After that night, the night Petey died, the shootings stopped. The story on the Northside was that Petey had been the Denver Shooter. I knew that was wrong, but I never corrected anyone who told that story. Some things never change.
Part III
Things To Do in Denver When You’re Young
Ways of Escape
by Barbara Nickless
Union Station
The dogs heard me coming before I could see them in the dark. Rex and Terror, my dad’s hunting dogs, a pair of black Labs. He’d raised them from pups, loved them like children; they were the only creatures around here he never hit.
The Labs roused themselves in the dog run and shook off the night’s chill — the sound of their feet padding on concrete guided me as I edged my way forward. I was moving from memory so I wouldn’t need a light. Fifteen steps from my window to the dog run with a slight angle west to reach the gate.
My fingers clasped the latch and lifted it. My heart was thunder in my chest, banging out, Run, run, run! But I eased through the gate and patted the dogs’ rough fur, felt their noses warm and moist in my cupped hands. I fed them from the bag in the shed and knelt to whisper into their ears how much I’d miss them.
I’d thought about taking Terror with me. He was younger than Rex. Tougher. But if I took my dad’s dog, then he’d sure as hell come after me.
When I let myself out of the run, the dogs crowded after me, whining as I closed the gate. I wondered if they would miss me. I wondered if I’d see them again.
Seventeen steps to the side of the house. I was halfway there when the world turned a velvety gray, the stars morphing from diamonds to pearls. The house and the fence and the trees took form like a fade-in on a movie screen.
I picked up my pace. But as I cut around the side of the house and jogged past the porch, Mom called out softly, “Persephone.”
My name in her mouth was as soft as the rustle of silk. But it might as well have been a fist.
I stopped.
“Mom.” I hung my head so that my hair covered my face. I hadn’t wanted her to know I was leaving until I was long gone. So that he couldn’t ask her about it. So that she wouldn’t have to lie.
More than anything, I was afraid she’d ask me to stay. Because if she asked, I would. Which meant I’d never get either of us away from here. I’d disappear into the chaos of our home like wood surrendering to flame.
But Mom said, “I’m glad you’re going, Seph. Truly.”
I raised my head. She was on her feet on the porch, a white blanket around her shoulders. She hadn’t turned on any lights; all I could see in the spreading dawn was the swollen left side of her face, the mark of his hand still on her cheek. Last night, Dad’s rage had been a cyclone.
My eyes burned. “It’s not for long, Mom. Six months tops. I’ll have enough money saved by then. I’ll come back for you and we’ll—”
“Stop.” Her gait had a sideways hitch as she hobbled to the top of the stairs. “Just promise me you’ll take care.”
“I will.” The knife’s leather sheath pressed hard against my ankle.
“You know how much I love you, right?”
“I know.”
“Don’t forget it. Now go. I’m just going to stand here and watch my last child walk away.”
“Six months,” I said again. Then I turned my back on the house and her and once I was walking, I walked fast, staying in the weeds and out of the gravel on the long lane that led to the road, avoiding even that small sound. I turned back once, but though the world was brighter, the ranch house was nothing but angled darkness.
Mom was a mere patch of white.
My plan was to catch a westbound freight across the Colorado plains to Denver’s Union Station. Dad might tear apart our town looking for me. He might talk to the sheriff, get him to issue an APB.
But he’d never think to look for me on a freight train.
Union Station was my lodestar.
I walked for an hour in the warmth of the climbing sun. When I reached the rail yard fence, I turned back to take a last look at the faded homes, the broken asphalt, the row of businesses with their empty storefronts and dusty windows, the derelict slaughterhouse. I breathed in sunbaked earth and animal dung and a flat, fetid scent Mom called the reek of despair.
I gave the town the finger then slipped through the hole in the fence that I’d found two weeks earlier. The gap was hidden behind an old cottonwood tree and the boards all around were bright with graffiti. I wondered how many kids had used this opening to slip into the yard and catch out on their dreams, most likely headed to Denver, same as I was.
Two trains sat idle in the yard, just as I’d expected. I’d done my research — I’d memorized schedules and numbers. Not for nothing was I known as a nerd. I hunkered down next to a shed until I was sure the coast was clear. It would have been better to go at night when I couldn’t be spotted. But Dad didn’t let me sleep anywhere except my own bed. He would have known right away that I’d run.
When I was sure the coast was clear, I hurried along the westbound coal train, looking for an empty boxcar — the five-star hotel of rail riding. But I had to make do with a coal hopper. I clambered up the ladder and settled on the metal platform. It was spacious. The overhang of the car would give me some shelter and, as long as I lay flat, the steel skirting provided cover from any railway police.
My biggest fear was that once Dad realized I’d run, he’d hire Mark Endcott. The first time my dad hit my mom hard enough to break something, it was Endcott who showed up at our door after I called 911. My mom told him she’d tripped, and he’d told her she should be more careful.
He’d known damn well what had happened. No doubt he’d had a good laugh with my dad about it later. Can’t let ’em get uppity, he’d probably said.
Endcott left the sheriff’s office a few years back and opened a private practice. He spied on cheating spouses and roughed up anyone who bounced a check or couldn’t pay their tab at the Dirty Saddle. He also hunted down runaways. A lot of kids took a good hard look at their parents’ lives — the debts, the violence, the alcohol — and decided they weren’t sticking around to see how things turned out. After hanging out his shingle, Endcott found nine of those kids and hauled them back. When he dropped them off with their parents, they were all sporting bruises.
The coal hopper gave a hard jerk. The floor of the platform vibrated. Metal shrieked up and down the line.
I broke into a sudden, terrified sweat. For a moment I was so scared that I almost jumped clear of the train with the thought that I could get home before Dad even knew I’d been gone.
“Stronger every day,” I whispered to myself. It had been my mantra since I was thirteen.
Surely some of it had stuck.
I crawled to the edge and watched as the train picked up speed, the floor humming beneath my hands and knees. Minutes later, we were out of the yard and rolling past yellow-gold grassland. Hereford cattle grazed in the distance. Clouds swept over the sun and the sky turned gray, heavy with the hope of rain. I unlashed my tarp from the frame of my backpack and used the pack to hold it down until I needed it.