The train came to a stop, and Luke stacked the boxes again, working by feel. They were heavy, but he managed. He had no idea where he was, because in Sturbridge the door of the Southway Express box had been shut all the way. He went back to his hidey-hole behind the boxes and small engine equipment and waited, feeling miserable.

He was dozing again in spite of his hunger, thirst, full bladder, and throbbing ear, when the door of the boxcar rattled open, letting in a flood of moonlight. At least it seemed like a flood to Luke after the pure dark he’d found himself in when he woke. A truck was backing up to the door, and a guy was hollering.

“Come on . . . little more . . . easy . . . little more . . . ho!”

The truck’s engine switched off. There was the sound of its cargo door rattling up, and then a man jumped into the boxcar. Luke could smell coffee, and his belly rumbled, surely loud enough for the man to hear. But no—when he peeked out between a lawn tractor and a riding lawnmower, he saw the guy, dressed in work fatigues, was wearing earbuds.

Another man joined him and set down a square battery light which was—thankfully—aimed at the door and not in Luke’s direction. They laid down a steel ramp and began to dolly crates from the truck to the boxcar. Each was stamped KOHLER, THIS SIDE UP, and USE CAUTION. So wherever this was, it wasn’t the end of the line.

The men paused after loading ten or twelve of the crates and ate doughnuts from a paper sack. It took everything Luke had—thoughts of Zeke holding him down in the tank, thoughts of the Wilcox twins, thoughts of Kalisha and Nicky and God knew how many others depending on him—to keep from breaking cover and begging those men for a bite, just one bite. He might have done it anyway, had one of them not said something that froze him in place.

“Hey, you didn’t see a kid running around, did you?”

“What?” Through a mouthful of doughnut.

“A kid, a kid. When you went up to take the engineer that Thermos.”

“What would a kid be doing out here? It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

“Aw, some guy asked me when I went to get the doughnuts. Said his brother-in-law called him from up in Massachusetts, woke him out of a sound sleep and asked him to check the train station. The Massachusetts guy’s kid ran away. Said he was always talking about hopping a freight out to California.”

“That’s on the other side of the country.”

“I know that. You know that. Would a kid know that?”

“If he’s any good in school, he’d know Richmond is a fuck of a long way from Los Angeles.”

“Yeah, but it’s also a junction point. The guy said he might be on this train, then get off and try to hop one going west.”

“Well, I didn’t see any kid.”

“The guy said his brother-in-law would pay a reward.”

“It could be a million dollars, Billy, and I still couldn’t see any kid unless a kid was there to see.”

If my belly rumbles again, I’m finished, Luke thought. Deep-fried. Nuked.

From outside, someone shouted: “Billy! Duane! Twenty minutes, boys, finish up!”

Billy and Duane loaded a few more Kohler crates into the boxcar, then rolled their ramp back into the truck and drove away. Luke had time to catch a glimpse of a city skyline—what city he didn’t know—and then a man in overalls and a railroad cap came along and ran the Southway door shut . . . but this time not all the way. Luke guessed there was a sticky place in the track. Another five minutes passed before the train jerked into motion again, slowly at first, clicking over points and crossings, then picking up speed.

Some guy calling himself some other guy’s brother-in-law.

Said he was always talking about hopping a freight.

They knew he was gone, and even if they found the Pokey downstream from Dennison River Bend, they hadn’t been fooled. They must have made Maureen talk. Or Avery. The thought of them torturing the information out of the Avester was too horrible to contemplate, and Luke pushed it away. If they had people watching for him to get off here, they’d have people waiting at the next stop, too, and by then it might be daylight. They might not want to cause trouble, might just observe and report, but it was possible they’d try to take him prisoner. Depending on how many people were around, of course. And how desperate they were. That, too.

I might have outsmarted myself by taking the train, Luke thought, but what else could I do? They weren’t supposed to find out so fast.

In the meantime, there was one discomfort of which he could rid himself. Holding to the seat of a riding lawnmower to keep his balance, he unscrewed the fuel cap of a John Deere rototiller, opened his fly, and pissed what felt like two gallons into the empty gas tank. Not a nice thing to do, an extremely mean trick on whoever ended up with the rototiller, but these were extraordinary circumstances. He put the gas cap back on and screwed it tight. Then he sat down on the seat of the riding lawnmower, put his hands over his empty belly, and closed his eyes.

Think about your ear, he told himself. Think about the scratches on your back, too. Think about how bad those things hurt and you’ll forget all about being hungry and thirsty.

It worked until it didn’t. What crept in were images of kids leaving their rooms and going down to the caff for breakfast a few hours from now. Luke was helpless to dispel images of pitchers filled with orange juice, and the bubbler filled with red Hawaiian Punch. He wished he was there right now. He’d drink a glass of each, then load up his plate with scrambled eggs and bacon from the steam table.

You don’t wish you were there. Wishing that would be crazy.

Nevertheless, part of him did.

He opened his eyes to get rid of the images. The one of the orange juice pitchers was stubborn, it didn’t want to go . . . and then he saw something in the empty space between the new crates and the small engine gizmos. At first he thought it was a trick of the moonlight coming through the partly opened boxcar door, or an outright hallucination, but when he blinked his eyes twice and it was still there, he got off the seat of the mower and crawled to it. To his right, moon-washed fields flashed past the boxcar door. Leaving Dennison River Bend, Luke had drunk in all that he saw with wonder and fascination, but he had no eyes for the outside world now. He could only look at what was on the floor of the boxcar: doughnut crumbs.

And one piece that was bigger than a crumb.

He picked that one up first. To get the smaller ones, he wet a thumb and picked them up that way. Afraid of losing the smallest into the cracks in the boxcar floor, he bent over, stuck out his tongue, and licked them up.

21

It was Mrs. Sigsby’s turn to catch some sleep on the couch in the inner room, and Stackhouse had closed the door so neither phone—the landline or his box phone—would disturb her. Fellowes called from the computer room at ten to three.

“9956 has left Richmond,” he said. “No sign of the boy.”

Stackhouse sighed and rubbed at his chin, feeling the rasp of stubble there. “Okay.”

“Shame we can’t just have that train pulled over on a siding and searched. Settle the question of whether or not he’s on there once and for all.”

“It’s a shame everyone in the world isn’t in a big circle, singing ‘Give Peace a Chance.’ What time does it get to Wilmington?”

“Should be there by six. Earlier, if they make up some time.”

“How many guys have we got there?”

“Two now, another on his way from Goldsboro.”

“They know better than to get intense, right? Intense people rouse suspicions.”

“I think they’ll be fine. It’s a good story. Runaway boy, concerned folks.”

“You better hope they’re fine. Tell me how it goes.”

Dr. Hendricks came into the office without bothering to knock. There were circles under his eyes, his clothes were wrinkled, and his hair was standing up in a steel-gray ruff. “Any word?”

“Not yet.”

“Where’s Mrs. Sigsby?”

“Getting some badly needed rest.” Stackhouse leaned back in her chair and stretched. “The Dixon boy hasn’t had the tank, has he?”

“Of course not.” Donkey Kong looked vaguely offended at the very idea. “He’s not a pink. Farthest thing from one. To risk damaging a BDNF as high as his would be insane. Or to risk extending his abilities. Which would be unlikely but not impossible. Sigsby would have my head.”

“She won’t and he goes in it today,” Stackhouse said. “Dunk that little motherfucker until he thinks he’s dead, then dunk him some more.”

“Are you serious? He’s valuable property! One of the highest TP-positives we’ve had in years!”

“I don’t care if he can walk on water and shoot electricity out of his asshole when he farts. He helped Ellis get away. Have the Greek do it as soon as he comes back on duty. He loves putting them in the tank. Tell Zeke not to kill him, I do understand his value, but I want him to have an experience he’ll remember for as long as he can remember. Then take him to Back Half.”

“But Mrs. Sigsby—”

“Mrs. Sigsby agrees completely.”