The Black Train (18 page)

Shit! Two little kids, and they don’t know I’m here,
Collier realized. It would likely scare them if he announced himself. The young one stepped into the water and continued looking down at the other, who sat with her back to Collier and seemed to be leaning over.

scritch-scritch-scritch

What the hell is she doing?
Then Collier almost screamed when a feisty mud-colored dog trounced in his lap and began licking his face. “Jesus!”

Both girls looked over, and the younger one said, “Look. A man’s there,” in a sharp Southern accent.

The blonde’s accent seemed more lazy. “Hey, mister. That’s just our dog. Don’t worry, he don’t bite.”

“He’s a good dog!”

Collier had to palm the dog back. He wasn’t sure, but in the animal’s enthusiasm, he thought it might be humping his leg.

“Leave the man alone!” one of them squalled.

The mutt broke off, running excited circles in the clearing. But Collier knew at once:
That’s the dog I…think…I saw in my room.

“What are you doin’ there, mister?” the dark-haired one squawked. She had smudges of dirt on her dress, and there was something about the way she stood and the way she looked at him that seemed hyperactive.

“I, uh, oh, I was just taking a nap.”

“Too much whiskey, huh, mister?” supposed the older one. She kept her back to him, and was leaning over as if looking into the creek.

“An alkie!” the younger girl half shrieked. “A rummy, like Mother says! Says there’s lots of ’em.”

Collier’s head thunked. “No, no, I’m staying at the inn.” Then he lied. “It’s nothing like that. I was just taking a nap in the woods, because it’s nice out.”

“Rummy! Rummy!” The little girl danced in the water, while the mongrel joined her.

Precocious little shit,
Collier thought.

“Shut up, Cricket. Don’t be disrespectful…”

scritch-scritch-scritch

Collier felt he had to prove something now. Very carefully he stood up, and noticed that he’d slept off some of the drunk. Some but not all.
Careful.
He walked over. “What are you girls doing over here? I hear this noise.”

The dirty blonde looked up, smiled with a doughy face that seemed to droop. Her eyes looked dull in spite of the big, proud smile. “I’m shavin’ my legs, ’cos I’m a young lady now, and I gotta do ladylike things.”

“That’s what our mother says,” the younger one seemed to regret. “I can’t wait till I’m a young lady, too, so I can shave my legs.”

Collier almost winced at the sight. A cup of shaving lather sat beside the blonde, and indeed, she was shaving her legs in the creek, with an old-fashioned straight razor.

scritch-scritch-scritch

Then she splashed the lather off with creek water.

“Oh, wow, you should be careful,” Collier warned. “You ought to do that at home. If you cut yourself, you could get all kind of germs from that water.”

Both girls traded bewildered glances. Now the blonde splashed off some more, shot her gleaming legs up. She wriggled her feet in the air, and seemed pleased with the
effect. “There,” she drawled. “All smooth now, just like a real lady.” The doughy face beamed back up. “My name’s Mary, and this here’s my sister, Cricket. I’m fourteen, she’s eleven.”

“Hi,” Collier said, and tasted a waft of old beer.

The younger girl jumped out of the water and poked him with a finger. “What’s your name, mister?”

“Justin.”

A toothy grin turned Cricket’s face into a lined mask. “You ain’t one’a them fellas who messes with little girls, are ya? Ya don’t look like it.”

Out of here!
Collier thought.
Kids these days—they see all this molestation stuff on
Oprah
.
“No, no, but you girls have a good day, I have to go.”

“Aw, Cricket! What’cha say that for? Now you got him scared. Don’t go, mister. She’s just teasin’.”

“No, I’ve got to—” He winced again. “Please, Mary, be careful with that razor—”

Now she was doing her underarms, rather obliviously.
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
She shaved the lather out of one armpit, then flipped it off the blade into the water. Collier noticed a thread-thin line of red.

“See, you’ve cut yourself—”

“Aw, it’s just a nick, but I can’t do it right with this hand.” She held up her index finger.

First glance made Collier think she was wearing a fat dark ring but then he realized it was a bruise.

“I got one, too, but not as bad.” Cricket showed her own finger. “I stole a piece of sugarloaf from the store and got caught.” A manic giggle. “But that ain’t as bad as what Mary got caught doin’—”

“Shut up!”

The gritted-teeth mask again. “She got five minutes ’cos she got caught kissin’ a boy at school!”

Mary laid a hard hand across the back of her sister’s thigh. The sound cracked through the woods.

“Ow!”

“Serves ya right. Mister, don’t listen to her.”

Collier’s mind churned over too much at once. Who were these girls? Were they staying at the inn? Collier doubted it.
Probably a trailer park nearby.
Then:
Those bruises,
he pondered. He couldn’t forget Mrs. Butler’s painful demonstration of the “Naughty Girl Clips” in the display case…

scritch-scritch-scritch

“Oh, please, you really shouldn’t do that…”

Now the blonde was shaving the other armpit.

“Do mine next, do mine next!” Cricket insisted.

“There ain’t nothin’ to shave!” Mary almost wailed. “You ain’t got no hair yet!” Another gleeful smile shot back to Collier. “She’s jealous, mister, ’cos I got hair and she don’t. I got the blood, too.”

Collier’s throat thickened. “The…blood?”

“The Curse of Eve, like our mother told us ’bout. Eve did somethin’ bad in the Garden of Eden, so now all girls get the curse. But the curse gives us hair. Ain’t that right, mister?”

Collier stood speechless. He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you, uh, are you girls from town?”

“Oh, yeah. We was born here.”

“Where are your parents?”

Cricket wriggled her toes in creek mud. “Our father’s away workin’ and our mother’s at home. Where
you
from, mister?”

“California—”

Both girls traded another glance that seemed in awe.

“—but I’m just visiting here. I’m staying at Mrs. Butler’s inn.”

Mary splashed off her other armpit. It occurred to Collier just then that, for sisters, the girls couldn’t have looked more different.

“We don’t know no Mrs. Butler.”

Must be from a nearby town, and wandered over here.
But…had it really been that dog he’d seen last night?
No. It was just a dream. Just a hallucination…

Yet it wasn’t
too
far-fetched to think that the dog may have gotten inside. Mrs. Butler had even suggested the possibility.

“Oh, yeah,” Mary informed. “There’s a man at the cooper’s named Butler, but he ain’t got no wife.”

Cricket piped in, “One time he was all drunk and he offered us half a dollar to show him our—”

“Cricket! Be quiet!”

Collier’s contemplations stretched like taffy.

“Hey!” Cricket wailed now. “What’choo doin’?”

The dog frolicked in the water, chasing plops of floating shave cream. It seemed to be trying to eat them.

“He’s a silly dog,” Mary offered.

“Sometimes
real
silly…”

Now the dog yipped, thrashing circles in the woods. At one point it stopped abruptly, to defecate. It seemed to look right at Collier.

“He’s poopin’!”

“I have to go—good-bye,” Collier said quickly and began to walk off.

“Don’t go yet!” Cricket objected. “Don’t’cha wanna watch Mary shave her…”

Collier lengthened his strides.

As he made off, he heard:

scritch-scritch-scritch

He walked straight in spite of the dizziness: half drunk, half hungover. He slowed his pace up the hill he hoped to God would take him back to the inn.
White-trash kids or something,
he guessed.
Poor, negligent parents, no decent role models.
It happened everywhere. Then he thought:
Or maybe…

Maybe it was another hallucination.

The finger clips? The dog? A young girl shaving her legs in a creek?

The half-heard sound of giggling stopped him. But he must be a hundred yards away now.

Some perverted gremlin in his psyche made him turn against his will.

And peer back down into the woods.

The girls were still at the creek. “Dirty dog!” Cricket reveled amid a flood of more giggling that could only be Mary’s.

Collier’s stomach turned at what he saw, or
thought
he saw. Then he jogged as best he could for the inn.

1861

“Good work, men!” Morris barked to slaves and white men alike. He stood before the work site on the back of the rear guiding car for the pallet train. Then he shielded his eyes and looked down the line as dusk approached. “I say it looks to me like some
mighty
good work! Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Poltrock?”

Poltrock stood aside, distracted. He was looking at the numbers: how many iron track rails and fish-bolt plates the crew had consumed since last Friday.
Can that be right?

Morris grinned at him, hands on hips. “I guess Mr. Poltrock didn’t hear me—” All the rest of the men, the Negroes included, laughed.

Poltrock snapped out of it. “Yes, Mr. Morris. Perhaps even better than mighty fine…”

Morris’s long hair lifted in a breeze. “Until Sunday mornin’ then”—one of the strong-armers clanged the bell—“we are all off shift!”

Roughly a hundred and fifty men disbanded from their ranks, shining in sweat, bent by fatigue, but cheering as they broke away for the campsites. The bell clanged on, jarring Poltrock’s brain.

“End of another week.” Morris rubbed his hands together. “Hard to believe we’re deep in Georgia territory now. Goin’ on four years, ain’t it? Seems like ’bout six, eight months, if you ask me.”

Poltrock barely heard him. Only then did he notice a long side-knife in a tin scabbard flapping on Morris’s hip. “Mr. Morris, what
is
that thing on your hip? Looks part sword, part D-guard knife.”

The blade whispered when Morris unsheathed the fourteen-inch tool. “It’s called a saber-bayonet, sir. Fancy, ain’t it? It’s made’a folded steel from the Kenansville Armory. They add somethin’ called chromium to the metal—shit won’t rust even if ya leave it in a bucket’a water overnight. And the brass hilt’s so hard you can use it for a hammer.”

“Why’s a crew chief need a knife that long?”

“Don’t really need it at all—” Morris turned the blade till it flashed. “It’s just…pretty, I guess. Women got their fussy jewelry, but men got their guns and knives, I suppose.”

The point had never crossed Poltrock’s mind, but it was novel. “Now that you mention it, I guess I feel much the same ’bout my Colt .36,” he said, and gestured to the revolver on his hip. “Don’t have much real use for it neither, not with this army of strong-armers Mr. Gast’s hired on. If the slaves were gonna rebel, they’d’ve tried that a long time ago.”

“They’d have to be crazy to rebel,” Morris said. “They’ll be free men when we’re done. A’course, there are still some Indians who get their dander up. All of us’d be wise to always carry somethin’ for protection.”

“Forearmed is forewarned…Or is it the other way around?”

“Speakin’ of Indians—” Morris peered out past the work site.

Poltrock saw some figures straggling toward them.

“Beggars, probably. Or maybe some whores for tonight,” Morris presumed. “But gettin’ back to what we were talkin’ ’bout—time’s goin’ by so fast. I wanted to ask how many miles’a track have we laid so far? Bet we’re surely past 350, don’tcha think?”

“I only add the monthlies up twice a year, but—shit—yeah. Fast as it seems we’re goin’ we could be close to 350. We could be.”

“You fixin’ to count up the week now?”

“Yes, but don’t let Mr. Fecory leave till I get back. Probably take me a half hour.”

“I’ll tell him,” Morris said. He was squinting at the slow approaching figures. “It’ll take him more than that to pay the white crew anyhow.” Now Morris slapped some dust from his beard. “And I am
ready
for some whiskey tonight. How ’bout you?”

Poltrock closed his notebook, still perplexed by his numbers. “What’s that? Oh, yeah, maybe…”

Mr. Gast gave everyone Saturday off, but Poltrock often wondered about the man’s choice of days.

Sunday
was the typical day of rest.

Nevertheless, things could get fairly wild. Whiskey was brought in, and several head of cattle. And some squaws were allowed on the grounds, too.
Eshquas,
they were called. Mr. Gast didn’t mind some whore tents being set up for Friday nights, for the whites to use to relieve their tensions.

Poltrock’s mind snagged on something. “Wait a minute. Now that I think of it, I remember the quartermaster tellin’ me earlier that no whiskey had been delivered today. I didn’t see any supply train come in earlier, did you?”

“Damned to hell. No, I didn’t.” Morris appeared as though a bad taste had come into his mouth.

“I know that a coupla times, Mr. Gast bought kegs of whiskey from the nearby towns. Don’t make sense to train it in from home every week—”

“In Georgia? Shit, Mr. Poltrock. Georgia don’t know from whiskey any more than goddamn Massachusetts knows from cotton.”

Poltrock smiled, perhaps for the first time in a week. “I guarantee, after a week’a hard work like this, it’ll do just fine.”

“I hope you’re right. Probably tastes like somethin’ from a piss barrel.” Morris sighed, putting a closer eye on the figures coming forward. “But a coupla whores will surely get the ticket. Here come some now, I’d say.”

Poltrock could see them even in the dimming light: some Indian women in stitched leggings and sleeveless yokes fashioned from tattered hide. Their eyes looked huge on flinty faces. “Just what kind’a Indians are they anyway?”

“Nanticoke,” Morris answered. “They was mainly in Maryland until the state militias killed ’em off ’bout fifty years ago. Most of ’em headed north—and froze to death—but some of ’em drifted south. Georgia gave ’em some reservations just like they done up in New York with the Iroquois. Some’a these here squaws look damn good, too. They fuck for ten cents and a swig, then take the money back to their men.” Morris rocked on his tiptoes a moment. “Yes, sir, I’ll have my cock in some’a
that
tonight.”

Poltrock had to credit the strange women for their resilience at least. He counted exactly four of them, and he knew they’d be taking on fifty horny white men till late tomorrow night. A lot of the men would go four or five times.
Like Morris,
he knew. Morris had a thing for whores. A lot of the men did.

“Look at that ’un there,” Morris said. “That’s the one I’se gettin’ first…”

Poltrock squinted. It was easy to tell which squaw Morris was highlighting. Three looked older and weatherworn, but a fourth appeared quite a bit younger and more endowed. The girl/woman’s breasts were so large they strained the rawhide strings that held the yoke together.

“That’s some tits on that Injun, huh, Mr. Poltrock?” Morris made the useless query. “A fella could do all
kinds’
a things with some tits like that.” Morris waved mockingly at the girl, and said under his breath, “Hey there, ya dirty little bitch. You’s’ll be all full up with my spunk a right shortly.”

Poltrock felt tired, and maybe coming down with a cold. He didn’t share his colleague’s lusty zeal at all.

“Here comes Cutton,” Morris noticed.

“I need to talk to him,” Poltrock said, and stepped down off the guiding car.

“Afternoon to ya, Mr. Poltrock,” the younger man greeted. “Or—damn—I should say good
evenin’!
Where the days been goin’ lately?”

Poltrock pulled out a panatela that he was entitled to from Mr. Gast’s private stock. They came all the way from Florida. Before he could reach for a match, Cutton had one burning for him.

“Thank you,” he puffed. “And I wanted to ask you somethin’, Mr. Cutton.” He held up his record book. “We seem to be goin’ through rail and fish bolts a right fast. Did somebody increase the order for the last shipment?”

Cutton nodded, then took a chew of tobacco himself. “Yes, sir, they did.”

“Who? The supply master?”

“No, sir. Mr. Gast. He mentioned to me—oh, I’m not exactly sure when—but he said he’d been bringin’ in 10
or 15 percent more the past coupla weeks. Rail, too, a’course. There’s a new iron works in Kentucky he’s buyin’ it from, he told me. Tredegar’s runnin’ ’cos the clock makin’ cannons in case there’s a war.”

Poltrock filtered out the useless details. “Ten to fifteen percent more? No wonder my figures didn’t seem right…”

“The men are workin’ hard, so far as I can see. If you were a slave with freedom at the end of the line, wouldn’t you work extra hard?”

“Yes, I surely would—” Poltrock scratched his ear. Hard work was one thing.
But…this?
He knew he’d need to work the numbers again. This could be very interesting…

“Would you round up my horse, please, Mr. Cutton? I’m going to go count the rails.”

“Yes, sir. We all know it’s Friday when Mr. Poltrock counts the rails. Sure I can’t be of assistance to ya?”

“No, no, it’s somethin’ I need to do by myself.”

“I’ll fetch your horse…”

Cutton jogged off. Morris cut him a silent grin, then climbed down himself. “What’s that about fish bolts, Mr. Poltrock?”

“Oh, nothing. Probably just some bad accounting.”

A big man with a pistol in his hand followed a small man in a red derby.
Mr. Fecory,
Poltrock saw. Fecory’s face looked shriveled, and his odd gold nose flashed.

“Well, I say hey there, Mr. Fecory!” Morris greeted loudly.

“Mr. Morris,” the little man replied. He nodded as if he had a kink in his neck, and carried a leather suitcase that everyone knew was full of cash. “Are you happy to see
me,
or just happy that it’s payday?”

“Why, I’m happy to see
you,
sir!”

“Um-hmm.” The weaselish man nodded to Poltrock, too.

“I don’t suppose you could just slip Mr. Poltrock and
me our pay right now so’s we don’t have to wait in line,” Morris gestured next.

“I am certain, Mr. Morris, that you work as hard as everybody else; therefore, you can wait in
line
—like everybody else.”

“I
knew
you’d say that…”

Fecory dipped a finger up and down like a teacher. “This isn’t a chow line, you know. You need to sign your receipt, sir, just like—”

“Everybody else,” Morris finished. “Shit,” he muttered to Poltrock after the paymaster crossed the track toward the camp.

“We’re in no hurry, Mr. Morris,” Poltrock reminded.

“I know, sir. It’s just that we’se rail men—we live for our Fridays, and I can tell you that I am
all
riled up for some drinkin’ and carryin’-on.”

Poltrock was no different from any man, but since he’d signed on with Gast, he seemed to notice some conflict within himself. He barely drank on Fridays—hadn’t in months—and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d solicited a whore. Even during the three-day respites Gast granted them the first of every month—sometimes Poltrock would retreat to the bunkhouse and recheck his inventory book, leaving the revel to everyone else.
Guess I’m just gettin’ old,
he told himself too often, or was it something more? Behind his spirit, something glowered, as if to whisper,
This is all wrong and you know it. You ain’t the Christian your fine upright parents raised. They’d be ashamed…

Would they? What
was
it?

Morris’s mood was feisty as always, but his eyes looked dark. Poltrock didn’t know if it was his imagination but sometimes the eyes of the other men shined in a dull brown-yellow cast…

“And you can bet,” Morris continued, “that I am lookin’ forward to the next respite.”

“Ain’t even been two weeks since the last one,” Pol
trock reminded him. “Honestly, Mr. Morris, you’re like a kid in a rock candy shop.”

Morris’s grin sharpened. “Yeah, but it ain’t candy that this rail man needs to get his hands on.” Morris was about to say something else, but then his eyes shot wide. “What the
hell?
”

“Something wrong?”

“Look at that there—that strong-armer—”

One of Gast’s big security men seemed to be rousting the four squaws, waving them off and yelling, “Not tonight! Get your asses out’a here!”

“What the hell’s he doin’ runnin’ off our whores!” Morris exclaimed. “Hey, you there! Don’t run them Injun girls off! We need ’em for tonight!”

The strong-armer held his long rifle out like a barricade. “Mr. Gast’s orders, sir,” he shouted back. “No whore tents tonight, and no whiskey…”

Morris was outraged, his anticipations punctured.

“You heard him,” Poltrock said.

“Well—damn it all! It’s
Friday!
It ain’t like we don’t deserve it, hard as we worked this week. Why’s Mr. Gast cancelin’ our fun?”

“’cos he’s the boss, so the reason don’t matter.”

The squaws jabbered back in their own language, clearly irate.

“I said get out!”

Another security man rushed to assist.
“Dahdeeya!”
he yelled at the women, and pointed back to the range.
“Nahah!”

Finally, the women got it, and began to skulk back the way they came.

“Aw, ain’t that a bust in the chops,” Morris lamented. “Now I might not
never
have a turn with that bigtitter…”

I wonder why Gast ordered them off,
Poltrock thought. The sound of slow hooves grabbed his attention; Cutton
was walking his horse over. “Here she is, sir.” He dismounted and passed the reins to Poltrock. “Too bad ’bout Mr. Gast callin’ off the Friday cookout’n all. Hope he ain’t disappointed with our work of late.”

“So you heard about it, too,” Poltrock said. “I’m a bit curious myself. It’s looking to me like this might’ve been one of our most productive weeks.”

“Feels like it in my bones, at least.” Cutton smiled forlornly. “Sure you don’t want me to help ya count rail, sir?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, Mr. Poltrock. I’m off to get my pay, not that I got anything to spend it on with no whores or whiskey tonight.” Cutton flagged Morris. “Come on, Morris! Let’s get in the pay line less’n we’ll be standin’ at the end of it!”

The two men departed. Poltrock could see across the track where Fecory and his security bulldog had set up the pay station. A rowdy line formed fast.

Poltrock walked his horse off. Was there something strange in the air tonight? In a sense, there always was; he could never put his finger on it.

Two younger white laborers bantered as they unloaded boxes of spikes from a ten-foot handcar. “So he told me he could
see
her up there in the window, prancin’ ’cos stark nekit.”