Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel

Author:Sarah Zettel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375983184
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-06-25T21:00:00+00:00

14

Get Away

It probably took more than two minutes to get me completely turned around, but not much. Shadows, rail lines, and looming train cars knotted up my sense of direction. Then the fear carried it so far off, I couldn’t have told you which way was up if you’d pointed at the sky. The moon hung overhead, bloated and bloody red from the dust, with a white ring round it. A dog barked somewhere behind the train cars.

I had to calm down and get my bearings. I made myself stop and turn in a slow circle, looking at the telegraph poles, the darkened signal lights, the sheds, anything that I might be able to use as a landmark.

As I turned past the nearest shack, movement caught my eye. A thin man’s shape ducked farther into the shadows. I hurried toward it. Maybe it was Jack, or the hawk-nosed man. It didn’t matter as long as they knew where they were going.…

Hands yanked me backward. I started to scream, but a hat was stuffed into my mouth.

“Shhhhhh!” ordered Jack.

“What’s going on?” I demanded against his cap, which, I’ve got to say, tasted awful. Jack pointed into the shed.

It wasn’t just one man moving in there. It was a whole crowd of them. I shook myself free from Jack and his hat and crept up to the shed door, crouching low. Jack was right at my shoulder.

Bull Morgan stood in front of maybe two dozen men. Every last one of them carried some kind of weapon. Some had clubs made of shovel ends or ax handles. Many had shotguns.

This wasn’t just a crowd. Bull Morgan had put together a vigilance committee.

One man, the one I’d seen moving, slipped up to the front right next to Morgan and took the ax handle a neighbor passed him.

“Are we in place?” growled Bull Morgan.

“Just about, Mr. Morgan.” I heard the snappy salute in the smaller man’s voice.

“And the bums?”

“Some of them’s slipped out. Charlie’ll round ’em up.”

Morgan grunted. “As long as they don’t get back to warn the others.”

“Hadn’t we better move out now?” asked somebody from the middle of the crowd. “Them bums might be gettin’ antsy.”

Morgan calmly pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “They’ll stay put. After all, Mr. Stationmaster Reynolds told ’em they could stay. He’d just look the other way while they broke the law. Ain’t that right, Mr. Reynolds?” Morgan grinned toward the shadows deeper in the shed. I squinted through the shifting thicket of pant legs and work boots and saw a huddle of other men. These men wore dark coats and peaked caps, and all of them had rags stuffed in their mouths and their hands tied together in front of them. I’d’ve bet any money one of them was the stationmaster.

Bull Morgan had told me he didn’t allow hobos on his trains. And he’d taken over the rail yard to keep his promise. These weren’t lawmen. They were going to

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