So Cold the River (2010) (55 page)

To that point it had been a hell of a nice ride. Hot, sure, and progressively more humid as they passed out of Alabama and
through southern Georgia and into Florida, but nice enough all the same. There were thirty-four onboard the train who were
bound for the camps in the Keys, all of them veterans with the exception of the nineteen-year-old who rode at Arlen’s side,
a boy from Jersey by name of Paul Brickhill.

They’d all made a bit of conversation at the outset, exchanges of names and casual barbs and jabs thrown around in that way
men had when they were getting used to one another, all of them figuring they’d be together for several months to come, and
then things quieted down. Some men had slept, a few had started card games, others just sat and watched the countryside roll
by, fields going misty with the twilight of a late-summer night and
then shapeless and dark as the moon rose like a watchful
specter. Arlen, though, Arlen just listened. Wasn’t anything else to do, because Paul Brickhill had an outboard motor where
his mouth belonged.

As the miles and minutes passed, Brickhill alternated between explaining things to Arlen and asking him questions. Nine times
out of ten, he answered his own questions before Arlen could so much as part his lips with a response. Brickhill had been
a quiet kid when the two of them first met in Alabama, and back then Arlen took him for shy. What he hadn’t counted on was
the way the boy took to talk once he felt comfortable with someone. Evidently, he’d grown damn comfortable with Arlen.

As the wheels hammered along the rails of northern Florida, Paul Brickhill was busy telling Arlen all of the reasons this
was going to be a hell of a good hitch. Not only was there the bridge waiting to be built, but all that sunshine and blue
water and boats that cost more than most homes. Florida was where rich folks went for winter, see, and here Paul and Arlen
were doing the same thing, and wasn’t that something? They could do some fishing, maybe catch a tarpon. Paul’d seen pictures
of tarpon that were near as long as the boats that landed them. And there were famous people in the Keys, celebrities of every
sort, and who was to say they wouldn’t run into a few and…

Around them the men talked and laughed, some tossing dice or playing cards, others scratching out letters to loved ones back
home. Wasn’t anyone waiting on a letter from Arlen, so he just settled for a few nips on his flask and tried to find some
sleep despite the cloaking warmth and the stink of sweating men. It was too damn hot.

Brickhill was still going, this time expounding on the realization that he’d never seen a true palm tree before and in a few
more hours they’d be as good as surrounded by them. Arlen
heard one of the men behind them let out a chuckle, amused by the
kid and, no doubt, by Arlen having to put up with him.

Damned Good Samaritan is what I am,
Arlen thought, allowing a small grin with his eyes still closed.
Always trying to help, and look where it gets me.

Brickhill finally fell silent as the countryside went fully dark outside the car, as if he’d just now noticed that Arlen was
sitting with his eyes closed and had stopped responding to the conversation several minutes earlier. Arlen let out a sigh,
grateful for the respite. Paul was a nice enough kid, but Arlen had never been one for a lot of words where a few would do.

The train clattered on, and though night had settled, the heat didn’t break. Sweat still trickled along the small of Arlen’s
back and held his hair to his forehead. He wished he could fall asleep; these hot miles would pass faster then. Maybe another
pull on the flask would aid him along.

He opened his eyes then, tugged the lids up sleepily, and saw himself staring at a hand of bone.

He blinked and sat up and stared. Nothing changed. The hand held five playing cards and was attached to a man named Wallace
O’Connell, a veteran from Georgia who was far and away the loudest man in this company. He had his back turned, engaged in
his game, so Arlen couldn’t see his face. Just that hand of bone.

No,
Arlen thought,
no, damn it, not another one.

The sight chilled him but didn’t shock him. It was far from the first time.

He’s going to die unless I can find a way to stop it,
Arlen thought with the sad, sick resignation of a man experienced with such things.
Once we get down to the Keys, old Wallace O’Connell will have a slip and bash his head in on something. Or maybe the poor
bastard can’t swim, will fall into those waves and sink beneath them
and I’ll be left with this memory same as I’ve been left
with so many others. I’d warn him if I could, but men don’t heed such warnings. They won’t let themselves.

It was then that he looked up, away from Wallace under the flickering lights of the train car, and saw skeletons all around
him.

They filled the shadows of the car, some laughing, some grinning, some lost to sleep. All with bone where flesh belonged.
Those few who sat directly under a light and out of shadow still wore their skin, but their eyes were gone, replaced by whirls
of gray smoke.

For a moment, Arlen Wagner forgot to breathe. Went cold and dizzy and then sucked in a gasp of air and straightened in the
seat.

They were going to have a wreck. It was the only thing that made a bit of sense. This train was going to derail and they were
all going to die. Every last one of them. Because Arlen had seen this before and knew damn well what it meant and knew that—

Paul Brickhill said, “Arlen?”

Arlen turned to him. The overhead light was full on the boy’s face, keeping him in a circle of brightness, the taut, tanned
skin of a young man who spent his days under the sun. Arlen looked into his eyes and saw swirling wisps of smoke. The smoke
rose in tendrils and fanned out and framed the boy’s head while filling Arlen’s with terrible memories, ones he’d tried hard
to forget.

“Arlen, you all right?” Paul Brickhill asked.

He wanted to scream. Wanted to scream and grab the boy’s arm but was afraid it would be cold slick bone under his touch.

We’re going to die. We’re going to come off these rails at full speed and pile into those swamp woods, with hot metal tearing
and shattering all around us…

The whistle blew out shrill in the dark night, and the train began to slow.

“We got another stop,” Paul said. “You look kind of sickly. Maybe you should pour that flask out…”

The boy distrusted liquor. Arlen wet his lips and said, “Maybe,” and looked around the car at the skeleton crew and felt the
train shudder as it slowed. The force of that big locomotive was dropping fast, and now he could see light glimmering outside
the windows, a station just ahead. They were arriving in some backwater stop where the train could take on coal and the men
would have a chance to get out, stretch their legs, and piss. Then they’d be aboard again and winging south at full speed,
death ahead of them.

“Paul,” Arlen said, “you got to help me do a bit of convincing here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We aren’t getting back on this train. Not a one of us.”

Michael Koryta’s first novel, the Edgar Award–nominated
Tonight I Said Goodbye,
was published when he was just twenty-one and was followed by
Sorrow’s Anthem, A Welcome Grave, Envy the Night,
and
The Silent Hour.
His works have been translated into more than fifteen languages. Michael Koryta lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he has
worked as a newspaper reporter and private investigator, and in St. Petersburg, Florida.