Joe Lansdale - All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

“Sure it could have,” Floyd said. “But you don’t want to think about that, do you? But you miss it, there’s tomorrow, about this same time. It leaves out when the Fort Worth train comes in. I know that much from having been here and known people who’ve ridden it.”

“I guess it’s in for a penny, in for a pound,” Jane said. “Bend down.”

Floyd studied her for a moment; then he bent closer to her face and she kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks for being so kind,” she said.

“Pass it along,” Floyd said. “I ain’t passed near enough of it along before, so you do it for me. Say you will.”

“We’ll do that,” I said.

Floyd shook my and Tony’s hands. He bent down and shook Daggart’s hand. The old man was still resting against that pine tree. Floyd touched his shoulder.

“Goodbye and good luck,” Floyd said, and with that he moved across the track well in front of the oncoming train, turned, and waved at us, and then the train’s engine passed in front of him, followed by the train, and then we couldn’t see him anymore.

30

As the train began to move closer, we watched for an open boxcar. A number of closed ones passed. Finally we saw an open one, but those hoboes charged down from the trees and dove right into it.

I could see there was a line of open boxcars behind that one. I turned and got hold of Daggart’s arm to help him up, but he was deadweight.

I bent down and looked at him. “He’s gone, Jane,” I said.

In just those few moments, he’d given it up. What was left of Daggart had flown out of him and gone the way of last year. His eyes were still open, and so was his mouth. A fly had already landed on his bottom lip. I waved it away.

“Least he didn’t suffer none,” Jane said. “And he was with folks he liked.”

“He didn’t even know us,” I said.

“I figure he knew us enough. His last memories are of people being nice to him.”

“There ain’t no sense to nothing,” Tony said. “I don’t want to ride no train.”

“Yes you do,” Jane said, grabbing him and pushing him in the direction of the tracks.

“We ought to do something,” I said. “We ought not just leave him.”

“We can’t wait,” Jane said. “He’s gone and there isn’t a thing we can do. And that train’s going to be gone too. I don’t want to hide somewhere and wait until tomorrow. He’s dead and that’s it. We done what we could.”

I closed Daggart’s eyes with my fingers. It wasn’t a perfect job, but his lids mostly covered them over.

“Come on,” Jane said, and grabbed my arm. “You got to come on now.”

Then she let go of me, and she and Tony were darting down the hill toward the train.

I looked one more time at Daggart. “Sorry,” I said. “Burying folks don’t seem to be our stong suit.”

I ran down the hill after them then. I could see they had already reached a boxcar and were struggling on board. The train was starting to move fast. I ran as hard as I could.

“Come on, Jack!” Jane shouted. “Now ain’t the time to get lazy.”

I ran so hard I thought my heart would burst. I finally got up alongside the open boxcar and got hold of it, but my hand slipped and I nearly stumbled onto the rails and beneath the train.

For a moment there, I thought about quitting. I thought about letting the train go and just going back up into the trees and leaning up against a pine next to poor old Daggart. But then I thought about my daddy, how he had quit when things got bad, and decided I wasn’t going to be a quitter in any kind of way. I ran even harder. The sweat flew off me as I ran. Or at least I thought it was sweat at first. Then I realized that some of it was, but not all. Some of it was tears.

A moment later and the train would have picked up too much speed for me to make it, but I got a ladder down from the open boxcar and pulled myself up on that and rested a minute. Jane stuck her head out of the car and grinned at me.

I grinned back.

After a few minutes, I climbed up on the hitch, found the ladder that led to the top of the boxcar, and went up there. Then I swung down from the top and stuck my legs inside. Tony and Jane grabbed me and helped pull me in.

We sat up against the side of the car. There wasn’t anyone in it but us.

Jane said, “How about that? We met Pretty Boy Floyd and he befriended us.”

“Who’s Pretty Boy Floyd?” Tony said.

“He’s famous,” Jane said.

“A criminal,” I said. “That’s who he is.”

“He was all right,” Jane said.

“He robs banks and steals stuff from people,” I said, and I knew I was telling the truth, and I stand by it to this day, but I knew too some of it was my jealousy talking. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I hadn’t liked the way Jane had kissed him on the cheek.

“He didn’t steal nothing from us,” Tony said.

“No,” Jane said, “he didn’t.”

“He’s still a criminal,” I said.

“I liked him,” Tony said. “He was good to that old man, and he ran with me on his shoulders.”

“He robs banks,” I said.

“Banks haven’t treated people so good,” Jane said. “You can rob someone with a gun, or you can do it with a fountain pen. A mark here and there and they can foreclose on your property.”

“They was talking about doing it to us,” Tony said. “Taking our farm.”

“By now, they have,” Jane said. “With Pa dead, ain’t no one to pay for it. Hell, they can have it. It wasn’t nothing but a sandpit anyhow.”

“I reckon ours is gone too,” I said, “but Floyd is still a criminal.”

“Yeah, he is,” Jane said, “but he isn’t like Bad Tiger or Timmy. They started out sideways. Pretty Boy just got turned that way and couldn’t get back.”

“You can’t know that,” I said.

“I think I’m a pretty good guesser.”

I crossed my arms and looked at the floor.

“You jealous of him?” Jane said.

“No.”

“I think you are,” she said.

“Maybe a little. He ain’t one of your knights, Jane. He ain’t Sir Galahad.”

“He’s about as close as I’m going to get to a knight. Let me believe that, even if it is only for a moment.”

“That’s silly,” I said.

“Listen here, Jack. A kiss on the cheek isn’t the same as a kiss on the lips. I don’t want you to make too much out of that. Both kinds of kisses are friendly, but the lips is more friendly. It means more.”

I studied her face. It was hard to know when that girl was lying.

“Really?” I said.

“Really,” she said, and winked at me.

31

It’s the solid truth that when we were riding that train to Tyler, it was the lowest I’d ever been. Even lower than when my folks died. Reason was, them dying was just then coming home to roost. It wasn’t like I didn’t know they were dead, but when I saw that old man, all of a sudden I realized it was real. It had taken me a while, and I guess I had sort of been stunned all that time, but right then I could feel it come down on me heavy as a falling house.

I just sat there with my back against the boxcar so I had a view out the open door and thought about Mama dying, and then Daddy doing what he did, and me burying them in the barn. Then I thought about Jane and Tony coming along, and us going over and stealing a dead man’s car. Next, there had been Buddy, shot by his own partners, and now Daggart, dying while waiting to catch a train. All I could think of was his eyes staring at nothing, and just before that he had been talking and seeing what we were seeing. It was sobering to realize life came and then it went.

It was hard to see how things would get any better. Right then I was feeling that boxcar bouncing over the tracks and it was shaking me down to my bones. I guess the wind was tearing me up, even if I wasn’t right in the doorway, ’cause my eyes got so full of tears I had to use the back of my sleeve to wipe them dry. And I must have been hungry, ’cause my belly started seizing up and cramping.