“You said you’re with the CCC?” the station attendant said.
“That’s right,” Paul said.
“Well, there’s a camp down in Hillsborough County, out toward Tampa, and I could get you on a train headed that way tomorrow afternoon. Bunch of you boys are down there. Working on a park.”
“We aren’t heading to a park,” Paul said. “We’re going to build a bridge. A highway bridge. In the Keys.”
“Well, don’t know that you can get on another train to the Keys till late tomorrow. If you’re still headed that way, then why did you-”
Arlen interrupted him and pulled Paul aside.
“Here’s the problem, as I see it,” he said, fumbling out a cigarette and lighting it. “It’s not just a matter of finding another train. It’s a veterans’ camp, not juniors, you know that. They didn’t want you down there in the first place. Now those fellows are going to show up ahead of us and tell this tale, and we’re going to have ourselves a reputation before we arrive. Understand?”
Paul gave him a long look, one that said, You’re going to be the one they’ve heard tales about, not me, but he didn’t let the look turn into words.
“So there you’re going to be,” Arlen said, “in a camp where you don’t belong, and now they’ll see you coming and see a problem. That’s my fault, not yours, but it’s the fact of the matter, son. I wasn’t sure I could get you a hitch down there to begin with. Won’t be near as easy now. So could be time we think about a different direction.”
All of this sounded like wheedling even to Arlen, and it dropped Paul Brickhill’s face into a sullen frown. This was the first time in their short acquaintance that Arlen had actually seen him show displeasure.
“We had it all set and planned,” Paul said. “You got a worry with that train, okay. We need to get on another one, though!”
“I don’t know,” Arlen said. “Let’s just hold on a minute here, all right? I’m not sure of what we need to do now.”
What Arlen wanted, now that they were off the train, was to head in the opposite direction, try to forget this had ever happened. He’d drifted on his own for so many years and it was so much easier to do that. Now he had Paul with him, and with every word that came out of the boy’s mouth Arlen wanted to walk off alone, the way he always had before.
“Not sure?” Paul echoed in disbelief. “Arlen, shoot, there’s no question about it! We’re due in the Keys, and we better find the next train!”
That fed Arlen the inspiration he required. The kid was ardent about rules, one of those who just shook and rattled at the idea of balking orders. He was arguing now because Arlen had been trying to convince him instead of giving him the boss voice and the boss attitude.
“Look here,” he said, “ain’t going to be a debate held. Fact is, we got off the train and changed the plan. Something about that you don’t understand? You too dull-minded to realize that your pretty little schedule just got altered, boy? Not going to be a damn thing decided tonight, because there’s no more trains passing through. So let’s get on to this roadhouse and find a bed for the night.”
Paul wanted to argue. He scowled again and then wet his lips and lifted his head as if a retort would be forthcoming. Arlen hit him with the stare then, a partner to the voice, perfected in places he’d rather not remember, and the kid couldn’t hold his eyes.
“He said the boardinghouse was five miles away,” Paul muttered.
“At what point between here and Alabama,” Arlen said, “did you lose the use of your legs?”
4
IT WAS A LONG, dark walk. The highway was bordered with scrub pines and tall grasses that rustled even when the wind was flat, and the summer night pressed down on them like a pair of strong hands, made each step feel like ten. They were both lugging bags, tossed to them by a sneering Wallace O’Connell as the train pulled away. They’d been at it for an hour, had probably gone four miles, when a car came up behind them and slowed. Cars had been passing occasionally, maybe five during the whole time they’d been walking, but this was the first that had slowed. Neither Arlen nor Paul had stuck out a thumb, and though the boy said, “Hey, they’re stopping!” with delight in his voice, Arlen dropped his bags and put a hand in his pants pocket, near his knife. There were different reasons a car would stop for strangers on a lonely midnight highway, and some drifted far from acts of kindness.
The car was a newer-model sedan with gleaming chrome and whitewall tires. The window cranked down, and the driver called, “ ’Lo there.” Cigarette smoke rolled out in a haze.
“Hello.”
“I see two men with bags walking down this road at this hour, I figure they’re either lost beyond hope or headed to Pearl’s.”
“Pearl’s the name of a roadhouse farther up this highway?”
“Not but a mile ahead.”
“That’s good to hear,” Arlen said. “Thanks. We’ll carry on now.”
“Why walk that last mile when you can ride?”
Arlen didn’t much want that, but Paul stepped up close and said, “Yeah, why walk when we can ride? This is an Auburn.”
“The kid knows sense when he hears it,” the man with the shadowed face said, and then he slapped the side of the driver’s door. “And he knows cars-this is indeed an Auburn, and it moves like you won’t believe. Climb on in.”
So they climbed in. The car was clean and new, and Paul was clearly impressed, running his palm over the seat and looking around with appreciation.
“Say, this is nice. The twelve cylinder, isn’t it?”
“It is. Fastest damn car I’ve ever held the wheel of.” To demonstrate, he accelerated-hard. The car’s engine gave a throaty howl and they lunged forward. Paul gave a chuckle and the driver grinned. Tall guy, lean, with big knobby hands wrapped around the steering wheel.
“What’s your name, friend?” Arlen said.
“Sorenson. Walt Sorenson.” He tucked the cigarette back into his mouth and reached a hand out. Arlen clasped it, and then Paul, offering their own names.
“Wouldn’t ordinarily so much as slow for any poor soul walking on this road at night,” Sorenson said. “I’m in no hurry to have a knife stuck in my back.”
Arlen released his hand from the knife in his pocket.
“Bad area?” he said.
“Isn’t everyplace after the sun goes down? Can’t trust the world anymore, you know? Was a time strangers helped strangers. That time’s gone. Too many people out to do harm, is my point. It’s hard to pick good from bad, and takes too much energy trying. But then I see you two, with bags in your hands, and I say, Walt, you’d be a bastard if you drove on by. Where are you headed?”
Arlen kept quiet while Paul explained that they were CCC and had gotten off the train en route to a camp in the Keys.
“Why’d you leave the train?”
“Arlen wanted to get off,” Paul said uncertainly. “He had a bad feeling.”
“A bad feeling?”
“Let’s not worry over it,” Arlen said curtly. Lights glowed ahead of them then, a two-story building with a wide front porch coming into view. When Sorenson came thundering off the road and jerked the Auburn to a stop, Arlen could hear music from inside, somebody plucking at a guitar.
“Pearl’s,” Sorenson said, and then the conversation was done, and Arlen was grateful for that.
The only connection Arlen could see between Pearl and her name was that she was round. Plenty round. Looked to go every bit of three hundred pounds, in fact, and to call her an ugly woman would be an offense to the word-woman or ugly. She was in the midst of a profane shouting match. The argument sounded harsh but didn’t seem to stir much true heat from anyone in the bar, including the participants. She cut it off fast when Walt Sorenson flagged her down and told her that the gentlemen with him would need a room for the night.