Chase (6 page)

T
he approaching train shrieked. The horse dropped manure, and Fraser said, “Step away from the door and I'll kick these out. We'll have a pleasanter ride.”

There were scuffing sounds. Fraser went on. “You'll not be content to just take back your property, then? Or turn the boy over to the law?”

“No.” Plume's voice steadied, vibrant with anger. “If I'm the kind of man she says, I'll
be
that man. Double that man. I've held myself to a standard—well, what good did that do me when she won't even—”

The other train shrieked again, passing close, buffeting their car with wind and drowning Plume's words. But
Phin didn't need to hear more. He could see the scene, the smoke and lamplight and Margaret on her stool nursing that slow first whiskey. Did they tell of the killing first, brag of their strange mercy, not killing but framing him, letting him run? Or did Margaret start it, asking if Plume had gotten his wallet, she gave it to Phin Chase to leave here?

However it started, it ended with the eagles tearing at each other. Margaret must have flown out bitterly at Plume in front of everyone. She might not care about Engelbreit, but she was fond of Phin and she'd loved his mother, and that was the end of Ned Plume.

The train passed in a last gust of wind and noise. In the sudden quiet Fraser said, “So the wallet's the least of it, even with that in it.”

“What's your meaning, mule man?” Plume's voice was like steel. “What should a wallet have in it besides money?”

“Six men's lives. You said yourself—”

“What surprises me about you,” Plume said, “—and I don't like surprises, mind!—is how you keep asking questions. Most people in coal country learn it's not healthy.”

Fraser hadn't asked a question, Phin was almost sure. He'd only said things, provocative things, like a man slipping a ferret down a rat hole to see what would come out.

Plume said, “Let's talk mules. Where's your jack stock from? What you got for mares?”

“The jacks are out of Maryland—I'd rather have Kentucky, but you know how it is. The mares, though—”

Fraser went on about his mules, making them sound like the best mules ever to set foot in a mine, just as a real salesman would. But were there any mules? Phin doubted it.

He touched the roll in his pocket. Worth the lives of six men? But all he had was money, right?

The train began to move. Soon it was plunging cross-country behind its own self-important shout—
Out of my way! Out of my way.

The men grew quieter. Miles passed—miles of sketching escape plans that would have worked perfectly, if only Phin didn't need a clear path to the door; miles of licking the tobacco, trying to pretend that quenched a thirst; miles of dozing, half dreaming, negotiating the quicksand complexities of coal country only to jerk awake to the sound of a gunshot, and remember.

Finally the whistle blew, the brakes made their long silvery squeal, and the train came to a stop.

A station; yellow lantern light made the shadows blacker. Irish voices called back and forth. Something thumped on the roof above Phin's head, and footsteps
walked along the top of the car, then jumped to the next one. The horse snorted and scrambled up. “Shh,” Fraser said. “It's only noise.”

Outside the car door someone said, “Plume? Ned Plume?” Phin recognized the voice. Occasionally men from high in the organization visited Murray's, men who cast silence before them like other men cast a shadow. Phin couldn't put a face to this voice, but he'd heard it; heard, and been motioned out of the room by a jerk of Murray's head.

Plume answered carelessly. “Yeah. Here.” He jumped down from the boxcar, and his voice was lost in station bustle.

“How long are we stopping?” Fraser asked someone outside.

“Five minutes, ten at the most.”

“I need fresh water for the horse. Here.” Probably he handed the man a bill. Phin touched the money in his pocket. Money could pave the way—if only he could get out!

The stallion seemed to feel the same. His hooves rang and banged on the bare wood floor, and Fraser kept turning him from the door.

The man returned. Water crashed into the tub. Fraser
said, “They're looking for a boy, right? Overhead?”

“Overhead, under the cars—they'd have looked in this hay, only Plume himself was riding on it. Kid went south, likely, or he came through on an early freight.”

“What's he look like?”

You
know
what I look like! Phin thought.

“What does any boy look like? Dark hair, I think they said. Doesn't have a coat, unless he stole one somewhere.”

“Can't ride the rods if he doesn't have a coat.”

“Not for long!” the man said cheerfully. “Freeze and fall off and be cut to mincemeat. Likely that's what happened to him.”

“Aye, right enough.”

Voices outside. The whistle blew, and a giant shadow loomed on the back wall.

“Thought you were stopping here,” Fraser said. He sounded slightly disconcerted.

“I'm not.” Plume's voice was darker, flatter.

“I've enjoyed your company,” Fraser said. “Don't think I haven't. But wouldn't you be more comfortable in the passenger car?”

The train had begun to move. Plume shouted out the door at someone. “You catch him, he's mine! Spread the word. Not Mahoney's or anybody else's. Mine.”

Now his voice was inside again. “I'm ridin' here. I don't feel like talk, and I do feel like drink.”

After a moment Fraser said, “No talk, then. But—a bite to eat? You'll want to lay a foundation—no? Fair enough!”

 

The next leg of the journey was longer and thirstier. Phin couldn't make himself eat another biscuit, not without a drink first. His mouth produced less saliva all the time, and the tobacco gave less relief. In the breaker the boys had water bottles. They could snatch a swallow from time to time, at the risk of missing a piece of slate and getting a beating.

Envying the breaker boys; would his mother laugh? She could laugh at bitter things, even as she rolled up her sleeves to do something about them. She'd smile, at least, at it turning out that Phin would have been safer if he'd defied her. Though it wasn't safety she'd wanted for him so much as a way out, and he was going.

Oh, but a drink, though. He lay through the night in the endlessly rocking railcar, half dreaming of her washtub and the slosh of soapy water.

It was nearly dawn when they stopped next. The square of light on the wall was pearly gray and there was a smell of dew and grass. Half awake, Phin heard Plume ask,
“Where's this?” Unsteady, abrupt; he must have been drinking all night. Someone answered—a word Phin didn't hear—and Plume jumped out, falling, swearing.

Fraser asked how long the stop was. “Twenty minutes,” was the answer, and he bought someone's assistance in laying the ramp.

Phin listened to it thud into place. His tongue was thick and cottony, and so was his head. The back of his throat hurt. When he swallowed, it felt like it was going to break open, like a half-healed wound.

Saddle leather creaked. The stallion's hooves rang on the wood floor, the sound diminishing down the ramp. Some distance away Fraser said, “All right then, lad.” Next came the tremendous gush of the stallion urinating.

Phin sat up. Where were they?

The stallion
clip-clopped
away toward the front of the train. Plume was—where? There were voices, but not close.

This was his chance.

He rose on hands and feet and scrambled across the crates, let himself down over the edge, groping for finger-holds and toeholds. An overhead searcher thumped onto the car and walked along it. Phin must be very quick, very good, as he had planned—drop and crawl under the car, and come out the other side running.

His toes touched the floor. He eased down soundlessly and turned.

In the back corner stood a wooden tub, a third full of water.

Phin didn't think. He was past thinking. He crossed the car in two long steps, dropped to his knees, and plunged his face in.

Beautiful, the wet, the cool. He sucked it in. Bits of hay floated against his lips. He smelled horse and wet spicy oak wood and he drank it down and down, rested, and drank again.

Enough. That's what he'd have told a thirsty horse. Stop, or you'll get sick. He glanced toward the door. The rail yard was a wide expanse of gravel seamed with track. Once Phin was out there, he'd be exposed. Good thing it was still so dark.

A bottle lay on the floor, gleaming in the pale light.

A bottle. He could fill it.

It was very near the door, and as he took a cautious step toward it Phin discovered he was afraid; afraid of the light, gray and grainy as it was. Afraid of the open space, and the voices, and the hoofbeats.

He made himself dart forward anyway and snatch the bottle up. No cork; he couldn't hunt for it, and some of
the water would slosh out, but most would stay in, for a while anyway. He pushed the bottle under the surface and jumped at the glugging sound it made. Hurry, hurry. He pulled it out, dripping, before it was full, and turned.

Plume was coming.

For an endless moment Phin stood frozen as Plume crossed the tracks, head down, watching his feet. His miner's cap was pulled low over his eyes.

He tripped. Phin dived for the shadows, closed his teeth around the top of the bottle, and scrambled up the crate wall. Water sloshed into his mouth, nearly choking him. Up and over and back, light on hands and feet, and into his corner. Plume got back in, then Fraser and the stallion, and the now-familiar departure noises began.

He'd missed his chance.

Well, he had water now, and if they were searching this train on Ned Plume's orders, then he wasn't out of coal country yet. Maybe it was all for the best. Phin took a sip of the whiskey-tainted water. A drop went down the wrong pipe and he coughed.

Just once. He stifled the next in the crook of his elbow. Tears streamed down his face, his nose ran, his ribs heaved spasmodically, but he held the coughs inside him.

“Aye,” Fraser said soothingly. “Walk a bit more, lad, if
that's how you feel.” Hooves banged on the floor, providentially making a cover of sound. Phin let out one more cough—he had to or burst—and the train began to wheeze and whisper, hiding his own wheezes. He sat up, weak and wet faced, and saw a small clothy hump on top of the crate a few feet away.

The sack. Dennis's sack. It hadn't fallen in the hole after all. When the train sounds had risen to a safe level, Phin crawled over on his stomach, drew it back to his corner, and opened it.

Apples, bruised and cornery, with a lovely scent rising from them. A chunk of the good brown bread the boardinghouse cook made. At the bottom, a small Barlow knife. Its blade was worn almost to a sickle shape; Dennis used it for everything from harness repairs to carving off chunks of tobacco to paring hooves.

Phin's eyes smarted. He stretched them wide.

Well.

Well.

He had a knife now. What a man needed—a knife to cut his tobacco with.

S
unrise struck wavering red rays through the partly open door. The back wall of the car flashed bright and honey colored, rippling with the shadows of trees they passed. Sheltered in train noise, Phin stretched, peed down a crack behind the crates, ate an apple, all in spacious golden daylight.

There were two stops that morning. Both times Plume got out, once Fraser and the horse did, but Phin never saw another chance to escape unseen.

At the third stop the searchers hauled someone to Plume near the car, someone who spoke quick and stammering in a language Phin had never heard.

“Does that look like a boy?” Plume hit the man—at least, somebody hit somebody. Phin heard the smack and a grunt from Fraser, who must be watching out the open door. A few minutes later Plume got back in and a cork popped.

After this they traveled a long time without stopping. The car heated. Dark drips appeared on the ceiling. Phin touched one, and his fingers came away sticky with tar. He heard the sound of splashing a couple of times—Fraser putting water on the horse to cool him.

That would feel good, but Phin didn't have water to waste. Not enough to last the day, truth be told.

He ate another apple and his last biscuit; recited poetry under his breath, reaching back to the distant past—yesterday morning—when he'd been himself, when his life was recognizable. Train rhythm became washboard rhythm, and he could imagine his mother was there. But not for long.

At last he took out the roll of money.

His hands jumped when he saw the printed numbers. He'd never held one bill of this size, let alone—he rifled through them—four, five, six, se—no, that was a folded piece of paper.

Did he have it, then? He'd been sure that whatever it
was had been left under Dennis's stairs. He started to unfold it.

His hands shook.

That stopped him. He sat for a while staring at the folded sheet. The letters might as well be Chinese—upside down, backward, bleeding through the cheap paper. What could it be? A letter? Orders? Worth the lives of six men—Sleepers? Intended victims? Maybe also the life of one boy, if he made the right bargain.

In which case he should read it.

Or he shouldn't.

He already knew more about the Sleepers than most people, growing up at Murray's. But what he knew was put together from shreds that wouldn't seem like evidence to anyone else. Shreds were safe. Shreds could be denied. This—

He folded the bills around the paper, stuffed the roll into his pocket. Think about this. He already knew one thing he couldn't forget. Maybe he'd better keep it that way.

The paper made him think of Margaret. After his mother's death she'd taken him on, watched over him in her way. It used to embarrass Phin, being singled out by her with men like Plume watching. She'd known that. It
amused her. She's no fool, his mother used to say, and now he wondered: had her attention saved his life? Was that why Plume hadn't shot him?

Saved him only to doom him twenty minutes later.

Plume spoke abruptly; Phin adjusted his ears to catch him mid-sentence: “—unnerstand is killin'.”

His voice was slurred and struggling; a man at the head-on-table stage, driven to tell all he knew before oblivion took hold. “All through the strike—‘don' do nothin', no violence,' they said. An' we held our fire. An' what happened? They broke the union, an' now we've…got…nothin'.”

Phin touched the money in his pocket. Not exactly. But many did have nothing. All summer families had scoured the woods for mushrooms and berries, leaving the land bare and beaten seeming. After that, the sound of the breaker had meant defeat, but also life.

“You're working again,” Fraser said.

“Twenty-six percent pay cut! An' they're closin' shafts. Every—every job they cut…b'longs to an Irish. Tell me that's right. Tell a kid he can't eat tonight 'cause Pop came from…from Ireland. He don't care! He's a kid; he's here. Wants to eat. So what are you going to do? Let it keep on like that?”

“No,” Fraser said after a bit. “Got to fight, I guess. But who? It's not just one man—it's a kingdom.”

“Machine,” Plume said. “Put in an Irishman, turn the crank. Out drops a dollar. So who—who d'you fight? You fight—everybody. Fight the whole—whole place. Startin'…with…that kid.”

“He's just a kid,” Fraser said. “He's here.”

Phin's heart skipped in his throat. He drew his legs under him, ready to dive out the door—

“Wants to eat,” Fraser went on, and Phin realized he was quoting Plume's words back to him, pulling the cat's tail again. Next would come the quarrel, then the soothing.

But there was no response. After a while Fraser said, “Sweet dreams, pal! And now what?”

There was a restless note in his voice. The stallion got up with a thump and scrape. “Nay then,” Fraser said. “Let's think a bit.”

Phin leaned back in his corner. He felt more uneasy with Plume unconscious than he had with both enemies wide awake. Plume and Fraser had canceled each other out. Now there was only Fraser—whoever he was. Whatever he wanted.

Get off now, the train seemed to say. Get off now
getoffnowgetoffnow. Phin sat rubbing his leg muscles back to life, listening for the sounds that Fraser persistently did not make.

 

A long time later the train stopped again.

The stallion rose, impatient, quick moving. “Nay, don't step on him.” There was a dragging sound. “Now, what am I going to do with you?” Fraser said. “What am I going to do at all?”

Get out, Phin thought. Because I am! He rose, half crouching under the low ceiling, and tucked the flour sack into his belt. Without a cork the bottle wasn't worth taking, but the sack would come in handy.

With the train still, the sound cover was gone. Phin only moved when the stallion did. Fortunately the animal was as restless as he was. Soon Phin was far enough forward to see Fraser at the open door, staring at—

What? Phin could see nothing but green and shadows. He had the impression of late afternoon, smelled apples and fresh pine sawdust. A breeze whirled the hay chaff into the air and the sun caught it, turning it to shifting golden needles.

Fraser sighed.

There was a second sigh, and Phin realized with a
terrible start that the stallion had raised his head. The brilliant dark eyes were fixed on him.

The stallion lifted his head minutely, lowered it, lifted again, as if sampling separate layers of air current. His nostrils flared, red as glowing coals. The sharp-cut ears focused on Phin for a long moment. Then one slanted at the man in the doorway.

Phin almost put a finger to his lips. Don't, he mouthed, knowing that was ridiculous. He was mesmerized by the movement in the delicate skin above the nostrils. It seemed to purl like flowing water or like smoke. He knew he should sink back out of sight, but he couldn't, didn't, until he heard footsteps outside. Then he crouched, turning his face away.

“What's all this?” someone said at the door. “Why are you riding here?”

Fraser said, “It's all right.”

“All right? This car's supposed to be half empty. There's supposed to be room for a shipment of furniture.” The man wasn't noticeably Irish; Phin wondered where they were.

“It's all right,” Fraser repeated. “I have this.”

“What about him?” the voice said a moment later, grudgingly.

“He's traveling with me,” Fraser said. “Know who this is? You're lookin' at Ned Plume.”

“Never heard of him.”

“A lot of people have. If you know what I mean.”

“I don't,” the man outside said firmly. “Never been mixed up in any of that.”

“Whatever it is,” said a second voice. Phin hadn't realized there were two of them.

“Don't be a fool!” the first man snapped. He crunched away.

“This'll be a long wait,” the second man said. “She'll be taking on water when we're cleared to pull in.”

“How long?”

“An hour. Maybe two.”

Fraser said, “Then we'll get out for a bit.”

“Too steep for the ramp, I'm thinkin'.”

“He'll jump.”

“And back in? I'll admire to see that. He's a fine Morgan.”

“No.” Fraser sounded occupied; saddling, likely. “Caught him wild on the northern plains—”

“That's a Morgan,” the trainman said flatly. “Stood the trip well, hasn't he? Just a little nervous-like. Now what about him?”

The saddlebags slapped into place. “Sick,” Fraser said. “Contracted it from the neck of a bottle! Is there a doctor in town?”

“There is—white house next to the store. Got a little of the same sickness, from what I hear.”

“Then maybe he knows the cure. I'll ride up and see if he'll take my friend in charge.” Leather creaked as Fraser mounted.

Phin curled tight, arms around his knees. His heart beat so loudly he thought Fraser must hear it. Why hadn't he waited? Just a few minutes, and he would have been able to leave safely, but he'd been impatient and now Fraser's head was level with the stallion's. All he had to do was turn his head—

“Stand back!” Fraser said. There was a scraping sound, the crunch of gravel, then a sudden sense of air and emptiness in the car and a drumbeat of hooves outside, rapidly receding. The trainman whistled. “Look at him go!”

Then the voice spoke through the open door: “In a bad way, ain't you? Wouldn't want to have your head right now!”

Phin hunched, holding his breath, until the man walked away. Then he scrambled across the crates.

Plume was down there. Phin could see his boots pointing slackly toward the ceiling. But there'd been no
sound from him. Passed out, Phin hoped. Anyway there was no choice. He let himself rapidly down.

Plume lay boneless against a pillow of hay, his face pale and slick with sweat. He seemed unable to move, but his eyes followed Phin, dark, narrow, and filled with hate.