Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1)(45)

“I told you what I thought.”

“Blood and rust,” he muttered. “We can’t just give her to them. It’d be like giving Pima to my dad.”

“But a lot safer for you,” Tool suggested.

Nailer shook his head stubbornly. “No. I’ll take her to the Orleans. I know how to hop the trains.”

“This isn’t light crew and a short quota,” Tool said. “You won’t get second chances. You make a mistake now and you die.”

“You ever jumped the train?” Sadna asked.

“Reni told me how.”

“Before he went under the wheels,” Sadna said.

“We all die,” Tool rumbled. “It’s only choosing how.”

“I’m going,” Nailer said. He looked at Nita. “We’re going.”

Something in the way he said it got it through this time. No one tried to protest. They just accepted it and nodded, and suddenly Nailer felt as if he’d made the wrong decision. He realized that a part of him had wanted them to talk him out of it. To find a way to convince him not to run.

“You’d best be going, then,” Tool rumbled. “Richard will be coming to sell the girl soon.”

“Good luck,” Pima’s mother said. She dug into her pocket and offered Nailer a handful of bright linen Red Chinese cash. “Run hard. Don’t come back.”

Nailer took the money, surprised at the amount, feeling suddenly alone. “Thanks.”

Pima ran back to the camp, and returned with a small pack that had been Blue Eyes’s. She handed it to Nailer. “Your scavenge.”

Nailer took the pack, feeling water sloshing in it. He looked at Nita. “Ready?”

Nita nodded eagerly. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah.” He pointed through the jungle. “The tracks are that way.”

They started out of the clearing, but Tool called after them, “Wait.” Nailer and Nita turned back. Tool studied them with his yellow killer’s eyes. “I will go as well, I think.”

Nailer felt a shiver of fear. “We’re fine,” he said at the same moment as Pima’s mother smiled brilliantly and said, “Thank you.”

Tool smiled slightly at Nailer’s hesitation. “Don’t be so quick to turn down help, boy.”

Nailer had a dozen retorts, but all of them were based in his distrust of the half-man’s motives. The creature frightened him. Even if Pima’s mother trusted him, Nailer didn’t. It worried him that someone so close to his father and Lucky Strike was going with them.

“Why now?” Nita asked suspiciously. “What do you want?”

Tool glanced at Sadna, then nodded toward the beach. “The patrons down on the ship have half-men of their own. They will have questions about my presence. It will not be a convenience for anyone.”

“We can make it alone,” Nailer said.

“I’m sure,” Tool answered. “But perhaps you will benefit from my wisdom.” His sharp teeth showed briefly.

“Be glad he’s willing to help,” Sadna said. She turned to Tool and clasped his huge hand in both of hers. “I owe you now.”

“It is nothing.” Tool smiled and his sharp teeth showed again. “Killing in one place or killing in another; it makes no difference.”

15

The ground shook as the train came up at them. They crouched in the ferns. The engine roared toward them and then flashed by. Nailer swallowed as machinery rushed past. Wind pummeled his face and tore at the leaves of the trees and ferns around him. The train seemed to suck him forward to where the huge wheels, each as high as his chest, blurred past. They beckoned him to throw himself under their passing weight, inviting him to be chopped into pieces and left bleeding as the train roared on. With rising fear, Nailer realized that it was one thing to speculate idly about jumping a train, another to watch freight cars hurtle past.

It was enough to make him reconsider his options. To review the possibility of stealing a skiff, of sailing the coast instead, or of walking the jungle and swamp route… but they had no supplies to make that run. And if they went by water, the clipper ship out in the bay would pursue them with ease. There was no other option. They needed to run and they needed to run now.

The train cars whipped past in a blur. From a distance, they seemed much slower. Now, close up, they were horribly fast. Was the train speeding up? When Reni had jumped the train, it had always seemed to be going slower, had seemed easier. Nailer knew that depending on how aggressive the engineer was, the train could go much faster than was actually jumpable. That was how Reni had finally gone under: misjudging the speed he could leap aboard. He’d also been drunk and stupid, but he’d been lulled by all his other successful jumps.

Nailer and Nita and Tool all stepped out from the vines and clambered up the raised rail bed to the tracks. The wind buffeted them as the train roared past. The noise of rushing cars was as bad as a city killer storm. Nailer glanced back at his companions. Nita’s eyes were wide with fear. Tool watched impassively, perhaps even with contempt. This would be nothing to the half-man. Nailer found himself wishing that Tool were big enough to simply pick them up and carry them as he jumped aboard.

Quit fooling yourself. Hurry up and jump.

They were running out of time. The end of the train would be approaching. He needed to commit. It was like being in the oil room all over again, knowing that the only way to survive was to dive, and dive deep. But that time he’d known that there were no other choices. This time, he kept trying to find another way out. Go, he told himself. But his feet stayed rooted.