“Locomotive driven,” Eric echoed. “They happen to run that in the evenings?”
“I’m sorry, no. Daytime only. Next ride in forty minutes. You want a ticket?”
“I don’t think so. Don’t really like trains.”
The old man looked at him as if Eric had just called his daughter easy.
“I’ve had some bad experiences with them recently, that’s all,” Eric said. “Thanks a lot.”
He closed the door and went back out into the heat and over to the Pluto car. The door was shoved most of the way shut and barely moved when he pushed on it. The size of the thing was impressive—they never looked that big from behind the wheel of a car. Had to be twelve feet tall, and the steel couplers on either side looked invincible, as if you could bang on them all day with a sledge and never do a bit of damage.
There was a ladder on either end of the car, as well as a few iron rungs on the front. He reached out and wrapped his fist around one of those, leaned on it, and that was when he saw the splotches. Glistening stains on the crushed stone beneath the car.
Water marks.
While he watched, another drop of water fell onto the stone, and he saw that it was coming from inside the car rather than from underneath it. When he stared through the door, though, there was nothing but old, dry dirt on the floor.
He tightened his grip around the rung of the ladder and hoisted himself up, swinging his left foot up and over the side. Hung there for a minute, peering into the shadowed interior, and then slid through.
The boxcar was heavy with trapped heat, the air smelling of rust. The car seemed far larger on the inside than on the outside, the opposite end lost in darkness. The rippled steel walls seemed to drink in the light, holding it all to the thin shaft in the center.
The floor beneath his feet was dry, but he could hear water now, a gentle sloshing sound. He took a hesitant step forward, out of the light, and felt cold moisture seep through his shoes and socks and find his skin.
He bent down and reached with his hand, dipped his fingertips into the water. About an inch deep, frigid.
Another step toward the sloshing sound, which had an even, constant beat. Water covered the floor throughout the dark portions of the boxcar, and he wanted to move back to the dry boards and the square of sunlight but kept shuffling forward into the darkness despite himself.
He was ten feet from the door and still moving when the silhouette took shape.
It was all the way at the back of the car, lost to the darkness except for the distinctive outline of a bowler hat.
Eric stopped where he was, the water like a winter creek on his feet, and stared down the remaining length of the boxcar, watching the silhouette take starker shape, first the shoulders and then the torso. The man was sitting in the water with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up, and he was tapping a slow, steady beat with the toe of his right shoe, slapping it into the water, which rose almost to his ankles.
“An elegy,” he said, “is a song for the dead.”
Eric couldn’t speak. It wasn’t just from fear or astonishment but from an almost physical thing, a limit he didn’t understand and couldn’t do anything about. He was a spectator in this car. Here to watch. To listen.
“I can barely hear it,” the man said. His voice was a sandpaper whisper. “What about you?”
The violin music was back, soft as a breeze, as if it couldn’t penetrate the walls of the boxcar.
“Been waiting a long time to get home,” the man said. “Longer ride than I’d have liked.”
Eric couldn’t make out his face, couldn’t see anything but the form of him.
“People ’round here seem to have forgotten it,” the man said, “but this is my valley. Was once. Will be again.”
His voice seemed to be gathering strength, and the features of his suit were now showing, along with his nose and mouth and shadowed eye sockets.
“Ain’t but a trace of my blood left,” he said, “but that’s enough. That’s enough.”
The man dropped his hands into the water then, two soft splashes, and pushed off the floor. His silhouette rippled as he stood, like a water reflection pushed by wind, and something that had been unhooked in Eric’s brain suddenly connected again and he knew that he had to move.
He turned and stumbled back for the streak of sun that represented the door, slid on the wet floor but righted himself, and then banged off the wall, groping with his hands. He got out of the water and onto dry floorboards and then had his hand around the edge of the door, shoved his shoulder through and lunged into the light.
His feet caught and he was free but falling, landing on his ass in the dirt and stone.