by Norman Dixon
Bobby . . . I’m sorry for all I done, he thought as the blackness closed around him.
* * * * *
“Please make sure he doesn’t die, Deliah." The Pastor hovered over the bloody bed with a smile, baring his yellow teeth.
“I can only do what I can do. Couldn’t you just have shot him?" Deliah stitched the stump with care. She knew in her heart she was no Lyda. Before the world fell apart the most action her fingers had seen were the Sunday hairdos of well to do women with bad style. She wasn’t cut out for this. The stress was too much for her heavy frame, and being a diabetic didn’t help. Her vision was already going awry, letting her know that her sugars were off.
“Waste not, want not, Deliah. Bullets are precious and only, truly, belong in the dead." The Pastor rapped his knuckles across the Good Book.
“Amen to that." Deliah snipped the thread and covered Ol’ Randy with a thick blanket. “Well if an infection doesn’t set in he should make it, but I can’t make any promises." She wiped the old man’s blood from her wrinkled face. The blue of her eyes had dulled from years of torment. She knew she wasn’t long for this world but by the grace of God she kept on, and would continue to do so.
“Oh . . . he’ll make it. He’s a strong one made from the good Georgia stock. Take more than a lost limb to kill him.”
“It’s not the only thing killing him.”
The Pastor sighed loudly. “What has he done to himself?”
“Well, I can’t say he’s done it to himself, but I think he has cancer, at least, if what I can see in his blood is telling the truth. She might’ve taught me day in and day out, and I spent years studying her books and notes, but I am no Lyda, rest her soul,” Deliah said with a resigned sob.
“No . . . Deliah, you are not." The Pastor squeezed Ol’ Randy’s shoulder and said, “Now don’t you go dying on me, you hear? There’s still much to know and I’ll have that information." He turned to Deliah, who had the stung look of a child whose parent had struck them for talking back. “Keep a close watch on him. I’ll see your meals are brought promptly. Now I must go pray.”
Deliah’s hurt at the Pastor’s words had her sobbing in her hands. She didn’t notice that the Pastor borrowed a scalpel from the draw.
Indeed, he had much to discuss with the Lord.
CHAPTER 20
“Baylor, I’m telling you now this kid is trouble. I don’t like it, and I don’t like him,” Hoss spat, “gives me the heebie-jeebies. Why’d he go up there anyway? We had that bastard pegged in the grill for what—six, seven states? And some stray we pick up ruins it . . . and to top it all off—”
“Just a kid, can’t be a day over fifteen or sixteen. Right around Sophie’s age,” Jamie said as she put her arm around her daughter. The girl seemed to shrink from the touch, as if she were trying to wish herself into non-existence. In actuality, it wasn’t entirely certain that the red-headed, green-eyed girl was Jamie’s child to begin with. No one aboard the train actually witnessed the girl’s birth. They had only Jamie’s word to go on, and she was the resident liar, a spinner of tales that were sometimes larger in scope than her ample bust. The pale-skinned, lanky girl looked nothing like her mother, which only added to the controversy.
“Ripe for the picking,” Hoss said, rubbing his hands together and eyeing Sophie like she was a piece of meat.
“You letch! You keep your hands to yourself or I’ll cut them off!" Jamie hugged the girl closer. “It was bastards like you . . . caused her to be quiet." The girl had never uttered a word aboard the train. Even Baylor attempted to make her laugh, to open up, but she simply looked at him with her dull stare.
“Enough!” Baylor shouted, demanding all of their attention. Even the hooded stranger, tucked into the corner of the Mad Conductor’s car, took notice. “And if you so much as look at that girl again, Hoss, I’ll feed your little prick to first Creeper to stumble across the tracks. I’ll even stop this fucking heap to hand it to the fucking thing.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Damn right you are. First things first. He killed your fun, Hoss, did you have to lay him out for it?" Baylor shook the sweat from his bald head.
“He was armed,” Hoss protested.
“Uh-huh, and did he use them against any of us? No, he pointed one at you at my request. Kid proved he wasn’t about to start blasting us. We were too busy screwing around with that hopeless bastard anyway . . . kid could’ve picked us off before we knew what was going on, with either one of those guns, but he didn’t. Which is why I allowed him aboard. That, and he mentioned the Jesus freaks." Baylor began to pace the car, using the tables for balance as the train rocked to and fro.
The Mad Conductor looked to the boy slumped across the bench. He winced at the knot Hoss left on his face. Usually by now he’d be flying off the handle in anger, or laughter, or a bit of both, but he was quite the opposite. His entire mood, his entire life changed when his eyes graced that terrible handwriting. The scrawl looked as if some caveman with a kindergartner’s giant pencil had penned it slumped over a desk too small for its large frame. But the words. . . .
“Do you realize what this means?” Baylor questioned, shaking the notebook at them.
“I say we toss him overboard and let the universe decide if he passes or fails. I want no part in this,” Hoss said adamantly.
“That’s just lovely, Hoss, because last time I checked,” Baylor stared at him crazy-eyed, “you were the equivalent of a retarded deckhand that the captain keeps around out of pity. So, shut the fuck up, okay?”
“Poor boy,” Jamie rocked Sophie back and forth for comfort and added, “if he’s here, what happened to the others. You said he mentioned that Russian fella’ . . . what I want to know is why he’s out here by himself.”
“Doesn’t make sense. The Jesus freaks are like clockwork every year. They send a group, we trade what we got, and then they slip back into the mountains. I still don’t know where their setup is, but it’s weird. This kid showed up about fifty miles ahead of the usual rendezvous. I don’t like it and this,” Baylor slammed the notebook down, “I really don’t like. I mean it’s amazing if it’s true. People back east would love to see him.”
“I would advise against that,” the hooded stranger said. For the first time since Baylor began to talk the stranger stood up and walked closer to the group. “I think you should allow him to make his own decision. He seems capable of doing so.”
Baylor turned on the man in a fury. “Passenger, just because I agreed to take you west,” Baylor stifled the stranger’s question with a raised hand, “just because I believe your cause to be noble . . . stupid, crazy-insane, but noble, doesn’t mean you have a say on my train and in this matter. You said you would help us lay track for your passage, and that is all the say you have aboard my train. Now, as I told the illustrious Hoss, kindly, shut the fuck up.”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Conductor, but I thought it prudent to mention leaving it up to him to decide because he’s been awake this whole time." The stranger bowed and returned to his seat.
Though he didn’t see it, Baylor could sense a wry smile under that hood.
“So you know,” Bobby said. He sat up, rubbing at his swollen face. Judging from the tenderness of it the ugly man had hit him with a good one he wouldn’t soon forget. He watched their shocked faces as they stared at him like a freak, like the Folks all over again. But where there used to be worry was now, he clenched his fists, only seething anger. Would he be forever doomed to be branded as such? He didn’t like the prospects of living out the remainder of his days under constant threat of scrutiny. He had to change their perception of him if he was going to survive.
The dingy red carpet, soot-smothered from years of use, ran the length of the car and even up the walls. Geometric patterns of gold and beige added a sense that the car was much bigger than it actually was, and that made Bobby a little unsteady, as if he stepped into a vast, dark cavern with only a torch that reached a few feet in fr
ont of him. Tables and booths were bolted to the floor along the center aisle and frilly lamps swung back and forth from gaudy chains on the ceiling. Sloppy yellow light bent and swished around like tea being stirred in front of a sunny window.
They were all waiting for him to speak, to say . . . something, anything that would help them make sense of what lived inside of him. He didn’t have that answer for them. He only knew what they knew, and nothing more.
Baylor stood statue still, riding the bumps of the car as if it weren’t moving at all, and Bobby could see in his face that the Mad Conductor wanted to ask him a million questions all at once. But Bobby had to play this right. Ecky always told him not to play all his cards at once, but to spread them out over the course of the game. He intended to do just the opposite. He was tired of wandering. He had to shock them with a little flare. First he had to be someone he’d never been before, he had to be the loudmouth, he had to be Paul.
“First things first,” he locked Baylor in a hard stare, “my friend lost his life trying to save this train, and me, from a bunch of savages." Bobby didn’t stop and wait for a response he went into the whole story . . . in every minute detail. He told them of his brothers and how they were murdered for nothing. He left himself wide open to them. Either they were going to offer him something, perhaps a place on the train, or they’d offer to toss him back to the wilds. He would be ready for any outcome. Ecky died to get him here, and he was going to do his best to see it through. Though, he did leave out the voices of the dead. These strangers didn’t need to know that detail, not yet, at least.
Baylor, at some point during Bobby’s story, slumped onto the bench. He sat with his head in his hands. The others, too, would not face Bobby. They stared at the darkened windows, at their hands, all of them except the young girl. Her green eyes seemed to sympathize with him. She looked as if she wanted to say something, a reassuring word or two, but she remained stuck in a wide-eyed stare.
“That’s heavy, kid, I don’t know what . . . what . . . the hell to say,” Baylor stammered. He rarely found himself at a loss for words, but the circumstances were off the map. “Thanks is a good place to start. Shit, he was sure they were headed for us?”
“That means they took out Wyoming Blue, Baylor,” Hoss’s voice cracked. A dower of worry sagged the corners of his face.
“We don’t know that for certain." Baylor began to chew on the collar of his flamboyant coat.
“World gets shittier and shittier by the day. I’ve had enough for t’day. C’mon, Sophie, let’s go eat a bit of dinner,” Jamie pointed at them, “the rest of you should do the same." She jabbed her finger at Bobby saying, “You most of all. Those terrible people . . . skin and bones . . . skin and bones—that poor man,” she trailed off as she lead Sophie out of the car and towards the kitchen.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be back with ten platefuls. That one will have you fat before the Utah border,” Hoss said with a laugh. “For what it’s worth, kid, sorry about the face.”
“You hit like a girl.”
“Bwahahaha!” Baylor cried, “Fucking kid is crazy. I love it." He stuck out his hand and said, “Anyone risks their ass for me earns a spot on this ride, but we never stop until we reach the end, and even then we don’t stop, but enough of that for now. It’s been a long day.”
Bobby shook the Mad Conductor’s hand and did his best to hide his wince at the steely grip. Baylor’s hand seemed made of metal, and it felt as if the very steam engine of the train powered that shake.
* * * * *
After a meal of cornbread, and something called a hamburger, Bobby returned to the cramped cabin and his pack, weapons included. He lifted the thin shade on the window to reveal the wall of night beyond. Every so often a break in the tree line would reveal a flash of starlight and then the unending blackness would swallow him anew. Closing the shade he returned to the bunk and rubbed his temples. Several times during his meal snatches of undead voices flickered in his mind, but even though the train was moving slow, they never lasted more than a few seconds like a weak radio signal on a lonely stretch of highway. Instead of a crackle he felt nails in his brain and rumbles in his gut.
Life had changed in such a short span of time for him that it didn’t seem real, as if he were riding a train through the dark space of a dream. Less than a year ago he’d been a boy struggling to fit in with those that didn’t want him, or understand him, now though, he’d been forced to become a man, fighting for survival in a world he’d been kept from for so many winters. The Folks had told him about it; about the savage nature and all the dangers, but they were not quite right in their explanations. Bobby was quite certain that a majority of the Folks actually thrived on their isolation, that they had prayed for such a separation from the world, and they perceived that fate handed it to them on silver platter.
But where did he fit in to that dinner party? He hadn’t asked for this, and he certainly didn’t ask to hear them. Why then, had he been thrown into the midst of it?
He didn’t get a chance to follow his thoughts as a knock at the door drew him from such fatalistic rambling.
“Who’s there,” he asked. His voice strained and dry from the effort. Weariness weighed on him like an elephant on the see-saw of sleep. He was quickly losing the battle against it. It had been well over a day since he last had even a minute of rest. His body didn’t have much left in the tank.
“Baylor." He didn’t wait for an invite. He opened the door and leaned against it. “I know how tired you must be, kid, but we got things to discuss. Things that may or may not impede my work. I’ve spent too many years doing this and we’re close to reaching the coast, a few years more at best. So we need to get some things straight.”
“What are you talking about?” Bobby was having a hard time following the Mad Conductor.
Baylor chewed on his collar before answering. “What, you thought I was fucking Robin Hood, aiding the meek? Bwhahaha, kid, they didn’t teach you what this,” he waved his hands out to his sides, “was all about at Jesus camp?”
“They said you were like Santa Claus.”
“Bwhahaha,” Baylor was laughing so hard he coughed. “Kid, let me ask you something . . . do you believe in Santa Claus?”
“I’ve killed more men than I have fingers on my hands,” Bobby’s distant eyes looked beyond Baylor’s face into the depths of despair the Mad Conductor, even in all his travels, could never know, “I don’t believe in much of anything . . . anymore.”
“Good, because if I need you to use that pretty weapon I don’t want any bullshit getting in the way. We never stop, this ride never stops, we are progress and I aim to be one of the people that help get what’s left of our world back."
“You have any thirty-ought-six?”
“I like the way you think, but this isn’t a fucking charity, contrary to what the Jesus camp assholes filled your head with.” Baylor held out an empty hand.
“You can have this.” But even as he held Ecky’s weapon Bobby was reluctant to let it go. “He used it to keep me safe,” Bobby locked Baylor’s gaze and finished, “he used it to keep this train safe.”
“I can’t take that, kid.”
Bobby held the weapon out further. “I can’t carry it." Tears welled in his eyes. “It has to be worth a few dozen rounds at least.”
Baylor took the weapon and quickly inspected it. It was in better shape than most of the military grade weapons he’d come across, in fact, the only ones he’d seen that matched it were those still carried by last remnants of the military. “Worth more than that. So clean it would bring a tear to a Marine’s eye.”
Bobby dug into his bag, lifting out the CB radio he said, “This should be worth a few more.”
“Still full of surprises. You look tired, kid, but how about I show you a little of my baby girl? Show you what they failed to tell you about?”
“Only if you stop calling me kid.”
“Bwahahaha . . . can’t promise that."
Bobby followed Baylor out of the rocking sleeper car and once again into the red-carpeted dining car, trying to remain steady with each dip and bump.
“Tracks aren’t what they used to be, but you get used to it."
As Baylor opened the door at the front of the car Bobby was met with loudest clatter of noise he’d ever heard: metal beating on metal, hissing steam, roaring flames, shouting men, a cacophony of progress chugging across the dead American landscape. He knew where Baylor had lead him, the dragon-looking front car, the engine, but it looked much different from within. The black metal curved around him like a cage, rushing wind howled through the bars like an arid desert breeze through a corpse’s ribs. At the center of the dragon’s head, its brain really, before a brilliant fire, stood a massive man, a bulwark against an unimaginable tide.
The man’s back was bare, glistening with a golden sheen of sweat and soot. Muscles like granite plates moved as he hefted a shovel of coal into the fire. The man’s arms displayed such a complex array of muscles that he seemed a machine like the train itself, a hardened thing of solid construct with liquid fire running through its veins. Even slumped Bobby was sure the man would stand a head taller than Ol’ Randy. The man turned, a million years of movement like a mountain sliding into the sea, as he became aware of their presence.
“Price, how’s my girl?” Baylor shouted.
The work of complexity that was Price’s back did not compare to the angles of his face. A massive chin that looked as if it could smash continents apart and a wide mouth filled out his face. His heavy brow jutted out over his bottomless black eyes. He wiped the sweat from his face with a rag from his pocket that left a smudge of soot across his crooked nose.
“This is him,” Price said, pointing the shovel at Bobby. “Welcome aboard!” Price offered his hand.