Without standing, Emmett eased his way backward toward the gap that he’d just leapt across. Finding the ladder with his feet, he slid farther back, climbed down, and collapsed on the narrow platform, heaving from the exertion and burning with self-recrimination.
What had he been thinking? Jumping from car to car at a sprint. He could easily have been thrown from the train. Then what would have happened to Billy?
The train was moving at least fifty miles an hour now. At some point in the coming hour it was sure to slow, then he would be able to make his way safely back to their car. Emmett looked down at his brother’s watch to log the time, only to find that the crystal was broken and the second hand frozen in place.
Pastor John
When Pastor John saw that there was somebody asleep in the boxcar, he nearly moved along. When one has far to go, there is much to be said for companionship. The journey in a boxcar is long in hours and short in common comforts, and every man, however vagabond, has a story that may edify or entertain. But ever since Adam last saw Eden, sin has been lodged in the hearts of men such that even those predisposed to be meek and kind may of a sudden become covetous and cruel. So, when a weary traveler has in his possession a half-pint of whiskey and eighteen dollars that he has earned by the sweat of his own brow, prudency counsels that he forgo the benefits of fellowship and pass the hours in the safety of his own solicitude.
This is what Pastor John was thinking when he saw the stranger sit up, switch on a flashlight, and direct its narrow beam upon the pages of an oversize book—revealing that he was no more than a boy.
A runaway, thought Pastor John with a smile.
No doubt he’d gotten in a tiff with his parents and slipped away with his rucksack over his shoulder, setting out in the manner of Tom Sawyer—little reader that he was. By the time he reached New York, the boy would welcome the moment of his discovery, so that he could be returned by the authorities to his father’s stern reproach and his mother’s warm embrace.
But New York was still a day’s journey, and though boys may be impetuous, inexperienced, and na?ve, they are not without a certain practical intelligence. For while a grown man who storms off in the heat of anger is likely to do so with only the shirt upon his back, a boy who runs away will always have the foresight to pack a sandwich. Perhaps even a bit of his mother’s fried chicken left over from the night before. And then there was the flashlight to consider. How often in the last year alone would Pastor John have found it providential to have a flashlight near at hand? More times than he could count.
—Well, hello there!
Without waiting for a response, Pastor John climbed down the ladder and brushed the dust from his knees, noting that while the boy had looked up in some surprise, he had the good manners not to train the beam of his light on a newcomer’s face.
—For the foot soldiers of the Lord, began Pastor John, the hours are long and the comforts few. So I, for one, would welcome a little company. Do you mind if I join you by your fire?
—My fire? asked the boy.
Pastor John pointed to the flashlight.
—Forgive me. I was speaking in the poetical sense. It is an occupational hazard for men of the cloth. Pastor John, at your service.
When John offered his hand, the boy rose and shook it like a little gentleman.
—My name is Billy Watson.
—A pleasure to meet you, William.
Though suspicion is as old as sin, the boy didn’t betray a hint of it. But he did exhibit a reasonable curiosity.
—Are you a real pastor?
Pastor John smiled.
—I do not have a steeple or bells under my command, my boy. Rather, like my namesake, John the Baptist, my church is the open road and my congregation the common man. But yes, I am as real a pastor as you are likely to meet.
—You are the second person of the cloth that I have met in two days, said the boy.
—Do tell.
—Yesterday, I met Sister Agnes at St. Nicholas’s in Lewis. Do you know her?
—I have known many a sister in my time, the pastor said with an inward wink. But I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of knowing one named Agnes.
Pastor John smiled down at the boy, then took the liberty of sitting. When the boy joined him, John expressed his admiration for the flashlight and wondered if he might take a closer look. Without a moment’s hesitation, the boy handed it over.
—It’s an army surplus flashlight, he explained. From the Second World War.
As if to marvel at the flashlight’s beam, Pastor John used it to survey the rest of the boxcar, noting with pleasant surprise that the boy’s rucksack was bigger than it first had seemed.