Somebody Owes Me Money

Well, maybe, and on the other hand, maybe not. I pushed back from the edge and slowly sat up. I didn’t want to take my shoe off, wet and cold though it was, but I didn’t have much choice. So I took it off, and my foot promptly went numb. I wasn’t sure that was a good sign, but it was better than the stinging ache I’d been feeling up till now.

I lay on my belly again and crawled back to the end of the car. He was still there, feet straddling the open space as he faced outward. At the moment his head was bent a bit because he was trying to light a cigarette.

Perfect. I put one hand on the top rung of the ladder here to support me, took careful aim, and swung the heel of the shoe around in a great big circle that started in outer space and ended on the back of his head.

Lovely. He popped out like a grape seed out of a grape, and landed in a snowbank. The last I saw of him was his feet kicking in the air, black against the gray of the snow.

One down. Three to go.

Sure.

I put my shoe back on and looked across at the next car, trying to figure out how to get over there, and a head popped into view two cars away. And after the head, an arm. And on the end of the arm, a gun. It flashed, the gun did, and I faintly heard the sound of the shot. It missed me, but I wasn’t encouraged. I quick hunched around and started crawling back the other way.

Something went p-tiying beside my right elbow. I looked, and saw a new scratch in the roof there.

He was getting too close. I hurriedly crawled back to the pile of laundry I knew was Abbie and shook her shoulder. “We’ve got to go down again!”

“Wha? Wha?” She lifted a shaky head and showed me bleary eyes.

“One of them came up! Back there! He’s shooting!”

“Oh, Chet, I’m so tired.”

“Come on, honey. Come on.”

I herded her onto the ladder, with her about to fall twice, but the more she moved the more she woke up, and when she finally put her weight on the bad ankle on the ladder she woke up completely. She also let out a healthy yowl.

“That’s right,” I said. “Now get down and let me down.”

“Oh, wow, that hurt.”

“I’m sure it did. Go down, go down.”

She went down, and I followed her. As my head was going down past the level of the roof I saw that guy back there on his feet. I stayed where I was, just high enough to see him. Now what?

He braced himself. He thought it over. He shook his head and got down on his knees. He shook his fist at himself and got up again. He braced himself. He ran forward. He leaped from the front of his car to the back of the next car. He made it, and the car he’d landed on jounced. He teetered way to the left, his arms pinwheeling. The car jounced again, and he teetered way to the right, his arms pinwheeling. The car wiggled, and he teetered every which way, arms and one leg pinwheeling. He got down on one knee, down on hands and knees. He’d made it. And the car waggled, and he rolled over onto his side and fell off the train.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” I said. I looked down at Abbie, asleep in midair between the cars. “We’re going back up!” I shouted.

“Oh, nooo!”

“Oh, yes! Come on!”

She grumbled, she complained, she said unkind things, but she came on, and when she got to the top, I said, “Now we go back down again.”

She roused enough to stare at me. “Are you out of your mind? I hope they kill you, you crazy—”

“Listen to me. We’re going down the other side. The last two are on this side of the train, so we’ll go down the other side and jump off and they won’t be able to see us go.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Just do it,” I told her.

She did it. There was no ladder on this side, but there was a window ledge, there were handles and wheels, there were all sorts of things to climb on. As easy as falling off a building.

So we finally got back down again, both of us, and I spent some time instructing Abbie how to jump. I told her to stay loose, keep her arms and legs loose, don’t stiffen up, roll when she hit, try to land in a snowbank, and all sorts of good advice like that. She nodded continually in a dull sort of way, meaning she wasn’t hearing a thing I was saying. All I could do was hope some of it was seeping through into her subconscious and would show a result when we made our leap.

Finally I gave up on her and looked out from between the cars. We were on an overpass now, a deserted street below us. Beyond, the land fell away in a steep slope down from the tracks, with the rears of supermarkets and gas stations at the bottom.

“Up ahead,” I said. “It’s a snow-covered slope, it should be good for us. If there aren’t a lot of old tin cans under the snow. When I give the word, you jump. And remember to jump at an angle, jump as much as possible in the same direction the train is going. And stay loose when you hit. And roll. You got that?”

She nodded. She was sound asleep.

Here came the slope. “Jump!” I shouted, and pushed her off the train. Then I leaped after her.