and pulled her back. The rattler was picking up speed, but it was still crawling and we had time to do it right.
“Wait for a boxcar,” I said, “and then follow me.”
She waited. The bottle was heavy and reassuring in my pocket. Let’s not break it, I thought. For God’s sake, let’s not break it!
An empty boxcar loomed three or four cars down, the open door inviting.
“Come on,” I said and trotted diagonally across the right-of-way, looking back to measure the distance.
She came right along, almost stumbling over my heels. I looked back at her once and her white face was reaching out toward me. She wasn’t looking at the train, just at me.
The empty was one car behind when I got to the ties. I pulled her up even with me, then pushed her ahead.
“Don’t run too fast,” I said. “When the door catches up with you, throw in your bundle.”
She ran along, limping on her bare feet over the loose gravel of the roadbed. I was close behind her. From the corner of my eye I saw the open door of the empty pulling up on my right. I waited till the front edge had passed me and then shouted to her.
“Now! The bundle!”
She tossed the bundle into the open door and I speeded up, ran close behind her, synchronizing my steps with hers.
“Put your hands flat on the floor,” I said.
She did it, running awkwardly now to keep up with the train. I got my hands on her upper thighs in back.
“Jump!” I said.
She jumped feebly. I pulled up on her thighs. She bent her knees and for a moment I carried her full weight, running. Then I boosted her up hard and she fell forward into the car, rolling away from the door.
My heart was pounding in my chest. The train rolled faster every second. I put my hands flat on the floor of the car, jumped up, locked my elbows and hung there for a few seconds, trying to catch my breath. Slowly I pulled up one knee, got it firm on the floor, hunched myself up and fell in beside the girl.
CHAPTER 4
I lay still, sucking air in big gasps, waiting for the pain in my chest to subside. I got the bottle out of my pocket, twisted the cap off, wiped the mouth with my sleeve and tipped it up. The warmth of the whisky relaxed my throat, spread through my chest, my stomach, filtered down through my belly, even my legs. I had another. My condition began to slide back to what, for me, was normal. I held up the bottle and peered at it. There were still three good shots left. The hand that held it shook only a little. I put the bottle back in my pocket.
The girl lay still beside me. Her head rested on one out-flung arm and her other arm lay beside it. Her knees were drawn up. Her dress had slid halfway up her bare thigh and still clung to her skin. I reached over and put my hand on the stuff of her dress. It was still very wet.
I got on my knees, found a packet of matches in my pocket, struck one and leaned down over her bare feet. They were mostly black on the bottom and corrugated, as if she had gone barefoot most of her life. But there were two or three broken places on each sole and they were bleeding slowly.
I found a handkerchief, none too clean, and reached for the bottle. I held it up, hesitating. I studied the bottle and swore softly to myself. I had played a sucker’s role practically every minute for the last twenty-four hours and maybe it was time to stop. Any time a lush like me began to think of washing a girl’s feet in hard liquor—good or bad—the world stopped moving.
I unscrewed the cap again, held the handkerchief against the mouth of the bottle and tipped it carefully. Just as carefully I held it upright while I applied the damp handkerchief to the sole of her right foot, dabbing at the places I could see were bleeding.
Her foot jerked spasmodically. I looked around and found her raised up, supporting herself on her hands, staring at me. I held the bottle toward her so she could see it.
“Alcohol,” I said.
I don’t think she heard me. She leaned there, watching me and her feet held still while I dabbed the precious fluid on the torn spots. When I finished I held the bottle up again and I felt better. The level was almost the same as when I had put it away the first time. You get so you can judge levels with great accuracy.
She was staring at the bottle as I put it away in my pocket again, but I pretended not to notice. I didn’t feel good about it, but I thought I would feel worse if I offered it to her and she took it. I shoved it down deep in my coat pocket, turned and sat up with my arms around my knees, looking out the door of the swaying car.
Pretty soon I felt her beside me. She sat the same way I did, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. We started around a slow curve and she fell against me, then straightened up right away. Her face turned to me and she said something I couldn’t hear.
In the open doorway with the clatter of the wheels and the heavy squeak of the couplings beating our ears, everything had to be shouted. If she wanted conversation, we’d have to move farther inside.
I stood up and reached out my hand. She took it and I pulled her up to her feet. We stood, swaying, looking at each other and finally I took her arm and led her back into the car, toward the front of the train. The noise let up.
“Can’t hear anything over there,” I said.
She looked up at me with her little white face. “I said, ‘Thank you’,” she said.
I nodded. “I said, ‘Don’t mention it.’”
It was real smart talk.
We straightened out from the long curve and she lurched again. I held out my hand and she fell against it. Her ribs were prominent and she felt like skin and bones, but her breast was large and firm under the wet cloth. When she was steady on her feet I dropped my hand.
“Better take those wet clothes off,” I said.
“All right,” she said.
The air blowing in from outside was cool but not bitter. I took off my coat and held it out to her. Then I remembered the whisky bottle and grabbed it out of the pocket. I walked over near the door and set the bottle down on the floor. I was still holding the coat. When I turned back to give it to her, she was pulling the dress off over her head. I stopped where I was for a couple of seconds and then went on over and handed her the coat. From what I could see of it in the dark interior of the car, her figure was good. But I wasn’t much interested. I was hungry and I was getting thirsty again and I still felt like a sucker. I figured that she would get along all right, now that she’d got started and I could ditch the freight in the morning. At the rate we were going, we’d be out of the state in a few hours.
She slipped into the coat and buttoned it in front. It dropped almost to her knees and her hands disappeared when she let the sleeves hang straight. She put the ends of the sleeves together in front of her and hunched her shoulders forward and I saw that she was still cold.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t inspected the other end of the car. I walked back there, past the open door. The sweet smell of alfalfa drifted into my nostrils and at first I thought it came from outside. Then I stumbled against a thick, hard-packed stack of it, reached down and found a bale under my hands. I struck a match and looked at it.
There was about half of it still intact. The wires had been broken and the part that had been used was scattered over the floor. I started to kick the loose stuff into a pile. After a while I was kicking it into two piles.
“Hey!” I called to the girl.
She came slowly toward me, hunched into my coat, her hands still out of sight in the sleeves.
I pointed to the piles of hay on the floor.
“Next best thing to an innerspring mattress,” I said.
A little smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.