LITMIR.BIZ

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paleness of her face and the outlandish costume.

      I lay down on one of the piles and tested. It was deep enough. It cut down the bouncing of the car and it was warm.

      The girl watched me. I indicated the other pile and she went to it slowly, knelt, tried it with her hand and then lay down on it, on her back, her white face turned to me. She smiled again. She was still cold. Every few seconds a tremor would run through her from head to toe and she would hunch into the coat.

      I got up and went to the other end of the car and picked up my bottle and the little bundle she’d been carrying before we got on. The bundle was wrapped in an old-fashioned oil slicker, tied with binding twine. I carried the stuff back to where she was lying on the pile of hay.

      “Got any dry clothes in here?” I said, holding up the bundle.

      She shook her head.

      “Just the raincoat,” she said, “and two sandwiches.”

      My mouth filled.

      “Sandwiches?”

      “Are you hungry?”

      “Since you ask me—” I said.

      She reached up for the bundle and I handed it down to her. She unrolled the slicker and came up with a battered paper sack. Out of it she took a sandwich of white bread with what smelled like boiled ham inside. She offered it to me, and I took a bite. It was a little damp, a little ragged around the edges and the bread had been packed into a thin, tasteless wad of dough. But it was the first food I’d had for more than eighteen hours and it went down all right.

      The girl ate about half of hers and put the rest back in the sack. She still shivered with cold and I kicked at the bale, loosening the alfalfa in it, and started to cover her with it, piling it on thick. She lay still on her back, her face looking up at me as I worked. Finally there was nothing but her face showing out of the pile of hay.

      The sandwich was like a stone in my stomach and I took a swig of the whisky to dissolve it. I looked over and the girl was watching me. There were two shots left. I would want another before going to sleep and I’d need one to straighten me out in the morning. I knew that as soon as the bottle was empty, the pain would set in, the desperation.

      If she had looked away from me, I think I might have held out. But the little white face didn’t move. Her eyes stared darkly, intently at me out of the pile of hay.

      I offered her the bottle.

      “No, thank you,” she said.

      I was torn up inside and my voice came out gruff and harsh.

      “Better take some. You got chilled.”

      I held it closer.

      The pile of hay moved and her hand came out of it and closed around the bottle. I looked away while she drank it. When I looked back, she was holding it out to me. I took it and replaced the cap. She had only sipped at it. The level hadn’t dropped more than an eighth of an inch. I stashed the bottle away in the alfalfa, near where I planned to put my head.

      I looked over at the girl and found her eyes were closed. She lay very still under the hay. I didn’t see any more shivering.

      I got myself some more loose stuff out of the bale and stretched out, pulling the hay over me to my chin. The air was colder and would get steadily colder until dawn. But the alfalfa was warm and there was plenty of it.

      It took a long time for me to relax. Finally I pulled the bottle out of the hay under my head and took a swig. I put the cap back on and shook it to see whether there was any left. There was a little. I stuck the bottle back into the hay. After a while I went to sleep.

      I woke once before dawn and something had changed. A rough edge of cloth rubbed at my neck. It was my own coat, the one I’d given the girl when she took off her wet dress. I looked over at the other pile of hay.

      Only her small white face showed in the dark.

      It was the lurch and jarring as the train slowed that woke me the next time. Daylight spilled into the car. The brakes went off, came on again, went off once more and came on to stay. I got up from the pile of hay, dusted off my coat and put it on. I found the bottle and stuck it in my pocket. I walked to the door and looked out.

      The sun was rising toward the rear end of the train and was out of sight from where I stood. That meant we were traveling northwest. I leaned out and looked ahead but saw no sign of a town. There was a high water tower and a small yellow frame building near it, but no other buildings. I figured we must be on the B. & O. line, probably heading for Chicago.

      We were crawling along, about to stop, and I knew it would be smart to get off and out of sight before the brakie came to throw me off. I looked back at the girl, still asleep on the pile of hay. I didn’t want to be connected with her. I had enough to look out for in myself. But I couldn’t walk away from her.

      I walked back and shook her a little. She turned her head toward me and opened her eyes slowly. It was the first good look I’d had at her face. It was pale and thin and there were heavy circles under her eyes. But I could imagine it being pretty, given some care and the right kind of makeup.

      Her eyes blinked at the sunlight and she pulled away from my hand.

      “Better get off now,” I said. “We’re about to stop.”

      She blinked again. Her eyes were deep brown.

      “All right,” she said.

      I picked up her dress from the remains of the bale of hay. It was dry now. It looked like a dress that you might buy in a variety store for a dollar ninety-eight. I tossed it to her and walked away to the door. I couldn’t figure out what to do about her. I hated to think of her getting thrown into some stinking small-town jail or winding up with the ugly bruiser I’d cooled with the rock. But then again, I wasn’t Robin Hood. I hadn’t asked her any questions, because I hadn’t wanted to know the answers. My own story was sad enough. I didn’t need any more. I tried to tell myself she’d be all right now. If the train was headed for Chicago and she could stay with it, maybe she could find what she wanted in the city. If not, then she could keep on running—like me.

      I pulled the bottle out of my pocket. There was a good shot left. Only one, but now I had money. I drained off the last of it and felt warm and calm in the sunlight. I threw the bottle into the end of the car.

      The train had stopped. The land sloped in an open meadow from the edge of the right-of-way to a river fifty yards beyond. Willows grew thickly along the river banks. I glanced out the door toward the end of the train. A brakeman was climbing down from the caboose. I looked around and the girl was standing close behind me, clutching the wadded-up slicker in both arms.

      I jumped down onto the gravel roadbed. The girl came to the edge of the door and hesitated, lifting one bare foot, then putting it down again. I remembered her torn, bleeding feet. I reached up and she crouched into my arms and I let her down easily. She winced when her feet struck the hot pebbles.

      I picked her up. She couldn’t have weighed over ninety pounds. She held the slicker tightly and looked into my face as I carried her into the meadow toward the river.

      Her eyes were big and dark and frank, like a child’s eyes. But she couldn’t be a child—not with those breasts.

      Halfway across the meadow I stopped to look back. The brakeman had reached our car. He was standing by the open door, looking in our direction. When he saw me looking at him he lifted his hand and waved it in a pushing motion, telling me to keep moving. That was good. He didn’t want to talk to me, he just wanted me to stay off the train. We were probably in Indiana by now and maybe they hadn’t bothered to send out an alarm for me from that tank town.

      I looked at the girl in my arms and grinned a little.

      “We better not get back on that one,” I said.

      She just looked at me out of those eyes.

      It was hot in the sun, but among the

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