Kohn stood on the back platform of the
train. He saw many things most would not: where deer, dogs and other
fauna had crossed the tracks, where hobos had hopped, as well as,
jumped from the train and their numbers. He could see up-turned
leaves, bent branches and gravel disturbed from a foot fall like you
or I might read a book. It's my notion that there was more to it than
his regular senses. His eyes took in the whole of the receding
scenery without a turn of his head. When he saw what he was looking
for, he went back inside the rail car and grasped the emergency
brake. He paused and smiled.
He waited. His thimbles tapped gently
on the brake handle. He waited even though it meant a further walk to
the spot along the tracks where a couple of kids had rolled into the
brush, likely kin the way they were holding on to one another. It was
a good five minutes before his moment arrived.
The large woman who had earlier eyed he
and his thimbles with disgust, rose from her seat to make her way to
the privy. She had also spoken ill of him to her young traveling
companion in a voice loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to
pretend it wasn't.
Kohn yanked on the cord. The train
wailed and screeched like a wounded animal. The sudden stop sent the
woman flying in a rustling bloom of petty coats. She gave a soprano
wail mid-air and landed in the aisle like a beef side on a butcher's
block.
Kohn thought he could hear her corset
pop several seams upon impact.
He pulled his sachel off the rack,
stepped out the door and off the back of the train. He walked East,
ignoring the conductor's calls to him.
“Sir, SIR! Return to this train at
once!”
My kids huddled in the pines just short
of a meadow looking at the quiet looking farm before sun up. They had
never seen so many trees in all their lives, but they were too hungry
to care about the scenery. Billy had his eyes on the chicken coop.
“Look Ruby, eggs!”
“You set foot in with them chickens
they're gunna raise cain and next thing you know you'll have a blast
of rock salt in your seat. 'Sides, how we gunna cook em anyhow?”
They carefully plied the tall grass
towards a patch of garden. They stepped over a wire fence that aimed
to keep the critters out. Ruby grabbed small heads of cabbage and
green tomatoes off a vine supported by a trio of sticks. William
found him a strawberry patch.
“Ruby, look!” he whispered.
“Shhh!”
He held out his shirt and dropped the
berries in, though most were pinkish and hard. Some were dark and
soft. They smooshed in in fingers.
“Hey!” a man yelled from near the
farm house.
The kids' heads popped up like startled
deer.
“Run Billy.” shouted Ruby.
Billy tried to jump the fence but his
boot caught the wire and he went down, squashing his loot of berries.
He stopped to collect them. Heavy footfalls him scared him into off
the tall grass before he'd recovered a one.
Ruby ran in
a parallel path of her brother's for the pines. Her dress and its
stolen contents she held up in her one good arm. Her bare knees
scraped against the weeds and grass, they felt raw and cold. A hidden
rock met her boot and she sailed forward and crashed onto her arm.
She cried out. Pain shot from her shoulder in its tender state. Her
toe was throbbing to boot.
“Ruby!” Billy cried out.
“Run!” cried her voice from
somewhere in the grass. “Run stupid!”
Ruby heard footsteps in the grass
making their way towards her. She felt around for a rock, a stick,
anything to defend herself with. A figure with immense shoulders
filled the sky above her. A hand reached down and grabbed her by the
arm. She shrieked in pain. The hand let go.
“You're hurt,” said a surprisingly
gentle voice.
Ruby limped back to the small house
with the man. She glanced back at the pines.
“Come on back boy, no one's gunna
hurt you. This girl's hurt, we're going to get her fixed up.”
William stayed hidden.
“I've got eggs, little bit of bacon
if you're hungry.” Shouted the man back towards the pines as he
helped Ruby along.
A head popped up out of the grass.
In the house the broad shouldered man
helped Ruby into a chair.
“What'd you do to that shoulder
miss?” He said noting the underwear sling she was wearing.
“I... fell.”
“Right off a train from the look of
ya.”
She looked up at him. “Maybe. Not
that it's any of your business.”
“Like stealin' from my garden? No
matter. Let's get some chow going, then we'll have a look at that shoulder.”
“William, slow down!” Ruby said to
her brother. He was on his second plate of bacon and eggs. His shirt
front was stained red from the cache of strawberries he had landed
upon.
“Ah, he's hungry,” said Ben.
“Now we gotta fix you up girl,”
he said wiping his hands and hanging the rag in front of the stove.
“You a doctor?”
“Better, I was a medic in the war.
Pull your dress down over your shoulder so I can take a look.”
“I'll do no such thing!” Ruby clutched her collar. Ben just
stood before her. Ruby grumbled and looked downward. She fumbled with
the buttons with her good hand.
“I'll do it,” Ben said. Ruby shrunk
back but he reached out pulled her back straight. “It's just
doctorin', girl it don't mean for nuthin'. Yer just a skinny thing anyway."
"I ain't that skinny."
Ruby lowered her good arm, but she couldn't keep from
blushing. Ben un-did a few buttons and pulled her collar to the side,
baring her shoulder. He looked at her just as if she was a lame calf
or a broken plow. His large hand nearly covered her entire shoulder
as he palpated the injury. It was warm and rough.
“Just as I thought. No cuts though, that's good.”
“What? What is it?” Ruby said
pulling her collar back shyly and held the ends together.
“Hold still.”
Ben walked around behind. Two large
arms wrapped around her.
“What are you doing? Unhand me!”
The arms squeezed her tight and his
hand gripped her wounded wing pulling it back and outwards.
“Ow! OW! Stop it, you're hurting me.”
He only pulled harder.
“OWWW!”
Her arm felt like it would be pulled
right off her body. She screamed. William jumped on Ben and began
beating his back. Ruby felt her shoulder pop with a sharp pain. Ben
released her and paid no heed to the boy hanging on him, fists
still pounding.
Ruby jumped out of her chair and backed
away. She instinctively rubbed her shoulder. Her expression softened.
“Hey... the pain, it's all gone!”
Ruby rotating her arm experimentally. “It feels... a little sore, but fine! Billy...
BILLY! Get off him.”
Billy's boots clomped to the floor when
he let go.
“How'd you do that?” she said.
“Your arm bone was out of the socket.
I just reduced it, popped it back. It'll be a little sore for a few
days, but...”
“That's amazing!” Ruby said moving
her arm every which way. She was feeling lightheaded in the sudden
absence of the pain, almost euphoric.
“You some sort of wizard?” William
asked, rubbing his fists.
“Nope. Saw a few things like that in
the army. Wish that was the worst I saw.”
“Our Pa died in the war.”
“Billy, hush.” Ruby chided.
“But he did!”
“It ain't polite.”
Ben was quiet for a long spell. He
fixed Ruby some breakfast.
I can't imagine what that man saw. Sure
enough, I was there in France myself, right in the trenches. But my
number came up before my boots were broke in. You want to think of
life like a hand of cards: you loose, you get another hand, and
another; always another hand. But I hadn't fired a single bullet and
it was all over for me, no second chance at bat, no more innings, no more games. The
loudest sound I'd ever heard in my life was followed by the greatest
silence I ever could have imagined. Like I told ya though, I wasn't angry, that all goes away with the noise.
I'm watchin' over my kids, as you know.
I can't explain to ya how, but I'm sittin' in the state hospital with
my Lottie every moment at the same time. Even now she looks prettier to me
than she ever did. Living eyes would barely see the girl I first met.
Yes she was a head turner, a real lady
of a well-to-do family from Philadelphia. I was the son of a man who
hauled bags of flour on his back. I was dirty and covered with sweat
from doing the same when I went meet my brother at Burlington station in
Omaha. She was an angel dressed in finery being helped from a private
car with a gloved hand.
No one ever would have guessed on that
day I would be the lucky man to put a ring on her finger. No one except me.
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