"Allen reports special left Oldtown at 9.45."
Joe had certainly been drinking that night last week when he had got fresh with Sally.
"Thirty-three still losing south of Anderson."
He jotted the words down and sent his O.K.'s while his head, it seemed to him, recoiled physically from each rapid stroke of the little brass bar.
Sonny, sent by his mother, had come to tell him that night, panting up the stairs, his eyes wide and excited. Tolliver had looked from the window towards his home, his face flushed, his fists clenched, his heart almost choking him. Then he had seen Joe, loafing along the road in the moonlight, and he had relaxed, scarcely aware of the abominable choice he had faced.
"NT. NT. NT."
His own call. Tolliver shrank from the sharp blows. He forced himself to a minute attention. It was division headquarters.
"Holding twenty-one here until thirty-three and the special have cleared."
Twenty-one was a freight. It was a relief to have that off the road for the emergency. He lay back when the striking at his head had ceased.
It was unfortunate that Joe and he alone should be employed at the tower. Relieving each other at regular intervals, they had never been at the house together. Either Tolliver had been there alone with his wife and his son—or Joe had been. The two men had seen each other too little, only momentarily in this busy room. They didn't really know each other.