As they rounded a curve Tim sat up and took in their situation. Ahead of the car he had boarded was one boxcar, shielding them from the fireman and the engineer. Behind, there were three more boxcars. A red lantern marked the end of the train but apparently nobody rode the last car. All the cars must be empty. They bounced and jerked until it seemed they would jump the track. A good horseman might keep up with the train for a while in open country, but he would find it hard in country like this.
They had not traveled far when they entered a wood where the trees pressed close on either side.
Red shouted, “How far to the end of the line?”
“Thirty-five or forty miles at most.”
The train thundered onto a wooden trestle. The trestle groaned and the fish joints set up a chorus of screams. A milky mist rose from the dark, still waters surrounding the roots of the swollen trees. It drifted thinly through the moss and vines that hung unmoving in the chill night air.
Red reached under his blouse and pulled out his watch. The cracked crystal glinted in the dim light. He stopped up one ear and pressed the watch against the other, grinned and nodded. “Better ride less than an hour, I should think.”
The train jumped so much and the light was so bad that they couldn’t read the hands through the cracks in the glass. Tim faced the rear of the car and lit a match. It was just past ten. He blew out the match. “Let’s jump at ten to eleven.”
As the train left the trestle it slowed to pass through a sleeping village, then gathered speed again. Red asked, “You want to sleep?”
Tim shook his head and lay on his back and watched the moon and the stars standing in the heavens as the train barreled through the night. When they next lit a match it was quarter to eleven. Tim was uneasy. It seemed to him the train was slowing down. He said, “Let’s jump.”
Red got to his feet. “I’ll go first. Jump wide.” He gripped a stanchion and watched the ground below them, blurred by the speed of the train. The land was flat and grassy with a thicket here and there. Red reared back and jumped into the wind and Tim followed, flexing his knees against the shock of the ground. At the moment of jumping, the air sucked him back while the train roared on. He hit the ground and rolled clear of a patch of undergrowth. He felt as if one knee was twisted but when he got to his feet it seemed all right.