Ernest Hemingway - The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

The detective hit him again and then again and he was quiet. He lay on the floor on his face with his head bent down on his chest. Watching the door, the detective laid the revolver down on the floor and leaning over unlocked the handcuff from the wrist of the prisoner. Then he picked up the revolver and stood up. Holding the revolver in his right hand he pulled the cord with his left to stop the train. Then he reached for the handle of the door.

The train was starting to slow.

“Get away from that door,” we heard someone say inside the door.

“Open it up,” said the detective and stepped back.

“Al,” the voice said. “Al, are you all right?”

The detective stood just to one side of the door. The train was slowing down.

“Al,” said the voice again. “Answer me if you’re all right.”

There was no answer. The train stopped. The brakeman opened the door. “What the hell?” he said. He looked at the man on the floor, the blood and the detective holding the revolver. The conductor was coming down from the other end of the car.

“There’s a fellow in there that’s killed a man,” the detective said.

“The hell there is. He’s gone out the window,” said the brakeman.

“Watch that man,” said the detective. He opened the door to the platform. I went across the aisle and looked out the window. Along the tracks there was a fence. Beyond the fence was the woods. I looked up and down the tracks. The detective came running by; then ran back. There was no one in sight. The detective came back in the car and they opened the door of the washroom. The door would not swing open because the sergeant was lying across it on the floor. The window was open about halfway. The sergeant was still breathing. They picked him up and carried him out into the car and they picked up the prisoner and put him in a seat. The detective put the handcuff through the handle of a big suitcase. Nobody seemed to know what to do or whether to look after the sergeant or try and find the little man or what. Everybody had gotten out of the train and looked down the tracks and in the edge of the woods. The brakeman had seen the little man run across the tracks and into the woods. The detective went into the woods a couple of times and then came out. The prisoner had taken the sergeant’s gun and nobody seemed to want to go very far into the woods after him. Finally they started the train to get to a station where they could send for the state constabulary and send out a description of the little man. My father helped them with the sergeant. He washed off the wound, it was between the collarbone and the neck, and sent me to get paper and towels from the washroom and folded them over and made a plug for it and tied it tight in with a sleeve from the sergeant’s shirt. They laid him out as comfortably as they could and my father washed off his face. His head had been banged against the floor of the washroom and he was still unconscious but my father said the wound was not serious. At the station they took him off and the detective took the other prisoner off too. The other prisoner’s face was white and he had a bruised bump on the side of his head. He looked silly when they took him off and seemed anxious to move very fast to do whatever they told him. My father came back in the car from helping them with the sergeant. They had put him in a motor truck that was at the station and were going to drive him to a hospital. The detective was sending wires. We were standing on the platform and the train started and I saw the prisoner standing there, leaning the back of his head against the wall of the station. He was crying.

I felt pretty bad about everything and we went in the smoker. The brakeman had a bucket and a bunch of waste and was mopping up and washing where the blood had been.

“How was he, Doc?” he said to my father.

“I’m not a doctor,” my father said. “But I think he’ll be all right.”

“Two big dicks,” said the brakeman. “And they couldn’t handle that one little shrimp.”

“Did you see him get out the window?”

“Sure,” said the brakeman. “Or I saw him just after he lit on the tracks.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. Not when I first saw him. How do you think he stabbed him, Doc?”

“He must have jumped up on him from behind,” my father said.

“Wonder where he got the knife?”

“I don’t know,” said my father.

“That other poor boob,” said the brakeman. “He never even tried to make a break.”

“No.”

“That detective gave him his though. Did you see it, Doc?”

“Yes.”

“That poor boob,” the brakeman said. It was damp and clean where he had washed. We went back to our seats in the other car. My father sat and did not say anything and I wondered what he was thinking.

“Well, Jimmy,” he said, after a while.

“Yes.”

“What do you think of it all now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” said my father. “Do you feel bad?”

“Yes.”

“So do I. Were you scared?”

“When I saw the blood,” I said. “And when he hit the prisoner.”

“That’s healthy.”

“Were you scared?”

“No,” my father said. “What was the blood like?” I thought a minute.

“It was thick and smooth.”

“Blood is thicker than water,” my father said. “That’s the first proverb you run up against when you lead an active life.”

“It doesn’t mean that,” I said. “It means about family.”

“No,” said my father. “It means just that, but it always surprises you. I remember the first time I found it out.”

“When was that?”

“I felt my shoes full of it. It was very warm and thick. It was just like water in your rubber boots when we go duck hunting except it was warm and thicker and smoother.”

“When was that?”

“Oh, a long time ago,” said my father.

“The Porter” is a scene from the same unfinished and untitled novel as “A Train Trip.”

WHEN WE WENT TO BED MY FATHER said I might as well sleep in the lower berth because I would want to look out the window early in the morning. He said an upper berth did not make any difference to him and he would come to bed after a while. I undressed and put my clothes in the hammock and put on pajamas and got into bed. I turned off the light and pulled up the window curtain but it was cold if I sat up to look out and lying down in bed I could not see anything. My father took a suitcase out from under my berth, opened it on the bed, took out his pajamas and tossed them up to the upper berth, then he took a book out and the bottle and filled his flask.

“Turn on the light,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I don’t need it. Are you sleepy, Jim?”

“I guess so.”

“Get a good sleep,” he said and closed the suitcase and put it back under the berth.

“Did you put your shoes out?”

“No,” I said. They were in the hammock and I got up to get them but he found them and put them out in the aisle. He shut the curtain.

“Aren’t you going to bed, sir?” the porter asked him.

“No,” my father said. “I’m going to read a while up in the washroom.”

“Yes, sir,” the porter said. It was fine lying between the sheets with the thick blanket pulled up and it all dark and the country dark outside. There was a screen across the lower part of the window that was open and the air came in cold. The green curtain was buttoned tight and the car swayed but felt very solid and was going fast and once in a while you would hear the whistle. I went to sleep and when I woke up I looked out and we were going very slowly and crossing a big river. There were lights shining on the water and the iron framework of a bridge going by the window and my father was getting into the upper berth.