Then he turned to the burned man, who writhed and whimpered on the ground. After stilling him with a command, Macurdy turned him onto his belly and pulled up the charred sweater, the scorched shirt. The bum was less severe than he'd expected, the skin red but not charred, blisters rising. He'd never had great confidence with burns, but now, without Arbel to lean on, it seemed he'd learned his lessons better than he'd realized.
When he'd finished, he looked around. "Who'll help me with these guys?" he asked. The others stared, awed and a little fearful of him.
"I will," said the Indian. "What do we do?"
"We'll help them to the yard and ask the bulls to call an ambulance. These burns can get infected, and that cut's deep enough, it might tear through. If it does, he'll likely die." They helped both men to their feet, and through the jungle to the railyard. One of the bulls had heard the screaming and called the sheriff's office; a sheriffs car had arrived before Macurdy and the Indian. The car had a short-wave radio, something new in police equipment. The deputy used it to call for an ambulance, then questioned Macurdy and the others while they waited.
When he'd finished, he stared hard at Macurdy. "I should book you for vagrancy, but I won't. Just get out of here and don't let us see you again."
Macurdy nodded-Chief was being as inconspicuous as anyone can who stands six feet and weighs 230-and the two of them headed back to the jungle. "How are your hands?" Chief asked.
"My hands?"
"You used them to beat out the flames in that guy's clothes." Macurdy peered at them. It was too dark to see whether they were burned or not. "Okay, I guess. They don't hurt." He contemplated the question as they walked. Maybe healing the others had healed his hands, or maybe somehow they'd never been burned. He was pretty sure he'd felt no pain.
Dutch had watched their goods while they were gone, and after asking a few questions, retired to his bedroll. Chief laid dry sticks on the coals and blew them into flame, then the two large men sat without talking, Macurdy examining his hands by the firelight. It was Chief who broke the silence. "I'm going to tell you my name," he murmured. "I don't tell it to a white man very often. Only when I have to, like to get a job. It's Roy. Roy Klaplanahoo."
Macurdy repeated it quietly. "Roy Klaplanahoo. Mine is Curtis Macurdy. You already knew the Curtis part."
Roy nodded. "I saw how you lit the fire. The others thought you used a match, but you didn't. Then when you stopped that guy's bleeding, I knew what you are: You're a shaman. I never heard of a white shaman before."
"Yeah. I apprenticed to a white shaman named Arbel. That was in another country. But then I got away from it."
"What are you going to do in Oregon?"
"I thought maybe I could get a job logging there."
"My brother and me log sometimes for the Severtson brothers. Swedes. They like us because we turn out lots of logs. They're pretty good to work for; don't cheat anyone, not even Indians. And they feed good. Maybe they'll hire you."
"Thanks. It should be easier where I know someone." That was the end of their conversation for a while. They watched the fire die down again, then went back to where they'd bedded before. "You want to use my blanket?" Macurdy murmured.
"Your blanket? What will you use?"
"That's something else I learned from Arbeclass="underline" how to keep myself warm."
Roy considered that remarkable statement for a minute, then nodded. "Thanks. I could use another blanket." He got up and laid the blankets on top of each other, then rolled up loosely in them. "When we get where I live," he said, "you can stay with my family as long as you want."
No more was said, and after a while, Roy's aura told Macurdy the Indian was asleep. In no hurry to sleep himself, Macurdy lay awake with his thoughts. At first they were of his ex-wives, Varia and Melody, but after a bit shifted to a giant wild boar named Vulkan, a four-legged sorcerer large enough that Macurdy could ride on its bristly shoulders.
Strange thoughts that soon blurred into stranger dreams.
3
Discovering Oregon
Near dawn, Roy shook Macurdy awake. "It's time to go," he said quietly, "before it starts to get daylight."
For a moment Macurdy lay there, his dream receding like a wave from a beach, leaving a brief wash of images and impressions. The principal image was of Vulkan, who in the dream had called himself a bodhi sattva. Macurdy had no idea what a bodhi sattva was.
Silently he rolled to hands and knees, got to his feet and looked around. A half moon had risen about midnight and begun its trip across the sky. Roy was rolling his bindle, and Macurdy rolled his. Then, bindles slung on shoulders, they entered the railyard, keeping to the shadows of freight cars. They could hear the chuffing of a yard engine, the clash of couplings in long chain reactions as a train was assembled. In the night it sounded spooky. The yard seemed a maze of tracks, and to move through it inconspicuously required crossing some of them. Often this meant climbing between cars, and a string of them could jerk into deadly motion without warning.
Others from the jungle had preceded the two, and at the far end, Roy and Macurdy waited with three of them in the shadow of a hopper car, watching the main line. Finally a tandem of line engines rolled slowly past, followed by freight cars gradually picking up speed. The men moved out of the shadows, trotting alongside. An empty boxcar pulled even with Roy, and grasping the edge of the open door, the burly Indian pulled himself in, then rolled to hands and knees and helped Macurdy. A moment later they stood in shadowed darkness, their legs braced against the swaying. Macurdy sniffed a familiar aroma. Alfalfa. This car had hauled baled hay recently.
Dawn also traveled west, and soon overtook them. Roy had blocked the door open with a length of dunnage stashed in the car, and part of the time they stood watching the countryside roll by. And feeling their stomachs grumble, for they had eaten only twice in two days. From time to time they drank, barely, from their canteens, swallowing a short mouthful only after swishing it around for a few seconds.
Occasionally, at some high plains village, the train paused. Cars would be shunted onto a siding-empties to be filled or laden cars to be emptied. The men kept out of sight then, grateful when the train began moving once more without their car having been cut from it.
By midmorning, Macurdy had seen his first big mountains, bigger and more abrupt than any he'd seen in Yuulith. By noon they were hemmed in by them, and several large locomotives-"Mallies" Roy called them-had been added to. drag the train over the continental divide. Macurdy got a look at the massive black engines, spouting gritty black smoke as they passed their own freight cars on a hairpin curve.
That evening their car was part of a string cut out in the yard at Missoula. By then they were glad to get out; they were out of water, and their stomachs complained constantly. Other 'boes were disembarking too, and Roy quickened his pace.
"We got to be first," he told Macurdy. "Find a restaurant or grocery store and see what they got in their garbage. You can always find something, but after other guys have picked through it, it's kind of bad." They were in the lead when they saw a cafe ahead. It was closed. "Let's find one open," Macurdy said. "I've got a little cash. We can eat a real meal."