The five of them stared out their windows.
“Dear God.” Vivi’s mother caught her throat.
A crush of peasants thronged toward them. The driver slowed. Vivi watched, horror stricken. Their man had to stop. He could not simply run them to ground. But she heard him shouting to back off, back off as he lashed his whip at them.
But a few men grabbed at the door, threw bottles at the frame. One cracked a window, then another. Glass splintered into the cab in a shower of sparkling drops.
“Oh, oh!” Mama yelled. “I…I am cut!”
Shards of glass stood straight up out of the backs of her hands.
“Cover yourselves!” Tate shouted as he wrenched off his frock coat and hung it over one window.
Vivi tucked Beau to one side and worked off her shawl. Like Tate, she tried to hang it over the window near her.
Then the door was flung open. All inside gasped.
A man reached inside, his grubby hands big as dinner plates, grabbing and snatching. Catching Mama’s gown.
She yanked it away and hit him with her leather portfolio. But he kept snatching. “The green gown. I want the green girl!”
Vivi caught Diane’s eye. Her sister blinked. Tonight, she had worn her best green gown.
Tate hauled himself up and kicked the fellow in the chest. The man fell backward.
The coach started and stopped in fits. The mob kept up the pace. Yelling and screaming, they rocked the carriage—and it idled.
The door flayed wide, banging against the side of the coach, open and closed. Open and closed.
The same man Tate had kicked reached in again. This time he went straight for Diane.
“Get the door,” Charmaine shouted at Tate as she shrank away from the man who wanted only their sister.
“Fool,” Diane spat at her, and stood to help Tate capture the swinging door.
But two women reached in, pushed him with a great yell, and he fell backward. Splayed on the floor, arms and legs flailing, he tried to turn to get up.
Diane cursed at the women, then reached out to grab the door handle—
But they each grabbed an arm and took her!
“Noooo!” Vivi yelled.
Her mother screamed. Tate scrambled to his knees. To his feet. Braced on the frame, he stuck out his head—and leapt from the cab.
Door wide open, Beau barked and, in one huge jump for so tiny a dog, followed Tate.
Vivi gaped at the loss of all three.
Their driver lashed the horses. But it took a second, or perhaps it was an eternity, to get the animals to move once more.
The sounds of the mob retreated, yelling in whoops of delight.
The coach picked up speed. The carriage door banged closed.
“No, no,” Vivi complained, clutching the hand pull above. She pushed at the door with her feet, jamming them against the wood. She had to get out, help Tate get Diane and Beau.
Her mother curled into a ball and wailed. Charmaine sat, her eyes big as wheels, staring at Vivi.
