The Pride of Lions by Carolyn Wall

Author:Carolyn Wall [Wall, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Write Page, Inc.
Published: 2020-02-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-seven

Ollie half-drags me to the railroad shack, which is only a little cabin on stilts, and I slide under the porch and vow never to come out. There’s other kids under here too. They don’t so much as look up but lie around, saying nothing or playing cards with a filthy deck. Like they’re waiting. Next morning, when my belly has hurt for a very long time and my head aches fierce, a fella opens the door and steps out, up top. Throws a bucket of stuff over the rail.

Pieces of bread and quartered apples, bones of chicken – or maybe rabbit -- raw sweet potato and cabbage leaves. Kids scramble and Ollie brings me a chunk of apple, a handful of peelings, and stuffs part of a loaf of bread in his pocket. “We’ll have this later,” he says. “Eat what you got and go to sleep. It won’t be long now.” He spreads my mama’s shawl over me.

I am too angry to cry. But then I do.

Next morning, the vibration starts under my cheek. It’s no more than a faint promise of rumbling. Noses come up, like dogs sniffing the wind. Our breath is solid enough to walk on. I know because they know, and Ollie is grinning. We get up from the ground and stand breathless in this oncoming light, like the glory of God is stealing in. Is there such a thing? The rumble is a growl now, and it turns to a huff, and the huff has rhythm. Can this happen, this one train save us all? What if it’s only a heavy storm brewing or a flock of birds, turning tail on the air?

But these kids know. Their frozen lips grin, faces stretch wide.

We can see it now, a white light far off. Growing in breadth and coming on. With great whining and steaming, and flashings of green and white stripes. Spotted animals and winged things painted on cars that wind down. The great beast pulls in under the water tower. The guy in the high house comes out on his porch, and swings the great arm that will pour water down the train’s thirsty throat.

A door opens in one car, and two fellas step down. They are nothing like the freaks Ollie Oxen has spoke of, but have eyes and arms and legs, same as any. One is small and dark and very young, the other a bald head and mean, sharp eyes.

The red-faced man holds up a hand, and there is silence. We are a pack of reined-in wild dogs. Man and boy look us over. Ollie is gone, slipped under arms and legs and is near the front of maybe thirty boys.

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