The day's beginning also gave Elisa the awareness of just how much had changed in the years she had been east. The natives wore buckskin versions of white man clothing, though quite a few still kept to their traditional forms of dress. Others walked in eastern, western garb and a few Chinese laborers were present in their cultural clothing, a rarity off the main rail lines.
Decatur was not Omaha, or Council Bluffs, but the rumors of fossil beasts in the hills to the west brought many folk here. Many were necromancers, two were even from her own class, come west to find the specimen to make their name and fortune with, others were those who supplied the labor for the digs and its supporting trades, the tool makers, the dry-goods folks, the canvas and tent makers and many more. A few were the hanger-on type one found near every major project, the parasites who fed on others, criminals, gamblers and gunmen looking to steal what they could. And there were the sightseers, the eastern folk come west to see the Nations of Savages, the wonders of Nature, and the strange things found in the rocks.
Elisa watched those wandering aimlessly, their fancy clothes marking them as 'greenhorns' to those of the west, and wondered if others saw her the same way. The folks in the towns until now had somehow known or sensed she had been west before, and survived trials of her own that the land gave out with no mercy at all. But did all folks seemed to possess the ability to detect a person who had seen the elephant, as the saying went along the trails.
Walking along, again she felt like there was a presence pushing upon her back, the feeling be a cold sensation, like a knife along the spine. Not wanting to give either the satisfaction to some fool judging her by clothing, or reveal she felt the stare if it was some other with ill or good intentions. Window shopping had a wonderful benefit, though, if one could turn one's face to a spot, yet glance with eyes to the reflections on the surface, not what lay beyond. She took her time, working past the three seamstress shops showing dresses and other womanly needs in their window bays. The first two stops were to see who was in the reflections, and note what they did. The last was the telling mark. Three people had traveled along with her, a man with many scars with a left arm missing from the elbow down, the young lad of the tribes with a black mark of some kind on his right arm, and the man in the flat topped black felt hat.
All three had been in the reflections of all three store windows, all three she caught looking at her during her observations. While the man in the hat did not seem familiar, the young native and the deformed man seemed to echo something within the vaults of memory for her. That black mark, it danced on the edge of her thoughts as she moved over to a window that no matter how thick the glass seemed, she could feel the silent call of the cakes and pastries in the window case. The scent of baking bread drifted in the air, the yeasty smell promising rich delights. A rumbling stomach reminded her of a missed breakfast from luxuriating under thick comforters on the soft mattress of the bed. Sinful thoughts of gluttonous consumption were trimmed thankfully by her limited remaining coins. But oh, how they called to her. And another, one she had not noticed until he moved.
He also had a damaged left arm, one covered in a metal gauntlet, and walked with a limp that spoke of other prostheses as well. A sinister black eye patch and beaver pelt cap finished out the look, though she knew somehow, he normally wore one of the raccoon skin caps so popular decades before, and with some still. No sign of him noticing her, as he joined her at the window, obviously broke and hungry.
"Ivan... Ivan Geranof." It slipped past her lips, the name she should not give in to knowing.
He never moved to look at her. Just a whisper of acknowledgement. "Missy Lissy best to follow me in, and argue who gets the jelly roll log..."
Tears fought with a smile on her face as he jerkily moved to the door, working the handle with his good right hand, the iron glove being only to protect the ruined remains of an arm cooked in steam when a pipe had burst during an experiment. An experiment not of Elisa's, but of her mother's studies.
One family member had returned. Though Ivan was of her father's friends, he had taken to her mother's work early. Uncle Ivan, as they had caller him, raised the children of his friends as they were his own. And lost the arm, a leg and the other foot to an accident many years before, before Elisa's memories began, saving Valeria vonFrachen from a boiler explosion.
She followed him inside, hearing him already wheedling for a slice of the jellyroll, a confection he professed when caring for them he hated, and this flavor had been Erich's favorite.
"Please, Missus Baxter, just a slice of the jelly roll for Ivan. I will do extra work for it today..." The whining and nasal tone left his accent from the motherland more noteworthy. And made him sound like some bum begging for a drink, not the necromancer's aide he was trained to be, not just from work with Valeria, but certified from The Institute of Petrograd. Few could be as skilled in iron, and that metal over his left arm was just as useful, letting him handle items far hotter than others, as well as shape them with it.
By just the expression of contempt on the bakery lady's face, Elisa gained some knowledge of how far Uncle Ivan had fallen. "Out, you are overpaid for what little work you do now! No more shall you get until you earn it." The expression only thawed a bit as she noticed Elisa. "See, you block honest customers from coming in. May I help you miss?"
The tone never changed, even when Elisa produced a handful of coins. "How much for the jellyroll please?"
"Two bits." Not a bit of grace or lilt of a salesperson in the voice. To the woman behind the counter, all were beneath her, save those with more money than sense. Ivan was grumbling and leaving, complaining that raspberry was his favorite. And that of his nephew, whose birthday it was. The door behind them opened, again as Ivan left, but another set of footsteps came up behind her.
"Very well, do you wrap it for travel?" Elisa tried to add a bit of disdain to her voice, implying she was better than the bakery woman.
"That would be five cents more for the cheesecloth." Not a bit of give in the position. This woman was one of the elite of Decatur, apparently. One of those for whom class, money and power were all that mattered, and only she was the judge of who made the cut.
"Very well. I take it your employee..." Elisa made it no further.
"Contracted servant. He ran afoul our laws here, and is paying his price by serving the town. He must do so many hours each week for me, as I bought his services." A hint of the south was in her words. Many plantation owners and slave holders had fled to the western preserves made by the man who had defeated their land and ways. Places where indentured servitude and slavery were still allowed, under strict rules.
Elisa smiled. "But he seems to be failing you. Shame the whip is outlawed now, is it not?"
A genuine smile met hers. "Indeed. I would sell him off to any who wish such a waste of space, but word of his failures has, shall we say, traveled well."
From her basket came something she had hoped to leave in the bank vault before leaving. But this would be a much better use of the heirloom. Opening the small black display box, the gleam of diamonds sealed a deal without words, as papers, the box, some coins and the pastry were exchanged.
Later that day, Ivan Geranof stoked the boiler of the steam wagon, readying it to head west. There were tears and a smile on his face now. But a wariness in his eyes, after a conversation under the cloaks of the steam and rumbles of the kettle heating to its optimum range. Neither uncle or niece rejoiced to learn what the other said under the veils of the machinery.
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