Ginger

The initial jolt forward and loud clacking noise that followed integrated into my dream before the wind whipping through the door grew strong enough to wake me up. Opening my eyes, I had to suppress a rising panic at the sight of dark trees zooming past the boxcar as the train gained speed. How could I have been stupid enough to fall asleep here? There wasn’t a valid excuse, and I knew that, but I understood that I had been too tired and scared to think straight when I pulled myself into the car to rest and stay dry in a safe place.

Mom and Bret had been arguing since he moved in with us two years ago. When the yelling started, I could usually sneak down the filthy carpet of the basement stairs and sit down there until things quieted down. Sometimes I would hear Mom crying after Bret left and started his old rusty truck to drive to the bar a few miles down the road (I secretly followed him once), or after he passed out on the couch. Then I would pad back upstairs and nuzzle her, and she would tell me about how once she saved up enough money to cover the mortgage payments we would kick him out for good.

Last night was different though. I happened to be looking at the shelf of spices in the kitchen by the backdoor when they blew up at each other. Bret stormed over to leave but I was trapped between him and the door and had nowhere to escape to when he swung his foot at me. I couldn’t help yelping when his work boot made contact with my ribs but then was able to slip out the door right behind him. In retrospect it was a dumb decision to leave the house at all since he was gone, but at that moment it seemed safer to run into the woods alone than stay with Mom until he came back. The familiar damp smell of the underbrush was comforting, and I had wandered downhill farther than I usually go when the sky rumbled and poured water. Unlike most of my friends, I have always hated the rain, and especially hated being wet and muddy. I tried to trot back uphill towards the house, but my right side hurt too much to breathe hard. Turning to the left, I saw a bright yellow box through the edge of the trees and headed that way instead. I dragged myself up into the open door of the boxcar, relieved to be out of the rain and hidden from Bret. I must have been so relieved that I had fallen asleep.

Now as the dark pine trees gave way to empty fields rushing by, I felt my stomach clenching with hunger. I missed Mom so much my whole body hurt. She had always taken care of me, it wasn’t her fault she had such bad taste in men. Instead of staying to protect her from Bret, I had been startled and scared, and thinking only of myself had abandoned her. I gave myself a few minutes of whimpering self-pity, then tried to form a plan. When would the moving car stop again? I had seen these trains before, and recoiled from the loud noises they made when Mom and I came up to the road crossing while we were walking, but didn’t know anything about their travel patterns. Shooting through the farmland, past fields of soy and sleeping cows, it certainly didn’t seem like the train was slowing down.

After an interminable amount of time, the sky in the east started turning from black to purple. Based on the sunrise, it seemed like we had been traveling generally south, and it felt like we had gone at least a few hundred miles. No matter, I was confident that once the train stopped and I could get my bearings, I would figure out how to get back to Mom. It was hot in this part of the country this time of year, but I would walk if I had to. I would walk all the way back to that little house up against the woods, and together Mom and I would escape from Bret forever. 

Finally, the train slowed to a crawl and it felt safe enough to carefully shuffle over to the door and peak out. A street with stores was blocked by big white arms with flashing lights, but there were no cars on the other side of the arms this early in the morning. I wasn’t sure why we were stopping and couldn’t see the front or back of the train, which reassured me that I would be able to jump off and get away before anyone noticed me. The moment it paused I hurled myself onto the gravel next to the tracks, clenching my jaw to brace for the bullet of pain that would shoot through my right flank when I landed. I thought I was prepared for it, but as my feet hit the ground the agony took my breath away for a moment. Yowling, I tried to will the pain away. The jump made me realize I might have to stay in this new town and recover for a little while before starting the long journey home. 

As soon as I felt like I could move, I took a few tentative steps on the gravel, knowing that I had to get away from the train before it started moving again. There was a chain link fence, and I instinctively started to follow this back towards the street. I didn’t want to get stuck in the narrow space next to the fence with a moving train but had to move slowly because of how much my side hurt with each breath. Just as the main street was coming into view, I heard a man’s voice call out to me from a gas station. I froze mid-step. What if he was a scary man like Bret? I was too sore to run and hide, and he was big enough to close the distance between us quickly. Terrified, I turned my head towards him, and was relieved to see he had a kind face. I took a single step towards him, and he smiled and encouraged me. 

“Oh you poor thing!” He said, patting my head when I reached him. “Come here, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

I was too scared to speak, but I followed him to a white pickup truck and paused at the back gate.

“No buddy, come sit up front with me,” he said. Hesitantly I tried to climb into the cab but it was too high. 

“Okay, I got you,” the kind faced man reassured me, but when he grabbed my right side to boost me up I screamed and he almost dropped me.

“You poor thing! Who hurt you?” he asked, but I couldn’t answer him. My lack of response didn’t dissuade him from continuing to speak to me in a soothing voice as he pulled the truck out of the gas station and down the empty road. “I have to go into work for a bit but I’m going to drop you off at home, you can have a nap and then we’ll get you checked out.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant but was exhausted and starting so a rest sounded nice. Based on his round belly, I thought he would have food around at home too.  A few minutes later we pulled in front of a small house on wheels. He hopped out of the driver’s side of the cab and came around, this time gently lifting me and setting me on the ground.

“Wait here a minute, I’ll get a room ready for you,” he instructed me with a chuckle, disappearing through the front door.

Opening the door again after a few moments, he called me in and I limped up the three steps. The room smelled foul, and a cockroach skittered across the tile floor in the kitchen to the right, but he gestured to a red couch that looked soft. When I stood in front of it, ribs throbbing, scared to jump up on it, he again picked me up gently and smoothly and set me down on a cushion. He opened the refrigerator and came back with a huge piece of ham for me, which was possibly the best thing I had ever eaten. As I chewed the salty meat, he filled a plastic bowl with water and brought that over too, setting it right on the couch cushion next to me. He patted me on the head again and for the first time seemed to notice the charm on my necklace. 

“Oh what does this say? Hopefully you got your rabies shot, with you living in my house now and all!” he said, smiling. He turned the necklace around and read my name ,“Ginger! Well that’s a pretty name for a pretty girl,”

My heart lept with his next sentence though because it started with my mom’s name: “Sadie Webb” followed by a series of numbers. “Aw well I was hoping I might get to keep you, but let’s call your people and let them know you’re ok. I’m not sure how you got down here from western North Carolina, and it doesn’t look like you’re telling me any time soon.”

He shifted his weight and pulled small glowing device out of his front jeans pocket. One hand on my necklace, he poked at it, paused, then held it up to his ear.

“Hi is this Miss Sadie Webb? Oh great. You lose a pretty red dog named Ginger? I just found her walking around the train tracks down here in Midville, Georgia.”

All of a sudden I could hear Mom’s far-away voice! I was so excited it was hard to focus on what they were saying about driving and road names and numbers but it seemed like maybe I wouldn’t have to walk home to her after all.