napped and knitted and gazed longingly out the glass at the passing mountains.
They were in a part of the train where a boy like Jason had no reason to linger. Both times he passed through, he was hurried on his way by the glares, silences, and noisily cleared throats of his betters. He and Aunt Germaine were billeted in another car, further to the front where the beds were stacked like shelves on either side and sectioned off by thick, stale-smelling curtains. As far as Jason knew, the lovely girl with the birthmark and the little smile that stopped just beneath it had jumped off the train some time ago, and fled on foot into the Montana wilderness, never to be seen again.
It disappointed him, but not bitterly. In the course of his search Jason was able to observe a great many things about the train, the railway and the people who travelled by it.
Jason figured this would be something his mama would have approved of more than hunting a pretty smile on a locomotive. It would, after all, lead him to self-sufficiency.
Coming upon civilization as he had, all at once through the haze of grief, after spending his short life on a Montana pig farm, and with no one but a new-found aunt to guide him, Jason Thistledown was a boy in need of bearings. Nothing made that clearer to him than the fascinating, loud and stinking machinery of the Pacific Northwest steam engine and the cars it hauled. The thing’s engine made a noise like thunder that didn’t ever stop, and threw out fat clouds of black coal-soot as evil as anything Jason had ever smelled. The locomotive, as Aunt Germaine called it, scared hell out of Jason and he knew he’d have to conquer that fear (along with the fear brought on by all those strangers in their suits and skirts and high leather boots, and their peculiar expressions) if he were ever going to have a life beyond Cracked Wheel.
When he got back to Aunt Germaine, she looked right at him.
“Are your legs well-stretched?” she asked, and Jason looked away for only an instant before he told her they were, which was at least true.
§
The train pulled in to Sand Point two days later. They debarked, but not because that was the end of their trip. As Aunt Germaine explained it, they would next take a short line ride to a place called Bonner’s Ferry, where they would be met by a man from Eliada who would take them the rest of the way by barge and horseback, down the Kootenai River to the town.
As they debarked and waited for the short line train, Jason happened to spot Ruth Harper for the second time.
This time, he tried to be mindful of Aunt Germaine’s advice and his mama’s wisdom, and made an effort not to gawk.
It was quite an effort. Jason felt his heart thundering in his chest, and a profound quaking in his stomach, and those parts along with every other part of him seemed to be hollering: There she is! Look over there, you damn fool! Perhaps she’s smiling!
Once or twice—for an instant each time—he obeyed, glancing down the platform, under the overhang where all the passengers gathered against the cold spring rain, to be-spy her sitting on the bench next to her chaperone, reading from a book in her lap. She would stir, he imagined, feeling the heat of his look even though she didn’t look up to meet it—just smiling a little more each time.
Later, Jason would learn that he was off the mark but not entirely. For while it was true that his gaze drew notice, it was not from Ruth Harper, but Miss Louise Butler, who sat near to her friend but beyond the scope of Jason’s attention. At only his second glance, she whispered to Ruth:
“We have an admirer.”
“Do we?”
Miss Butler’s hands remained folded in her lap, but she nonetheless motioned in Jason’s direction, with progressively indelicate thrusts of her right forefinger. In spite of this, Ruth did not look up from her book. She did, however, smile a little.
“Is it one of those filthy loggers?”
“He might be. How does one
They were in a part of the train where a boy like Jason had no reason to linger. Both times he passed through, he was hurried on his way by the glares, silences, and noisily cleared throats of his betters. He and Aunt Germaine were billeted in another car, further to the front where the beds were stacked like shelves on either side and sectioned off by thick, stale-smelling curtains. As far as Jason knew, the lovely girl with the birthmark and the little smile that stopped just beneath it had jumped off the train some time ago, and fled on foot into the Montana wilderness, never to be seen again.
It disappointed him, but not bitterly. In the course of his search Jason was able to observe a great many things about the train, the railway and the people who travelled by it.
Jason figured this would be something his mama would have approved of more than hunting a pretty smile on a locomotive. It would, after all, lead him to self-sufficiency.
Coming upon civilization as he had, all at once through the haze of grief, after spending his short life on a Montana pig farm, and with no one but a new-found aunt to guide him, Jason Thistledown was a boy in need of bearings. Nothing made that clearer to him than the fascinating, loud and stinking machinery of the Pacific Northwest steam engine and the cars it hauled. The thing’s engine made a noise like thunder that didn’t ever stop, and threw out fat clouds of black coal-soot as evil as anything Jason had ever smelled. The locomotive, as Aunt Germaine called it, scared hell out of Jason and he knew he’d have to conquer that fear (along with the fear brought on by all those strangers in their suits and skirts and high leather boots, and their peculiar expressions) if he were ever going to have a life beyond Cracked Wheel.
When he got back to Aunt Germaine, she looked right at him.
“Are your legs well-stretched?” she asked, and Jason looked away for only an instant before he told her they were, which was at least true.
§
The train pulled in to Sand Point two days later. They debarked, but not because that was the end of their trip. As Aunt Germaine explained it, they would next take a short line ride to a place called Bonner’s Ferry, where they would be met by a man from Eliada who would take them the rest of the way by barge and horseback, down the Kootenai River to the town.
As they debarked and waited for the short line train, Jason happened to spot Ruth Harper for the second time.
This time, he tried to be mindful of Aunt Germaine’s advice and his mama’s wisdom, and made an effort not to gawk.
It was quite an effort. Jason felt his heart thundering in his chest, and a profound quaking in his stomach, and those parts along with every other part of him seemed to be hollering: There she is! Look over there, you damn fool! Perhaps she’s smiling!
Once or twice—for an instant each time—he obeyed, glancing down the platform, under the overhang where all the passengers gathered against the cold spring rain, to be-spy her sitting on the bench next to her chaperone, reading from a book in her lap. She would stir, he imagined, feeling the heat of his look even though she didn’t look up to meet it—just smiling a little more each time.
Later, Jason would learn that he was off the mark but not entirely. For while it was true that his gaze drew notice, it was not from Ruth Harper, but Miss Louise Butler, who sat near to her friend but beyond the scope of Jason’s attention. At only his second glance, she whispered to Ruth:
“We have an admirer.”
“Do we?”
Miss Butler’s hands remained folded in her lap, but she nonetheless motioned in Jason’s direction, with progressively indelicate thrusts of her right forefinger. In spite of this, Ruth did not look up from her book. She did, however, smile a little.
“Is it one of those filthy loggers?”
“He might be. How does one
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