the air, the brass buttons at the end of the conductor’s sleeves glinting in the sun.
Relief poured through Annabel. She halted at the edge of the platform and watched as the conductor tossed her haversack out of the window. The bag fell onto the tracks, but the shoulder strap became tangled in the iron wheels. With each revolution, the bag flung up into the air and smashed down to the rails again.
Aghast, Annabel stared as the sturdy fabric tore into shreds. Clothing spilled out onto the tracks. Her food parcel unraveled, sending a loaf of bread rolling along. And then there was a flash of gold as a coin spun out...and another...and another...
Behind her, Annabel could hear the clatter of running feet. A man hurried past her and jumped down to the tracks. A second man followed, and then a third. The three ruffians who had been loitering by the station wall!
Annabel held her breath, hope and fear fighting within her as she watched the men race along the tracks, jumping from sleeper to sleeper. When they reached the remains of her scattered belongings they halted and began dipping down, in a rootling motion that resembled chickens pecking at the ground.
“Thank you,” Annabel shouted and waved her arms.
One of the men straightened to look at her. “How many?”
“Nineteen!” she called back.
The men resumed their search and then conferred, counting the coins in their open palms. Satisfied, they glanced back at her once more and waved a casual farewell before cutting across the tracks and running off into the fields. Annabel watched them shrink in her sights and finally vanish between the farm buildings in the distance.
“You was a fool to tell them how many.”
“What?” Stifling a sob, Annabel whirled toward the voice.
It was the shoeshine boy. Around twelve, thin and pale, he had wispy brown hair and alert gray eyes. He lifted his arm and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. In his other hand he carried a wooden box filled with brushes and polishes.
“You was stupid to tell them how many. If you said seventeen, they might have left a couple of coins behind. Now they kept looking until they had them all.”
Annabel sniffled and gave a forlorn nod, unable to fault the logic.
“Where was you going?” the boy asked.
“The Arizona Territory.”
“Blimey. That’s a fair piece away.” Curious, he studied her. “You got any money left?”
“Three dollars and change. It’s all I have left. I bought a ticket to New York City. And I bought some food.” A sob broke free. “The rest of the money was in my bag.”
“It was a fool thing to carry the money in your bag.”
“The gold eagles were heavy. I feared my pocket would tear.”
“Ain’t you got a poke?”
“A poke?”
“Like this.” The boy swept a glance up and down the platform to check for privacy, then pulled out a leather tube hanging on a cord around his neck. Quickly, he dropped the leather tube back inside his faded shirt.
“I only had a purse,” Annabel said. “And I couldn’t take it because—”
The boy snorted. “You’ll not fool no one. You walk like a girl, and you were yelling like a girl, and your hair is about to tumble down from beneath your cap.” He gave her another assessing look. “How old are you anyway?”
“Eighteen.”
The boy grinned. “A bit skinny for eighteen, ain’t you?”
“I’ve bound...” Color flared up to Annabel’s cheeks. She made a vague gesture at her chest, to indicate where she had bound her breasts with a strip of linen cloth to flatten her feminine curves.
“What’s your name?” the boy asked.
“An...drew.”
The boy shook his head. “There you go again. You almost came up with a girl’s name. What is it anyway? Ann? Amanda? Amy?”
“Annabel.”
“Annabel. That’s a fancy name. I guess you’ll be gentry, the way you talk and that milky-white skin of yours.”
Annabel nodded. “Papa was a sea captain. I grew up in a mansion, but I am an orphan now, and I have no money, in case you are planning to swindle me.”
The boy grinned again. “Hardly worth it for three dollars and change.” He jerked his head toward the station house. “Let’s get out of the sun for a bit. There’s another train due in an hour. I’ll take you home with me. My sister likes nobs.”
The home where Colin took Annabel was a lean-to shack in a New York City freight yard. Twilight was falling when they got there. Annabel plodded along in her heavy boots, grateful for the evening cool that eased the sultry August heat.
A stray dog growled at them from behind a pile of empty packing crates and then scurried away again. Unfamiliar smells floated in the air—rotting vegetables, engine grease, acrid chemical odors, all against the backdrop of coal smoke.
Colin pulled the door to the shack open without knocking. “Hi, Liza,” he called out. “Brought you a visitor. A lady.”
Caution in her step, Annabel followed Colin inside. He’d not said much about his sister, except that she was sixteen and worked in a tavern because her full figure no longer allowed her to masquerade as a shoeshine boy.
While they’d been waiting for the train, Colin had dozed off, and once they’d boarded the express service to New York City, he’d introduced Annabel to the conductor as his apprentice, and they’d become too busy for conversation.
Normally reserved, Annabel had found a new boldness in the anonymity of her disguise as a street urchin. It seemed as if the social constraints that applied to gently bred young ladies had suddenly ceased to apply.
In the first-class car, Colin had demonstrated how to tout for business by quietly moving up and down the corridor and offering his services. Shouting was not allowed. When they got a customer, Annabel knelt between the benches. After spreading polish on the shoes or boots, she used a pair of stiff boar brushes, one in each hand, to buff the leather into a mirror shine while Colin supervised.
By the time they reached New York City, her hands, already tender from the fall, were stained with polish, and her arms ached from the effort of wielding the brushes, but she had earned her first dollar as a shoeshine boy.
There were no windows in the shack, but the low evening sunshine filtered in between the planks that formed the walls. In the muted light, Annabel saw a tall, shapely girl bent over a pot simmering on an ancient metal stove.
The girl turned around. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
