Brakes screeched. Then the cheering of Adella’s fellow passengers joined the hullabaloo as the train halted at New Chicago’s station. Only a week off a ship from Ireland, the men had talked of nothing but employment and adventure at the end of the railroad line. The simplicity of their ambitions made her feel ancient beyond her twenty-four years. Sadness squeezed her chest with the force of a thousand gloomy days rolled into one. A new town held the allure of new beginnings. But not for her. Never for her. She was only here to avenge the death of one man by ruining the life of another. She waited until the last passenger left the train before she followed. Her muscles protested, her body aching after sitting on the hard bench for hours. On the other side of the platform, the station—a rectangular building cobbled together from scrap wood fit only for a bonfire—wasn’t any more comforting. Nor were the steps leading down to a narrow path of boards thrown over a sea of mud.
