The cows flicked her looks of what Emmie could have sworn was bovine disdain. The men loading packages stopped to stare. One said something to another and they both snickered. A group of British soldiers climbing down from a train bumped into each other in their fascination.
“It—it worked on our old sheepdog.” Emmie could feel tears prickling behind her eyes and hastily blinked them away. “What do cows like? Do they like grain? We could wave some grain in front of them. Or maybe a carrot. Like horses. They do use carrots to lure horses, don’t they?”
Kate’s face was a study in shadow in the torchlight. “Sugar,” she said at last in an expressionless voice. “My father drove the wagon for a brewery. His pockets were always full of lumps of sugar to bribe the horse to go.”
For a moment Emmie forgot the cows, forgot the soldiers on the siding. She’d never heard Kate speak of her real father before. She knew that Kate had a stepfather and four half brothers—their overabundance of brothers and regrettable lack of sisters had been something they had shared that first week at Smith—but all she knew of Kate’s real father was that he had died.
Emmie put out a hand in the darkness, her fingers grazing Kate’s sleeve. “Kate—I’m so sorry. About tonight. I never meant—”
Kate acted as though she hadn’t heard. “Let’s get these cows back. If you guide from the front, I’ll push from the back.”
“I don’t mind pushing,” Emmie said, but Kate had already clambered up the plank and disappeared behind the large, bony rump of a cow. Emmie took a deep breath, grasped the rope someone had considerately looped around the cow, and tugged as hard as she could.
The cow didn’t budge.
It might have been bony, but it was still large. Large and determined. Emmie was also determined, but not nearly as large, and it didn’t help that her feet kept sliding out from under her.
“Emmie!” came Kate’s exasperated voice from behind the cow. “What are you doing?”
“Pulling! But this wretched beast just won’t go.” Emmie’s voice broke shamefully. “Oh, heavens, and there are five more of them.”
She wanted to sit down in the straw, pull her skirt over her head, and cry. How were they to move any of them? The stench was tremendous, even from outside the boxcar. Emmie couldn’t think how Kate was bearing it from the cow’s other end. She redoubled her efforts, ending up with rope burns on her palms and little else to show for it.
“I think it moved a little!” she called hopefully.
“Oh good,” said Kate. “Another year should do it.”
“Sugar! You said they like sugar!” Holding the rope with one hand, Emmie fumbled in her pocket and came up with a licorice twist, one of the sweets she’d brought for the children. The cow was unimpressed.
“There has to be another way,” said Emmie as Kate straightened up, stretching out her back.
“We could hitch the boxcar to the jitney.”
“I think it’s designed to run on rails,” said a crisp British voice behind them, and Emmie promptly lost her grip on the rope and did an impressive wobble on the plank that ended in a pair of hands grasping her neatly beneath the arms and setting her down firmly on her feet.
“Sir Percy,” said Emmie, vaguely aware that she smelled like cow and that there was something unpleasant on the heel of her boot.
“Always happy to be of service.” Having made sure she wasn’t in imminent danger of keeling over, he stepped back. Emmie hoped it wasn’t anything to do with what was on her shoe. “Miss Van Alden. And your friend.”
“Katherine Moran,” said Kate, making her way cautiously down the plank. “Sir Percy?”
“Blakeney. The Scarlet Pimpernel,” explained Emmie helplessly. “They seek him here, they seek him—”
“Yes, I know that,” said Kate. “Aren’t you a century or so off?”
The captain rubbed his brow with his gloved knuckles. “Whenever England is in peril and all that. . . .”
“I thought that was King Arthur,” ventured Emmie. “Sleeping under the hill.”
The train did something unnerving, belching black smoke. The captain winced as the whistle shrilled, jolting the dispirited cows into protest. One lowed. Another relieved herself. “Yes, if anyone could sleep through this racket. I take it these are your beasts?”
“They’re cows,” said Emmie.
“Are you quite sure?” asked the captain.