The Saints of Swallow Hill(12)

Midmorning came a low whistle and rumbling along the rails. He put his hand down on the metal and felt it vibrating beneath his palm. He lowered his hat on his forehead to shade his eyes, and a few minutes later, it appeared like some giant hulking monster, a funnel of smoke rolling over the top of it. His mouth went dry as he got himself ready, moving to a spot closer to the tracks, keeping low and out of sight. He believed it was going slow enough. The engine came and went. He remained hunkered down, hidden behind the scrub brush. There were a few cars loaded with coal, then the boxcars started rolling by. He picked one, hesitated, and it was too late.

He talked to himself. “Come on, fool. You ain’t got but so many chances.”

A green car caught his eye. He decided green was his lucky color and began running, his gear bumping and banging against his backside and hip. He found it harder than he thought, so he ran faster. As he reached for the handle to haul himself up, he locked eyes with a skinny man missing a few teeth who grinned down at him. He faltered, tripped, and tumbled over the rocks and into briars.

“Dammit!”

The toothless man’s chortle blended in with the clacking along the metal rails. He stood, swiped the blood off his scratched arms, and spotted a blue car. Blue. Blue could be the lucky one. He’d learned on his first try and started running before it got to him, his sprint lively and quick. This time he grabbed the handle, and this time a pair of hands helped haul him in. His boots skimmed the rocks only for a split second, and then he was unceremoniously dropped like a fish in the bottom of a boat. He got to his feet, winded, but relieved. He adjusted his stance to the rocking motion as he looked at the men who helped him. One had to be in his sixties, silver haired, and the other was about his age.

“First-timer, I ’spect,” said the older man before he shuffled off to a corner.

The younger one had an aloof way about him, only nodding once before he went to the opposite side and sat in the shadows.

Del said, “Thanks,” and kept himself planted by the open door of the boxcar, swaying to the rhythm, edgy and ill at ease.

There were others aside from the two who helped him, but they were as withdrawn as the rest. This was the most humanity he’d been around in a while. One man glanced at him once too often and kept a hand in a pocket, maybe to send a message to Del he might have a pistol or some sort of weapon. About two hours later, the train slowed and everyone started moving toward the opening, ready to bail out. Del felt a bit hemmed in and didn’t much like it.

The old man came forward again, and Del said, “This Valdosta?”

“Close enough.”

Del saw his chance, right after a narrow creek where the wiregrass was thick and soft. He didn’t bother with niceties. He simply jumped and let his legs collapse as soon as he hit the ground, and he went into a roll. Seconds later, one or two others did the same, took a leap and tumbled out. The train trundled around a curve, heads still hanging out of the openings, and then it was gone. Del stood, brushed off his clothes, adjusted his gear, and set off in the same direction as the train. He stayed mostly on the tracks but sometimes veered off for the coolness under the trees. He had no idea where the others went, and didn’t care. After a while, the tracks crossed a dirt road, where he spotted a poorly looking sign, hung crooked. It said VALDOSTA, with an arrow pointing down the road. Encouraged, he walked toward it and began passing fallow fields, and occasionally a farm like Moe Sutton’s, where maybe somebody had seen to save for hard times so they could keep going. He thought of stopping, asking for a job at one of the big ones, except he wanted to do something different, and turpentining was really what he knew.

He’d gone only a little ways when behind him came the squeak of wagon wheels and the familiar clop, clop of an animal’s hooves. He turned and laid eyes on a man and three kids, all tow-headed boys, riding in a dilapidated wagon pulled by what had to be the ugliest mule Del had ever seen.

The man said, “Need’n you a ride somewheres?”

Del said, “I’m heading for that turpentine camp called Swallow Hill. You heard of it?”

The man said, “Sure. Who ain’t? I can take you to the store a couple miles or so down this a way. You won’t have far to go after that. I’d take you all the way, but it’s due west and I ain’t going that direction.”

Del nodded and hopped onto the back end of the wagon.

He said, “Fine by me.”

The boys turned around to stare at him.

The man talked over his shoulder and said, “Name’s Tom. These here are my boys, Tom Jr., Samuel, and the youngest one is Tucker, named after my maw’s side of the family.”

Del raised a hand in a half wave to the boys and got no reaction. They remained silent as clouds passing overhead. Probably taught to be seen, not heard, like him.

He said, “Name’s Del Reese. Pleased to make y’all’s acquaintance.”

He turned back around and faced the direction from which he’d come, watching as the red dirt rolled by under his booted feet, thinking about how lucky a man was to have sons.





Chapter 4


Rae Lynn


It had been raining almost nonstop since the accident with Billy Doyle. The steady downpour from heavy-bottomed clouds to the west created a dreary view out the kitchen window. Rae Lynn and Warren sat holed up in the house, unable to work the crop of trees they’d started with Billy. Butch Crandall, a friend of Warren’s, had stopped by and sat at their table drinking sweet tea, waiting on the rain to let up. He always broke the monotony when he came for a visit and today, what he had to say was particularly interesting, at least to Rae Lynn. He was going on and on about the turpentine work going on in Georgia.