"Yes, ma'am," he said, his tone neither friendly nor unfriendly.
"A man who's got only one hand, not much taller than me. Has he been in here?"
"You mean today?"
"Today or yesterday."
The man shook his head.
"Not to my recollection."
"Are you sure? It's important."
"I see a lot of folks," the man said, "but I think I'd remember someone like that."
Rachel turned and glanced out the window, then placed the twenty-dollar bill on the counter.
"How far will this get me and a young one."
"Which direction you headed?"
For a few moments, Rachel did not answer. On the wall behind the ticket master was a map of the United States, black lines woven across it like a spider's web. She found Tennessee, then let her eyes follow the knitwork of lines northwest.
"We want to go to Seattle, Washington."
"Twenty dollars would get you far as Saint Louis," the man said.
For a few moments Rachel contemplated going to the house to get more money.
"Once on the train we can get tickets for the rest of the way?"
The ticket master nodded.
"Part way will have to do," Rachel said. "When does it leave?"
"An hour and a half."
"Is there one leaves sooner?"
"Nothing but freight trains."
Rachel paused a few moments, then handed over the bill.
"These will get you to Saint Louis," the man said, placing two tickets before her and the two quarters in change.
Rachel picked up the tickets but left the quarters.
"That fellow I told you about. If he comes around asking…"
The man lifted the silver from the counter and placed it in his vest pocket.
"I've not sold any tickets to a woman and a child," he said.
She paused at the depot's doorway, looking back toward town before crossing the tracks and entering the house. Mrs. Sloan sat at the kitchen table peeling apples, Jacob in the back room napping.
"That man the sheriff told me to watch for," Rachel said. "I seen him uptown."
Rachel hurried on to the back room. She took the money and bowie knife from under the pillow and stuffed them in the carpetbag with what items she thought most needed. Mrs. Sloan came into the room.
"What can I do to help you?"
"Get yourself over to your sister-in-law's and stay there," Rachel said, and lifted Jacob from the bed. "Call the sheriff and tell him Galloway's here."
The older woman came to her, the toy train engine and sock of marbles in her veiny hands.
"Don't forget these," Mrs. Sloan said, stuffing the toy train engine in the sock as well and knotting it. "He'd be put out something awful if you left them."
Rachel placed the sock in her dress pocket, and she and Jacob were quickly out of the house and crossing the tracks to the boxcar, the best place to wait because she could see both the house and the depot. See but not be seen, Rachel told herself. She crossed the last rail and looked over her shoulder toward town and saw no one. Jacob whimpered.
"Hush now," she said.
Rachel stepped quickly through the blackberry bushes, not pausing when briars clutched her dress. She lifted Jacob and the carpetbag into the boxcar before getting in herself.
At first there was only gloaming. As her eyes slowly adjusted, Rachel saw a mattress made from corn shucks stuffed between two rotting quilts, beside it yellowing newspapers and an empty sardine can. Whoever he is, he'll not come back till it cools off some, Rachel thought. She set Jacob and the carpetbag down, then stepped to the back of the boxcar and pinched the quilts between her thumbs and forefingers to slide the makeshift mattress closer to the doorway. A gray blur shot out of the pallet, its body and long tail brushing an ankle as it passed between her legs and then on through the doorway. A rustling in the briars and then nothing.
Rachel prodded the pallet with her shoe. Nothing else emerged and she slid the pallet the rest of the way. She sat down, the shucks rasping as she leaned and lifted Jacob onto her lap. The boxcar rattled as a freight train passed, moving so slow Rachel could read the words and numbers on each car as it passed wide and high before her. Several of the freight cars' sliding metal doors were open. From one of them a hobo peered out.
After the caboose glided by, Rachel fixed her gaze on the house. Soon Mrs. Sloan came out, a suitcase in her hand. The old woman walked with a steadfast stride toward town. A few minutes later a man went inside the depot, came out and walked toward town as well. The day had been warm for early fall, and the boxcar had stored the day's heat like a kiln. Beads of sweat formed on Rachel's brow, the dress cloth beginning to stick between her shoulder blades.
Jacob leaned forward and pointed at a lizard clinging to the doorway. The lizard's back and legs were as bright green as a cinnamon fern. On its throat a red bubble of flesh expanded and contracted, but otherwise the creature lay completely still.
"Pretty ain't it," Rachel told Jacob.
After a few moments, the lizard crawled farther up the rusty metal and paused again. The lizard's green dulled to a light brown, and it soon blended so perfectly with the rusty metal as to be invisible. There's a trick we could sure use, Rachel thought.
Jacob settled deeper into her lap, sleepy enough not to fret about the boxcar's heat. His breath took on the cadence of sleep, and not long after that twilight settled in. A pale swollen moon appeared in the sky, crowding out the lesser stars as it pressed closer to earth. A thin whiteness spread over the ground like hoarfrost. Another freight train passed. Less than an hour, Rachel told herself, eyes shifting from the house to the depot.
The boxcar finally began to cool, the day's heat leaking away with the light. A man and woman stepped into the depot, came out and sat on the wooden bench to await the train. Soon several other travelers joined the couple. Lights flickered on and cast the depot in a yellow light. No one approached Mrs. Sloan's house. Something rustled near the boxcar door, and Rachel saw a rat's snout tentatively emerge.
"Shoo," she said and pulled a shuck from the pallet to throw if the rodent ventured closer, but at the sound of her voice it disappeared back into the undergrowth.
Jacob woke and began to fuss. Rachel checked his swaddlings but they were dry. Hungry then, she told herself, and set the child on the pallet. She took one of the graham crackers from the carpetbag and gave it to him. The moonlight continued to thicken, the train tracks gleaming as if gilded in silver. Not a wisp of cloud passed overhead. Rachel looked up at the sky and saw the moon was no longer white but deepening into an orange hue.