A Hidden Place

“Bury ’em,” Archie said. He wiped his hands on his pants. “Bury ’em fast as you can.”

Bone drove his shovel into the dirt pile: chuff. It was easier work than the digging had been.

Now the bunkroom was full of light. Deacon was there, filling up his kitbag and Archie’s with oddments from the Darcy household: forks, spoons, ca

“A night’s work,” he was saying. “All in a fucking night’s work. Right, Archie? All in a night’s work—right?”

“For Christ’s sake,” Archie pleaded, “shut up about it.”

Bone stood in the doorway, waiting.

“We move out tonight,” Deacon said. “Find us a train. Moving out, Bone! Find us a train out of here.”

Bone nodded. It was all he had really wanted. He gazed at Deacon hefting his kitbag and wondered for the first time whether these men were really his friends, whether the killing of the Darcys had been, as Deacon insisted, “necessary.” Deacon feeding him in California, Deacon offering him a smoke— that Deacon had smelled trustworthy and Bone had invested his trust accordingly.

This Deacon—literally twitching with nervous energy, his eyes wild with lantern light—smelled very different. There was an air about him of cordite and revenge. He had killed. He had killed with calculation and without mercy. He could do so again.

Deacon motioned to Bone, and the two of them stepped outside for a moment. “This is just between us,” Deacon said, hooking his arm over Bone’s stooped shoulder. “Not that I don’t trust Archie. Don’t get me wrong. He’s my buddy. But he’s a little wild right now—you understand? I got something I want you to hold onto for me, and maybe don’t let Archie know you got it. Understand?”

Bone shrugged.

“Good,” Deacon said hastily, “great,” and he pushed something into the deep pocket of Bone’s blue Navy pea coat.

“Archie!” Deacon yelled. “Time to move out! We want to get down the road before sunup!”

Lingering behind them on the wet road away from the farmhouse, Bone waited until there was a little dawn light and then reached into his pocket and pulled out what Deacon had put there. It was a damp wad of bills, prosaic in his huge calloused hand.

Bone slid the money back into his pocket.

The Calling was louder now, and he listened carefully for the sound of a train.

Chapter Eight

Nancy located Travis on the first chill day of the autumn.

Seasons in Haute Montagne always followed the calendar. Springs were a haste of melting and blossoming; summers declared themselves boldly; autumns hurried toward winters; and winters came down like guillotine blades. She was accustomed to it. The prairie, incising the sky on all horizons, gave up these clinical seasons. But now for the first time Nancy was seriously worried. The adventure was not an adventure any longer. She had lost Travis, and A

She watched the Burack house for a time,- for a time she waited with A

If he had not left Haute Montagne altogether, she thought, there was only one place he might be.

She put on a heavy cloth coat and took a hunting knife from the attic chest where the relics of her father’s life were stored. She attached the knife to her belt and slipped away from the house. It was an overcast Saturday, and her mother was off at a Baptist Women’s meeting. Fallen leaves pursued her until she was beyond the town, and then there was only the dry prairie grass. She followed the southern bank of the Fresnel toward the railway trestle.

She was frightened, though she tried not to admit it to herself. All her life she had heard stories about railway tramps. That they left encoded marks on people’s doors. That they stole babies. That they would kill you for the money in your pocket. Sometimes, especially these latter years, she had seen such men come into town looking for work. They had seemed less threatening than sad, worn-out, eroded. They wore helplessness about them like a suit of clothes. The church would occasionally feed them, though Nancy’s mother disapproved: “It only encourages them. And the smell!”

Sad. But Nancy did not doubt that they could be dangerous, too. How could such despair not breed anger?

She moved through the empty meadows toward the scabrous iron trestle, burdocks clinging to her skirt. When she saw a faint, line of smoke rising up, she reached inside her coat and closed her fingers on the reassuring whalebone handle of the knife.

It was not a big hobo jungle. Haute Montagne was too far from the big cities, too insignificant a stopover, and too chary a society for that. But there were men who lived here, at least briefly. She saw two huts made of tar paper, tin, and old two-by-fours in the darkness under the trestle. A tiny fire burned fitfully. A few men lay strewn on the ground like sacks of trash, asleep, their limbs at random angles. The sound of the river ru

“Travis?”

Her voice, too, echoed back.

She thought: He is not here.

But then a shadow stirred in the dark pebbly corner where the trestle met the bank, and Travis stepped forth.

She was relieved that he was not like these other men, some of whom had risen up to stare blankly at her; he was, still, better groomed, better dressed. He looked only down on his luck, not broken. It seemed inconceivable that he could have been living like this… for days, Nancy thought; almost a week since she had left him alone at the switchman’s shack.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.

He had lost weight. He stood before her like a pillar of stone.

“I need help.” His eyes avoided her, and she added, “You left me.”

“Not you.”

“A

She followed him up the grade of the riverbank, up to the place where the trestle leaped across the water. Travis sat on a concrete abutment, gazing wearily off at the horizon.

“Travis,” she said, making herself brave. “I know there’s something wrong. I asked A

He was a long time answering. The wind was brisk, and Nancy hugged her coat around herself.

“Maybe it’s true,” he said slowly, “what Aunt Liza believes about A

“No! How could she not be human? She—”

“You’ve been with her. You know.”

Well. Of course there was so much she didn’t understand. Obviously, what was happening was not normal. Normal people didn’t need to be sequestered in ruined buildings for months at a time. But—not human? How could that be?

Travis’s fists were clenched.

“I gave it up for her,” he said. “I had it in my hand. A life. An ordinary life. She seduced me out of it.”

“She’s lost, Travis. I talked to her about it. She’s just lost, is all. I don’t know where she’s lost from, or how she plans to get back… but lost is lost. This town won’t help. We have to.”

She reached for his hand. But he drew it away, and the gesture was so quick and so instinctive that it shocked her. “Don’t,” he said.

“My God. It’s me. It’s me, isn’t it? It’s something I did.”

Travis shook his head no. His eyes, however, were blank.

“I trusted you!”

He turned back toward the bridge. “Travis! Travis Fisher, you son of a bitch! I trusted you!”