Lone Dog Road

“Just get on the train,” she said. “They’re coming and they’ll take Reuben away, like they did your grandpa. Now run down to the tracks and get on the train. Make Reuben do what you say. Don’t let him run away and don’t let anything happen to him. I’m telling you that. You listen to your mother.”
“I’m listening, Momma, but Reuben doesn’t listen.”
“You make him. You tell him I told you. You tell him Grandpa said so, too.”
The train was really loud. I had to shout to make Reuben hear me.
“Momma told me, Reuben. She said I have to make you listen and do what I say.”
He was all bunched up with his arms around his knees.
“You shouldn’t have pushed me.”
“I had to. The door was really high.”
“Yeah, but it hurt.”
The train was screeching and crashing and shaking all around.
“I almost couldn’t get on. You saw it. I was hanging there, the train going faster. I could have fallen under. My legs would have been cut off. What would you have done then?”
“It hurt when you pushed me. You didn’t have to push me.”
He covered his ears and pulled his jacket over his head.
It was dark in the car. It smelled like old grain, kind of sweet and sickening. The wheels kept making that clacking sound, and there were all the screeches when we went around turns, and we couldn’t see even to the other end of the boxcar.
I put my mouth next to Reuben’s ear.
“Do you think there’s anyone down on the other end?”
“There’s no one there,” Reuben said.
“Are you sure? I thought I heard a sound.”
“There’s no one there. I can tell.”
That made me feel better. Reuben could tell those things. He could go into a room and feel what was in there. He could look at piles of things and tell you how many there were. Sometimes he wouldn’t talk at all, even when people talked to him, then the next day he’d say exactly what someone had said. It was like hearing an echo.
“How’d you remember that?” I’d ask.
“What?”
“What the people were saying last night.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“But you just said everything they said.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
Sometimes he made me so mad I wanted to hit him. But I never did. I just wanted to.
* * *
I didn’t know where the train was going. I should have been all sad, running away and not knowing where we were going. But I was too scared. And besides, when Reuben was along he took up all the place in your mind just thinking about him and what he was going to do next and keeping him from doing it, or making sure he did something he was supposed to. It was like having a baby, or maybe a mule.
I was getting so mad at him for not sitting down and not caring if I fell under the wheels that I forgot to be scared. That’s why I sometimes liked having him around. There were lots of things to be scared of, and Reuben filled up all the scared places in my mind. Besides, I figured that Creator wouldn’t let someone like him be hurt, so if I stayed close, I was probably all right, too. He was like a good luck thing. But he made me really mad.
We’d been going for lots of hours when the train slowed down. I could see the lights of a town up ahead, like a bunch of fireflies out on the prairie, all gathered together in the dark. It made me feel good but it made me feel sad — there were families there inside those lights, just laughing together and eating supper. It made me think of Momma and Grandpa.
The train whistle blew, big and lonesome. Four times. Woooo. Wooooo. Woo. Wooooooooo. Sometimes the engineer would let that last wooooo go on for a long time, like it was crying out into the night.
I thought of what it must be like to be inside one of those warm houses, hearing that sound, all cozy in a bed. Maybe it made them want to get away, to get on one of those trains and ride away to some place they’d never seen. But maybe it just made them happy to be warm inside their bed. It was a big, lonesome sound. It went way off in the distance.
The train slowed down.
“Come on, Reuben,” I said.
He was all curled up in a ball. “Let’s get off. There’s probably some nice people there. People are nice to kids. Even white people.”
“Leave me alone,” he said. “I’m sleeping.”
“You always say that. I know it’s a lie.”
“No, it isn’t. Not this time. I’m sleeping.”
“How can you be sleeping when the train’s rocking so hard?”
“It reminds me of when Momma rocks me. Leave me alone.”
He pulled his knees up close and pulled his jacket up tighter over his head. I think he was crying.
“Come on,” I said. “We can get some food.”
I was going to try to lift him up and move him, but the train jerked and I fell over. Then it started speeding up. The town just kept going by. I could hear the whistle. Woooooo. Woooooo. Woo. Woooooooooooo. Then it was just a pool of lights disappearing in the distance.
I sat down with my back against the wall. I thought of those houses. I was wishing I was home.