He came around and studied her for a moment, then asked, “Was it Derby that split y’all up?” He must’ve seen the answer in her expression, because he said, “Figured.”

“The blame wasn’t all his. The split was my daddy’s doing. He’s a hard man. He disapproved of Derby’s sinful ways.”

“Drinking and dancing?”

She huffed a laugh. “To my daddy’s mind, even a game of dominoes will send you to hell. Derby enjoyed egging him on. One day Daddy had enough and put his foot down. He told me that Derby’s sinfulness was rubbing off on me, and that if I married him, no one in my family would be allowed to utter my name again. Not ever. It would be as though I’d never been born.”

She gazed down at her sleeping daughter, relieved that her stern, intolerant father would never exercise any influence over her. “Fine, I told him. I didn’t want to be a member of a family so wrathful and unloving. Both of us meant what we said. Mama, of course, had to go along with Daddy.”

Her mother’s plight made Laurel sad. She’d been cowed into letting Laurel go without a quibble. But there was no help for that. Her mother, taking seriously her submissive role, had made her bed, and she would die in it.

Suddenly it occurred to Laurel that she unwittingly had been taking that same path. If she hadn’t yielded to Derby’s irrational decision, hadn’t gone dumbly along for harmony’s sake, she wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Her father-in-law was saying, “Maybe after what’s happened, your folks will take you back. I’m happy to drive you up there—”

“No,” she said swiftly and firmly. “Thank you for offering, but I won’t go back.”

Irv rubbed his bristly chin, looked down at Pearl, then at Laurel. “Well then, looks like you’re stayin’.”

Three

May 1920

Thatcher had worn out his welcome.

He knew it, although he tried not to act like he did. He lay on his back, using his duffel bag as a pillow, fingers linked over his stomach, fedora covering his face.

He pretended to be asleep. He was far from it. He was acutely aware of everything going on inside the boxcar, the atmosphere of which had turned ripe to the stinking point with hostility.

Beneath him, the wheels of the train rhythmically clickety-clacked over the rails, but their noisy cadence didn’t drown out the snores of the three men sharing the freight car with him. Thatcher didn’t trust their snorts and snuffles. They were too irregular and loud. Like him, they were playing possum, waiting for an opportunity to spring.

The door to the car had been left partially open to provide them fresh air. The gap was no wider than a few feet. Three, four at best. Once he made his move, he couldn’t hesitate. He would get only one chance, so, within a second or two of moving, he’d have to make a clean jump through that slim gap.

If he didn’t make it out, a fight was inevitable. Three against one. Bad odds in any contest. Until fate had put them together on this train, they’d been strangers to him and to one another. But last night, somewhere between coastal Louisiana and wherever they were now, the other three had become unified against him.

The last thing he wanted was a damned fight. He’d fought in one. A bloody one. He’d been on the winning side of it, but victory hadn’t felt as glorious as people had let on. To his mind, the loss of so many men and women wasn’t a fit reason to hold parades.

No, he wouldn’t welcome a fight, but if he had to defend himself, he would, and he wouldn’t fight fair. He hadn’t cheated death in France to die in this railroad car that reeked of its cargo of yellow onions and unwashed men.

One advantage the other three had over him was that they weren’t new to riding freights. He was the amateur. But he’d listened to their idle conversation, had paid attention, had sifted the facts out of the bullshit.

They’d jawed about the stationmasters who were charitable and looked the other way when they spotted a hobo, and others who were die-hard company men, “by-the-rules sons o’ bitches” who were well known up and down the line for showing no mercy to men they caught hitching a ride.

Thatcher’s plan had been to wait until the train began to slow on the outskirts of the next town and to get off before it reached the depot, in case the stationmaster there happened to be one of the less tenderhearted.

But these men, who were seasoned in the art, were probably expecting him to do just that. No doubt their plan was to jump him before he could jump from the train.

They were on a track that cut across the broad breast of Texas where towns were few and far between. But within the last few minutes, Thatcher had decided that no matter how desolate the landscape was where he landed, it would be safer than staying in this boxcar and at the mercy of men who didn’t have anything left to lose.

Jumping from a moving train couldn’t be much worse than being thrown from a horse, could it? He’d been pitched off too many times to count. But he’d never been thrown when it was full dark, when he didn’t know his exact location or where his next drink of water would come from.

How long till daylight? He didn’t dare check his wristwatch. The army invention was still a novelty to folks who hadn’t been issued one during the war. He didn’t want to draw attention by consulting the time, which would be a giveaway that he was awake and planning a departure.

As unobtrusively as possible, he used his index finger to raise his hat just far enough to gauge the degree of darkness beyond the opening. Since the last time he’d sneaked a look, the rectangular gap had turned from solid black to dull gray.

Moving only his gaze, he looked toward the men who were a short distance away, lying at various angles to each other. Two were snoring loudly, feigning sleep. One, Thatcher could tell, was watching him through slitted eyelids. Thatcher lowered his finger from the underside of the brim. His hat resettled over his face.

He forced himself to breathe evenly while he counted to sixty. Then in one motion, he lurched to his feet as he popped his hat onto his head and grabbed his duffel bag by the strap. He made it to the opening and hurled his bag out.

Just as he was about to spring, one of the men grabbed his sleeve from behind.

Shit!

Thatcher came around and swung his fist toward the guy’s head, but he saw it coming, ducked, and held on to Thatcher’s sleeve like a bulldog. Out the corner of his eye, he saw another approaching in a crouch, making wide swipes with a knife.