Martin had found himself betrayed by men such as that in the past. It had not yet gone well for him.
It was difficult to judge how quickly the train was moving. Martin wondered if it were travelling slowly enough that sore ankle or no, he might simply leap off it. He had seen this done in films. The wheat was still and tall and thick, and looked something like a mattress, and it was tempting to think it might just catch him. But of course it was only grass, growing from unyielding earth.
And beyond those grasses—there was nothing.
“Beautiful.”
Martin started and turned. The small man had sidled beside him. He was wearing a robe identical to Martin's in design, but cut for a stockier build and colored a deep cobalt blue to Martin's red. His hair was red, and curly, and he had a thin beard that dusted his plumpened jaw-line. Martin guessed him to be forty but what did Martin know? He was exceptionally small.
“Where are we?” asked Martin, and the little man shrugged.
“Kansas?” He smiled and patted Martin's arm. “Let's say Kansas.” He extended a hand, and when Martin took it they shook. “I am Adelaide.”
Martin tried to say his name was Luis, but Adelaide wasn't having any of it so finally Martin relented and said his real name. Adelaide laughed—or more properly, giggled, in a high and unselfconscious way that made Martin smile. He thought about some things and made a decision.
“I, um, don't have a ticket,” said Martin. He let his fingers touch the blue fabric of Adelaide’s sleeve, and then fall away again. This is what he had done with the tea-drinking man before things had gone so badly. It was a little signal that he gave—as much to himself as the other—that doors were opening to possibilities. He didn't understand it himself; it was like a magic sign.
“I was thinking about jumping off the train,” he said, and bent his head. “Trying my luck.”
Adelaide's smile faded. “A stowaway? Not on trains. They don't have stowaways on trains.” And like that, it was back, a broad big-toothed grin. “Hobo! Are you a hobo?” And he frowned and looked more closely and with evident concern—at Martin's face, where he'd been clipped with the broom-handle no doubt. “You've taken a fall, Martin. Doesn't speak well for your train-jumping skills. I wouldn't chance it.”
“Okay,” said Martin. “Well I still don't have a ticket.”
“But you have a robe.” Adelaide reached out to touch Martin's sleeve. “Crimson.”
The morning light abruptly shifted, as the train punched through the boundary of a forest. The bush had been inadequately cleared at the track, and it tapped along the metal like drumming fingertips.
“I think we can pull this off,” said Adelaide. “The ruse, I mean of course. Walk with me.”
5
Adelaide could not begin his day without a walk, and there was no better time for that than sunrise.
“Younger people sleep late,” he said as they stepped between cars, and were briefly beset with the loamy scent of the woods before what appeared to be another sleeper car. “This early, I find most are as groggy and slow as you.”
“Bad ankle,” said Martin, and Adelaide delivered a small and sympathetic smile.
“But you are up,” he said. “Bad dreams?”
“I needed a bath.”
“Ha!”
They crossed the second car, and stepped between again, and this time Adelaide put a finger to his lips as he opened the door to the next car, and peeked through, and then beckoned Martin to follow.
This car was open wide. It was darker than the others, for the windows had been covered with thick red curtains. What light there was came from small creamy domes running down the middle of the ceiling. It looked like a dining car, but without proper tables; just thick, leather-covered chairs and sofas, brass ashtrays on sleek black columns scattered between them. At the far end was a small bar. The ashtrays weren't for show: the place was redolent with the stale stink of last night's smoke.
Adelaide had them half-way across when the floor seemed to shift under their feet. Martin put his hand on the wing of a chair, but there was no need to really because it wasn't a serious thing.
The train was simply coming to a stop.
Martin sat down in the chair and lifted the curtain next to it. Trees and branches continued to pass by but less frequently. Martin could see into a deep green forest, its floor striated by long shadows of trees and yellow dappling of sun. Some great bird flapped away through the branches as the brakes of the train squealed. The trees parted for a stream, and in the clear sky Martin could see more birds—a huge flock of them, flying so close that together they took the form of a giant scarf, caught in the wind. The trees grew nearer soon enough, but not as near as before. There was a platform—just a long rectangle of concrete here—with a rusted metal railing on the far side.
In the middle, or near to it, the railing split for a stairway that seemed to just lead down into the woods.
At the top of that stairway waited a lone passenger.
He was a big man, dressed in green-brown camouflage. His whiskers were neatly clipped, but his hair was long, and at first seemed blonde but as the train pulled to a stop and Martin's window drew nearer was revealed as mostly white. He had a rifle-shaped case over one shoulder. Two bags—one an elaborate backpack that Martin expected cost a few hundred dollars at an outfitter store, and another one that looked more antique: made of rawhide, that slung over the shoulder and looked big enough to hold a laptop. A little bigger. It was lashed shut with what looked like shoelaces.
The train engine exhaled then, and the platform was obscured with a dark cloud.
“You thinking about getting off here?” Adelaide had set down in the chair across from Martin. “Train's stopped.”
“There's nothing here,” said Martin, as he let the curtain fall. “Where would I go--”
“--dressed like that?” finished Adelaide. “Quite right. Are we finished resting yet?”
They continued across the car, and through another passage—and this time, Adelaide paused a moment and fished in the pocket of the robe. He pulled out a silver key and inserted it into the door of the next car. Martin followed him through.
“Now we can rest a little longer.” Adelaide stepped aside so that Martin could see to full effect. It was very impressive—a single room that went half the length of the car, maybe a little further, hung with thick red fabrics along its ceiling. There was a long red leather sofa, a shade darker than that, and further toward the end, a large bed, beside a bookshelf that covered the entire wall. It had its own bar, alongside a small kitchen that was itself adjacent to a deep claw-footed bathtub. There were no windows, and the only light came from electric wall-sconces.
Adelaide shut the door behind Martin.
“This yours?” asked Martin, and Adelaide seemed to redden.
“Oh no,” he said. “I'm in the same car as you. Just two rooms down.”
Martin let himself smile. “So we're stowing away in here?”
Adelaide didn't smile back this time.
“We're guests,” he said, and his hands strayed down to the belt of his robe.
6
Martin actually liked the fucking. Even involving such as the tea-drinking man, even before he met the fellow, when it was just dirty talk on a twink board, Martin fulfilling the role of a man-child, the tea-drinking man playing his part as a doting, long-lost uncle, Martin was quite excited at the prospect a hook-up.
The tea-drinking man had chosen a room at a motor hotel off the interstate, as he ran through town... a family-run business that when Martin arrived after dusk turned out to be shut up for the season. If Martin hadn't been distracted by his own re-orienting schemes and growing erotic anticipation, he might have thought to flee then.
This rail car was a much more suitable place for fucking. The bed was a king-sized affair, with a good mattress and crisp, fresh-laundered sheets, slick with thread-count. The air carried a gentle scent of pipe smoke and aftershave lotio
n. The vibrations of the engine, the occasional shift as the train rounded a bend, provided a sensual agitation during even the most languorous moments. There were tissues at hand, and they were soft.
And little Adelaide proved himself an attentive lover. He was soft, and proportionate, and quite a bit older. But he was not presumptuous. Or perhaps he was presumptuous, just one of those fellows whose own arousal rose only to the extent that he himself could cause it in another. But motive was secondary to effect. Martin liked the fucking, and said so.
“Glad you agree,” said Adelaide. “And I'm happy to oblige. You looked like you could use it.”
He rolled out of bed and padded to the kitchen area, opened up the little refrigerator and pulled out eggs, and a slab of bacon. Still naked, he turned on the range and set a fry pan there. Soon the car was filled with the sweet scent of cookery.
“What is this place?” said Martin finally.
“I wondered why you waited so long to ask.”
“I asked earlier. You gave me a bullshit answer.”
“Kansas. Yes. Ha! No fooling you, I see.”
“So what is it? Where are we? What is this place? This train...”
Adelaide found a spatula and moved the bacon around the pan.
“Well,” said Adelaide, “it's not Amtrak.”
Martin clambered out of bed, brought with him another tissue to wipe away the cooling seed down his flank. He tested his ankle with his weight. It seemed to be doing better.
“It's a club,” said Adelaide. “Or rather a club-house. On wheels. I thought I'd scramble the eggs with perhaps some shredded cheese mixed in. Does that suit?”
Martin preferred over-easy but didn't say. Adelaide continued.
“The train is rather an antique, and I suppose so are we all. But it harks back to an older time, yes? Just as these tracks, which haven't seen proper use in—well, who knows how long?” He cracked the eggs one after another into a mixing bowl, then took a brick of cheddar from the refrigerator and found a cheese-grader in a drawer.
“So I had to stifle a laugh,” he continued, “when you told me that you hadn't a ticket. Because of course there aren't tickets on this train. You're either in--” he started in on the cheese “--or you're out.”
“And I'm in?”
“You're in.”
“So all these tracks,” said Martin, “are abandoned.”
“Well no. Obviously. I mean really, here we are.”
“It must cost something to keep them going.”
Adelaide sighed. “Oh everything costs.”
“How far do they go?”
“Far,” said Adelaide, “and deep. I don't know how far. Like you, I am a guest.”
With his spatula, Adelaide pulled out the bacon and set it on a plate, then poured the eggs and the cheese into the fry pan. It sizzled and popped, and Adelaide flinched as tiny spatters of grease fell on his belly.
“Now you tell me,” he said, indicating Martin's face with his spatula, “what happened to cause that?”
Martin drew a breath. “Well,” he said, “I got kidnapped.”
“My gosh! Kidnapped?”
“That's right,” said Martin. “I was hitchhiking. Late night, couple weeks ago. Fellow in a van pulled up, offered me a ride. It was a cold night with some rain. I was grateful I guess. He had a thermos of tea. Good strong stuff. Offered me a drink of it and I took it.”
“Mm. Because it was cold and wet.”
“I was soaked through. I shouldn't have taken it. But he'd drugged it. Roofies maybe I don't know. I woke up in a little room. Like a little jail cell. He had the whole thing set up. Like he'd done it before. ”
Adelaide nodded as he poured the eggs into the pan, and scrambled them with the spatula as they cooked.
“What did he do to you?”
Martin looked away, to the bookshelf. “He r-raped me,” he said. “He'd come in with a broom handle... make me lie face down... yank down my trousers and make...”
Martin stopped, hoping that Adelaide would consider that enough talk. But no.
“Make what?” said Adelaide.
“Jesus,” said Martin, letting a quavering enter his voice, “he'd fuck me in the ass, you want to know? He'd take his cock and ram it up my ass while he held my head down onto the dirt. Sometimes he'd use that broom-handle.”
Adelaide scraped the eggs onto plates, then divvied the bacon between the two.
“Interesting,” he said.
“That's a word for it,” said Martin.
“That's not what I mean,” said Adelaide. He came around Martin's side with a plate and a fork. “The act as you've described it is not actually very interesting at all. I'm more interested in the things you've not told me.”
Adelaide brushed close to his flank. Damned if older man wasn't hardening again.
“You weren't hitchhiking,” continued Adelaide. “You were cultivating the fellow for weeks, weren't you? In notes, in emails, some pictures of you when--” Adelaide frowned and looked at Martin with a critical eye “--when you were considerably younger, I'd guess. He'd offered you gifts, isn't that right?”
Martin tried to step away, but Adelaide followed and put the plate in Martin's hands. He kept the fork to himself, though.
“What was it—an iPod? An expensive gift for a little boy. And you played right along.” Adelaide flashed that big toothy grin of his again. “You thought you had another mark, didn't you?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I said I got kidnapped.”
“Oh sure you did,” said Adelaide. “That was always his plan, wasn't it? The kidnapping. That's what he liked to do with boys...”
Martin stumbled against the edge of the bed but kept himself upright. Adelaide was pressed hard against him.
“Did knowing that make you feel better about what your plan was?” demanded Adelaide, and he spat: “Thief. Thief and liar.”
7
Martin was fairly certain he'd killed the tea-drinking man on his way out. One can never be completely sure of these things, but Martin thought he had been fairly thorough in the time allotted. It wasn't particularly graceful work—he had simply taken an opportunity when his captor's guard was momentarily down, and then improvised with materials at hand: the broom-handle, the edge of the door before it shut... a claw-backed hammer, applied repeatedly. It made a great deal of noise and quite a mess.
Because of this, Martin didn't tarry long to search the tea-drinking man's residence before he set off. He'd arrived at the motel hoping to see what the man had and abscond with it quietly—assured that he wouldn't contact the police or any other authorities, for fear of exposing himself to prosecution. Given how matters had transpired, Martin thought his own chances of escaping free would be hampered if his pockets were found stuffed with cash and jewelry and other valuables belonging to the dead man. The evidence would undermine the narrative.
Adelaide was a different matter. For one thing, the aftermath wasn't nearly so messy: really just a plate's worth scrambled eggs and bacon to scrape off the carpet, and the pillow to re-fluff. Adelaide was small and chubby and stronger than one might think but not strong enough.
So Martin felt confident taking Adelaide's wrist-watch, a porcelain-banded affair made by Rado, a small fold of large bills in his housecoat pocket, and from there also took the key to the car. Adelaide had already undermined Martin's narrative. Martin settled him into the bed and drew the blankets up to just beneath his pale blue lips, and considered the truer narrative.
Of course this was a club. Of course the tea-drinking man had been a member... that was how Adelaide had known, had called him out on his fabrication. There had been no van, no car, not so much as a motorcycle at the tea-drinking man's house, at least not such that Martin could see. When he left, who was to say the tea-drinking man wasn't set to leave on this train?
Martin dressed himself in the pajamas and robe, the slippers. He wasn't looking forward to the next thing he had to do, but it was ob
viously necessary: he would have to leave the train himself. He would have to flee.
Martin let himself out the door they'd come in through, slid it shut and turned the silver key in the lock. Then between cars, he turned to the side and opened the door to the outside.
It was ill-timed: outside was nothing but air, for hundreds of feet. Martin held to the handle and looked down—past a long wooden trestle, to the rusted mud and rock of what might have been a mine tailing, with tiny black streams moving along it.
He leaned his head out and tried to peer ahead, see where this trestle ended, but it was difficult to tell through the plume of smoke. He surprised himself then, as he considered chancing a jump in any case—perhaps catching on to the trestle itself—perhaps simply missing, and catching himself on the wind. It was a mad notion—the sort of thing that might be borne of remorse, of despair... Or simply raw perversity, as when a child touches a stove it knows to be hot, or an otherwise contented husband slips between sheets with a stranger, or on a dare a drunkard tosses his keys in the river.
Martin had no wish to die and never had. He leaned back inside, slid the door shut, and waited there until the porter arrived to help him to his feet, and led him back inside.
8
“There is a mess, quite a mess I am afraid,” said the porter. “Had you something to do with it?”
Martin didn't know how to answer, but the Porter didn't wait. He asked for the key, and the watch. Martin simply obeyed.
“You thought to leave us?”
“I did,” said Martin.
The porter blinked and turned his head to one side.
“Why?”
Martin hesitated again, but it seemed as though the porter didn't expect an answer. He inserted the silver key back into the lock and turned it. He leaned close to Martin's ear.
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