The Cypress House(3)

He’d spent many a day trying to imagine this gift away. To fling it from him the way you might a poisonous spider caught crawling up your arm, and long after the chill lingered on your flesh you’d thank the sweet hand of Providence that you’d been given the opportunity to knock the beast away. Only he’d never been given the opportunity. No, the stark sight of death had stalked him, trailed him relentlessly. He knew it when he saw it, and he knew it was no trick of the light, no twist of bad liquor upon the mind. It was prophecy, the gift of foresight granted to a man who’d never wished for it.

He was reluctant to say so much as a word to any of the other men, knowing the response he’d receive, but this was not the sort of thing that could be ignored.

Speak loud and sharp, he thought, just like you did on the edge of a battle, when you had to get ’em to listen, and listen fast.

“Boys,” he said, getting at least a little of the old muster into his tone, “listen up, now.”

The conversations broke off. Two men were standing on the step of the train car, and when they turned, skull faces studied him.

“I think we best wait for the next train through,” he said. “There’s bad trouble aboard this one. I’m sure of it.”

It was Wallace O’Connell who broke the long silence that followed.

“What in the hell you talking about, Wagner?” he said, and immediately there was a chorus of muttered agreement.

“Something’s wrong with this train,” Arlen said. He stood tall, did his damnedest to hold their eyes.

“You know this for a fact?” O’Connell said.

“I know it.”

“How do you know? And what’s wrong with it?”

“I can’t say what’s wrong with it. But something is. I got a… sense for these things.”

A slow grin crept across O’Connell’s face. “I’ve known some leg-pullers,” he said, “but didn’t figure you for one of them. Don’t got the look.”

“Damn it, man, this ain’t no joke.”

“You got a sense something’s wrong with our train, and you’re telling us it ain’t no joke?”

“Knew a widow back home who was the same way,” spoke up another man from the rear of the circle. He was a slim, wiry old guy with a nose crooked from many a break. Arlen didn’t know his name—hell, he didn’t know most of their names, and that was part of the problem. Aside from Paul there wasn’t a man in the group who’d known Arlen for any longer than this train ride.

“Yeah?” O’Connell said. “Trains talked to her, too?”

“Naw. She had the sense, just like he’s talking about. ’Cept she got her sights from owls and moon reflections and shit like you couldn’t even imagine.”

This new man was grinning wide, and O’Connell was matching it. He said, “She was right all the time, of course?”

“Of course,” the man said, and let out a cackle. “Why, wasn’t but nine year ago she predicted the end of days was upon us. Knew it for a fact. Was going to befall us by that winter. I can’t imagine she was wrong, I just figured I missed being raptured up and that’s how I ended up here with all you sinful sons of bitches.”

The crowd was laughing now, and Arlen felt heat creeping into his face, thoughts of his father and the shame that had chased him from his boyhood home threatening his mind now. Behind him Paul Brickhill was standing still and silent, about the only one in the group who wasn’t at least chuckling. There was a man near Wallace O’Connell whose smile seemed forced, uneasy, but even he was going along with the rest of them.

“I might ask for a tug on whatever’s in that jug of your’n,” O’Connell said. “It seems to be a powerful syrup.”

“It’s not the liquor you’re hearing,” Arlen said. “It’s the truth. Boys, I’m telling you, I seen things in the war just like I am tonight, and every time I did, men died.”

“Men died every damn day in the war,” O’Connell said. The humor had drained from his voice. “And we all seen it—not just you. Some of us didn’t crack straight through from what we seen. Others”—he made a pointed nod at Arlen—“had a mite less fortitude. Now save your stories for somebody fool enough to listen to them. Rest of us don’t need the aggravation. There’s work at the end of this line, and we all need it.”

The men broke up then, drifted back to their own conversations, casting Arlen sidelong stares. Arlen felt a hand on his arm and nearly whirled and threw his fist without looking, shame and fear riding him hard now. It was only Paul, though, tugging him away from the group.