“Kid, were you kidnapped?”

“Yes,” Luke said, and began to cry. “And those men . . . the one who says he’s my uncle, and the cop . . .”

“MATTIE! Wipe your ass and come ON!”

“I’m telling the truth,” Luke said simply. “If you want to help me, let me go.”

“Well, shit.” Mattie spat over the side of the boxcar. “Seems wrong, but that ear of yours . . . those men, you’re sure they’re bad guys?”

“The worst,” Luke said. He was actually ahead of the worst ones, but whether or not he was able to stay there depended on what this man decided to do.

“Do you even know where you are now?”

Luke shook his head.

“This is Wilmington. Train’s gonna stop in Georgia, then at Tampa, and finish up its run in Miami. If people are looking for you, APB or AMBER Alert or whatever they call it, they’ll be looking in all those places. But the next place it stops is just a shit-splat on the map. You might—”

“Mattie, where the fuck are you?” Much closer now. “Stop fuckin around. We gotta sign out.”

Mattie gave Luke another dubious look.

“Please,” Luke said. “They put me in a tank. Almost drowned me. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

Footsteps crunched on gravel, approaching. Mattie jumped down and trundled the boxcar door three-quarters of the way closed. Luke crawled back into his nest behind the small engine gear.

“Thought you said you were gonna take a shit. What were you doing in there?”

Luke waited for Mattie to say There’s a kid stowed away in that box, gave me some crazy story about being kidnapped up in Maine and stuck in a water-tank so he don’t have to go with his uncle.

“I did my bi’ness then wanted a look at those Kubota walk-behinds,” Mattie said. “My Lawn-Boy’s just about to drop dead.”

“Well, come on, train can’t wait. Hey, you didn’t see any kid running around, did you? Like maybe he hopped onboard up north and decided Wimmington would be a nice place to visit?”

There was a pause. Then Mattie said, “No.”

Luke had been sitting forward. At that single word, he put his head back against the boxcar wall and closed his eyes.

Ten minutes or so later, Train 9956 gave a hard jerk that ran through the cars—there were now an even one hundred—like a shudder. The trainyard began to roll past, slowly at first, then picking up speed. The shadow of a signal tower ran across the floor of the boxcar, and then another shadow appeared. A man-shadow. A grease-spotted paper bag flew into the car and landed on the floor.

He didn’t see Mattie, only heard him: “Good luck, outlaw.” Then the shadow was gone.

Luke crawled out of his hiding place so fast he cracked the good-ear side of his head on the housing of a riding lawnmower. He didn’t even notice. Heaven was in that bag. He could smell it.

Heaven turned out to be a cheese-and-sausage biscuit, a Hostess Fruit Pie, and a bottle of Carolina Sweetheart Spring Water. Luke had to use all his willpower to keep from drinking the whole sixteen-ounce bottle of water at a single go. He left a quarter of it, set it down, then snatched it up again and screwed on the cap. He thought if the train took a sudden yaw and it spilled, he would go insane. He gobbled the sausage biscuit in five snatching bites and chased it with another big swallow of water. He licked the grease from his palm, then took the water and the Hostess pie and crept back into his nest. For the first time since riding down the river in the S.S. Pokey and looking up at the stars, he felt that his life might be worth living. And although he did not exactly believe in God, having found the evidence against just slightly stronger than the evidence for, he prayed anyway, but not for himself. He prayed for the highly hypothetical higher power to bless the man who had called him outlaw and thrown that brown bag into the boxcar.

24

With his belly full, he felt like dozing again, but forced himself to stay awake.

Train’s gonna stop in Georgia, then at Tampa, and finish up its run in Miami, Mattie had said. If people are looking for you, they’ll be looking in all those places. But the next place it stops is just a shit-splat on the map.

There might be people watching for him even in a little town, but Luke had no intention of going on to Tampa and Miami. Getting lost in a large population had its attractions, but there were too many cops in big cities, and by now all of them probably had a photo of the boy suspected of killing his parents. Besides, logic told him he could only run so long. That Mattie hadn’t turned him in had been a fantastic stroke of good fortune; to count on another would be idiotic.

Luke thought he might have one high card in his hand. The paring knife Maureen had left under his mattress had disappeared somewhere along the way, but he still had the flash drive. He had no idea what was on it, for all he knew nothing but a rambling, guilt-ridden confession that would sound like gibberish, stuff about the baby she’d given away, maybe. On the other hand, it might be proof. Documents.

At last the train began to slow again. Luke went to the door, held it to keep his balance, and leaned out. He saw a lot of trees, a two-lane blacktop road, then the backs of houses and buildings. The train passed a signal: yellow. This might be the approach to the shit-splat Mattie had told him about; it might just be a slowdown while his train waited for another to clear the tracks somewhere up ahead. That might actually be better for him, because if there was a concerned uncle waiting for him at the next stop, he’d be at the depot. Up ahead he could see warehouses with glittering metal roofs. Beyond the warehouses was the two-lane road, and beyond the road were more trees.

Your mission, he told himself, is to get off this train and into those trees as fast as you can. And remember to hit the ground running so you don’t face-plant in the cinders.

He began to sway back and forth, still holding the door, lips pressed together in a thin stress-line of concentration. It was the stop Mattie had told him about, because now he could see a station-house up ahead. On the roof, DUPRAY SOUTHERN & WESTERN had been painted on faded green shingles.

Got to get off now, Luke thought. Absolutely do not want to meet any uncles.

“One . . .”

He swayed forward.

“Two . . .”

He swayed back.

“Three!”

Luke jumped. He started running in midair, but hit the cinders beside the track with his body going at train speed, which was still a bit faster than his legs could carry him. His upper body tilted forward, and with his arms extended behind him in an effort to maintain his balance, he looked like a speed-skater approaching the finish line.

Just as he began to think he might catch up with himself before he went sprawling, someone shouted “Hey, look out!”

He snapped his head up and saw a man on a forklift halfway between the warehouses and the depot. Another man was rising from a rocker in the shade of the station’s roof, the magazine he’d been reading still in his hand. This one shouted “Ware that post!”

Luke saw the second signal-post, this one flashing red, too late to slow down. He instinctively turned his head and tried to raise his arm, but hit the steel post at full running speed before he could get it all the way up. The right side of his face collided with the post, his bad ear taking the brunt of the blow. He rebounded, hit the cinders, and rolled away from the tracks. He didn’t lose consciousness, but he lost the immediacy of consciousness as the sky swung away, swung back, then swung away again. He felt warmth cascading down his cheek and knew his ear had opened up again—his poor abused ear. An interior voice was screaming at him to get up, to beat feet into the woods, but hearing and heeding were two different things. When he tried scrambling to his feet, it didn’t work.

My scrambler’s broke, he thought. Shit. What a fuckup.

Then the man from the forklift was standing over him. From where Luke lay, he looked about sixteen feet tall. The lenses of his glasses caught the sun, making it impossible to see his eyes. “Jesus, kid, what in the hell did you think you were doing?”

“Trying to get away.” Luke wasn’t sure he was actually speaking, but thought he probably was. “I can’t let them get me, please don’t let them get me.”

The man bent down. “Stop trying to talk, I can’t understand you anyway. You took a hell of a whack on that post, and you’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Move your legs for me.”

Luke did.

“Now move your arms.”

Luke held them up.

Rocking Chair Man joined Forklift Man. Luke tried to use his newly acquired TP to read one or both of them, find out what they knew. He got nothing; when it came to thought-reading, the tide was currently out. For all he knew, the whack he’d taken had knocked the TP clean out of his head.

“He all right, Tim?”

“I think so. I hope so. First aid protocol says not to move a head injury, but I’m going to take a chance.”