We bring you this bit of fiction because it’s Friday, and no one should have to read about proposal-writing on a Friday. It’s much more fun to read about hookers in the Wild West. Or something like that. This installment is continued from here.

I never knew that such looming, sharp-faced monsters could exist in the waking world. They began, hours and hours ago, as a black-purple smudge on the edge of the flatness. I thought at first there was a storm coming. Weather looks like that across Lake Ontario sometimes, as if someone — God, I suppose — has reached down and traced the horizon in charcoal.

Here, the clouds didn’t slowly build, or approach, or roil above us. Instead, the smudge of purple grew into a row of hills and then suddenly — so suddenly it seemed impossible — these peaks were lording over us. They are each slightly different, but every one grey and angular and cold.

“They look like a troop of soliders, who got turned to stone by some witch,” I say, pressing my nose against the glass and craning up to see the peaks. We’re under their shadows now, and we may as well be inside a canyon for all the sunlight we’re getting.

“Well, I wouldn’t be so fanciful. They’re big, though, I’ll give you that. Now come back here and let me finish.”

Mattie’s putting my hair up. She says I might at least pass for eighteen this way.

“Seems like a lot of pulling and tugging for a first impression,” I tell her. “I’m never going to do this myself. He may as well see what he’s really getting, right from the start.”

“That just goes to show what you know. First impressions mean a lot, to a man. And a little beauty is a dangerous thing.”

“Knowledge,” I say, but only under my breath. Despite my complaining, I’m actually glad of Mattie yanking my hair. As we wind through these mountains, and they begin to change from rock soldiers to forested kings, my stomach thinks it’s going to war. It keeps trying to climb right up through my chest and out my throat. I have to concentrate on breathing just to keep everything in its rightful place.

When at last the long whistle sounds and we’re rolling into the station, the conductor calling, “Frank! Town of Frank!” down the corridor, Mattie hands me my satchel. “Off with you,” she says.

“What about you? Aren’t you coming?”

“I’ll get off down the train a bit. I already told you, first impressions are the thing. You don’t want to be seen getting off the train with me.”

I’m so nervous that I can feel my eyes stretching round like Mrs. McLean’s teacups. I do want to get off with Mattie.

She takes me by the shoulders, turns me around, and pushes me toward the door. “If you get off with me and he’s the right kind of man, he’ll think he’s married himself a whore. If he’s the wrong kind of man, he’ll want to marry me, instead.” Her laugh is sharp and raucous and it follows me as I head toward the stairs, and the station platform, and… him.

Continued from here.

Mattie’s on her feet before I finish my sentence, her flounces holding me against the upholstery wall until she’s passed. Then I trail her down the corridor, my heart starting to pound like the locomotive again.

“‘Scuze me, boys,” she says as she moves into their compartment. In that motion, something in her carriage changes. Striding down the corridor, even with the rocking of the train, Mattie’s steps were long, purposeful. Now she slinks, like the old orange cat of Mrs. McLean’s.

I can see my flowered valise in the corner, looking forlorn among the men’s black cases. Mattie steps right across one of the gentlemen, her high-heeled boot coming to rest between the feet of the second man. And then, when she leans over to grasp the handle of my case, she stops with her eyes level to his. Not that he’s looking in her eyes.

“I’m heading to the Crowsnest. You fellows come and look me up any time, you hear? You ask for Mattie.”

The man swallows.

“So,” Mattie says when we’re settled back into our own compartment. “You gonna tell me why you’re going to the Crowsnest now?”

There doesn’t seem to be any reason not to. If she’s going there, and it’s a small place, she’s bound to find out anyway. My cheeks still warm, I reach into my stachel and pull out the letter from Mr. Bailey.

Dear Miss Stocker,
I have enclosed a train ticket. I will be pleased to meet you at the station and have made arrangements for you to stay on at the hotel until Sunday, when the minister’s due in town. If these arrangements do not suit, please reply by return post.
Kindly,
Burt Bailey

“They marrying children these days?” Mattie says, with half a grin.

“I’m hardly a child.”

Her question does rankle and it’s possible that I give my own skirts a bit of a flounce, but not nearly so much that Mattie should snort the way she does.

“Well, I think between the two of us, you might have the harder go of it,” she says. Then she turns to stare out the window.

I suppose it’s kindly meant, but her voice has such a ring of superiority that I turn from her and gaze out my own window, even though there’s nothing to see but fields and more fields, all exactly the same, and long fences stretching into the twilight. I watch them anyway until Mattie falls asleep. It makes me unaccountably happy to learn that she snores.