agreed taking a gun felt like outright theft, but they had to turn in their weapons when discharged. A gun, even one of such little value, would come in handy.
Fin stopped Harry when he went to fill up at the well. “Water might be contaminated. Maybe how she caught it?”
“From the water? Is that how it spreads?”
Fin shrugged. “You willing to take the risk?”
“What about the cow?” Harry trusted Fin, as the son of a butcher, to know far more than he about animals.
Fin thought about it. “Have you heard if animals can carry influenza?”
“Seems to me, it’s all guess work right now.”
“Then we’d better stick to the canned goods. And any game we might shoot.”
Harry nodded. He loaded the shotgun and walked over to the poor animal. “No need it should suffer.”
That night they ate canned tomatoes and peaches and thought about the woman who’d worked so hard to preserve them.
Harry stretched out on his bedding. “I wonder if there’s influenza in Pine Lake.”
“If there isn’t yet, there will be soon.”
Harry fell asleep thinking of Alice and wishing he’d written her more often.