Chase (5 page)

H
e hit the ground awkwardly and stumbled upright, not sure, for a moment, if he could take another step. His leg had a decision to make; fold, because his shinbone seemed to be breaking in half, or hold.

It held. Hurt, and held. He hobbled to the black opening. The floor of the car was chest high and smooth, and his first try at getting in amounted to a feeble hop.

“Hey Dennis,” a voice called. “Move it, will you? They need to pull up—”

He'd lose his cover. Phin threw the flour sack into the car and scrambled after it, hooking his elbow on the edge of the door to haul himself up. His hurt shin scraped
across the lip of the doorway; small bright pain-lights flared in his head.

He rose to his feet. The bundle had loosened inside his shirt, and biscuit crumbs rolled down his ribs. In front of him his own shadow loomed up the back wall, a crippled giant. He scooped up the sack, dodged into the pitch black beyond the light, and banged into another wall; stacked crates, filling half the car.

With a sigh and rumble the train began to creep toward the platform, toward Mac and Mahoney and Plume.

Phin felt frantically up the crate cliff. Above his head he found the top. He threw his sack up; it fell back on him; he threw it harder and higher and climbed after it, finding tiny finger-and toeholds in the sides of crates and boxes. The train lurched gently as he flung himself over the top, groping for his sack.

It was nowhere in reach. He rose on his knees and bumped his head on the ceiling. Crawl, then. Reach, crawl—

His right hand came down on nothing, and his arm plunged up to the shoulder into nothing.

He drew back with a gasp. A hole between crates—he felt around its edges. It was narrow, not like the Dog Hole. He couldn't have fallen in. But with a whole railcar to
choose from, the flour sack had. It had been knobby, and landed with a promising thump. There must have been food in it; lost.

The train stopped with a deep metallic squeal. Yellow lamplight came in the door now, and Phin heard voices. This car was at the platform, and he was up here with no place to hide. The boxes were packed level, a broad, flat plane stretching toward the door.

Voices, louder, closer; Phin curled in the back corner, pulled his cap down, and turned his face to the wall. He and Jimmy had learned by the age of five—hide your face, hide your eyes. It's the eyes that give you away.

Hoofbeats again. He'd been haunted all day by the horse and Engelbreit. The horse, at least, he'd soon leave behind—

“Never heard of such a thing!” said an unknown voice.

“I find that hard to believe.” The mule dealer, just outside the door. “Surely from time to time a man needs to transport a horse.”

“Then they wait for a stock car!” The speaker sounded peppery.

“As it happens, it's this very now that I need to travel, and on this very car that I'll go. Unless you'd rather explain to the gentleman who signed this pass—”

“This railroad gives no free passes!”

“Then that's not his signature?”

A seething silence. The horse snorted and stamped. Free pass, Phin thought. So this man worked for the mine owners. They and the railroad owners were the same class, sometimes the same people. The mule dealer, as he styled himself, must be a Coal and Iron policeman, or a Pinkerton agent.

“Oh, very well—Bill, Jamie, bustle! This gentleman needs a ramp and bait for the horse, and a bucket, and—I don't know what all, but get it and hurry! We're holding trains all up and down the line!”

A moment later the door rumbled wider.

Phin waited numbly. In a moment they'd discover him. It all had been for nothing—

A thump. Footsteps on the bare floor. Hay rustled, and a man said, “Oh, it's blowin' right out his ears, the steam! Ye can fair see it!”

Holding his cap low over his face, Phin risked a glance toward the light. The men were close, but he couldn't see them. He was too high, too far back. Below the wall of crates they were only voices.

If he couldn't see them, they couldn't see him.

And that meant—there was a heavier-sounding thump
as they laid a ramp up to the open door—that meant that he wasn't discovered after all. Not yet.

A nervous pair of pointed ears appeared in the doorway. Shod hooves rang on the floor, and the mule dealer's voice, dark as black coffee, spoke reassurance. “Easy, lad. That's the way—leave the ramp. I'll want to get him in and out. No, he won't need tying. I'll ride with him.”

No, Phin thought. No.

He pressed into the corner, clawed his fingers into the smooth angle of the walls. There was no gap. This enormous seamless box had just one opening, now guarded by the mysterious man who had followed him all day.

The walls squeezed him. His pulse drummed in his ears, a tiny sound, a dense sound, on and on and—

“Fraser?”

At the car door, incredulous; Plume again. “What are you doing?”

“Taking the cars north, Plume. Like yourself.”

“Odd way to do it, all of a sudden.” Plume's voice was cold with suspicion.

“Maybe I killed that man this morning,” Fraser said. “Maybe I'm on the run.”

“Then you're drawing a lot of attention to yourself.”

“Reckless, could be. Fool, could be. Or could be I'm a
man who'll do what he takes a notion to, and doesn't care to be questioned. However,”—Fraser's tone, which had become dangerous, lightened—“they're wanting to move their train, and here's you and me holding them up. Will you ride a ways with me? Pleasant pile of hay here, and an extremely pleasant flask.”

“I have a flask my own self,” Plume said.

“Two's company.”

Deep in his cocoon of torment, Phin waited for the second refusal. It had to come. Plume must walk away. He must….

“Well then, I will,” Plume said, with sudden, entirely unbelievable friendliness. He shouted to someone far off: “Ridin' in with Fraser and the horse. My ticket's punched!”

No, Phin thought. No—

There was a scritch of gravel, an impact, a grunt, as Plume pulled himself into the car. Phin's skin prickled, hairs rising all down his back. Sweat broke on his forehead. Like his leg, his spirit had a decision to make.

He laughed—weakly, just one helpless, nearly silent breath, and sagged in the corner, shaking his head, as Dennis's voice echoed in his mind.

All right, then. Come on in if you're a mind to!

T
he whistle wailed. Chuffing, the train gained momentum.

“Down,” Fraser said at the bottom of the crate wall. “Aye, I mean it! Down.” A thud, a horse-sized grunt. “Good lad!”

“Like a dog!” Plume said. “He laid down for you just like a dog!”

Really? In the three weeks the horse had stayed at Dennis's, Phin had never caught him sleeping. He was too alert. He'd be on his feet, shaking straw off his sleek sides, before anyone could get near. It would be worth seeing a horse like that folded up on a boxcar floor.

But Phin wasn't tempted to look. He leaned back in the corner, speed dragging at him as the train lined out across the dark land.

The sides of the car shook, the crates shook, faster and faster until the shakes smoothed to a steady vibration. The wheels clacked. Through the partly open door, moon shadows leaped on the walls. The train plunged on.
Faster and faster
, it said, in a hundred clacking, creaking, rattling voices.
Faster and faster, fasterandfaster.

And louder. Phin hadn't imagined it would be like this—the clacking, the whistle's blare, the walls shuddering fit to shake their rivets out. A moving train was a forest of sound.

Sheltered within it, he stretched his legs. Probably it made a noise. Probably the cloth of his pants hissed or rasped. Probably his boot heels thumped on the crates. It didn't matter. Not even he could hear it.

He passed a hand down his shinbone. There was an enormous goose-egg swelling, like the one on his arm. He'd had hurts like these before and thought nothing of them. These injuries came in life-and-death struggle and seemed more important, but really they were just bruises—

No. Don't think of that—Engelbreit's head hitting the
stove. He was safe for the moment; he must stop frightening himself.

He reached inside his shirt for his bundle. Bacon fat had soaked through the bandanna. He felt a slick of it on his skin. The biscuits were crumbly. He stuffed one in his mouth; salty and smoke flavored from its daylong association with the meat, better than anything he'd ever eaten.

Dry, though. He'd last had water when? Jimmy's bottle, at the lip of the Dog Hole, a long time ago.

“Nay,” Fraser said below, and went on. To make out his words, Phin had to do the special thing with his ears that he'd learned at Murray's. It was a kind of relaxing, not fighting the unwanted sounds, but letting them pass like water—water again!—through a sieve, catching only what he wanted. Up here he did what he couldn't at Murray's, cupped a hand behind his ear and pointed it at Fraser the way a horse would.

He netted Fraser mid-sentence. “—won't be buyin' mules just now, I'm thinkin'. They'll wait till things quiet down. But there's an outfit up north may be interested.”

“What outfit?”

“That'd be telling.”

“So tell,” Plume said.

At Murray's his voice would make a little silence around
it. From across the room Murray would catch Phin's eye, jerk his head toward the back door. Phin would drift that way and be out of the room before anything started. He'd heard many fights at Murray's, but rarely seen one.

Fraser broke the dangerous pause. “I'm like you,” he said. “Not answerable to myself alone. The man I work for wouldn't want me telling his business to all and sundry.”

It was the equivalent of saying,
I know you're a Sleeper.
Not wise, not wise at all. Everyone could know these things as long as everyone pretended not to. Fraser should know that. He'd only spent three weeks in Bittsville, but he was no stranger to coal country ways.

“Drink?” Fraser asked.

“Got my own,” Plume said. “Thanks anyway!” The forced lightness in his voice made the hairs rise on the back of Phin's neck. Plume was suspicious. He wanted to know more before he did something irreversible. “Fine horse,” he said. “If your mules are anything to compare—”

“They are, as mules go.”

“Don't speak ill of mules. There's some down there could run the mine themselves.”

“Too smart,” Fraser said. “Smarter than horses. They won't work themselves to death like a horse will. Always wondered why they'll go into a mine at all.”

“We go,” Plume said. “It's not so bad.”

“I'd rather slave in a cotton field under the sky and a whip than go down in a mine. Not
bad
?”

“We're tougher than you Scots, aren't we? Make the world go. It's us down there with black powder and picks movin' this train right now. The world rides on the backs of Irishmen.”

The open doorway dimmed as if they'd passed into a wood. Fraser said, “More than just Irish. There's all kinds of folk bent down with toil. English, even.”

“English?” Plume's voice was cold and vibrant. “You take your share of risks, mule man.”

Were weapons drawn? If they fought, someone would die. There was no escape in this moving box, no chance to miss.

But Fraser, like a man who pulls a cat's tail, then strokes her when she scratches, said, “Nay, I meant nothing by it. I'm all for peace. War makes a man want peace and quiet, don't you agree?”

“How'd you know I fought in the war?”

Fraser sighed theatrically. “A guess. Just a guess. Come, man, lay your hackle! I only want someone to talk to. The horse is a braw lad, but he's no much for conversation!”

“Fair enough,” Plume said shortly. “What d'you say to a game of cards? Is there light enough?”

Apparently there was. Their voices dropped, and Phin could no longer make out the words. He moved his tongue in his dry mouth to work up a little spit. Water would be good.

They'd poured water for the stallion. He remembered the crash of it coming at him through that haze of insanity. It was down there now, dark surface shivering with the movement of the train. Black, with silver moonlit ripples. The stallion, whenever he wanted, could dip his muzzle in and flood the thirsty crevices of his mouth. Coolly it would glide down his throat—

Stop thinking about water.

He took the bundle on his lap and turned its contents over. Three biscuits left, and a lot of crumbs. He licked his finger, dampening it, and pushed it onto them to pick them up, cleaning out the whole bandanna that way. The bacon taste was strong and there was some other taste, too, wild yet mellow. At first he thought it was the wood of the matchbox. He put the box in his pocket so it wouldn't get greasy, felt for more crumbs, counted his biscuits again—three, and one so small it was hardly worth saving.

He picked it up and suddenly knew this wasn't a biscuit. He sniffed; tears started in his eyes.

It was a plug of tobacco—the cheap kind that breaker boys chewed, and mule boys. He'd seen everything Mrs. Lundy put into this bundle, could see in his mind's eye each motion of her hands. This had been slipped in later. Only Jimmy could have done that.

When Jimmy'd gone into the breaker, he'd started chewing. All the boys did. Tobacco juice kept you from coughing, made the juices flow. Man enough to work, man enough to chew—that was the idea.

Phin had tried it. It made him puke. It made everyone puke until they got the hang of it, but Phin quit and Jimmy kept on, and that was the difference between Phin Chase and Jimmy Lundy. Jimmy, in Phin's place, would—

Would what? Phin opened his eyes. What could Jimmy do that he wasn't doing? Traveling with his enemy like this, even Jimmy Lundy would lay low, wait his chance to get away.

So he was doing all right, maybe. He turned the tobacco in his fingers.

Makes the juices flow.

He licked it, gingerly. Springs and fountains opened in the back of his mouth and he nearly gagged. He swallowed, swallowed again—

“Slowing down?” Fraser. The voices were suddenly clearer.

“We're never there yet!” Plume said. The train came to a slow, sighing stop. The quiet was astonishing. Then she began to creep backward.

“Ah,” Fraser said. “They're pulling onto a spur to let another train pass. Aye, lad, get up!”

The stallion's hooves scraped and thudded on the floor. Then Phin heard Fraser walking him in a circle, giving him the chance to stretch his legs. To Plume he said, “So they took you off to fight, you were saying, and you just a lad?”

“Made a man of me!” Plume sounded bitter.

Fraser said, “I don't know what it made of me.”

“Conscripted?”

“Volunteered.” Fraser laughed shortly. “Hard to imagine when you've got to the other end of it, but there's no fathoming the notions in a boy's head. So I'm only a little surprised at that murder back there. I know what boys are capable of.”

“When I get through with him,” Plume said, “that boy won't be capable of anything.”

Every atom in Phin's body went still.

“Saw him around the stable,” Fraser said after a pause.
“Quiet, good with the horses—well, this one liked him, and he doesn't take to many.” The horse had stopped moving; he started it walking again. “And yet he killed a man—do you believe that?”

Phin heard the sound of Plume's deep-drawn breath. “Engelbreit drove men he shouldn't drive and fired men he shouldn't fire.”

“This lad won't have killed him for that,” Fraser said. “He was never—”

Plume interrupted him, in a voice that shook with fury. “I don't make war on kids. She knows that. I meant for him to run. But when I catch him now, kid or no kid—I'll cut his throat.”