“Wabash seemed as good a place as any,” he replied after some thought, determined to keep his answers short and vague.
The fellow peered at him with arched eyebrows. “Where you come from, anyway?”
“Around.”
A chuckle floated through the air but quickly drowned in the train’s blaring whistle. The man dug into his side pocket and brought out a cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and lit the end, then took a deep drag before blowing out a long stream of smoke. He gave a thoughtful nod and gazed off. “Yeah, I know. Me, too.” Across the dark space, the others shifted or slept, legs crossed at the ankles, heads bobbing, not seeming to care about the conversation, if they even heard it.
Will might have inquired after his traveling companion, but his years behind bars had taught him plenty—most important, not to trust his fellow man, and certainly never to divulge his personal history. And posing questions to others would only invite inquiries about himself.
He chomped down his final bite of apple, then tossed the chiseled core onto the floor, figuring a rodent would appreciate it later. Then, he wiped his hands on his pant legs, reached inside his hip pocket, and pulled out his trusty harmonica. Moistening his lips, he brought the instrument to his mouth and started breathing into it, cupping it like he might a beautiful woman’s face. Music had always soothed whatever ailed him, and, ever since he’d picked up the skill as a youngster under his grandfather’s tutelage, he’d often whiled away the hours playing this humble instrument.
He must have played half a dozen songs—“Oh, Dem Golden Slippers,” “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” “Over There,” “Amazing Grace,” “The Sidewalks of New York,” and even “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away”—before the shrill train whistle sounded again. They must be arriving in Wabash. Another stowaway pulled the car door open a crack to peek out and establish their whereabouts.
Quickly, Will stuffed his mouth organ inside his pocket, then stretched his back, the taut muscles tingling from being stationary for so long. At least his pounding headache had relented, replaced now by a mess of tangled nerves. “Reserved excitement” is how he would have described his emotion.
“Nice playin’,” said a man whose face was hidden by the shadow of his low-lying hat. He tipped the brim at Will and gave a slow nod. “You’ve got a way with that thing. Almost put me in a lonesome-type mood.”
“Thanks. For the compliment, I mean. Sorry ’bout your gloomy mood. Didn’t mean to bring that on.”
“Ain’t nothin’. I been jumpin’ trains fer as long as I can remember. Gettin’ the lonelies every now and again is somethin’ to be ’spected, I s’pose.”
“That’s for sure,” mumbled another man, sitting in a corner with his legs stretched out. Will glanced at the sole of his boot and noticed his sock pushing through a gaping hole. Something like a rock turned over in his gut. These guys made a habit of hopping on trains, living off handouts, and roaming the countryside. Vagabonds, they were. He hoped never to see the inside of another freight car, and, by gum, he’d make sure he didn’t—with the Lord’s help, of course. He had enough money to last a couple of weeks, so long as he holed up someplace dirt cheap and watched what he spent on food. He prayed he’d land a job—any job—in that time. He wouldn’t be choosy in the beginning; he couldn’t afford to be. If he had to haul garbage, well, so be it. He couldn’t expect to do much more than that, not with a criminal record. His hope was that no one would inquire. After all, who but somebody downright desperate would hire an ex-con? Not that he planned to volunteer that bit of information, but he supposed anybody could go digging if they really wanted to know.
He hadn’t changed his name, against Harry’s advice. “I’m not going to run for the rest of my life, Harry,” he’d argued. “Heck, I served my time. It’s not that I plan to broadcast it, mind you, but I’m not going to carry the weight of it forever, either. I wasn’t the only one involved in that stupid burglary.” Though he had shouldered most of the responsibility for committing it. The others had left him to do most of the dirty work, and they’d run off when the law had shown up.
Harry had nodded in silence, then reached up to lay a bony hand on Will’s hulking shoulder. Few people ever laid a hand on him and got away with it, so, naturally, he’d started to pull away, but Harry had held firm, forcing Will to loosen up. “You got a good point there, Will. You’re a good man, you know that?” He hadn’t known that, and he’d appreciated Harry’s vote of confidence. “You just got to go out there and be yourself. Folks will believe in you if you take the first step, start seeing your own worth. The Lord sees it, and you need to look at yourself through His eyes. Before you know it, your past will no longer matter—not to you or to anyone else.”
The train brakes screeched for all of a minute, with smoke rising up from the tracks and seeping in through the cracks of the dirty floor. Will choked back the burning residue and stood up, then gazed down at his strange companions, feeling a certain kinship he’d never expected. “You men be safe, now,” he said, passing his gaze over each one. Several of them acknowledged him with a nod, but most just gave him a vacant stare. The fellow at the back of the car who’d spent the entire day sleeping in the shadows finally lifted his face a notch and looked at him—vigilantly, Will thought. Yet he shook off any uneasiness.
The one who’d first struck up a conversation with him, short-lived as it had been, raised his bearded chin. The two made eye contact. “You watch yourself out there, fella. You got to move fast once your feet hit that dirt. Anybody sees you jumpin’ off is sure to report you, and if it’s one of the yardmen, well, you may as well kiss your hiney good-bye. They got weapons on them, and they don’t look kindly on us spongers.”
“Thanks. I’ll be on guard.” Little did the man know how adept he was at handling himself. The years he’d served in the state pen had taught him survival skills he hoped never to have to use in the outside world.
When the train finally stopped, he reached inside his shirt pocket and peeked at his watch, which was missing its chain. Ten minutes after seven. He pulled the sliding door open just enough to fit his bulky body through, then poked his head out and looked around. Finding the coast clear, thanks to a long freight train parked on neighboring tracks, he gave the fellows one last nod, then leaped from the car and slunk off into the gathering dusk, his sack of meager possessions slung over his shoulder.
First item on his short agenda: look for a restaurant where he could silence his grumbling stomach.
Chapter Two
“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful.”—2 Timothy 2:13
After shooing away her last customer, Livvie flipped the sign on the front door to “Closed” and wiped her damp brow. Mother Nature certainly had presented them with several unseasonably hot, sunny days this week, and today had been no exception. Lately, it had felt more like midsummer than late May. Even with the sun setting, unusual warmth still hovered in the air.
In the kitchen, Cora Mae and Joe made conversation as they cleaned up, Joe stacking the kettles and fry pans on the long shelf above the stove, Cora tossing clean silverware into the wooden storage box on the stainless steel counter. Livvie didn’t have to peek around the corner to know their movements. She’d memorized them over the past year, during which the three of them had established a routine of sorts. Those two would scour the kitchen while she set things to rights in the dining room, a task that included sanitizing the bar, tables, and chairs with a pungent mix of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar water. Obsessed with cleanliness, she had read a good deal about stopping the spread of germs and bacteria. She didn’t want her restaurant to be responsible for anyone’s untimely death, after all!
The same concern prompted her utter dislike of cigarettes. Why, if God wanted folks to fill up their lungs with smoke, he would have fitted them with smokestacks. Thankfully, Frank had shared her sentiments, and they had never permitted smoking in their establishment, even though almost every other restaurant and speakeasy
in town did.
Blowing several strands of reddish-blonde hair out of her eyes, she set to pushing chairs into their proper places, sweeping crumbs off the tabletops, replacing the lids of the sugar bowls, picking up stray pieces of litter, and then sanitizing the surfaces and chairs. Next, she walked to the back of the restaurant to fetch her broom and dustpan.
No sooner had she begun sweeping than she heard, “Mom, Nate won’t share his puzzle with me!”
She spun around at the voice of her eight-year-old son, Alex, his head poked through the opening in the door to the back room, his freckled nose scrunched in frustration. Her other son, Nathan, eighteen months younger, slightly rounder in the face but otherwise a spitting image of his brother, wriggled into view, peeking his head out right under Alex’s. “I was, too. Alex is bein’ bossy. ’Sides, it’s my puzzle.”
“So what? You’re still s’posed to share everything. Mom even said.”
“You don’t share your truck very good!”
“Do, too!”
“Boys.” Livvie stood the broom on its bristly end, grasping the handle with both hands, gathered a deep breath, and tamped down a smile. Her sons could be impish, but they were still her pride and joy—the products of unblemished love, and everything she lived for. “You know the rules. Share your toys, play quietly, and wait for Mommy to come and get you so we can go upstairs. I’m just about done here. Then, it’s baths for both of you, off to bed, and one more day of school before the weekend.”
“I don’t want a bath,” Nathan whined. “I already had one this week.”
She bit back another smile at her younger son’s protest. “You played hard at Aunt Margie and Uncle Howie’s farm today,” she replied, looking from him to Alex. “I can tell by those smudged faces. Sometimes, a body’s just got to have more than one bath a week.”
On most days, her boys walked the four or five blocks to and from Miami Grade School. In the afternoon, when they arrived home, they had a snack, answered her questions about their day at school, did their homework, completed a few chores, and played until it was time to go downstairs for the suppertime rush in the restaurant. They knew better than to get underfoot in Joe’s kitchen or to pester Cora Mae or her when they were busy waiting tables, so they entertained themselves in the back room, which she had stocked with games, books, puzzles, crayons, and drawing paper. Every so often, she or Cora Mae would check on them and, if necessary, referee an argument.
On occasion, though, Livvie’s older sister, Margaret, graciously offered to pick up the boys from school and take them to her house for a few hours. Today had been one of those times. Margie, fourteen years her senior and the one most responsible for having raised her, had two grown sons serving in the U.S. Navy—one in Japan, the other in the Philippines—so she jumped at every chance to watch Alex and Nathan. She said it soothed her soul to hear the squeals of children’s laughter in her house again. Of course, she also knew the hardships Livvie had suffered since losing Frank, and, since his death, she’d been more than willing to step in and help whenever possible. She and her husband, Howard, ran a successful dairy farm three miles outside of town, and Howard claimed to love letting the boys tag along to the barn with him at milking time. While he and his hired hands worked, Alex and Nathan played with the barn cats, romped with the dog, checked out the newborn foals and calves, or picked wildflowers for their aunt. Occasionally, their uncle assigned them a small task to keep them busy and make them feel important.
“Can I go first?” Alex asked. “Nate always gets the water dirty ’fore I get in.”
“Yes, it’s your turn to bathe first,” Livvie said, smiling as she took up her broom again. “Why don’t you boys go put your things away? We’ll head upstairs in about ten minutes.”
There were two apartments above the restaurant, the larger of which housed their little family. The smaller one had been vacant for a couple of months, the elderly gentleman who’d lived there having moved when he could no longer navigate the stairs. Livvie had posted a “For Rent” sign in the front window several weeks ago. So far, however, there had been no inquiries.
Her sons disappeared, thankfully without further argument, and closed the door behind them. Seconds later, Joe emerged from the kitchen, sweat rolling down his pudgy face and dampening his white hair, which reached his shirt collar. “Heard you talkin’ to your boys. You may as well go on upstairs with ’em. Cora Mae ’n’ me are almost done here. We’ll shut down the lights ’n’ stuff. Been a long day, hasn’t it? Good for business, though, I’ll say that.”
Livvie sighed, ignoring his suggestion that she take her leave. “I’m going to miss you, Joe,” she said, pausing to rest on the broomstick. She gazed across the room at the older man, whose round, Santa Claus belly called for suspenders to hold up his trousers. “What am I going to do without you?”
Joe had been with them since Frank’s death. Before that, he’d been a loyal customer who would step behind the counter with Frank on busy days to lend a hand. It had taken him little time to learn how things operated, and he’d graciously offered to take over after the tragic accident. But it had always been a temporary arrangement, meant to last only until Livvie could find a good replacement or he could sell his house in town, whichever came first. He’d sold his house a few weeks ago, and now, with his job in Chicago imminent, it was just a matter of days before he’d be leaving Wabash. With times being the way they were, Livvie had thought the “Cook Needed” sign on the front door would garner lots of hopefuls, but, to date, no one had expressed interest.
“Don’t look so downcast, girlie. Things’ll work out—you’ll see. Got to trust the Lord, is all.”
“Now you sound like Margie. She’s always preaching at me.”
“I’m not preachin’. I’m tellin’ you the truth. I been sayin’ lots of prayers for you lately. I know the money don’t stretch quite as far as you’d like it to every month, but the Lord has a way of makin’ things come out even—or haven’t you noticed?”
“I’ve noticed, but I’ve also noticed that no one’s come around asking to rent that upstairs apartment or to inquire after the job opening.”
“That’s ’cause everybody knows they can’t fill Joe Stewart’s shoes,” Cora Mae called out, turning away from the stove, dishrag in hand. Her graying hair was falling out of her bun, and age lines were etched deeply into her forehead and around her eyes and mouth. Her otherwise pale skin bore small, brown patches—liver spots, folks called them.
“That’s true enough,” Livvie said, directing her gaze at the smatters of crumbs on the floor beneath the bar stools and chairs. She would have blamed them on untended children, if it weren’t for the fact that she often saw adults drop bits of food and make no effort to retrieve them.
“When do you expect you’ll be leaving for good, Joe?”
“Too soon, if you ask me,” Cora Mae put in. “Our work’s cut out for us if we have to train somebody new plus wait tables.” She began to wipe off the counter that Livvie had just sanitized, her eyebrows set in a stubborn line. Livvie loved the dear lady, but why did she always have to be so blunt about everything?
“My new boss said he’d hold my job for up to two more weeks,” Joe said, slinging a towel over his shoulder. “If you can hire somebody in the next week or so, I can have ’im trained.”
“Or her,” Cora Mae corrected him. “Nothin’ wrong with hirin’ a woman.”
Joe angled her an imposing stare. “Why don’t you take the job, then?”
“Me? I’m not slavin’ over a hot grill. ’Sides, I don’t have the knack for flippin’ pancakes in the air.”
Joe chuckled. “I wouldn’t call that a requirement.”
“Well, it’s entertainin’. Who’s going to keep me entertained after you leave?” This she said with a hint of orneriness, making Livvie suspect that Cora Mae felt just as she did about Joe’s departure—sad, anxious, and a trifle betrayed. How could he leave them in the lurch like this, desperate and alon
e, while he went off and made a name for himself?
While Joe and Cora Mae kept up their banter, Livvie continued working on the floor, sweeping everything toward the front of the restaurant, where she gathered it all into a sizeable mound. Head down, she threw herself into her task, caught up in thought, mainly thinking about getting her boys to bed so that she could steal a few precious moments to unwind.
A rap on the front door put a sudden halt to her musings, and she looked straight into the eyes of a bearded stranger—piercing, absorbing eyes that studied her intently through the smeared windowpane. He was no small man, either, looking almost too tall to fit through the door, should she decide to open it. She would not.
“Come back in the morning, mister. We’re closed.” She didn’t know why she couldn’t rustle up a pleasanter tone, but that was the way of it. When he didn’t move but mouthed the word “Please,” she bristled. “We open at seven. The sign’s right there on the door. Didn’t you read it?”
“Yeah, I read it,” he said, his tone muffled and hoarse. She tried to go back to her sweeping, but then he rapped again. “I sure could use a plate of food. Don’t matter if it’s cold.” She kept her eyes to the floor. “I’ll pay you double for your trouble.”
Normally, she had a softer heart toward folks, Tonight, however, exhaustion prevailed.
Livvie's Song Page 2