Just as he was about to spring, one of the men grabbed his sleeve from behind.
Shit!
Thatcher came around and swung his fist toward the guy’s head, but he saw it coming, ducked, and held on to Thatcher’s sleeve like a bulldog. Out the corner of his eye, he saw another approaching in a crouch, making wide swipes with a knife.
The man holding on to him threw a punch that caught Thatcher in the ribs. He retaliated by chopping the guy across the throat with the side of his hand. His attacker let go of his sleeve and staggered backward, holding his throat with both hands and wheezing.
Thatcher spun around to the one with the knife. He had less than a second to throw up his hand to protect his face from being slashed. The sharp blade sliced across his palm. Thatcher yelped.
The hobo grinned and charged. With his good hand, Thatcher caught hold of the vertical iron handle on the door and kicked the knifer in the balls. Dropping the knife, he screamed in agony, grabbed himself, dropped to his knees, then fell onto his side. Thatcher picked up the knife. The third in the group was poised to attack. Thatcher, winded, his cut hand hurting like bloody hell, said, “Call it quits why don’t you?”
But the tramp didn’t listen. He came up on his toes, preparing to lunge. Thatcher threw the knife end over end. The point pierced through the man’s right shoe, nailing his foot to the floor of the boxcar.
Thatcher turned and made a blind leap through the opening. As he went airborne, howled obscenities trailed him into the predawn light as the train rumbled on.
He landed on his feet, but his knees buckled at the jarring impact. Unable to break his fall, he tumbled down the incline, cussing the pounding he was taking from boulders and stumps.
On one of his revolutions, he recognized the shape of a large agave, dead ahead and coming up fast. As he slid downhill toward it, he dug in his heels. They kicked up loose rocks and grit that struck him in the face, but he was able to stop within inches of being impaled by one of the plant’s barbed spines.
As the dust settled around him, he took mental stock of himself and determined that none of his limbs hurt bad enough to have been broken. His breathing was hard and fast, but it didn’t hurt to suck in air, so no busted or sprained ribs despite the blow he’d taken on one side. He wasn’t dizzy, didn’t feel like puking.
Accepting that he was basically all right except for his throbbing palm, adrenaline seemed to leak from his pores like sweat. He stayed as he was, lying there on his back, taking in his expansive and unobstructed view of the sky. It was turning paler by the second, causing the panoply of stars to dim, and he thought what a hell of a thing it was that he was still alive and could admire that sky.
Then, as only one who had slept standing up in a trench while rats scuttled across his blood-soaked boots could do, he dropped into a deep sleep.
* * *
He woke up to an early sun, but kept his eyes closed against its brightness, basking in the clean warmth of it on his face. He savored the stillness of the ground beneath him. He’d been unsteadily rocking for two days in that mother-lovin’ boxcar. It had been almost as bad as the merchant marine freighter requisitioned and re-outfitted to ship troops home from Europe. If he never saw the Atlantic again, or a wave stronger than a ripple in a stock pond, it would be fine with him.
After several minutes, he sat up. His vision was still clear, and he wasn’t dizzy, although he had taken a clout to the head during his downhill plunge. A goose egg had formed on his right temple at his hairline.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the blood away from the cut across his palm. It wasn’t all that deep, but it made his hand ache. He wrapped the handkerchief around it.
By the position of the sun, he figured out the directions. The landscape was dominated by rugged limestone outcroppings, some bare, some with live oak trees or cedar breaks seeming to grow straight out of the rock. Scrub brush, like that wicked-looking agave, dotted the shallow topsoil.
He figured he was somewhere in the hill country. Still hundreds of miles from home.
He stood up and dusted himself off as best he could, then climbed the incline back to the tracks. The wind was southerly and warm, but strong. It had blown his hat off when he’d made the jump, but miraculously it was still there, lying in the railbed.
He clamped it onto his head and pulled the brim down low over his eyes, then started walking along the tracks in the direction from which the train had come, until he reunited with his duffel bag.
Shouldering it, he reversed his direction and continued in the northwesterly direction the train had been traveling. He saw no indication that a settlement of any kind was anywhere close. He didn’t even see a road. The only living things he spotted were a small herd of cattle on a distant hill, and three buzzards, circling their breakfast. Or what soon would be their breakfast.
His stomach was gnawing at its own emptiness, but the only food left in his duffel were a few saltine crackers and the last of a hunk of cheddar. Eating them would make him thirsty, so he decided to hold off until he found water.
He hiked along the tracks for an hour before he reached a crossing. A gravel road ran north and south perpendicular to the tracks, extending for seeming miles in both directions without a turnoff. He took the northern route, hoping that he wouldn’t have to hoof it for too long before someone came along who would give him a lift.
The road was easier to walk on than the railbed, but the sky was cloudless, and the sun grew hotter than what you’d expect in mid-May. He shucked off his jacket and draped it over the duffel bag, unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled them up.
Sighting a thin trail of smoke rising from behind one of the hills, he was tempted to go in search of the source. A ranch house, or even a campsite, could provide him with a drink of water.
But the smoke was swiftly dispersed by the high wind, so he couldn’t be certain how far away it was, and he was reluctant to go exploring off the beaten path. He was no stranger to living without a roof over his head, but he wasn’t equipped to do so now.
He estimated he’d walked three or four miles before he spotted a structure on the crest of a rise. At first it was only a dark dot, but the closer he got, it began to take shape. He smelled wood smoke, even though he didn’t see any coming from the flue sticking out of the roof at an angle. A Model T was parked in front, along with a truck that looked like a junkyard on wheels.
The place didn’t look hospitable, but somebody was at home, and he was damned thirsty.
He started up the dirt lane. As he got closer to the house, he saw that it wasn’t a house at all, but a line shack, as ill-kempt a one as he’d ever seen. It must belong to a slipshod outfit that instilled no sense of pride in the cowboys who worked for it.