Read Online Chase by Jessie Haas - Free Book Online Page A

wall.
    â€œThought you were stopping here,” Fraser said. He sounded slightly disconcerted.
    â€œI’m not.” Plume’s voice was darker, flatter.
    â€œI’ve enjoyed your company,” Fraser said. “Don’t think I haven’t. But wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the passenger car?”
    The train had begun to move. Plume shouted out the door at someone. “You catch him, he’s mine! Spread the word. Not Mahoney’s or anybody else’s. Mine.”
    Now his voice was inside again. “I’m ridin’ here. I don’t feel like talk, and I do feel like drink.”
    After a moment Fraser said, “No talk, then. But—a bite to eat? You’ll want to lay a foundation—no? Fair enough!”
    Â 
    The next leg of the journey was longer and thirstier. Phin couldn’t make himself eat another biscuit, not without a drink first. His mouth produced less saliva all the time, and the tobacco gave less relief. In the breaker the boys had water bottles. They could snatch a swallow from time to time, at the risk of missing a piece of slate and getting a beating.
    Envying the breaker boys; would his mother laugh? She could laugh at bitter things, even as she rolled up her sleeves to do something about them. She’d smile, at least, at it turning out that Phin would have been safer if he’d defied her. Though it wasn’t safety she’d wanted for him so much as a way out, and he was going.
    Oh, but a drink, though. He lay through the night in the endlessly rocking railcar, half dreaming of her washtub and the slosh of soapy water.
    It was nearly dawn when they stopped next. The square of light on the wall was pearly gray and there was a smell of dew and grass. Half awake, Phin heard Plume ask,“Where’s this?” Unsteady, abrupt; he must have been drinking all night. Someone answered—a word Phin didn’t hear—and Plume jumped out, falling, swearing.
    Fraser asked how long the stop was. “Twenty minutes,” was the answer, and he bought someone’s assistance in laying the ramp.
    Phin listened to it thud into place. His tongue was thick and cottony, and so was his head. The back of his throat hurt. When he swallowed, it felt like it was going to break open, like a half-healed wound.
    Saddle leather creaked. The stallion’s hooves rang on the wood floor, the sound diminishing down the ramp. Some distance away Fraser said, “All right then, lad.” Next came the tremendous gush of the stallion urinating.
    Phin sat up. Where were they?
    The stallion clip-clopped away toward the front of the train. Plume was—where? There were voices, but not close.
    This was his chance.
    He rose on hands and feet and scrambled across the crates, let himself down over the edge, groping for finger-holds and toeholds. An overhead searcher thumped onto the car and walked along it. Phin must be very quick, very good, as he had planned—drop and crawl under the car, and come out the other side running.
    His toes touched the floor. He eased down soundlessly and turned.
    In the back corner stood a wooden tub, a third full of water.
    Phin didn’t think. He was past thinking. He crossed the car in two long steps, dropped to his knees, and plunged his face in.
    Beautiful, the wet, the cool. He sucked it in. Bits of hay floated against his lips. He smelled horse and wet spicy oak wood and he drank it down and down, rested, and drank again.
    Enough. That’s what he’d have told a thirsty horse. Stop, or you’ll get sick. He glanced toward the door. The rail yard was a wide expanse of gravel seamed with track. Once Phin was out there, he’d be exposed. Good thing it was still so dark.
    A bottle lay on the floor, gleaming in the pale light.
    A bottle. He could fill it.
    It was very near the door, and as he took a cautious step toward it Phin discovered he was afraid; afraid of the light, gray and grainy as it